baby, you're a rich man

[zuckered]

Likability. I should have known that everything would come down to that. Years have passed since I last even set foot in Kirkland House, since those days when I shuffled from class to class as that nameless nobody who managed to ace CS problem sets or even gave a crap about getting punched by the Phoenix or the Porcellian— with the money I've made from facebook, I could literally buy Mount Auburn St., I could probably take a crack at University Hall, I could double even the billions of dollars of endowment that Harvard has in its vaults, and people know it. Scratch being the next Bill Gates, now everyone's projecting that I'll make Man of the Year all on my own, no need for help from a trophy wife or a washed up musician. And yet, when it comes down to it, it's still one big popularity contest, and I've got black marks on my record. Like publicly shaming Erica Albright over the internet. Or like comparing people's school facebook pictures to...

"Farm animals," Mark said, his voice tense with resignation, fingers tapping on the side of his laptop.

The deposition room was empty at last, save for Marylin, and why she lingered, Mark didn't really know. It was the first time that he hadn't minded someone bringing him bad news since leaving Harvard. By the time facebook's momentum had started building, most people neglected to let Mark know the full extent that his actions would have on others, preferring to linger at the safety of their desk rather than piss the CEO off. At first, it had been novel. The rewards reaped from a long, tireless effort on the biggest project of his life, perhaps even of his generation. After a while, though, the shine wore off. People seemed disingenuous, kind only for their own benefit, vultures just waiting to descend at first opportunity. As much as he'd come to agree, in his own way, with Eduardo's assessment of Sean Parker as being paranoid, blinded by his own fifteen minutes of fame and the strobe lights of the party he demanded that his life be, sometimes Mark could still understand.

His eyes carefully followed Marylin's slight nod. "Yeah," she agreed.

At least she was honest. Mark rolled his eyes, shook his head, memories from years ago all dredged up in the past couple of months to the forefront of his mind. Some details had faded away with time, some conversations feeling unnatural out of context, but at the bottom of it all, Mark knew. Had always been self-aware. It just hadn't mattered much, what other people thought of him, provided those few steady constants remained in his life. With the barest of exhales, his fingers trailed along the edge of his laptop. "I was drunk, and angry, and stupid," he admitted, not sure if the disdain in his voice was self-directed, or at the inability of others to let such a minor detail go. Maybe both.

"And blogging," Marylin added, shaking Mark out of his reverie.

His expression darkened. Right. The internet's not written in pencil, Mark, it's written in ink.

"And... blogging," he agreed, his eyes traveling along the ceiling of the room, deliberately avoiding Marylin's gaze. It wasn't really the money he was concerned about, it was the pure principle of the matter. One stupid night. One stupid night, leading to one of the most revolutionary networking sites that the world had seen to date, yet a stupid crack about a girl's bra size and putting into practice what guys did on a daily basis on the internet (who didn't compare the hotness of women, it was practically a man's rite of passage) threw all of that into its shadow.

"Pay them," Marylin suggested, her gaze even, expression frank as she arched a brow. "In the scheme of things, it's a speeding ticket. That's what Sy will tell you tomorrow."

As she shifted to stand, Mark glanced over, fingers playing with his laptop, ready to open it again. "Do you think anybody would mind if I stayed and used the computer for a minute?" he asked, thoughts still swirling.

"I can't imagine it would be a problem," she replied lightly, heels clicking on the floor as she readied to leave.

"Thanks," he said, eyes darting from her to his laptop a few times, before he opened it again; her quick exit probably meant that she had better things to do than linger over a case that was, in spite of being connected to facebook, probably an easy close for the firm. The time she'd taken to outline everything for him, that was her own, not part of the job description, and it softened him just a touch. "I... appreciate your help today."

"You're not an asshole, Mark," Marylin remarked, the tapping of her heels coming to a halt. His brow furrowed as he turned, not expecting the statement, or indeed anything other than hearing the swish of the door as she left. The look on her face seemed sympathetic, inexplicably, and Mark wasn't sure what to do about that. Wasn't sure what to say to it, and so only stared as she spoke up again. "You're just trying so hard to be."

The glass doors and walls made it easy to watch Marylin's progress as she left, but soon enough Mark turned back to his computer, gaze distant. He liked that aspect of the room. Wondered if it was a deliberate design, or at least a marked choice on the part of the person who had booked the room for the deposition, putting it somewhere people couldn't hide. Where even outsiders would be able to read every last expression. Revealing. But as he'd never had anything to mask in the first place, it didn't bother Mark any more than the open desks at facebook's headquarters ever had. Hearing every last keystroke echo in the room, he curiously opened facebook up, typing in a single name: Erica Albright.

Huh. Apparently she had an account.

He clicked on the friend request button, not sure if it was a morbid curiosity that drove him there or an actual desire to reconnect. Knowing himself, probably more the former. Regardless, it only took a few seconds before he confirmed the request, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair, expression the very picture of levity, even as his finger reached over to press the F5 key. Twice. Thrice.

She said he could use the room, after all.

It was only when Mark looked up properly, prying his eyes away from the screen, pausing before hitting the refresh key again, that he realized something had changed. No longer seated in a newly purchased Herman Miller chair, no longer surrounded by panes of glass, Mark's eyes met slightly yellowed walls and his hands ran over the grain of an old, worn wooden chair. Shortly thereafter, his eyes flew to the corner of his computer screen.

No wireless signal.

Comments

[pointzerothree]

Eduardo can't help being grateful, almost overwhelmingly so, that if Mark notices the skepticism, he doesn't mention it. However much might still be fucked up between them (and there's a lot, to be sure, issues left unresolved, certainly at least a few things left unsaid), he doesn't want to be the one to make it worse, even when he can't keep his own reactions in check. The idea of finally being enough for Mark only in a place like this still hurts, but he can at least say that he's dealt with far worse. He'd rather take this than be the one cast aside again, the one so unimportant that all he merits is months of secrecy and lies. Maybe they'll never repair what's been broken, but he won't pull the pieces apart while they're waiting to see if or how well the glue will hold when it dries, if it will at all. He hasn't quite decided yet whether or not he really wants it to.

"...Bluntly but well put," he says, brows furrowing even he grins. Mark never has been one to mince words, so that much, at least, is unsurprising. Of course, it's probably a little wrong that talking about a strip club can be more comfortable than talking about their friendship (what's left of it), but he'll take it, small talk even about this place's more sordid aspects preferable to a fight. Eduardo isn't a psychiatrist, but he's pretty sure Mark's hit the nail on the head with this one. "I don't even get where someone would come up with an idea like that around here. It's all... The whole damn place is backwards." Even they're backwards, a fact that's become increasingly apparent since Eduardo first found Mark in the rec room, the two of them stiltedly avoiding major subjects where once they used to be nothing but natural, another thing that Eduardo wants to point to in defense of why they were ever friends to begin with. It should be obvious, everything should, but it isn't, and that might just be what he hates the most.

The Winchester comes into view just ahead, though, and Eduardo gestures in its direction. "And here we are. The free restaurant."

[zuckered]

Running a thumb over his lip briefly as he considers Eduardo's question (he always considers Eduardo's questions, no matter whether or not they're rhetorical), Mark nods to himself and ventures a guess. He's never been one to keep his mouth shut, not when there's a question being posed him, and especially not when that question has absolutely nothing to do with his own person. Those, after all, are the most difficult questions to ask. Why is he nervous? Why is he still so plainly on edge? If he tried to answer, he's sure he'd be biased, and so they're better not thought of at all, better to place distance between himself and all else. "Bet you it was a man's idea. Or a man and a woman," Mark suggests, his eyes darting quickly over to Eduardo, gently siding with the other young man's incredulity, even if Mark's hardly set foot on the island. "Won't be supply without demand; strippers don't strip for an empty audience, so there must've been some Hugh Hefner sitting around, wanted to fill his time. Probably doesn't even realize that the people who volunteer are damaged, assuming you want to give him the benefit of the doubt."

He turns a skeptical eye toward the Winchester, wariness shining through. Nothing comes for free. Every action has its price, whether collected in coin, stocks, or even inner peace. And those prices are always paid, one way or another. Mark's ventures with facebook were to gain respect, status, a place carved out for him in the social sphere and he damned got it, too. The magnanimity of handing that kind of social tool to the masses for free, why, people pay in kind by practically falling at his feet. So, what about this Winchester? What's the catch here?

"I like your emphasis on restaurant," Mark remarks quietly, nodding to himself and then grinning lightly at Eduardo. "Seems nicer than calling it a renovated soup kitchen."

[pointzerothree]

"Food's better than a soup kitchen," Eduardo says, as if that explains it, even though he doesn't quite think that's doing the place justice. They may have gotten used to far nicer locations, but considering where they are, the Winchester really is nice. The people can cook, anyway, one thing Tabula Rasa has going in his favor, even if it still baffles Eduardo slightly that so many of them could be willing to do so on a regular basis, without any sort of compensation. Even in having a tendency to expect too much of people, it seems strange to him. That said, unsettling though the lack of economy is, that much isn't something to complain about, either. At least they don't all have to do their own cooking. That would probably be far more disastrous for a lot of people.

He returns Mark's smile before he can so much as realize what he's doing, instinct taking over once again as they walk inside, Eduardo peering around for an empty table. There remains a part of him that wants desperately to turn back time and go back to how things were, before Facebook, before Sean, before the investment that led to signing the papers that essentially wrote him out of the company. They'll never be able to, he knows it through logic and the fact that his own lingering resentment won't let him believe otherwise, but he still finds himself thinking it. It would stop him from feeling guilty, from hating himself in moments like these, when he is, however briefly and ill-advisedly, beyond grateful for Mark's presence. He has his best friend back, he thinks, and then he remembers that they aren't best friends anymore, a cycle that he can't seem to snap himself out of. It's the sort of thing that only time is likely to take care of, and the prospect of all that time is more daunting than Mark's presence in itself.

"Alright, drinks," he says, turning slightly sideways as they walk, to face Mark better. "What do you want, just a beer or something stronger?"

[zuckered]

The question is one that makes Mark blink. Because he's never really been a heavy drinker, is always already intoxicated after a few beers, doesn't want to push the envelope too far for fear of irreparable damage. You know. Maybe he gives away all of his innovative ideas, exposes all of his inner thoughts, that sort of thing, or even just gets so physically slammed that he ends up praying to the porcelain gods. Drinking is fine for social reasons, it's even fine when one wants that vague buzz (Mark's pretty sure that it doesn't work the same way for him as many others, though, because when he's buzzed, it's like the thoughts come out with greater clarity, not dulled by his inhibitions or inability to speak). But anything more than that, it's just not worth it.

So why is Eduardo asking? Does he look that upset? Maybe he looks that upset, maybe Eduardo thinks that he's not the kind of guy who can deal with an island that defies all reason, maybe he isn't the kind of guy who can deal with an island that defies all reason but he's certainly not willing to give off the impression of being weak, sniveling, anything of that sort. His lips twitch a bit at the corners as he peeks around at the rest of the patrons in the restaurant, the majority of them just... calm. Okay. No panic. No clear indication that any of them are prisoners in this place, although they clearly are, and it's bizarre enough to Mark that he wishes someone would go around and shake them by the shoulders, make them up and leave their places. God. Maybe he really does need that drink. Then again, the other thing that accepting that drink would probably do is indicate to Eduardo that things are even less okay than they think. So he just peers back at Eduardo, grateful for the fact that he's only hesitated a little, a pause in decision-making slight enough that it's probably warranted and hopefully expected.

"Just a beer," he shakes his head lightly with a shrug, staring around at the space again, how there's a bar, and there's tables, and even a few booths. They're not the kind to sit at bars, though, not when they're around each other. When he finally finds a spot that isn't crowded too much with strangers, Mark nods in its direction. He doesn't want too many other people to get that new guy impression. It's worse than being a transfer student. Immediately singles one out as a weakling or someone who needs more direction, and Mark isn't so fond of getting direction from most strangers. "There's a table right over there."

[pointzerothree]

"Over there it is," Eduardo agrees, starting in that direction, though it's more following Mark's lead than anything else. He's done a lot of that, over the two years they've known each other, and it shouldn't be second nature to do the same now, especially not in a place where he has the obvious upper hand, but old habits, he's realizing with increasing certainty, die hard. It was why storming out of the Facebook office was so satisfying, underneath all the hurt, because for once, he was taking a stand, not just sitting back and letting Mark dictate what happened next. (He'd hesitate to call himself a pushover, but there's no denying that he's been easily swayed in his best friend's favor, with the algorithm and the house in Palo Alto and any number of things before and in between.) This is something simple, irrelevant in comparison, but it's enough to make him wonder if he'll ever regain quite the same clarity he had in the moment he smashed Mark's laptop against the desk. There's a difference, after all, between intent and following through on something, and having Mark here is different than imagining what he'd do if he were here. Real versus hypothetical. Eduardo can't tell which he prefers.

Reaching the table, he stands behind the chair, hands resting against the back of it, as he waits for Mark to take a seat. There's a waitstaff, but he might as well get them drinks now; the Winchester's never close to empty, and it'll be quicker that way. "Alright," he says, "so I'll be right back." True to his word, it takes only a few moments to get to the bar and back, the return trip a little slower when he has a full glass in each hand. (He's reminded again how much he'll need this, what a good idea it was, if they were going to be spending any time together, to do so with alcohol.) Setting both down onto the table, he finally slides into a seat, and lets out a breath as he looks at Mark. This is either going to be too normal or too awkward, and he's in no rush to figure out which it is. He takes a drink instead of speaking right away, sipping off the top of his glass and swallowing hard, as casual as it's possible to be when there's still a slight tension he can't quite shake.

That's nothing new, though. It was always kind of the difference between them, what prevented Eduardo from joining Mark in Palo Alto. More a worrier than a partier, unable to let go of more serious subjects or problems, it wasn't a life he'd been cut out for. Now, he hopes, Mark will get that, will know that it isn't entirely personal, and again, he finds himself wondering why it matters so much. "Jesus, you know, I can't even remember the last time we did this."

[zuckered]

Mark almost rises right along with Eduardo when he leaves his seat, his lips parting as though to ask, 'wait up,' or something else along those lines. But Eduardo makes it pretty clear that he's planning on getting it all himself, Mark lowers himself back down that half-inch into his seat, trying to make it look like all he was doing was finding a more comfortable position on the chairs that leave something to be desired. (Even though really, anyone who's known Mark for a decent amount of time should know that chairs are about the last thing that weigh on his mind, when he's spent most of his time programming facebook on those irritating chairs from the dorms, the ones made to tilt back just once with an uncomfortable thunk. Mark almost fell out of it once. Falling asleep, and all. Maybe that's the point, though, to keep people from dozing away in their chairs, just another bit of pressure to speed the studying along.)

His eyes trail after Eduardo as he makes his way to the bar, then resolutely look away, just in case Wardo has enough time to look back over his shoulder while the bartend gets him his drinks. For someone who claims to hate clinginess, it's probably a sign of hypocrisy if he shows outward signs of it, himself. The laptop sits on top of the table, taking up a fair amount of the space there, and Mark stares at it intently as though trying to decide whether or not he should flip up the screen and start typing away. Coding, maybe. Or at least checking to make sure that dropping it hasn't done too much harm. But.

There isn't enough time to consider it before Eduardo returns after all, two glasses tapping lightly on the surface of the table and jolting Mark from his momentary reverie. Of course, Eduardo moves immediately to take a drink. Mark just fiddles with his glass, turning it around where it stands, trying to do so smoothly enough that he doesn't even spill a drop.

Even he can acknowledge that it's a bit sad, the way he hangs onto Eduardo's every word, like there's something deeper or hidden to unearth there.

"Been too long," he agrees with a tilt of his head, trying that thing called blunt honesty, which for some reason has receded to the background a bit as of late. He's just careful anymore, really, now that he has reason to be. Finally, he takes a sip of the beer himself, nose wrinkling. "Brewed on the island?"

[pointzerothree]

Almost pausing after the statement, Eduardo finds himself grateful for the question that follows, if only because he isn't sure how he could respond. It's true, of course, it has been too long, but that was the case far before Eduardo ever wound up here, and he has to suspect that that's what Mark is referring to now, having not been the one stuck in a pocket universe all this time. That in itself makes it a loaded statement. To agree would be to breach that subject, to mention too directly the distance that was growing between him and Mark even before he found out about his shares being diluted, and chances are, doing so would only start a fight. After all, he isn't the reason why it's been so long in the first place. He wonders, briefly, how many times in how long it's been that Mark went out for drinks with Sean like this. The thought makes him feel a little ill; he dismisses it with another sip of beer. Thinking about Sean Parker and the way he swept Mark off his feet isn't going to do either of them any good right now, not when Eduardo wants to give this an honest try. At least, for now, Sean isn't here. (Eduardo can't stand to imagine how things would be if he were to show up.)

"Yeah, there are people here who make it," he answers the slightest bit distantly, gesturing absently towards the bar as if the brewing is done right there, though he knows full well that it isn't. "Apparently it used to be a lot worse. You get used to it." He tries to leave it at that, he honestly does, but in the end, he can't help it. Whatever the implications, at least Mark's said that it's been too long, and while he's lied to Eduardo's face before, Eduardo thinks he sounds like he means it. It's a dangerous thing to act on when the bastard can't be trusted, but if this really is Mark's way of trying, he doesn't want it to go unacknowledged, either. "Probably been even longer for you," he points out, glass still in hand, tilting slightly in Mark's direction as if to indicate him. He'd talked about a lawsuit in the beginning, and Eduardo is pretty sure that if he followed through on it, then he and Mark weren't going out for beers in the interim. "But shit, it would've had to be while you were still at Harvard."

The beers they shared in the new Facebook office, after Eduardo signed the contracts, he doesn't count those. It's not pretending that it didn't happen, but it's a different situation entirely, one that this holds no comparison to. There's no knife being driven into his back this time.

[zuckered]

The question that immediately springs to mind is: whose fault was it? Not even because the way that Wardo speaks makes him feel bitter, either. Because it doesn't. These are just the facts, that they haven't gone out to get a proper drink in forever, and that even when the both of them were on campus long before facebook was even in its easiest stages of conception, the two of them going out for drinks had been, well. Somewhat of a rarity, as far as actual bars went. As much as people liked to claim that Harvard students got to sit in bars without ever having to produce a proper ID, that simply wasn't true; if one searched hard enough for places more lenient, like the Kong, it was possible to find dives that cared more about the instant cash than the possibility of punishment or fines. Those places generally didn't serve the greatest of drinks, though. Or they just jacked up the prices.

So Mark only has to assume that Eduardo means beers. Not this ambiance, not the table, not having to go to all the effort to dress up and head out someplace off-campus, but just sitting and chatting, having beers, nothing really looming over their heads. Well. Not that the description's entirely accurate. There are a lot of things that the two of them are probably both thinking about, hidden between the lines, and Mark realizes that better than most people do. He's known Eduardo for years, after all. Not 'childhood friends' in length, but he's known enough of Wardo in his grown times to know that Wardo is a man of subtlety, who doesn't like to say too much and rub it in another's face.

There was a time, though, that the two of them were just blunt, almost painfully so, with one another. Painfully blunt meant different things for the two boys, as different as they were, but there was once a time when Eduardo would have felt free to call Mark an asshole more to teach a lesson than anything else (Mark pushes all the girls away, doesn't he, and why Eduardo lets him do that, Eduardo will never know). Now, the extra effort, it smacks of distance and of Eduardo trying carefully to climb to that higher ground.

Mark doesn't like that much.

"You're kind of speaking like an old geezer," he tries instead, just a touch of humor in his eyes because, well, he's always said that Wardo's just a stuffy British gentleman stuck in the lanky body of a modern American kid. "Give you a toothbrush mustache and graying hairs and we'd be all set. The HAA would be ushering you in immediately."

[pointzerothree]

There are days, all joking aside, when Eduardo feels like that, like the past year has been a lifetime, leaving him old before he has any right to be. Most of the time, it's something of an exaggeration, something he might joke about with his considerably younger girlfriend, but here and now, sitting across from Mark, it's never felt truer. It's visible, too, in the tension in his shoulders he can't quite get rid of, the way his smile reaches his eyes but not as fully as it might have before Facebook, or in its earlier days, sitting around the Kirkland dorm with Dustin and Chris and a twelve-pack (bought by Eduardo, of course, the only one of age). He might not have the gray hair or the mustache, but there's no denying that they're not boys anymore, at least not the ones they used to be. Between what happened, the fact that he apparently didn't know Mark as well as he thought he did and the time Mark's lived through that Eduardo hasn't, it feels like they're strangers just as much as it feels too familiar, the two of them tentative and struggling to find some even ground from where they left off before, not yet successful. Eduardo doesn't know Mark as he is now well enough to know if they'll even be able to, but the fact that they're managing to sit here now, Mark even trying to crack a joke, has to be an indication of something. It's both relieving and makes his chest tighten at the same time.

"Yeah, thanks for that, man," he says with an exhale of a laugh, rolling his eyes, though it's good-natured, his own way of telling Mark that, yes, this is okay, the levity, the familiarity, isn't overstepping. (Not that Mark needs his permission, or even seems to be asking for it. Eduardo's word typically comes second, Mark going ahead even when Eduardo expresses disapproval, like with Facemash. It seems like the sort of thing that can only be beneficial to express anyway, just in case, to keep things as clear as possible.) The funny thing is, when he reconsiders it, it still has to have been less than a year, May to December back home and the four months he's been here. It was time spent growing apart, though, and that makes it seem that much longer after the fact, distance creating the illusion of further time. "Don't worry, I'm not planning on growing a mustache anytime soon, that would be — I think it'd probably look weird. How long has it been for you, anyway, since —"

He can't bring himself to say it, but the implication, he thinks, is clear enough, with his vague mention earlier of the last thing he remembers. Breaking the laptop, finding out about his shares, threatening to sue — spelling any of it out would likely do more damage than it's worth, and if there's anything that can be said about Mark Zuckerberg, it's that he's a smart guy. Eduardo trusts that he'll be able to fill in the blank.

[zuckered]

It's the last question that makes Mark feel old. Usually, he doesn't look too far into the past. He hates doing it. It makes clear all of the mistakes he's made, and the victories, well, they don't feel half as good upon reflection as they do in the moment either. Unless he's trying to assess a certain pattern of behavior from years ago, there's just nothing to be gained, no progress to be made. And, if he's willing to admit it to himself, which he isn't on most days, the worst part of it is all the hurt that resurfaces. Without a doubt. So having to look back now, it smarts, it picks at a scab that has been healing over on and off, disturbed enough times that there's definitely going to be a scar there in the end.

"Your facial hair would probably grow in a weird pattern," Mark agrees, trying to squint and picture Wardo with facial hair, a difficult task, but one that at least keeps his mind off what they're actually supposed to be talking about. "And would make you look like you're trying too hard. I think it looks good now. Well, I mean. Looked better when you actually— this wardrobe isn't by choice, is it?"

Only after he feels like he's derailed the conversation significantly does Mark look to the side and take a sip of his beer, quickly adding (right before Eduardo can start speaking, hoping that this will keep the topic off of their own sordid affairs), "I turned twenty-four recently. So, you know. That's a thing."

In retrospect, now it feels like he's been building up to that answer, a thought which also makes him blink in turn.

[pointzerothree]

Eduardo doesn't know what he's expecting, really, or why he even asked, except that it seemed like the thing to do. With anyone else, under any other circumstances, it would probably have been easy small talk. The sudden transition, though, from the lighthearted joking (he'd just looked down at his shirt, about to make a comment on how he'd have chosen something better if he had any say in it, and how this isn't even the worst of what he has; there are a bunch of t-shirts he knows he can hand off to Mark now that he's here) to what's downright unsettling is enough to almost make him wish he hadn't asked. He's left him practically dazed, eyes going wide as he sets his glass down on the table again. It isn't a length of time that's been named, but it's simple math. He's used to being the older one, but that isn't what bothers him. However bad things were he didn't think he would actually be four fucking years before they got everything resolved.

"Jesus," he murmurs, a hand by his mouth, gaze lowering from Mark's as he shakes his head. He can't very well blame Mark for this much, but it's going to take him more than just a second's notice to wrap his head around. "Four fucking years, that's — I only just turned twenty-three a couple months ago." It's a halfhearted effort to lighten the mood, but he doesn't expect it to work, not really. If anything, he suspects that Mark will see through it, unless those four years have really changed Mark's ability to read him. "The clothes are, uh, it's a long story, there isn't a whole lot of choice."

[zuckered]

Yes. Yes, four fucking years, Mark wants to say, even if he's still not really sure what's to blame for that lengthy stretch of time. Well. Of course Mark himself is, to an extent, but he never wanted a lawsuit, he never wanted to fight and bicker and have to recount only dozens of times every single little step that the two of them have taken together. Mark and Wardo, they've had their share of disagreements over the years, Wardo usually more than willing to give way to Mark rather than cause a fuss, and then occasionally standing up for himself when the line's really pushed too far. But it's always been contained. Just the two of them. Maybe it's because they were still growing at that point, didn't have the resources to really hurl at each other and cause ripples that stretched farther than their fingertips. Either way, though, it's been a change in pattern and that only made Mark more bitter, until he realized at the end that what he felt wasn't so much bitter as it was tired. An exercise in futility. Wanting to grab out in any way but doing so with acerbic remarks instead.

Oops.

What he wants to say is, we should get a drink after. You know. After those four years. Maybe hope that there's enough under the bridge to get it built again at all. But this isn't that Wardo, making Mark worry for the first time... are they trying to stretch too far?

After all, Mark isn't the same person now that he was right after Eduardo smashed his laptop against his desk. Some days, though, he feels like he may as well be, not having grown a great deal in Wardo's absence.

Who knows. Point is, it's not getting them anywhere today.

"Four years, yes, but it's a lawsuit, what do you expect," Mark says quietly, quickly, like he's trying to rip off that band-aid. "Well, two lawsuits, actually, the Winklevii also put up a fight and you were— you were there for that too. So what do you mean, there isn't a whole lot of choice? No tailored suits, I can understand that, but I'd rather not be wearing one single hoodie for the rest of my time here, it'd wear out very quick." He doesn't mention how he knows this, just glad that he isn't currently wearing the North Face fleece.

[pointzerothree]

It feels a little like being shut down, any emotion and the shock of it being glossed over, but even now, Eduardo is used to that. Whatever might have shifted in their dynamic, primarily what was once comfortable becoming cautious, that's one thing that he would never have expected to change, because that's how Mark has always been. If he has the distinct sensation of having whiplash for it, that's nothing new, and nothing he doesn't know how to go with, either. To stay on the first subject, the time that's passed and the lawsuits he still doesn't know much about, would be Eduardo's instinct, but in struggling to find his footing and in not wanting to make this any more awkward than it already is, he doesn't quite know what to say, how he's supposed to steer the conversation back to that. (Even so, it's likely evident in his expression, such things typically worn on his sleeve, something he's never been much good at preventing.) It hurts too much, but then, so does the idea of small talk with so much left unsaid. There's no way to win, not here and now, not with Mark, to have everything work out like it ideally would. He can't have his best friend and retain whatever power he gained when he was led out of the office by security. The trouble now is knowing which way to let the balance shift, which will work better for them.

"No, I mean, there are plenty of clothes," he continues, voice just fractionally quieter as he lifts his glass to his mouth again, taking a sip of beer before he continues. (It's tempting to just down the whole fucking thing, but that's a show he doesn't need to put on.) "Just not many good ones. There's this box in the basement, and, I swear to God, you just pull clothes out of it. Most of them just happen to be hideous." Chest tight, he draws in a breath, shallower than he'd have liked. He can't say nothing, lost as going back and forth has made him feel. "I don't know what I expected, Mark. Just not that."

[zuckered]

It's going smoothly. Or, well, until it isn't. (Tautology, what a joy it is.) Eduardo does this a fair amount of the time, Mark's noticed, and with increasing frequency as of late— even if 'as of late' refers to times years ago combined with this outing right now, a piecewise collection of interactions Mark has with his best friend from before that friendship was torn apart altogether. The point is, Eduardo always tries to let things go Mark's way. He knows that. He's known that for some time, those little protests about how Facesmash might not be the best idea growing quieter and quieter, the not-so-minute amount of pride Eduardo felt at being punched by the Phoenix suddenly quieted. Mark knows that, he appreciates it even if he's never really been able to say thanks as such before. But increasingly, Eduardo's ability to deal and cope has been worn away.

Mark has to wonder if it's his fault.

It feels like being shoved down a few steps at once when that last bit reaches his ears. Eduardo didn't expect for the two of them to fall apart over the course of years? To not have made up after that amount of time? Did he expect more, less— no, that's not a question, he's definitely expected more from Mark, he always tends to think the best of his friend first, only to get let down later. It's probably an awful way to deal. Mark, on the other hand, he expects very little of most people.

"I didn't expect it, either," he manages, his expression tense. "And I didn't like it. I don't like it. I don't want you to expect it, which is why I didn't want to bring it up."

[pointzerothree]

The truth of it is, Eduardo can't expect anything anymore. There's just no way to, when that's what got him fucked over in the first place. (Even this, of course, is the same sort of thing, such a worse-case scenario having not even occurred to him, but he chooses not to dwell on that. In a situation like this, there are bound to be bumps in the road, and that's one of them. As long as he doesn't trip up again, as he's determined not to, it shouldn't matter, and he isn't going to mention it.) If anything, he should anticipate the worst, should expect years of not speaking or an obstacle so big they couldn't get past, but that doesn't remove the shock of it. Some part of him, even here, had hoped it wouldn't come to that; it wouldn't have been his move to make and he knew better than to count on anything like that from Mark, but he still wanted it, reconciliation seeming somewhat unlikely but far better than the alternative.

Which, apparently, is the case for Mark, too. Somehow, that comes as more of a surprise to Eduardo than the news itself, mostly because it's something that Mark could easily have fixed. Eduardo may be different, having been pulled from his timeline far before Mark, but he can't imagine that he would have turned down an apology if one was offered. There isn't any way he could have changed that much, not when he's already lived through presumably the worst of it, finding out about his shares being diluted.

Of course, if Mark didn't expect it, either, then it seems easy to reason that it's because he expected Eduardo to come running back, and Eduardo doesn't quite know what to do with that. It's a pattern he set up for himself, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a little unsettling to consider that Mark wouldn't have thought he could break out of it. What that means for them now, he doesn't know, but it's something that he reminds himself that he can't lose sight of. If Mark doesn't realize that he's changed, then there's no chance of them getting anywhere.

"Yeah, I guess I can't blame you for not wanting to," he allows, the same low, quiet tone to his voice, gaze fixed on his glass of beer. For all that he can't wholly let what Mark said go, there's hope to be found between those few words, too, and he supposes they allow for an admission of his own. "I don't like it, either, you know."

[zuckered]

The fact that Eduardo can't really look Mark straight in the eye makes him wonder if his (former) best friend is getting it all wrong. There shouldn't be anything in what he just said that evokes feelings of shame, shouldn't be anything that the two of them don't share some level of sentiment over. Regardless of everything that's happened, neither of them is the wholly vindictive type, neither so bitter as to push the envelope over to 'malicious.' That's not like them.

Mark escapes that by managing to be practical, to view everything as a personal weakness when he tries to take revenge in any way, shape, or form. Even now in retrospect, doing little petty things with Sean... why? Why did he bother? It's not even that he can't see the reasons why he decided to cut down on Wardo's share of the company— mistake or not, he knows why he did it, he can still remember the way he felt while all of that went down, so that isn't the issue. But things like getting back at the people who've slighted Sean in the past? Seems like a waste of time, now. And throwing away of potential resources. (Not very strong ones, of course, but nonetheless, still more than nothing.)

Wardo, on the other hand, he escapes that type of edged behavior by just being who he is. A soft-hearted, kind young man, too vulnerable for his own good and too willing to look for the best parts in people. Especially with Mark. For that, Mark still finds himself trying to scramble after bits and pieces of logic or reason. As far as looking for the best in people goes, there are a whole lot more acquaintances between the two of them who might yield significant results. Dustin, for instance. But they're (were?) best friends. Sometimes, Mark knows that nothing should matter beyond that. Reason only extends so far.

And because they're not the betraying type (no matter what Eduardo may think of Mark now), because Mark knows that Eduardo is doing his best to not only be civil, but still to retain some semblance of a friend, Mark wonders if that subdued tone is a bad sign.

"You helped with the Winklevii," he says at last, unsure what he means by that statement. Unsure why it's being brought up at all. Feels right, though.

[pointzerothree]

It's puzzling to Eduardo, both because it seems prompted by nothing and because it seems completely counterintuitive, so much so that he lifts his head a little, eyebrows raised, as if waiting for clarification. He hasn't lived through it, of course, can't speak for his mental state four years down the line, but based on what he's managed to pick up so far, the fact that they weren't speaking, and, of course, that he went through with the lawsuit, he finds it unlikely that he'd be suing Mark in one deposition and setting out to speak on Mark's behalf in another. What it would say about him that it would have happened inadvertently, even after everything that's happened, he doesn't know, but it's the only conclusion that can be drawn. In a way, it almost seems similar to what's happening here, in the juxtaposition of his initial reaction to seeing Mark on the couch with the fact that he's now sitting here having a beer with him, almost — not quite — like old times. (He isn't sure they'll ever reach that place again, what they once were, and he isn't sure if he wants to.) He has changed, but some things never do, never will.

If there's one thing to be gained from any of this, anyway, it's that Mark has to be making an effort. Eduardo has yet to discern if it's done more harm than good, based on the implications in a statement like that, but it's not like he can blame him for falling into old patterns. For his part, it's easier than it should be; it only stands to reason that the same would be true of Mark, that he would think it would help to point out what only emphasizes the flaws in their dynamic. (It's not all on Mark, after all. There's a reason why Eduardo is sitting here, why he's okay with the idea, if a little unsettled, rather than being outright bothered by it.) Eduardo can't discredit that, even if it means he is, in a way, proving Mark's point.

"Did I really?" he asks, the barest hint of amusement creeping into his voice, the corners of his mouth twitching in a small, wry smile. "God, I bet they must have hated that. I'm guessing that wasn't what I was supposed to be doing, right?"

[zuckered]

Even though the Winklevii have given Mark more trouble than practically anyone else he knows, he doesn't hate them. On most days, he thinks them amusing more than anything else, a pair of handsome gorillas with a fair bit less hair but probably twice the amount of chest thumping. That's why he's able to smile. More significant for a guy like him than laughing would have been. If it weren't for the distance that time's put between him and the Winklevii, the time that still makes its mark in spite of the way that everything's attempted to come back to the surface, he'd probably be irritated. But now, it's just amusing. The looks on their faces. The way they blew up like a pair of pufferfish. Made doubly enjoyable, honestly, because Wardo was there to help him through it all, no matter how much he must have resented then, in spite of the exasperation Eduardo showed whenever Mark grew a bit sharp-tongued.

He shrugs.

"You were supposed to be telling the truth," he states, belaboring the obvious, tone never more direct than when he was noting facts. "And the truth was that Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss just wanted to parade around their elite status in the hopes that a few more girls would hop on the bandwagon, and when they realized that I could do not only that, but even more, affect the entire world with the creation of facebook, they grew bitter. Frustrated. I beat them at their own sort of game, without even thinking of it in that context at all."

Blinking, Mark tilts his head, before taking a greater swig of beer. "You see that. I'm sure you see that."

[pointzerothree]

Put like that, Eduardo does see it. Mark may be a lot of things — the words lying, backstabbing son of a bitch come to mind even now — but regardless of what was done to him, Eduardo doesn't think his former best friend to be deliberately malicious. At least, not with anyone else, and that's what's in question. He barely knows about the conflict with the Winklevoss twins, because it was irrelevant. They sent a letter and they held a grudge and that was that. Eduardo didn't think they would give up so easily or anything (why else would he have accused them of planting the story about the chicken?), but at the end of the day, they hardly had anything to do with Facebook. Having been a part of the site's creation, and having once known Mark, he'd like to think, incredibly well, that's one thing he could never deny.

"Saw it from the beginning," Eduardo says, almost thoughtful, nodding in agreement. They had, admittedly, always struck him as arrogant, anyway, their claiming to want to help Mark rehabilitate his image rankling even him (as if Mark needed it. The drunk blogging thing was stupid, but Eduardo doesn't doubt that Mark knew what he was doing every step of the way). The reminder is enough that Eduardo can almost get why he'd have been coming to Mark's defense, even so long after the fact. It isn't like it's much different than what he's doing now, sitting and having a beer, quick to agree with him. (From the Winklevosses' perspective, he'd guess that they would call their situation comparable to his. He would argue that Cameron and Tyler don't have the first fucking idea what it's like to be betrayed by Mark. Granted, it was the same principles at hand, a sign of what he should have seen coming, maybe, but still not the same thing.) Sipping his beer, he smiles a little despite himself around the rim of the glass. "They're so self-entitled, I'm sure they really thought they deserved it, too. They wouldn't need the money except to make a point."

[zuckered]

One. Two. Three seconds pass before Mark nods, taking an even longer swig from his beer bottle. He needs to be intoxicated right now, he needs not to be overanalyzing every single detail, and fun though the Winklevii are to make fun of, there is still something about their gall that rankles now, perhaps rankles even more now that Mark's been vindicated again by his best friend. As much as the current situation is far, far worse than things have ever been between the two friends before, there was one slight, minute advantage, in that when Eduardo was so angry with him, when they have no amount of friendship forged between them, he was honest. That the Winklevii had no right to what Mark had made became doubly obvious once Eduardo noted each time of how little they mattered, of how they never factored into Mark's thought process at all, an agreement that the others in the room might have suspected of being a collusion. Mark knows better. They never really... talked, not for those couple of years that built up to the final deposition. Yet they still saw eye-to-eye on a great deal. There, at least.

Not in others.

The deposition was painful for other reasons, too. Cutting remarks here and there. The pointlessness of going into every little facet and pixel of Mark being dumped by Erica, the way Eduardo was so quick to think that Mark had planted the story of the chicken (it makes Mark wonder if Eduardo ever had such a suspicion back then, and he hopes not, he really does). All of it points to how little Eduardo thinks of Mark, even if he wants to argue that there is still reason there for Eduardo to care for Mark, that it's never been a matter of Mark lacking in the slightest. Doesn't matter. Mark still feels small, when he thinks too much. All he has is facebook. All that won't abandon him, or take advantage of him, is facebook and the mark that it is leaving on the world. It makes Mark feel needed, cool, his gateway drug. Now that's gone, too.

"They were just angry that things didn't go exactly as they planned, that daddy's pampered little crew boys were being denied glory, maybe even angry that they didn't win in the Beijing Olympics," Mark rattles off one after the other, glad when he realizes that his vision is swimming just a little as he waves a server down for another glass of beer, a third of which he downs again in one go. "But, you know, chump change is chump change. I was advised to settle before they went out to smear my reputation even more. So I did. And that's, you know, over."

[pointzerothree]

It's probably a pointless thing to be spending time on. Eduardo is well aware of it, the thought making one corner of his mouth hitch up a little higher in a wry smile. Here on an island in their absence, in the absence even of Facebook, the Winklevosses are even more irrelevant than they were back home while Mark was creating the site. He's quick to want to stay on the topic, though, or at least stay close to it, this easy middle ground far more comfortable than venturing back into anything more personal, especially when it's likely inevitable that they'll wind up having to do the latter anyway. Underneath all the hurt and the anger is the same desire he's always had, to hold on to Mark, to remain important regardless of what tension might linger between them (and chances are that tension will last for a good long while). If this is as close to normal as the two of them can get, then he intends to make the most of it. They'll have time, here, anyway. Whatever happens, that's something he can't allow himself (and so far hasn't been able) to lose sight of. Were this a one-time occurrence to have everything out, then it might be a different story, but Mark's as stuck here as he is, now. It isn't like he means to come crawling back, but he hardly thinks he can be blamed for wanting to maintain what pleasantness he can while it lasts.

"Well, at least it's over," he says with an easy shrug, watching as Mark finishes off more of his beer, but not wanting to comment on it. He'd been just as desperate for it himself; he's hardly in a position to judge. Whatever Mark might be thinking right now, Eduardo has no way of guessing (something that's a little unnerving, but not altogether uncommon, with as beyond him as Mark's thought processes sometimes are), but he's sure that he can't be the only one mentally straying into the past more often than he'd like. Based on what was said earlier, he doesn't actually think Mark to be entirely unrepentant, though he also isn't sure if that's just wishful thinking, projecting the way he has so many times in the past. Whether it's with himself or with others, he knows, now, that he has a tendency to give Mark more credit than he's probably due, but that doesn't stop him from doing it. "Not that... it would really make a lot of difference in showing up here, but, I mean, having left behind a lot that was unfinished... It's good that you got to wrap all that up."

[zuckered]

"It's not wrapped up," Mark says immediately, his eyes skirting somewhere around the ceiling of the bar, running along the molding that presses into the corners, his fingers drumming on the side of the cool bottle in his hand. Before explaining, he takes another drink, his cheeks already feeling pleasantly warm, and the back of his neck already uncomfortably so. He's always been a lightweight. Doesn't binge, has never really done the whole beer pong thing, enjoys watching other people go at shots rather than himself. It strikes him then that his relative state might be amusing to anyone else on this strange island, and his eyes dart back and forth, almost paranoid, if it weren't for the languid note on top of it all. No one seems to be watching. He's forgotten what that's like. Everyone in Palo Alto recognizes his face anymore.

"It's not wrapped up," he says again with a shrug, a half shrug, kind of broken like everything else about the situation seems to be. "Settling in court doesn't really mean anything. The Winklevii will never stop being butthurt. They'll never stop looking at facebook with green, envious eyes because the concept just required them to get their heads out their asses a little more and think about the greater social network, how all college students interact, instead of getting laid. Plus, I haven't. Hadn't. Talked to you after."

His hand grips the bottle a little tighter before he knocks back another few gulps, feeling his vision waver slightly at the edges.

[pointzerothree]

He should be flattered. A statement like that, the implication in it, it's a big fucking deal coming from Mark, and more than likely, Eduardo thinks, the product of the beers his friend's been guzzling down since they walked in here. It brings with it its own set of complications, of course — the expectations suggested earlier that Eduardo would be around to be talked to at all, the weight it now puts on Eduardo's shoulders to offer something in return (and he has to, of course, could never be so dismissive of Mark and knows Mark well enough that he couldn't take something like this for granted even if he wanted to) — but at the heart of it, it's a good thing. Mark wanted to talk, presumably before he ever arrived on Tabula Rasa, and that means that maybe Eduardo isn't the last resort after all. He could never compare to Sean or the hypnotizing lights and seedy goings-on of Palo Alto, but he's not nothing, either. That counts for a lot, as it turns out, the hope it provides that this isn't just circumstantial, facilitated by their being on the island but not solely because of it. Just because he wouldn't have gone crawling back to Mark's side doesn't mean that he wouldn't have preferred reconciliation to further years of silence.

"We're talking now," he offers, tone just slightly softer. It could be — no, it is, absolutely and without a doubt — fantastically stupid of him, but they are talking, and his own implication is that it won't be the last time. That this isn't just small talk over beers to catch up, isn't just to help Mark get settle in after arriving. They're a cheap facsimile of what they once were, dancing around subjects and trying to steer clear of feelings that run too deep, but they aren't so broken as to be wholly unsalvageable. Whatever drew them together before, it hasn't vanished from them entirely, and the least Eduardo can do is give him a chance. "I — I know it doesn't make a difference back there, really, but..." He shrugs, not about to get too far into it if Mark isn't. "Besides, you don't really care what the Winklevosses think, do you?"

[zuckered]

"The Winklevii?" Mark asks, his eyes widening and a fairly rare laugh dropping from his lips, brittle and sharp, fueled by the alcohol on his tongue. He's never been much of an exhibitionist, as far as his emotions go. Showing his emotions on his sleeve is nothing more than a weakness, allows people to read him and act accordingly; he's willing to take up the relatively small harm of people requiring his time for thorough explanations for his behavior rather than being blindsided. There's very little that he hates more than that, after all, especially after the incident with Eduardo at the facebook offices all those years ago. He knew what buttons he'd been pressing. He knew that Eduardo was sure to get upset, surely. But what he didn't like was how many people were suddenly able to see through him, somehow, murmurs of Eduardo having been passed around for weeks after, only worsened after Sean Parker was convicted for possessing and offering illegal drugs to minors.

His lip twitches, free of all those inhibitions, if only for a brief while.

"I have never cared what the Winklevii think," he nods surely, lips pulled back in a mix of amusement and the increased effort it takes to sort through his thoughts. "Even as final club members go, they're greater meatheads than the average, never planning on paying me any respect and only wanting to use me as a code monkey to fulfill their desire to get in the pants of countless women, apparently not satiated by the ample company that the clubs get to begin with. They didn't respect me. Why would I stay with people who don't respect me? Why would I listen to the orders of people who think they can lord over me when my intellect, in fact, outstrips their own? Rehabilitate my image, indeed." He looks away with a bitter look.

Even if he can admit to himself that his image isn't the best for fitting his needs, the Winklevii never stood a chance of helping him, not when they were planning to use him as a step stool.

[pointzerothree]

Eduardo's smile grows a little more bittersweet at that, something that is masked mostly by his taking another sip of his beer. It feels increasingly like he's being pulled in multiple directions at the same time, the best choice of route seemingly changing every few moments. Of course, it makes sense that Mark wouldn't comment further on them and whatever reparations have been made this past while, especially not when Eduardo hadn't elaborated in the first place, but giving would be easier when he isn't met by a constant take. This effort he's making, it means something to him, and it leaves him essentially back where he started, wishing that Mark would notice without wanting to say so because he knows Mark too well for that. It should be enough, what Mark said a moment ago about having not spoken to him, implying a desire to, but it isn't. Not for the first time, he wonders if it was just the alcohol talking, anyway; with the way Mark is knocking them back, it really wouldn't be all that surprising. It's got to be pretty fucking sad, Eduardo thinks, that already he has to resolve himself to not asking about it in the morning, when it probably won't matter to Mark anymore.

"They didn't get it," he says with a shake of his head, not quite realizing the compliment inherent in his own words. "Of course if they wouldn't get that you didn't need to do that, Facebook would be way beyond them." He doesn't know the brothers personally, can't really make a call as to the extent of their meatheadedness (and Eduardo chooses to ignore the comment about final club members, anyway, having been one himself), but he formed enough of a judgment based on their wanting to rehabilitate Mark's image that he doesn't think that matters. It's enough to keep the two of them speaking easy now, despite everything that Eduardo hasn't let himself say. If pointing out his own presence isn't enough, he can veil this situation as positive in other ways. Voice just the slightest bit strained, he adds, "Well, they matter even less, here, so there's that."