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

[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."

[zuckered]

For all that alcohol is meant to be a depressant, Mark thinks that it surely isn't working now, this beer that he has in his hands. He feels everything, intensely, in full detail. No one's ever been able to draw vindication out of Mark as easily as Eduardo; Mark knows that their opinions differ, more often than Eduardo is likely to admit, but that he sees every time the other man hesitates, brows raising with just a touch of skepticism as his eyes avert their gaze. And right now, he feels that once again. It's almost ironic. Usually, Eduardo is the one asking Mark to tone it down, watch his step, but on any occasion that Mark finds himself supported by his best friend, he simply goes out with twice the strength, and perhaps it's his fortune that the Winklevoss twins aren't on the island right then, because nothing would stop him from giving them a piece of his mind. His somewhat inebriated, but no less vehement mind.

But they aren't there, and Eduardo's support, one that Mark knows will last even years into the future, only brings about a different type of depressive to his mind, one that has him picking up his glass and draining it dry, holding it up only once he's done, like an afterthought. "There's that," he nods firmly, before he sways a bit on the spot, overcorrecting for his enthusiasm and letting the beer tap down on the table, strongly. "Man, this place is like a freaking Wonderland, isn't it? Wonder if that makes you the white rabbit."

[pointzerothree]

"What, to your Alice?" Eduardo asks, letting out a dry laugh around the mouth of his glass. It isn't a metaphor that makes any sense to him, but that isn't surprising, both because this is Mark, who tends to think on a different level than most sane humans, and because Mark is quickly and obviously becoming more and more drunk, which shouldn't be amusing but it actually kind of is. At least, if Eduardo removes the past from the equation, it is, and though that's something he shouldn't be doing, it's a train of thought he can't help even so. Unwise or not, he wishes he could really do so, that this could be like normal instead of the façade they're trying to substitute for it. He distracts himself from dwelling on it by trying to fit everyone else they know into Mark's analogy, as illogical as it seems when none of the rest of them are here. (The Winklevosses are Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum. Dustin and Chris are the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. He doesn't get any farther than Sean as the Queen of Hearts before he has to stop, wondering if he can blame the alcohol, too, or if he's really so desperate to keep things okay that he's stooped to this level.)

Finishing off the last of his drink in an effort to stop himself from thinking, he shakes his head. "Not sure you could pull off the blue dress, man. No offense, but you don't really have the figure for it."

[zuckered]

"Mmm," Mark manages first, giving Eduardo a look (or as close of one as he can get right now, the way that he's swaying back and forth, just enough for his vision to start swimming). He could explain to Eduardo the reason for the comparison. Because the white rabbit, he's always the one freaking out about things, the one who worries about the thoughts of others, and keeps on running in one direction or another, either at someone's request (does that make Mark the Queen of Hearts?) or leading others around behind him (and that would make Mark the Alice in the picture). But even as inebriated as Mark is right now, he's pretty sure that neither of these things are what he wants to be telling Eduardo right now, so instead he looks down at what he's wearing, while also waving out to one of the employees in hopes of getting another beer, probably a second beer too many.

"Alice could totally rock a hoodie and flip-flops. She'd probably be happier wearing that than her freaking pinafore and starched ruffles. Think that's what she wore in the Disney version, anyway. Never read the original."

[pointzerothree]

"What, and you think I did?" Eduardo raises an eyebrow, amused, still, and skeptical at once, shaking his head before he rests it in a hand, his elbow on the table. "Kind of missed the boat on Lewis Carrol, sorry. And I'm pretty sure you're the only person who could stand to run around in flip-flops all the time; they probably would have fallen off when she fell down the rabbit hole, and then she'd've been stuck barefoot." Stupid, stupid, he thinks, but Mark runs with it and so he will, too. It's a moment too late that he realizes that Mark's wardrobe probably isn't the safest of topics. My hoodie and my fuck you flip-flops, you pretentious douchebag, he remembers all too well saying, and those being the two things mentioned by Mark now, he has to wonder if it's deliberate, an offhand way of trying to make Eduardo feel guilty. Whether or not it is, it works; he winces, though he ignores it easily, playing it off as a sip of beer gone down the wrong pipe. Having this — the levity, the familiarity that they probably wouldn't be able to achieve otherwise — is too nice to comment on it. Besides, Mark is drunk, likely not accountable for everything he says, and Eduardo is beginning to question the detail with which Mark will remember this conversation tomorrow. (He'd have been quick to defer anyway, he knows. It's how they've always been. Mark insults, often with no real intent, and Eduardo shrugs it off because it doesn't matter.)

The waitress who comes to the table is tall, a pretty blonde, and Eduardo looks up at her as he asks for another beer for Mark, then quickly amends it to two. Being the far more sober of the pair, he figures it won't hurt, that he could probably use it. Almost an afterthought, before she can leave, he looks to Mark again. "You still want that burger, or are we just sticking to drinks after all?"

[zuckered]

A flicker of concern passes over Mark's face when Eduardo kind of chokes, before somehow, a part of him (that isn't entirely conscious right now, let's be honest) realizes that it's nothing life-threatening, and is probably more meant to smooth over an awkward situation than anything else. Eduardo does that. Smoothing over things. It's kind of a bad habit, Mark thinks, even if he certainly would rather not be at the end of things like having Eduardo chuck his laptop down on a table until the thing breaks. The problem with smoothing things over on a regular basis is that people get used to it, and they come to expect that sort of behavior from you, and that's probably how Eduardo ends up with crazy girlfriends like Christy who are only made more crazy when they start realizing that Eduardo, he treats everyone nicely, and a silk scarf doesn't necessarily say 'love' so much as it says 'I knew you'd flip out if I didn't bring you something back, so just in case, here, I thought of you.'

This isn't the time to be remarking on that, though, because on the off-chance that Eduardo is doing that same thing with Mark right now, just humoring him, Mark is willing to turn a blind eye and accept it and whatever form of pity might come with it, before eventually moving on. He's drunk. Inebriated. He's aware enough to know that.

Let that be his excuse.

"I think it's more likely that you read the book than me. You're more of a literature guy. I mean, not terribly much of a literature guy, otherwise it definitely wouldn't make sense that you're in econ, but you're enough of a literature guy that you could pass for a literature guy if you wanted, like you would have fit in at the museum or something, and for me they'd know that it was probably class or someone like you who dragged me along," Mark points out, his hands practically twitching with the lack of anything to play with. This is usually where he might start chewing on a straw. A Twizzler. Heck, if there were disposable napkins, he might tear a strip off and start biting down on that. There's none of that there, though, which pulls Mark's face into a relatively dissatisfied expression, just for a second, before he comes to again. Ah, right. Question. There's a question on the table.

He looks around, as though he has any right to be picky about where the two of them eat when Eduardo's made it sound like this is the only decent restaurant to be found in the area, before he nods, having made that executive decision.

"Burgers. Let's get burgers. I haven't had a decent burger in a while. It's been sushi and salads lately. Lots of avocado."

[pointzerothree]

"Make that two beers and two burgers, then," Eduardo says, looking up at the waitress once more, with a crooked, apologetic smile. Whatever point Mark is trying to make, of which there may not even be one, it isn't anything some girl on the waitstaff just trying to take their order needs to be privy to, and he's almost tempted to outright say he's sorry for it, but he bites his tongue, figuring that it would probably come across as an insult to Mark more than anything else. Eduardo is used to this, his tendency to ramble and the way he gets when he's drunk; it's just that other people aren't. If anything, it provides further justification for his sitting here now. He might not know Mark as well as he thought he did, but he does know that Mark doesn't like feeling isolated or less than. Some people here, he suspects they might not have the patience for Mark, and he should at least have one person who gets him, to smooth things over when necessary. Maybe it's more than he deserves from Eduardo, but at least it provides a little more reasoning for his unwillingness to walk away and leave Mark to his own devices. To do that could negatively impact Mark or whomever he comes into contact with whom he just happens to piss off. Whether or not it's more responsibility than he needs to be taking on, it doesn't really matter. At least it's some sort of logic, making Eduardo feel marginally less crazy for still sitting here, intent on making the best of whatever they can manage. (It's still probably insane.)

Turning to Mark as the waitress walks away, Eduardo simply looks at him for a couple of seconds, one corner of his mouth still higher than the other. With such a drawn-out metaphor, it doesn't seem important to point out that he probably wouldn't have dragged Mark anywhere; more likely would be the other way around, except with less dragging and more of Eduardo following along willingly. It's the same thing now, but it's irrelevant, anyway, not really relating to what was being said in the first place. It's the last comment that he sees more fit to mention, a dry laugh escaping him as he shakes his head. "Sushi and salads, huh?" he asks dryly, shaking his head. To him, it sounds pretty fucking pretentious, but he has the sense enough not to say so, mostly because he's still stuck wondering if Mark meant to reference their last conversation before this or not. (After four years, he reminds himself, it would be unlikely, but coming from a fucking deposition, there's a chance it's all still fresh in his mind anyway.) "I don't know, I guess there's nothing wrong with sushi and salads, but you've got to have some variety. That's one thing they manage to do well here, despite the obvious limitations."

[zuckered]

"That's my point," Mark says immediately, before he frowns, turning half to the side, almost as though he might have a set of notes in his hand that he can properly consult. (He doesn't.) He's grown accustomed to agreeing to people these days, to saying yes without even giving the questions real thought, the deposition the only great exception in the set. He's learned that that's what bureaucracy is, after all, and no matter what he may wish and hope to claim about facebook, the fact of the matter is that it's as much of a corporation as other companies. Not so much in that they're making profit. (They're not, really, although there's enough revenue that churns through that keeps all of them well-fed and cared for, so that no employee of the company really wants for anything.) But instead in that there are just too many employees for Mark to look completely after, for anyone to know everyone with a contract, and what that means is that connections, they matter. And how else do people deal with connections, other than make and break them, one after another until one has a staircase to success?

He shakes his head.

"No, wait, that's not my point. I didn't mean to say that variety's an important thing to me. To other people, yes, to you, certainly. But you know me, I'm perfectly happy wearing variations of the same outfit every day, even down to the same color if it didn't leave other people with the impression that I haven't changed clothes from day to day," Mark says as he casts the waitress a certain look, one that's contemplative, and curious in spite of himself. "What I actually mean to say that is the days of sushi and salad kind of leave you with the impression that it's not food anymore, all flash, no substance, the sort of thing that leaves you going to bed with an empty stomach. But a burger, that's substantial, gives you something to digest. You can gorge on a burger, easy. Sushi, not so much. It just leaves your tongue sour."

[pointzerothree]

"It's — forgive me, but it's fucking pretentious," Eduardo says, one hand held up in front of him and head slightly inclined, as if to give the words a tone of respect that isn't actually there. It's a turn of phrase that he wanted to avoid using, but there just isn't anything better, because that's what it is. Sushi and salad for every meal to make a point, to say, oh, look how fucking hip we are, with our cool, healthy meals, served on square plates with fancy garnishes, and Eduardo hates it. It's part of why the Silicon Valley never held any appeal to him, the whole lifestyle idealized there one that he finds distasteful, wholly disingenuous. The idea of Mark there, among them, both makes perfect sense and none at all. Easy to get swept up in as he's sure it is — another part of the reason why he never went out — surely the chance to be that cool when he never was before would be seductive, but it's hardly the Mark he thinks he knows, the real one. He'd question it, wonder if Mark really did succumb to all of that after all, rather than just following along as a way to fit in, but the comment about the burger leads Eduardo to believe that this is still the same Mark he's known all along. Not as well as he thought, of course, that much not being something he can let himself lose sight of, and maybe not entirely, depending on whether or not that Mark was capable of stabbing his best friend in the back all along and Eduardo never realized it, but the same at least to an extent, not unrecognizably altered by four years (Jesus, four fucking years, he thinks again) living it up as a pseudo-celebrity in Palo Alto.

(Eduardo imagines him, for a moment, as Sean was the day they first met him in that restaurant in New York. On a first-name basis with all of the staff, someone who people turned to look at when he walked into the room, the very fact of his presence commanding. It doesn't quite work; Mark's never had that level of charisma. What the image morphs into, instead, is Mark with Sean's arm around his shoulders, practically a fucking puppet as Sean does all the talking, never fitting in but wanting so desperately to that he'd do anything to seem like he did. What Facebook is is cool, Eduardo remembers vividly, and Mark, as an extension of it, would have to be as well. All of it leaves him wondering now how much of what happened was Mark and how much was Sean, if Mark was genuinely that disloyal or if he was coerced, following along with a plot to maintain the same position in everyone else's eyes and to not lose what he'd been gunning for ever since he first found out about final clubs. Either way, Eduardo supposes, it doesn't matter. The choice, in the end — the priority — was the same.)

"I mean, no one can really like sushi and salad that much, can they?" It's a continuation with hardly so much as a pause, both to stop his train of thoughts in its tracks and to downplay his own earlier statement, really, really not wanting Mark to be reminded of what he said before storming out of the office. If he can keep things calm, smooth it all over, he means to do so for as long as is physically possible, at least while there hasn't been any provocation, no mention of it or cutting remarks from Mark that have made him want to reconsider. "And you said yourself, it's not filling. Just... leaves and tiny portions of raw fish. I don't see why it even matters, anyway, there shouldn't be anything uncool about eating a decent meal."

[zuckered]

Fucking pretentious. Well, that brings back memories. Mark blinks even as Eduardo goes through the rest of his explanation, only catching bits and pieces of it as he ends up replaying their past interactions in his head, in particular a comment about his clothing coming to mind. It's kind of funny to Mark, really. At least, it is right now. The fact that on the day Eduardo decided to talk about hoodies and fuck-you flip-flops, Mark wasn't wearing the former, having donned instead one of the jackets he'd taken from Eduardo's closet one day in winter, when he went over to his best friend's dorm to go on and on about facebook and his ideas but completely forgot to dress appropriately for the weather. He never remembered to return it. It was one of those things that he packed away when preparing to move to Palo Alto, having shoved it into all of his boxes because there's very little that he hates more than packing. It's something that's meant to be quick and dirty, because what's the point of packing things away nicely when they're just going to come out again when one makes it to their destination? It's a time-sink, albeit a necessary one, but the way Mark figures, at the very least it doesn't have to be a big sink.

Anyway.

The point is, the jacket ended up with all of his things, and it only started becoming noticeable to Mark after time spent away from Eduardo, only able to contact him by phone. Because it showed up, like a surprise all its own, one day when Mark reached into his closet hoping to find anything weather-appropriate, having forgotten (this happens a lot) to do his laundry in a timely manner. And ever since, he's noticed it, more and more, until that day when Eduardo was arriving for the meeting, Mark put it on, less to spite Eduardo and more because some part of him had hoped that his actions, though certainly meant to teach Eduardo a lesson and also influenced by Sean's insistence that the other man wasn't good for either Mark or the company, that it would just be enough to shake Eduardo. Make him realize that Mark, he's a force to be reckoned with.

The problem with that conclusion, of course, being that forces to be reckoned with can either be reckoned with, or they can be run away from, and the latter's what applies more to their situation. Sure, Eduardo's come back for the deposition. But in a way, the other man's just run.

His eyes darken a little. "Well, what makes it pretentious isn't the food itself," he points out, because maybe that's what makes his hoodie and flip-flops anything but. He's never really intended for them to be a smack in anyone's face, didn't mean it as any form of disrespect so much as what was simply practical. There's no point in getting himself all trussed up and showing someone who doesn't exist, a Mark Zuckerberg who cares about social norms and niceties and validates them by going along. It's not that he thinks he's better than most everyone else (except in terms of intellect, maybe). "It's the way people dress it up. Sushi wasn't even a big thing in Japan, either, until it caught on here— or well, not here here, but in the States— and suddenly it was cool. Before that, it was just like any other dish. Actually, the places I really like to go are those conveyor belt sushi restaurants, because you eat your fill, it's not all dressed up, it's very efficient and there's no mess, no fuss. Steak can also be pretentious too, you know. Those tiny little... pieces cut in a circle, like anyone cares what the shape of their food is, and drizzled with raspberry sauce, just enough to make it, I don't know. Novel."

[pointzerothree]

Something has shifted. It's nearly funny, how Eduardo feels both like he knows Mark better than anyone else and not at all, the former, right now, outweighing the latter as Mark's gaze grows darker, a focus there that wasn't all of a few moments ago. Almost immediately, guilt creeps hot up the back of Eduardo's neck, though he isn't quite sure why, whether it was the comment about pretentiousness or the message itself, if he was wrong and Mark really does see fit to defend the lifestyle from which he just came. (Even now, he finds that hard to believe, but, again, there's four years there he doesn't know about, a gap he's still trying to bridge between the Mark he last spoke to and the one seated across from him now, having yet to discern all the ways he's changed. Their relationship hasn't much, that's apparent, except for where it has completely, but to go from twenty to twenty-four is a big difference. Four years ago, he hadn't even gotten into Harvard yet; there was no Facebook, he hadn't so much as heard the name Mark Zuckerberg. Now, he can barely even recognize who he was back then, a few defining traits remaining the same, but his life having been irreversibly upended. None of that is especially reassuring when he's still trying to find his footing here, but it can't be ignored, either.)

Either way, whatever has prompted this, he wants to apologize, but won't let himself, physically biting down on his tongue to keep the words from spilling out of his mouth. He can't say he's sorry without knowing what he's sorry for, and if it's simply for making things awkward, for saying what's just true, then he has no reason to be. It takes effort to convince himself of that, but for as easy as it is to slip into old patterns, to count Mark as always being right, he isn't entirely lacking in self-respect, and he can't just give in over nothing. If it turns out it is related to what he said about Mark and his clothes before, then an apology will be the first thing from his lips, but he isn't a mind reader, particularly not where Mark is concerned; he can't make up for it if he doesn't know he's supposed to. Briefly, he finds himself missing when they were talking about the Winklevoss twins. At least then, he knew without a doubt that they were on the same page, even when coming to Mark's defense wasn't something he'd consciously wanted to do. It was better than all this fucking uncertainty, having to second-guess every single word that comes out of his mouth.

"When served like that, yeah, I just mean, people don't really order steak to make a point," he says, hedging as best he can. Better to start out by deferring to Mark's judgment and telling him he's right and then backtracking from there; that way, hopefully, they'll reach an agreement on it. (He should hate Mark, but he doesn't. That much becomes increasingly clearer all the time, with all the work he puts into trying to keep things civil, to keep his one-time best friend happy.) "And that's what seems to be the case when people are ordering sushi and salad for every meal." He's still self-conscious under Mark's eyes, and it almost shows, though he manages to keep his expression as neutral as possible. There's no sense in letting on to the degree of conflict that's followed him at every turn, the lengths he'll go to to keep this okay, if only temporarily. "And not necessarily you, just, you know. In general."

[zuckered]

He finds himself wanting to retort immediately, not every meal, but even as gone as he is (which is a significant amount, enough that his eyes are wandering in every which direction because of the fact that trying to keep focus on one place is impossible, and the effort is making him dizzier more than anything else), he realizes that there's just no point to it. Because if there's anything that's clear in Eduardo's words, it's that 'us-them' sort of mentality. Like the West Coasters, or at least those Eduardo defines as such, are different from the rest of them somehow, in a way where perhaps Mark's never belonged there at all, in Eduardo's eyes.

Well. A difference between the coasts is how they're painting it now, anyway. Mark is sure that it isn't really that. There are plenty of people on Wall Street and plenty of people on the East Coast who are just as pretentious. Whether they don Prada suits (ha, see what he did there?) or whether they decide to get sushi for lunch isn't really the big deal. It's more the widening gap that Eduardo has built in his head ever since he met Sean Parker. Mark's known it for a while. Before even Christy made that remark, of Wardo being possibly jealous. Mark's never believed it to be jealousy, not when the disdain started from before Sean ever landed. He's late, Mark remembers Eduardo saying. Look at all of these things he's done, Mark remembers Eduardo saying. Maybe Google's the real bitch, here.

"It's just a fad," Mark replies at last, deciding and hoping that statement is innocuous enough. "Just like women wearing vintage Chinese dresses to parties was a big fad too, or when flares made their weird little mini-flop comeback. It'll die out. The pretention will, anyway."

He twiddles his fingers, restless, while he sits and waits for those burgers.

[pointzerothree]

Were it not for how drunk Mark seems to be, Eduardo would have to wonder if all of this is deliberate, if the continued choice of word is meant to elicit a response from him, make him apologize for something he can't decide if he's sorry for or not. (As it stands, he is and he isn't. On the one hand, it was a huge scene to be making, atypical for him; he destroyed a fairly valuable computer and plenty of people saw, reason enough, on both counts, for him to be remorseful. On the other, it was a long time coming, and Mark deserved it, and especially now that he can feel himself backpedaling otherwise, it seems important to hold on to that one thing, that instant where he was entitled and felt like it with every fiber of his being.) Whether intentional or not — and, in part, because he can't figure out if there's a chance it might be — it leaves him feeling decidedly uncomfortable, unsure of where to go, what point to try to make. This shouldn't seem so awkward, but it's just as much his fault that it is.

"Not that it makes a difference here, anyway," he offers, an attempt at appeasement of sorts, a middle ground that, he hopes, they can reconnect over. It's stupid, so stupid, to be grabbing at whatever scraps he can get, but really, it's just business as usual. "I'm sure you're right, though. I mean, those things never last, right?" On the island, they've never seemed to have any concerns of that nature at all, though Eduardo isn't sure whether that has to do with the limited resources or the fact that people here just don't care, one seeming as plausible as the other, given what else they obviously don't care about. There's also the fact that some things aren't fads at all, what knowledge he's gained of the future enough to make him aware of the fact that Facebook only grows, even after the time Mark's come from. He just isn't sure if it would be a bad idea or not, mentioning the company, so for now, he holds his tongue.

[zuckered]

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."

[pointzerothree]

"I don't think they do, really," Eduardo says, though it isn't a comment he expects to get much notice, nothing particularly relevant. He doesn't care. The little explanations like this, they have to be given at some point, and it's easy to rattle off facts — easier than thinking about their past, though his ability to keep that from his mind comes and goes in short little bursts, how okay he is changing from second to second. This is good to start with, the way Mark smiles at the burgers' arrival, eliciting the same reaction from him in turn (though his has nothing to do with the food itself). "You can only get things like this here, most of the rest of the time, they'll use something else instead. There's a lot of boar. You get used to it."

He's only just barely started to, but that's true of how he feels about the whole island and its ability to turn things upside down, the food only a tiny, tiny part of that. It would be worse if everyone had to fend for themselves; instead, the people they have to take care of things like that, however insane it is that so many are willing to do so much for no compensation, make it feel a little more normal. Nothing about it is or ever will be, of course, but he supposes it's the illusion of it that matters, proper meals served in a kitchen rather than the alternatives presented in most stranded-on-a-desert-island stereotypes.

The same could probably go for him and Mark, for that matter, a thought that has him on the verge of getting more thoughtful again. Even with each other, they can pass themselves off as normal, the same two people who met at an AEPi party, when really, they're anything but, and may or may not ever be again, a thought which Eduardo is still far too conflicted on for his own good, wanting Mark and his friendship, trying to remind himself that he shouldn't let things become as they were. Either way, though — he can't run with one or the other right now, has to keep trying to walk this fragile line — it lets him circle back to what they were saying before the food arrived, reluctance evident in his expression for all of a moment before he speaks again.

"There are still a few exceptions, though, anyway," he notes, as casually as he can, not wanting to make too big a deal out of the subject. "I mean, MySpace was MySpace, but you… I've met people from as late as 2010, and Facebook's only gotten bigger." What that means, of course, what Eduardo is painfully aware of but refuses to say outright, is that Mark was right. It's another conversation — several of them, really, the points of which have all blended together in his head — that he remembers in far more detail than he'd care to. We don't know what it is yet, we don't know what it will be, the way fashion is never finished: it's almost sickening now, in retrospect. Mark was right and he was wrong, and it's that stubbornness of his own that likely contributed to his removal from the company, though he wouldn't change what he did and can't blame himself, not really, for that. He was brought on as CFO and never did anything but the job he was supposed to. It isn't fair and there's nothing he could have done differently, but when it came to the site itself, Mark was the one who knew. Of course he was. Eduardo shrugs. "You know, for what that's worth."

[zuckered]

"Boar," Mark repeats, pausing with the burger only held inches from his mouth. The halting of the motion altogether seems to make him forget that the burger is even there in his hands, in spite of the way that it's still warm, the heat still rising off of the meat in the tiniest whorls of steam. Sometimes, being able to go off on tangents in the way that Mark does has led him to the best of discoveries, the most novel of ideas, of which facebook is only one. Little remarks about how some girls had FAS pictures that made them look like farm animals, cheekbones so hollow that they looked like those of a horse, or buck teeth showing with as much prominence as those of a rabbit's, leading ultimately to the construction of a site which allowed people to compare those occasionally devastating school pictures. The burger just hovers there, the grease gradually pooling until it drips onto Mark's plate. "How very Lost of them," he says, even closing his eyes as he tries to mentally tally up how many similarities there are between the worlds. Because now, suddenly, it seems completely possible that Mark's just passed out at the table and is having a weird, crazy dream where Eduardo isn't so furious, isn't newly returned to a state where wounds hadn't festered for years yet. The fact that it makes something twinge deep in his chest, that he tries to ignore.

But they're on an island. And there's no safe way off the island. And boar is more common than cows. And Eduardo is wearing clothes that he never would have dreamed of wearing back home. That's similar enough, he thinks, eyes suddenly opening as he narrows his focus, trying to stare at Eduardo, find anything that might be indicative of Mark's hopes rather than the reality, the hope that only ever manifests in dreams.

Even things like facebook still succeeding in 2010? Possibly succeeding and still adhering to Mark's principles? That sounds too good to be true. And it takes Mark's head bobbing enough that his chin bumps against the side of his burger before he's brought back to the lure of food, taking a large bite and chewing thoughtfully.

(And contrary to what most people think, his mother did in fact teach him manners, so he swallows before saying the rest.)

"I'll probably have sold it by 2010," he says with a shrug, face forcibly impassive, save for the slightly melancholy tinge in his eyes. "It's. I'll probably have sold it. Size was never the goal."

[pointzerothree]

"No, it wasn't," Eduardo agrees, like Mark could possibly need his agreement at all, though it takes a considerable deal of effort to keep any bitterness from showing in his expression, and the accompanying comment from getting any farther than the tip of his tongue. Of course size wasn't the goal; cool was the goal, and they fucking achieved that, at his own expense. (He has to wonder, sometimes, if it was really worth it, for Mark to lose the one person who ever really cared about him. It's only ever a moment, though, and then he remembers that of course it was. He could never have compared to the website, to Sean in that world. He doesn't regret trying, but it was always going to have been a fruitless battle.) Even for all his desire not to ruin this by starting another argument, it's still more than he can think about; he has to take a bite of his own burger to prevent himself from saying what he knows he'd regret. He focuses instead on the rest of Mark's actual comment, what he can't quite wrap his head around. Maybe it's the product of those four years he missed out on; maybe it's just trying to make sense of what otherwise doesn't. Having no idea either way, he shakes his head. "I haven't heard anything about it getting sold, though. Would you even want to?"

It's curiosity that prompts the question, the reminder, again, that he doesn't know Mark like he thought he did. Or maybe it's just that the idea is surreal. God knows he never expected them to go as far as they did, and certainly not as far as he's heard they'll go. They were a bunch of college kids writing on a window, comparing female undergrads, but the impression they leave — and he excludes himself from this, now, even having been told that Mark means to put his name back on the masthead — is apparently a lasting one. In a way, it's almost eerie, how something so big could start so simple. For all he knows, that was the problem in the first place, too much too soon.

[zuckered]

The fact that Eduardo has to ask this question of Mark isn't something that surprises him, even with his brain addled as it is right now. Part of it is the fact that Eduardo's always been considerate, so on and so forth, he's been through it so many times in his head that's it's just fact anymore, that Eduardo bends back so much that he'd make a gymnast jealous on some kind of ridiculous metaphorical level. But part of it is also because that Mark very firmly believes, even after having met Sean, even after having found so many engineers who see almost eye-to-eye with him on facebook, and on programming, and everything in that general field, that no one will ever truly understand what this company means to him, no one but Mark himself. It's not just about being cool. It's not just about having accomplished something. It's literally composing another part of himself, one that people like somehow, even if it's been packaged and repackaged and kind of hammered down beyond recognition. The thing about building oneself, though, is that it's a neverending process, even moreso than fashion is (or maybe fashion's just another example, honestly, if you buy the fact that fashion's a representation of self). There are parts that one builds up and parts that one shaves down, and with facebook becoming ever more publicized and commercialized, Mark can see himself shutting that off at some point. Ideally, he wouldn't have to focus on that, someday.

He hates the fact that he's thinking about this at all, but where sometimes liquor slows people down to a screeching halt, today it feels like he's sitting on some kind of crazed train car careening without stop and in a million different directions, rickety enough that it nearly bumps him out entirely.

"Maybe," he says with a shrug, trying to pass this off as just another thing, some nebulous thing, an idea that might get passed along because Mark's always been that level of impetuous. "Maybe. Believe it or not, there are more important things than facebook, Wardo."

Maybe the word 'me' is missing somewhere in that statement, but sometimes Mark feels like he uses it enough anyway.

[pointzerothree]

It's another statement — there've been so many, now, he's begun to lose count, or at least it feels that way — that Eduardo isn't sure if he's reassured or disheartened by, the implication such that it could go either way. Of course there are more important things than Facebook; he's believed that from the start, the website not so much of a priority as Mark himself. Now, though, in this context, it hurts, he can't deny that. There are more important things than Facebook, but he obviously wasn't one of them, didn't even come close. And while maybe that wasn't a realization that should have been surprising, everything having led up to it, the blow had still been a hard one. He hadn't expected he would rank quite so low. Of course, here and now, there's also the chance that Mark is trying to communicate something with it, in his own backwards way, and Eduardo can't rule that out. He can't hope for it, but while he can't count on much from Mark, earlier conversation has taught him not to underestimate, too. All of it leaves him torn, somewhere in the middle, much like he's been for the majority of the evening. (What is he that Mark could still do this to him, he doesn't know, but it's there and he's unable to ignore it.)

"I believe it," he says after a few seconds, able to give that much regardless of how he interprets the statement. There are more important things than Facebook but he couldn't even compare to that, and still he sits here, knowing full well that he would still give Mark whatever he needed. Maybe he's changed, maybe they both have, but it hasn't been by that much. Taking a bite of his own burger, chewing thoughtfully and then swallowing, he shrugs. "Guess you never know when it comes to the future, though. There's a bookshelf, I bet you might be able to find something that'll give you some information." It's the least he can do. Even here, without internet, he'd guess that Mark would put the website before him.

[zuckered]

He chews, slowly. Because that buys him time. Each bite of his burger and each passing second brings back a bit of his sobriety, after all, and Mark doesn't need very much of it to start his thoughts again. Mostly, he's trying to figure out if he's still reading Eduardo right. There's no way that Eduardo, when he's from, wants to talk about facebook, or should have any reason for pushing Mark right back to the company. Mark understands the notion of morbid fascination and curiosity, and facebook itself kind of relies on that notion. People are much more willing to call others friends if that gives them the right to snoop around. So Mark gets that, but he doesn't think that Eduardo can be boiled down to something so base and simple, and that just makes him wonder, why is facebook coming up again? Is it because Eduardo's trying to help ease the transition period for Mark on the island?

Mark doesn't know. All he knows is that there's that light wrinkle of his nose as he looks up, swallowing another bite of his burger and downing some of his ice water before his slouch straightens just slightly, his body still swaying left and right.

"Can we stop?" he asks, abruptly, perhaps more plainly than he might have if sober. "Talking about facebook. Why are we talking about facebook? I don't want to talk about it. Tell me what you've been up to. People you've met. Things you do. Tell me that you still follow the weather."

[pointzerothree]

The question makes Eduardo's chest grow tight, something that he tries to hide by keeping his expression as even as possible. For his part, Facebook is probably the last thing he wants to be talking about, but he's too used to Mark's life revolving around it; as far as he can see, catching up with Mark and catching up with the website should be synonymous. (Even now, even after what was done to him, it still comes down to wanting to keep Mark comfortable and happy, even if that means it's at his own expense.) Mark is asking questions, though, and it's kind of fucking surreal, leaving him with a mess of emotions that he can't even begin to make sense of. There's the implication of change, of course — Mark wants to hear about him, and that actually feels great, even though it probably shouldn't — but he's also misstepped, misjudged, and that's frustrating and worrying all in one go. (He doesn't need a reminder that he doesn't know Mark as well as he's always thought, and he doesn't need to be fucking up this early on.)

"I thought you'd want to talk about it," he says, voice even, a little quieter. He doesn't quite meet Mark's gaze when he speaks, but he looks up a moment after, not about to press the subject. He has no reason to. "But, uh, sure, we can stop. The weather, there wouldn't really be any point, it's a lot of the same or it's — it's completely fucking batshit. I'm talking, like, a month of snow, or a hurricane at the wrong time of year without any indicators, or —" Trailing off, he shakes his head. "The point is, I wish I could, but I don't." It's the sort of thing that he could go on and on about, just like the lack of economy (and really, it's just his luck, getting stuck in a place with no economy and unpredictable weather), but despite the comment, he can't imagine that Mark is actually all that interested. There's plenty else he can talk about, however awkward it may be to segue into it. "As for people, um." He lifts a hand to the back of his neck, temporarily ignoring his food. This was bound to come up at some point, really, and it's probably better that he tell Mark than risk the two of them running into each other without warning. (He'll have to tell her, too, something he's thought about a few times over the course of the evening, but there's nothing he can do about that now.) "There's a girl. Her name is Olive. I, I really like her."

[zuckered]

The problem with talking about facebook is that it has to be with someone who cares. Cares, not only in the vague sense that facebook is what Mark's been pouring himself into the past few years, but cares for the concept of facebook altogether, a way of maintaining social webs and even of extending them, digital ties somehow stronger than those forged in person— at least, on average. All of those faceless names from high school, now they're practically unearthing themselves. But Eduardo's never cared about that in the same way that Mark has, as far as the latter can tell, and judging by the usership of facebook, it isn't too hard to imagine why that is. There's that pesky three-quarters of the country that hasn't bothered signing up for an account, and when you shave off the elderly and the overly young, the portion of young adults who avoid the site seem to be those who are perfectly content with the way their lives progress and social circles have been drawn. Eduardo's always been good at that. Making friends, keeping them; if it wasn't for Mark, he's sure that Eduardo would be president of the UC or something else equally as renown. It's only that old adage, the one that says you can measure a person by their choice in friends, that probably draws a berth around the other man now. What does being Mark Zuckerberg's best friend, former or otherwise, say about anyone?

Poor judgment.

But there's no need to harp upon Mark's absolute distaste for talk of facebook right now, not when there's a pretty decent burger that needs eating, and a dizziness that much resembles vertigo that Mark is keen on stamping out. And, apparently a girl in the works too, a fact that focuses his gaze. Some people raise their eyebrows, but Mark's true show of attention is a quality in his eyes, their color nearly darkened by the shadow of his brows as he tries to discern just what 'like' means here.

"Okay," he nods. "There's a girl named Olive. And you really like her. What of it? Co-founder of a billion-dollar corporation, that should get you pretty far right there." In the back of his mind, he can even hear Erica's disapproval. For now, he ignores that.

[pointzerothree]

That quickly, so quickly, Eduardo goes tense, a visible straightening of his spine and locking of his shoulders, jaw set as he stares across the table at Mark. He remembers his burger, but catching sight of it out of what approximates to peripheral vision, he finds that he's completely lost his appetite. It's a textbook fucking Mark statement, but it isn't just about him, now, someone else being insulted in such an implication, someone he cares about — loves as deeply as he's only ever loved Mark, the same and not all at once — who was once believed to have been trading sex for money. Mark doesn't even know her, and already he's written her off as something similar. There's a lot Eduardo will stand for, even now, after having been cut out of the company and Mark's life, but this isn't one of those things. He has a limit. He reached it in a Palo Alto hallway and he reached it slamming a computer against a desk and he's reached it now, on Olive's behalf.

He wishes they'd kept talking about Facebook.

(The funny thing, the really fucking ironic thing, is that if it were only him being insulted, or him and some girl he might have thought hot, it wouldn't have mattered. Hell, it would practically be keeping to a pattern. How do you do that thing where you manage to get all girls to hate us and why do I let you? he asked Mark once (possibly more than once); this would be nothing more than a reversal of that. Where Mark prevented him from getting laid before, he'd be enabling it now, with his company and the fame that brought with it. In the days of groupies, Eduardo had no problem with that, was perfectly willing to take whatever perks came with being Facebook's co-founder. That was before California, though, and three-hundredths of a percent, and whatever fractured remains their friendship has broken down to. He could take it, is perfectly used to being put down by Mark, intentionally or not, but he still wouldn't capitalize on the inherent offer.)

"It's not like that," he says tightly, colder than he's used to being with Mark, one hand curled around the edge of the table just for something to hold on to. In a way, it feels strangely like talking about Mark: like he would have if the Winklevosses ever let him give them a piece of his mind, or like he did with several people following FaceMash, so quick to defend whatever the cost. He wonders, briefly, if Mark will recognize that, wonders what he'll think if he does, then pushes the thought aside. "She's not like that. It's not — this isn't Christy and Alice dragging us into a bathroom to blow us. When I say I like her, I mean I —" He falters, briefly, tip of his tongue pressed to the bottom of his teeth. "I love her." The words hang too heavy in the air between them, foreign even now in the way they feel to speak, and finally, he averts his gaze, glancing at the food he has no intention of eating. "And it'd be hard to get far on being the co-founder of a company you were written out of."

[zuckered]

His eyes follow the movement. The thin press of Eduardo's lips, and the hand that goes to the table, fingers gripping tight. That's when all of this feels too familiar, and suddenly he needs nothing more than to get out of there, to leave, to see anything other than the fucking cycle he's been run through time and time again in the past few years. He can't take it anymore. He can't, and the stress has him feeling very much like elastic stretched too far, some part of him snapping, the rest of him liable to follow. It's not even the fact that Wardo's suddenly loving someone Mark doesn't even know that bothers him— he's been prepared to face a different Eduardo for months now leading up to the deposition. It's that Eduardo expects the worst from Mark. He thinks Mark's an asshole now. Maybe he is. But it isn't fair.

It isn't fair, that Eduardo should accuse Mark of planting the story about the chicken. It isn't fair, that Erica should think an offer of networking some kind of personal slight against herself. He's not being purposely malicious; if anything, he just wants to bolster Eduardo's confidence in the matter, thinking that Christy is, to this version of Wardo, a recent memory. Mark just wants to reassure Eduardo that not all girls are like Christy, and that Eduardo doesn't need to stoop to the level of the desperate and insane, not with all that he has under his belt, all the accomplishments that at least can play that initial role of pulling others to him. But suddenly he's being blamed for that too, even if it's just a fact that girls do flock around them for that reason. Suddenly, the fact that he tried to impress Erica with that very same website, it curdles in his stomach, sours everything.

If Eduardo doesn't plan on ever forgiving him, and if he's already made his judgments here on the island, then there's no point, and Mark's chasing a star even more distant than a billion dollars. It's nearly impossible to swallow the bite of burger he has in his mouth, but he manages, before reaching for the ketchup and dropping a large dollop of it onto his plate. Because he'll be hungry later. He's learned to hoard food from living at Kirkland; the dining hall's pretty small, often crowded. There's no sense in wasting a perfectly good burger.

"Maybe you should tell her that," he says tersely. He drags himself up from his seat, as though they're just at Kirkland and all he needs to do is carry that plate back to his room, turning around to face the exit with a slight misstep, alcohol leaving him off-balance.