daisysusan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
daisysusan) wrote2011-07-31 05:48 pm
daisysusan) wrote2011-07-31 05:48 pm
[fic] Body Language
Title: Body Language
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daisysusan
Fandom: The Social Network
Genre: Romance
Pairing: Mark/Chris
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,725
Summary: Chris gives Mark lessons in empathy.
Notes: Thanks toopheliahyde for reading this over and hapakitsune for her help as well.
Disclaimer: This story is about the fictional representations of these characters from the movie The Social Network, and is in no way a reflection on these actual people. I am making no money from this and am in no way affiliated with the movie itself. Also, seriously, if you found this by googling yourself, abort now, this is not a drill.
Body Language
Author:
daisysusan Fandom: The Social Network
Genre: Romance
Pairing: Mark/Chris
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,725
Summary: Chris gives Mark lessons in empathy.
Notes: Thanks to
opheliahyde for reading this over and hapakitsune for her help as well.Disclaimer: This story is about the fictional representations of these characters from the movie The Social Network, and is in no way a reflection on these actual people. I am making no money from this and am in no way affiliated with the movie itself. Also, seriously, if you found this by googling yourself, abort now, this is not a drill.
Body Language
Mark's been coding for eighteen hours. It's certainly not the strangest thing that he's ever done—or, for that matter, the longest coding binge he's even been on—but it's the middle of the week and Chris knows for a fact that nothing particularly important is happening with the site.
So it's a little weird.
Chris eyes him speculatively from across the fishbowl, considering approaching him but also vaguely hesitant to deal with a surly, distracted Mark. The thing is, though, it’s been years since Mark has done this for no good reason—not since Eduardo and the depositions and that whole clusterfuck; if anything, Mark has been getting better—taking (some) care of himself, making an effort at things he used to dismiss as beneath him.
So Chris decides to risk enraging Mark and actually ask him what’s wrong.
There are a variety of ways to pull Mark out of a coding binge—glaring at him until he notices, waving your hands in front of his face, poking him with pens—but the most effective with the least danger to the disruptor’s well-being is to rest a hand on his shoulder, unobtrusive but persistent.
Eventually, as always, Mark turns around and says, “Yeah?”
“Are you okay?” Chris asks.
“I’m fine,” Mark replies, half confused, and starts to turn back towards his monitor.
“Bullshit,” Chris says, flat.
“What are the chances of you just letting me get back to work?”
Chris sits down on the edge of the desk and smirks a little as he answers. “Slim to none. You should know that by now.”
“Fine,” Mark grumbles. “I went out to dinner with David last night, and he told me that I need to pay more attention to other people’s emotions, and that unless I can do that, we should probably take a break and see other people. It’s not a big deal.”
Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Chris bites back a thousand retorts about Mark being perfect just the way he is.
(Most of them aren’t entirely true anyway.)
“You know you shouldn’t take what he said to heart, right?” Chris begins, to which Mark nods briskly but says nothing. “He didn’t know you—before. You’ve gotten so much better.”
Mark turns the rest of the way back to his computer and starts typing.
Chris pretends he doesn’t hear him mutter, “But not enough better.”
--
A few nights later, Chris is woken by his phone ringing insistently. He answers it to hear Mark, in his tipsy-but-not-drunk voice, say “Hi, Chris.”
“Hi, Mark,” he replies, nonplussed.
“Can you help me with it?”
And, okay, Chris is patient with Mark because Mark’s his friend and he’s trying and that counts for a lot (and because there isn’t much he wouldn’t do for Mark, if asked), but calling him at two in the morning to ask cryptic questions is more than can reasonably—or unreasonably, for that matter—be asked of anyone.
“With what?” he asks, attempting to convey a glare through the phone.
“Withbeingmoreawareofotherpeople,” Mark mumbles, like it’s all one Mary-Poppins-esque word that Chris can barely understand through the haze of sleep.
“What?” Chris says. “I—okay.”
Mark starts to speak, but he cuts him off. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
--
The next morning, Mark is waiting at his desk when he comes in. “Hi,” he says, biting his lip.
“Good morning, Mark,” Chris answers. He considers adding, “So, you want lessons in empathy?” but decides to make sure Mark is still interested in pursing them while sober. (He wouldn’t mind having an out, either, because he has a hunch about why Mark wants them and he’s … not wild about helping Mark win back his ex.)
“So last night,” Mark starts, beet-red and staring at the floor, “Last night, I asked if you could help me be more aware of other people’s emotions and you said you would.”
So much for having an out, then.
Chris nods. “Yeah, I’ll help you.”
“Thank you,” Mark says, and then adds, surprisingly honest, “I just want to show David that I’m not completely hopeless.”
--
Mark suggests beginning the lessons the following week over lunch, so they do.
“Where do you want to start?” Chris begins, because really, he has no fucking clue what he’s doing here. He’s trying to teach to someone else what comes as naturally to him as breathing and is that even possible?
“Um,” Mark says. “Maybe with how people say all these things they don’t mean or don’t mean the things they say? And how I’m supposed to be able to tell the difference and sometimes say things like that, too.”
“Okay,” Chris says. “People say things they don’t mean when they want to avoid saying something too personal. Like, if you were going into a meeting with someone you barely know and they asked how you’re doing, you say that you’re fine, even if—” not if someone just broke up with you, that might hit a little close to home, “you’re having a really bad day.”
“That makes sense,” Mark says, considered. “I do that, too.”
Chris just keeps talking, fumbling for words, but it seems to be working. Mark is nodding and, more to the point, listening.
--
Lessons six is body language.
Or rather, lesson six is when everything gets really messy.
“You know the basics, right?” Chris starts. “Like, if someone tries to walk away from you, they want you to leave them alone.”
Mark laughs. “Yeah, I kinda figured that one out. What about the more complicated stuff?”
“Like what?” Chris asks.
“I don’t know. How to tell if someone is lying or deflecting. How to tell if someone likes me.”
He snorts. “Lying is kind of the million-dollar question, Mark. People have spent their entire lives trying to figure out a good way to tell when other people are lying. But I can hep with the other two.”
“That works,” Mark says with a small smile.
“People who are deflecting,” Chris explains, “Usually act a lot like people who aren’t interested, because they don’t want you to be. They’re terse and don’t elaborate on anything, because they don’t want to give away details. They try not to make eye contact.”
Mark nods.
“As for whether or not someone likes you, um, at the risk of sounding entirely like a middle school girl, do you mean likes you as a friend or likes-you likes you?”
When Mark reddens slightly, Chris has his answer.
“Um,” he begins, but trails off. He tries again. “Honestly, it’s probably easier to just demonstrate.”
Mark’s eyes widen slightly. “Okay,” he says, clearly nervous.
Chris smiles, somewhere between the grin he usually gives Mark and something coy and enticing that he’s really never had much occasion to use on anyone, and leans forward just a little. He makes direct eye contact with Mark, lets it linger until it’s just this side of uncomfortable, and then looks down and licks his lips.
He’s vaguely uncomfortable with how easy it was to put on the persona of trying to seduce Mark.
But when he looks back up, Mark is staring at him, his bottom lip bitten red and—Chris is not going to look at his eyes, because if they’re blown more black than blue, he really won’t be responsible for his actions and Mark asked him to do this for David. When he reaches to touch Mark’s hand lightly, Chris hears a soft hitch of breath.
He jerks back, suddenly upright in his chair, hands in his lap.
Mark is looking around nervously.
Chris kind of just wants to leave.
--
Mark’s waiting for him again the following morning.
Ever articulate, he opens with “Um,” as Chris walks in.
Chris, because he is sometimes a giant wimp, doesn’t make eye contact.
Like a challenge, Mark slips off the edge of the desk where he was perched and stands in front of him. “Do you like me?” he asks, blunt and guileless and thoroughly Mark.
Chris swallows hard.
“What?” he says. Apparently Mark’s level of articulate is catching.
“I think you do,” Mark continues.
“What makes you think that?” Chris asks, probably providing a great practical study for Mark about people who are deflecting, he thinks wryly.
Mark’s answering smile is almost coy, and Chris wonders absently if someone else is teaching him body language as well (and feels a stupid flare of jealousy that he is definitely ignoring). “I’ve been getting these lessons in body language from this great guy,” he says.
There’s a heavy pause, mostly because Chris is afraid that opening his mouth will cause all kinds of embarrassing things to spill out of it, and then Mark continues, “Only I kind of misled him.”
Chris’s eyes jerk up to Mark’s face faster than he really cares to admit.
“I told him they were so that I could impress my ex,” Mark says, almost hesitant now, “And I guess they kind of were, but they were also so I could impress him.”
Strangely, his first thought on hearing that is how unusual it is for Mark to be so forthcoming. The actual content doesn’t process until a moment later, and then he’s staring at Mark, trying not to gape or gasp or blush until he looks like a tomato.
“So,” Mark says again, “Do you like me?”
“I,” Chris says, “Fucking hell, Mark, I—Yes. Okay? I like you!” He’s maybe a little overwhelmed.
And then Mark is kissing him, and if he thought he was overwhelmed ten seconds ago, it’s nothing—nothing—on what it’s like to have Mark’s hands curled around the back of his neck, pulling him down and wrapping his own arms around Mark’s back to drag him closer, feeling the drag of Mark’s tongue against his and the prick of teeth against his lower lip.
After a long moment—very long, really—Chris realizes that this is all happening in the middle of the office and that, given his job, he should probably care a lot more. He tears his lips away from Mark’s but can’t quite bring himself to unwind his arms, and instead runs his hands lightly down Mark’s sides.
“By the way,” Mark says, his voice a little hoarse, “I like you too.”
Chris smiles so wide his face hurts a little bit. “It’s nice to see that those lessons are working.”
So it's a little weird.
Chris eyes him speculatively from across the fishbowl, considering approaching him but also vaguely hesitant to deal with a surly, distracted Mark. The thing is, though, it’s been years since Mark has done this for no good reason—not since Eduardo and the depositions and that whole clusterfuck; if anything, Mark has been getting better—taking (some) care of himself, making an effort at things he used to dismiss as beneath him.
So Chris decides to risk enraging Mark and actually ask him what’s wrong.
There are a variety of ways to pull Mark out of a coding binge—glaring at him until he notices, waving your hands in front of his face, poking him with pens—but the most effective with the least danger to the disruptor’s well-being is to rest a hand on his shoulder, unobtrusive but persistent.
Eventually, as always, Mark turns around and says, “Yeah?”
“Are you okay?” Chris asks.
“I’m fine,” Mark replies, half confused, and starts to turn back towards his monitor.
“Bullshit,” Chris says, flat.
“What are the chances of you just letting me get back to work?”
Chris sits down on the edge of the desk and smirks a little as he answers. “Slim to none. You should know that by now.”
“Fine,” Mark grumbles. “I went out to dinner with David last night, and he told me that I need to pay more attention to other people’s emotions, and that unless I can do that, we should probably take a break and see other people. It’s not a big deal.”
Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Chris bites back a thousand retorts about Mark being perfect just the way he is.
(Most of them aren’t entirely true anyway.)
“You know you shouldn’t take what he said to heart, right?” Chris begins, to which Mark nods briskly but says nothing. “He didn’t know you—before. You’ve gotten so much better.”
Mark turns the rest of the way back to his computer and starts typing.
Chris pretends he doesn’t hear him mutter, “But not enough better.”
--
A few nights later, Chris is woken by his phone ringing insistently. He answers it to hear Mark, in his tipsy-but-not-drunk voice, say “Hi, Chris.”
“Hi, Mark,” he replies, nonplussed.
“Can you help me with it?”
And, okay, Chris is patient with Mark because Mark’s his friend and he’s trying and that counts for a lot (and because there isn’t much he wouldn’t do for Mark, if asked), but calling him at two in the morning to ask cryptic questions is more than can reasonably—or unreasonably, for that matter—be asked of anyone.
“With what?” he asks, attempting to convey a glare through the phone.
“Withbeingmoreawareofotherpeople,” Mark mumbles, like it’s all one Mary-Poppins-esque word that Chris can barely understand through the haze of sleep.
“What?” Chris says. “I—okay.”
Mark starts to speak, but he cuts him off. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
--
The next morning, Mark is waiting at his desk when he comes in. “Hi,” he says, biting his lip.
“Good morning, Mark,” Chris answers. He considers adding, “So, you want lessons in empathy?” but decides to make sure Mark is still interested in pursing them while sober. (He wouldn’t mind having an out, either, because he has a hunch about why Mark wants them and he’s … not wild about helping Mark win back his ex.)
“So last night,” Mark starts, beet-red and staring at the floor, “Last night, I asked if you could help me be more aware of other people’s emotions and you said you would.”
So much for having an out, then.
Chris nods. “Yeah, I’ll help you.”
“Thank you,” Mark says, and then adds, surprisingly honest, “I just want to show David that I’m not completely hopeless.”
--
Mark suggests beginning the lessons the following week over lunch, so they do.
“Where do you want to start?” Chris begins, because really, he has no fucking clue what he’s doing here. He’s trying to teach to someone else what comes as naturally to him as breathing and is that even possible?
“Um,” Mark says. “Maybe with how people say all these things they don’t mean or don’t mean the things they say? And how I’m supposed to be able to tell the difference and sometimes say things like that, too.”
“Okay,” Chris says. “People say things they don’t mean when they want to avoid saying something too personal. Like, if you were going into a meeting with someone you barely know and they asked how you’re doing, you say that you’re fine, even if—” not if someone just broke up with you, that might hit a little close to home, “you’re having a really bad day.”
“That makes sense,” Mark says, considered. “I do that, too.”
Chris just keeps talking, fumbling for words, but it seems to be working. Mark is nodding and, more to the point, listening.
--
Lessons six is body language.
Or rather, lesson six is when everything gets really messy.
“You know the basics, right?” Chris starts. “Like, if someone tries to walk away from you, they want you to leave them alone.”
Mark laughs. “Yeah, I kinda figured that one out. What about the more complicated stuff?”
“Like what?” Chris asks.
“I don’t know. How to tell if someone is lying or deflecting. How to tell if someone likes me.”
He snorts. “Lying is kind of the million-dollar question, Mark. People have spent their entire lives trying to figure out a good way to tell when other people are lying. But I can hep with the other two.”
“That works,” Mark says with a small smile.
“People who are deflecting,” Chris explains, “Usually act a lot like people who aren’t interested, because they don’t want you to be. They’re terse and don’t elaborate on anything, because they don’t want to give away details. They try not to make eye contact.”
Mark nods.
“As for whether or not someone likes you, um, at the risk of sounding entirely like a middle school girl, do you mean likes you as a friend or likes-you likes you?”
When Mark reddens slightly, Chris has his answer.
“Um,” he begins, but trails off. He tries again. “Honestly, it’s probably easier to just demonstrate.”
Mark’s eyes widen slightly. “Okay,” he says, clearly nervous.
Chris smiles, somewhere between the grin he usually gives Mark and something coy and enticing that he’s really never had much occasion to use on anyone, and leans forward just a little. He makes direct eye contact with Mark, lets it linger until it’s just this side of uncomfortable, and then looks down and licks his lips.
He’s vaguely uncomfortable with how easy it was to put on the persona of trying to seduce Mark.
But when he looks back up, Mark is staring at him, his bottom lip bitten red and—Chris is not going to look at his eyes, because if they’re blown more black than blue, he really won’t be responsible for his actions and Mark asked him to do this for David. When he reaches to touch Mark’s hand lightly, Chris hears a soft hitch of breath.
He jerks back, suddenly upright in his chair, hands in his lap.
Mark is looking around nervously.
Chris kind of just wants to leave.
--
Mark’s waiting for him again the following morning.
Ever articulate, he opens with “Um,” as Chris walks in.
Chris, because he is sometimes a giant wimp, doesn’t make eye contact.
Like a challenge, Mark slips off the edge of the desk where he was perched and stands in front of him. “Do you like me?” he asks, blunt and guileless and thoroughly Mark.
Chris swallows hard.
“What?” he says. Apparently Mark’s level of articulate is catching.
“I think you do,” Mark continues.
“What makes you think that?” Chris asks, probably providing a great practical study for Mark about people who are deflecting, he thinks wryly.
Mark’s answering smile is almost coy, and Chris wonders absently if someone else is teaching him body language as well (and feels a stupid flare of jealousy that he is definitely ignoring). “I’ve been getting these lessons in body language from this great guy,” he says.
There’s a heavy pause, mostly because Chris is afraid that opening his mouth will cause all kinds of embarrassing things to spill out of it, and then Mark continues, “Only I kind of misled him.”
Chris’s eyes jerk up to Mark’s face faster than he really cares to admit.
“I told him they were so that I could impress my ex,” Mark says, almost hesitant now, “And I guess they kind of were, but they were also so I could impress him.”
Strangely, his first thought on hearing that is how unusual it is for Mark to be so forthcoming. The actual content doesn’t process until a moment later, and then he’s staring at Mark, trying not to gape or gasp or blush until he looks like a tomato.
“So,” Mark says again, “Do you like me?”
“I,” Chris says, “Fucking hell, Mark, I—Yes. Okay? I like you!” He’s maybe a little overwhelmed.
And then Mark is kissing him, and if he thought he was overwhelmed ten seconds ago, it’s nothing—nothing—on what it’s like to have Mark’s hands curled around the back of his neck, pulling him down and wrapping his own arms around Mark’s back to drag him closer, feeling the drag of Mark’s tongue against his and the prick of teeth against his lower lip.
After a long moment—very long, really—Chris realizes that this is all happening in the middle of the office and that, given his job, he should probably care a lot more. He tears his lips away from Mark’s but can’t quite bring himself to unwind his arms, and instead runs his hands lightly down Mark’s sides.
“By the way,” Mark says, his voice a little hoarse, “I like you too.”
Chris smiles so wide his face hurts a little bit. “It’s nice to see that those lessons are working.”