fic(let): tsn; untitled

[mooging]

This barely even deserves its own post, because it is so short and also because I wrote it at like two in the morning when I'd just seen The Village and shouldn't have been writing anything, but NEVER MIND! #fandoms that make you do stupid things. YOU MAKE ME TOUCH YOUR HANDS FOR STUPID REASONS.

fandom: the social network
pairing: mark/eduardo
disclaimer: a) the village is not mine, b) based on the characters as presented in the 2010 film and not their real-life counterparts, c) I own nothing, ever.
rating: g/pg
word count: ~450
summary: the village au. Mark presses his face against Eduardo's neck, lies flush against him in Eduardo's small, narrow bed, and pretends he does not think of what may lie beyond the village boundaries.
a/n: almost unbearably pretentious! ~great life decisions~



Eduardo is the same age as Mark, but he is the schoolteacher for the youngest children in the village. He knows how to make them smile, and laugh, and how to hold the chalk so that they do not dirty their clothes. He teaches them math, simple sums and equations, and spelling, shaky, child-scrawled shapes of letters marking out love, faith, hope, taking in their chalkboards each night and returning them by morning, praiseful and encouraging.

Mark knows he has more to teach the children than Eduardo, but he also knows Eduardo is the right person to teach it.

//

They hold each other by night, when the village is silent and asleep. Mark presses his face against Eduardo's neck, lies flush against him in Eduardo's small, narrow bed, and pretends he does not think of what may lie beyond the village boundaries.

//

They are told it cannot be allowed, that beyond the village there have been men like them before, men who have longed for each other beyond the bounds of companionship, men who do not desire women in the way they are told that they ought. They are told that beyond the village, there have been such men that have fallen to vice, and who have tempted the creatures to cross the peaceful line. They are told that they cannot, and they are judged, but they are never told to stop.

//

In the dead of night, when Eduardo is silent and asleep, Mark presses his face against Eduardo's neck. "I would cross the bounds for you," he says, quiet, reverent in the still, dark room. "I would go to the towns."

//

Eduardo teaches in his classroom that the children must love above all, that love is what defines them, that the mere capacity to love elevates them above the beasts prowling the forests. He tells Mark, when they are alone, that he does not know if this is true, that when he loves, it hurts as though it is the beast and he the prey beneath it. Mark knows that he teaches the truth, for when Mark loves, when he joins his hand in Eduardo's beneath their blankets or meets his gaze by day, he feels higher than the treetops, lifted out of his skin to look down upon himself, and judge it right.

//

One night, when Mark is silent but wakeful, Eduardo presses his face against Mark's neck. "I would cross the bounds again for you," he says, roughly, wet. "I don't regret it."

Mark takes his hand under the bedclothes, and says, "I know, Wardo," and they hold on to each other until the first light of dawn.

//

I have a thread up at help_japan here.

Comments

[moogle62.livejournal.com]

Thank you <3 The atmosphere in the film is my favourite part of it, apart from the score, which I love. I can totally see why people don't like the film, but it got me at an impressionable age and gave me ~feelings~.

ALSO THIS COMMENT MADE ME WANT TO WATCH SOME TWILIGHT ZONE.