Work Text:
On the old couch in the loft, Roger and Mimi are cuddled up together. Mark tilts his camera up from his spot on the floor. Mid-shot of their arms wrapped around each other; their faces are close together. They’re looking into each other’s eyes with soft gazes reserved only for them.
On the other end of the couch, Joanne is settled on Maureen’s lap. Maureen’s chin resting on her shoulder. Mark resets his camera. Close up. He gets half of each of their faces, focusing on the curves and lines of the way Maureen fits with Joanne like a puzzle piece.
Up, behind the couch, in the kitchen, Angel and Collins are holding each other. Mark adjusts his camera again for a wide shot, capturing the way the sway with each other to music that isn’t really playing.
If things were different, Benny and Allison would be there too. Mark can imagine the close up of their hands clasped together, matching gold rings on their left hands.
Mark is acutely aware of the silence resonating in the apartment. Everyone is too wrapped up in each other. Simply just existing in the space together. It makes Mark uncomfortable when he lowers his camera. He stands quietly and takes his camera with him to his bedroom.
He can’t really edit his film there. He doesn’t have the equipment, but he can write his script, write how he will reorder what he already has with the new shots he’s taken in the last few days.
A story that started out about one of friends has turned to one of lovers. He’s captured all kinds of intimate moments between his friends. Maureen and Joanne screaming at each other until they started kissing instead. Mimi and Roger crying softly together after being reminded of their respective pasts. Angel looking after Collins when he had the flu, and no one was certain he’d pull through.
Mark does not include a sliver of himself in the film. Of course, the others have picked up the camera and turned it on him, but Mark leaves those memories for himself. After all Mark is simply a bystander to the lives of his friends around him.
He knows what he’s making the film for. It’s selfish. It’s not even really for anyone else to see, no matter how much he wants to be successful. It’s to preserve the best moments of his life. To preserve his memory of his friends that will either die or leave him once the others are gone. If he has to watch his friends decay before they go, he can at least remember them when they were happy and full of life.
He can hear movement in the loft now. The quiet time is over and now Mark must join them while he still can.