The Double Standard

"September twenty ninth, six fifteen PM, eastern standard time, Collins got his job back at MIT. To celebrate-"

"Mark is putting his camera away."

Mark frowns, tucking the camera in the crook of his arm at Collins request. He can't quite bring himself to turn it off completely and keeps it rolling, pointed at Maureen and Joanne as they walk into the Life. Maureen has a hasty bounce in her step, saying something to Joanne the others can't hear yet and talking mostly with her hands. Beside her, the usually rational Joanne looks slightly insane trying to match Maureen's wild hand motions and constant chatter. From the curl of the booth where Roger and her are cuddled together, Mimi giggles. "Trouble in paradise."

Collins laughs and says, "You call that paradise?"

Maureen sits at the table in an obvious huff. She has a flair for making everything obvious except what she's actually thinking. Mark sets the camera on the table, aimed at her without being too obvious. Maybe that's how she's so good at hiding things. No one wants to look past the blindly colorful masquerade mask she wears around like an iron cage to keep herself safe.

Mark makes a mental note to say that to the camera later.

Joanne greets everyone with a stiff sounding hello as she slides in next to her girlfriend. Maureen doesn't bother with politeness. "Mark, you think I'm a good actress, right pookie?"

Roger, Collins, and Mimi laugh. Joanne doesn't look so amused. Blushing, Mark says, "I gu-"

"He didn't even see you," Joanne insists, not so much to save Mark from having to stumble through an answer as to just cut Maureen off before she makes too much of a scene. "How is he going to help?"

Without loosing a beat, almost so quick it seems scripted, Maureen turns and snaps in Joanne's face. "Mark sees everything," she says, as if this is some sort of universal knowledge Joanne shouldn't even question.

"I wasn't there, Maureen," Mark replies, exasperated that he might be dragged into another fight. Of course, even if he complains he never says no and opts out. He's too much of a sucker for her, just like Roger has always said. He's too predictably nice. "How could I have seen it?"

Joanne's smirks triumphantly, but this only makes Maureen that much more determined to win their little argument.

Mark winds up the camera as the film just about snaps. Collins is eyeing it, knows it's on but doesn't say anything. Probably figures having him hide behind his camera is better than having him fully in between Maureen and Joanne's tiff. Mark's still thinking about Maureen's comment, wondering if maybe he does see more than most people give him credit for. No. Mark doesn't see any different than anyone else. Not really. He just pays more attention to what he sees.

Like how Collins comes home almost every night with grass stains on his pants, and Mark knows the only plot of dirt he'd be kneeling on. They're easy dots to connect if you know what to look for.

Or the way Joanne's hand tightens around Maureen's shoulder, arm, leg, back, whatever when a pretty girl walks by, and even if Maureen starts to flirt she lean closer to her girlfriend. He notices that because he's sure she never did anything like that for him.

Or the way Mimi's been using her right hand all day, always keeping the left one out of sight. Right now it's tuck under the table where no one can see the dull golden colored band. Her and Roger exchange quick smiles when they think no one is watching, but of course Mark is always watching Roger.

"It's horrible," Maureen says, and no one tries to argue with her for now. The only one brave enough to attempt it is Joanne, and from the look on her face she's getting sick of this particular conversation. "They way they let her off easier, just because of her breast and ass and - Ick! I mean, so she's pretty! She should still be a good dancer! It's a... a..."

"A double standard," Mark supplies, holding his camera up and catching Mimi. She smiles at Roger, unaware that Mark already knows what she's grinning about.

"Exactly!" Maureen says, snaps, shouts loud enough that the next table over looks up to see who is causing all the commotion. Joanne groans, slumping over the table. "A double standard. It should be illegal, the way she gets what she wants because she has a good plastic surgeon."

Focus on Roger whose hand is also hidden, most likely entwined with Mimi's. He's smiling down at the off screen tangle of fingers, happier than Mark has seen him in a long while. Maybe ever. He'll have to go through his old April film to be sure. His old concert movies of The Well Hungarians just to double check, and not because he feels the need to see Roger happy and healthy and smiling at him through the camera. Roger and Mimi are so caught up in each other they haven't even noticed they're being filmed yet.

Roger doesn't notice Mark, but that's really nothing new.

He looks up from the camera only when Joanne makes that sound at the back of her throat. The one that means she's sick of being the passive girlfriend and is about to get serious. Mark never back talked Maureen. Not until the very end when she started to cheat and it was so obvious he had to say something. Watching Joanne snap at Maureen, it's almost pleasing. Vicarious payback. Only sometimes he gets the vague feeling that Maureen likes it. Likes not being given her way so easily every single time. Her and Joanne are certainly a match, then. "Can we please talk about something else? The entire café does not need to hear about your audition, Maureen."

"It's injustice!" Tell it, Maureen.

Close on Roger. His lips, his smile, his eyes. Mark has definitely never seen him happier.

It's not that Mark sees any better than anyone else, it's just that sometimes, on certain occasions, all his friends are completely blind. He doesn't mind. Doesn't mind his friends being so damn visually impaired. Not if it saves him from the awkward questions, the worried half smiles, the pity. Even if they saw what Mark sees they couldn't change a thing. The empty twist in his stomach watching Mimi and Roger trying to choke down their soft laughter, their utter euphoria, it would still be there. It would just be accompanied by Roger trying to act apologetic. By Mimi flashing him sad smiles.

Mark would like to think he's a good enough person not to want to damper his friends' moment of bliss like that, but sometimes he worries it's all just selfish. After all, who wants pity instead of love? Better to have neither.

"Well, it would be hard to prove," Joanne's tone is lawyer professional. "You're not exactly hideous, and the girl was a trained actress."

Fight. Fight. Fight.

Maureen pouts. She's used that look a hundred times on Mark, and he fell at her feet every time. He gets the feeling one of the things Maureen likes is that Joanne rolls her eyes and doesn't jump head first into whatever Maureen asks her to do. "What, you mean I can't be discriminated against? You mean I'm ugly but I'm not that ugly?"

"That's not what I meant, Maureen."

Mimi's smile turns wicked. Both bodies on camera shift a little in the booth. Something happens hidden from Mark's camera lens that makes Roger chuckle and blush. They kiss, still oblivious to the fact that they're being watched. Still oblivious to the rest of the world. Mark tapes it all, imaging what would happen when the rest of the group heard the news. Collins would laugh, tell Roger he'd get him drunk as hell for the bachelor party. Joanne would try and act restrained for all of three seconds before smiling and congratulating them both, making sure to tell Roger how lucky he is. Maureen would probably jump Mimi, start planning every detail of the wedding on spot. Mark would... Mark would stand back and film it all, each reaction, so that he can watch it again and again and again.

Like as long as it's just a movie it's not real.

As long as he's on the outside, watching it unfold from a safe distances, it won't effect him. Because even if a movie touches the audience, even if a film can change their perspective or dig into their emotions it still isn't real. That's how Mark needs to keep his life sometimes. It can touch him, but it's not really his own.

He'd film it when Collins says how Roger's so lucky to find that girl willing to drag him out, forgetting how Mark kept him in and locked away from drugs.

Move around for another angle when Joanne says she's so proud, that they've been through so much. It would not be said that Mark had been the one who stuck around for Roger's withdrawal, for Mimi's too because it meant so much to Roger. Ended up thinking of her like a little sister, someone he loved unconditionally. It would have been easier to hate the bright eyed junkie who broke into their apartment and with only a smile and candle "cured" the dying songwriter Mark had spent so long cleaning up.

Hard to hate the girl he helped save, a girl closer to him than Cindy ever will be. He loves her and Roger loves her and there shouldn't be a problem. That's what makes it so easy to stay in the back, to pretend there isn't. It had been harder with April and needles, but with Mimi, with the way Roger smiles at her, Mark breaking into that would hurt Roger far too much.

"I'm just saying," Joanne sounds tried. Right now might be a good time for Mimi and Roger to come out with it, but Mark knows they won't. Know that Roger is scared. That he'll tell Mark first, nervous and unsure. Knows that he'll smile at his best friend, laugh, hug him close and tell him it's great, it's the best thing he could have heard, it's perfect, and part of him will mean it. "Maybe their decision had nothing to do with looks."

Mimi's first to notice the camera. She smiles at Mark and backs away when Roger leans in for another kiss. She gives a small wave. Mark points to the ring. The girl blushes, lowering her left hand and pressing a finger against her lips.

Now it's just a secret between the three of them. Something for them to share. Closest Mark will get to sharing any part of Roger that Mimi has.

"What's do you mean by that?" Maureen demands, voice lifting up again for the attention of the crowd. Most of the restaurant makes it a point to ignore her. "That she's more talented than me?"

"I never said that, Maureen."

Roger lays his head against Mimi, into Mark's frame. He smiles at Mark, for the camera, and Mark knows he's never seen him smile like that before. He would have remembered.

He can't hate Mimi, so he ends up hating himself. He should have been smarter than that. He should have known all that time in the loft with Roger would end up messing with his head. He should have should have recognized the feeling and got out while he still had the chance. He should have known better. He should have tried that candle trick ages ago.

Not that it would have worked for Mark. Roger would have laughed, ruffled his hair, called him a dork and ignore the way Mark would look hurt before he could grab his camera and disconnect. If all of this had happened any other way, if Mark had got Roger to leave the loft and start living again, it would have just been Roger sick of putting up with Mark's annoying determination. But since it was this bright-eyed girl who got him out everything is different. Roger is different, and even though Mark had been the one to soothed his best friend when he was shaking and vomiting and crying all those months after April's death, even he has to admit it is starting to feel like he was just holding a place for Mimi to come in and save him.

Maureen's still worked up and not about to let Joanne calm her down without a fight. "I still say the whole thing is unfair. A double standard."

Roger lets go of Mimi and moves across the booth. At first Mark tries to follow him with the camera, but Roger gets close enough that all he can see if frames of skin and hair. He's sliding right next to Mark, cupping the back of Mark's neck to pull them closer together, lips inches from each other to cut out the rest of the world.

If it had been Mimi under Roger's hand, Joanne would have told them to get a room. Collins would have told them that stripping right now and going at it on the table would be the best way to revolute against the nonanimalistic morals of today's society that go against man's basic nature. It's just Roger and Mark, though. Just two safe best friends sharing a secret, so no one says anything.

"You'll be the best man," Roger says. Pats Mark on the leg, leaving behind the heavy heat of his hand that burns through the denim and into Mark's skin. If he were Mimi he could close off those few extra breaths between them. No one would be surprised. Roger wouldn't push him away or ask Mark what the hell is wrong with him. He's not Mimi, though, and never will be. So Mark shrugs off the heat that coils in his stomach after Roger's touch and doesn't do anything rash.

Mark takes the camera down long enough to whisper back, "Do I get to film?" because it seems like the sort of thing he should ask. With the way his heart is being slowly picked apart, fighting with itself over what he should be feeling, going by some sort of unwritten script is the best Mark can do.

Would he rather have Roger, or have Roger happy? He doesn't get both, but maybe if he can stand at the back filming instead of thinking it won't hurt as much when he finally lets this fact sink in.

"What kind of wedding would it be if we didn't have you there to narrator it?" Roger asks, looking up to make sure Joanne and Maureen were still squabbling, Mimi keeping Collins busy with useless chatter. Mark knew he'd be the first one told, because he always is. It shouldn't sting so much that Roger needs his approval before he can tell anyone else. He should feel like a proud best friend, not the loser.

Mark struggles away from Roger's hand so that he has enough room to hoists the camera back up, aiming it at Mimi and Collins smiling over something. From the heartbreaking but determinedly happy look in Collins's eyes, chances are they're remembering New York's only real Angel. He tells Roger, "You'd probably forget your lines if I weren't reading them behind you."

Roger laughs and pulls away. He grabs Mimi, snuggling up against her, and Mark can see that he's doing the right thing. Chants it again and again in his head so that he'll start to believe what he already knows to be the truth.

The facts are that Roger and Mimi are in love. The facts are that they need, deserve, have to be together and it doesn't take a filmmaker to see that. The facts are that Collins will always have the memory of Angel to guide him through his life. The facts are that, for as much as they fight, Maureen has never been in love with someone as much as she has Joanne. The facts are that Mark doesn't need anyone. He's standing on the outside, alone, but able to almost feel the brush of warmth radiating from his friends. It hurts, but the facts are that sometimes life does.

Roger leans in, kissing Mimi's ear so he can whisper something to her without the attention of everyone else at the table. They both look at the camera, and Mimi giggles. She takes the hand out from under the table.

"I don't understand," Maureen says, sinking in her seat with a pout. "I have talent. I have breasts!" Despite this little outburst, Joanne is wearing a self-satisfied smirk. Whatever Mark hadn't been paying attention to while Roger and him were whispering she obviously feels good about it. "How can some people be so blind?"

Before they can make the announcement Mark is winding up the film for the big moment. He says, "Close on Roger..."