just a little fic I wrote when I saw the pictures Flanery posted on Norman's birthday.

The Camera

"Where the fuck did you get this thing from?"

Connor had been gone for thirty minutes. Only thirty minutes. And somehow, only god knew how, Murphy had managed to bring a polaroid camera to their apartment. The younger of the two MacManus twins was sitting on their shabby sofa and looked at the thing in his hands, and it looked like he had been taking pictures of himself to see if it still worked.

"Found it in the dumpster downstairs" the dark-haired muttered and shook the camera experimentally, then he raised his head to grin at his brother.

"Smile" he demanded and pressed the button, blinding Connor with the flash.

The blonde twin squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away.

"Jesus" he exclaimed and tried to grab the camera, but Murphy held it out of his reach and shook the picture to let it dry.

Connor walked past his twin to put their groceries on the kitchen table and lit a cigarette while doing so. Murphy started laughing a minute later, then he could hear another click. The blonde MacManus turned his head to see what was so funny and saw his brother on the couch with a picture in his hand, and he was grinning all the way through. When Murphy noticed that he was looking at him he started laughing again.

"A sight fer the gods. Connor MacManus: extra ugly" he announced and turned the picture around so his twin could take a look at it.

Connor dropped everything and approached his brother to have a look himself. There he was, all overexposed and eyes squeezed shut, and even he had to laugh because the picture really was ugly and funny. He tried to steal it, but Murphy held it out of his reach once again.

"Bullshit. So you got one bad picture af me. 'm still the prettier one and ye know it."

Murphy shook the picture in his hand to make Connor look at it again.

"Yer calling this pretty?"

His older half looked at the other pictures that were lying on Murphy's lap, all the pictures he had taken of himself when he had been testing the camera. Connor took one of those and laughed as well.

"Damn right! And here's te proof that yer the uglier brother. Just look at that. There's me, I just look like that cos you little fuck blinded me, but there ye go, great hair, dashing face..." he looked back at the picture of Murphy in his hands and laughed again. "And then there's ye, all bed head and fucking bangs. Seriously. Ye look like a fucking milksop like that. Like a fuckin baby face. Bangs. Ha."

Connor threw the picture in his brother's face and turned around again to get back to their groceries.

"Oh fuck ye, who was the one who cut my hair and fucked it all up! Ye did it on purpose!"

Connor, whose back was still turned on his younger half, grinned and tried not to laugh.

"I already told ye, it was an accident! I didn't mean ta cut it so short and awry!"

The blonde grinned even more. Of course he had done it on purpose.

"Yeah yeah.." Murphy muttered and got caught up with the camera again. It was quiet for a while apart from the clicking of the camera and the rustling of Connor's plastic bag, and when the younger MacManus wouldn't stop fiddling with the camera his twin turned around with a sigh. The blonde folded his arms and leaned against the kitchen counter to watch his younger half with a frown on his face.

"If I'd know that a fucking camera entertains ye that much.."

Murphy took another picture and shook the camera again.

"We should take a couple of pics of us in our apartment and send them ta Ma" he suggested and Connor snorted.

"Take a picture of this shithole? We better not."

The older twin watched his brother a little while longer until Murphy looked up and smiled at him.

"We could go outside. Go down Longfellow Bridge, take pictures there."

Connor raised an eyebrow and so did his younger half.

"Come on. Been too long since she last saw our faces. I thought we could give 'em ta her on mother's day or shit like that."

The other man sighed and shifted to get his pea coat.

"You and yer fucking camera."

Murphy gave him that grin, that victorious grin that always crossed his face whenever Connor did what he wanted.

Fucking spoiled brat.

"Did you just lick my face?!"

Connor wiped his right cheek in disgust and looked at his twin brother in disbelief. Murphy was grinning and laughing at him.
He took a drag on his cigarette and shook the new picture in his other hand to let it dry, and once it was finished he showed it Connor.

"I did" he said and laughed again. The picture turned out to be way more hilarious than he had wanted it to be. There Connor was, all serious and blue steel and perfect photo face for their mother, and there he was, facing his brother, pulling a face and sticking his tongue at his cheek. The blonde MacManus rolled his eyes and rubbed his cheek once more, then he turned around to enjoy the view for a bit. Truth was that he was a bit annoyed by the fact that Murphy couldn't take one fucking normal picture for once. It was obvious that his brother liked his new toy, he gave him that, but jesus. They weren't fucking five anymore...

"Okay. 'm done now. Let's take a decent pic" Murphy muttered and hit his brother's back to get him to turn around again.

Connor blew out some smoke and looked at the skyscrapers on the other side of the river.

"Just a sec."

Murphy placed himself right next to his brother and did the same. They were still not used to such a big city, but they liked Boston.
The fact that it smelled, that it was noisy and ugly. The younger of the two took another picture of the skyline after a while and Connor snorted.

"What, are ye some sorta tourist now?"

Murphy answered with a raised middle finger.

"Fuck ye. Those are fer Ma."

The blonde threw his finished cigarette and turned around with a sigh.

"Alright. Let's take another one. And no fucking about this time."

Connor was the one who was sitting on their couch and looking at the pictures this time.

The camera didn't work anymore.

He had tried to repair it, but it had been useless. The thing was now lying on the pile of old news papers right next to their couch, all they had left of it were the pictures. Just like any little thing Murphy had been given in his life the camera had soon been tossed in a corner, completely forgotten. For just a couple of weeks the younger of the twins had been running around with it, taking silly pictures of himself and other people, the city, or god knows what kind of trash he found, but he had lost interest in it soon. Connor had been even more surprised when he had decided to pick it up one day. He wasn't like Murphy, he didn't give a shit about patterns and buildings and people and faces, and he certainly wasn't any sort of artistic. His mind was all facts and figures and plans and numbers and order and lines. He was incapable to see what Murphy saw, so he didn't waste any time and paper on that. But there was one favourite subject which he had loved to take pictures of, and that was his own brother.

Countless shots of his twin posing for the camera, always smiling, always doing silly things, showing things, pulling faces, always in action. This was the true Murphy, the Murphy only he knew and saw everyday. Connor had always tried to ignore the camera, see it as a silly toy and nothing more. But now that he looked at all the pictures he had to realize that it was far more than that. The pictures didn't only show him the things that had happened, the moments they had captured, they also showed him how things really were. He looked at one picture after another, and there were far more pictures of Murphy than of anything or anyone else.

Soon Connor came across older pictures, back from when his brother had still been interested in the camera. The older MacManus had never really looked at the pictures before, because jesus, Murphy had taken a shitton of pictures, and many of them were pretty silly and useless. He saw loads of pictures of them at Doc's, their friends, them completely drunk and all sorts of things, but there were other pictures as well. He saw pictures of himself, how he was reading the paper in the morning, and other moments when he had been completely unaware of the fact that Murphy was taking pictures of him. And once again the camera showed him how things really were, showed him his true self. Because this was him, all private and at home and alone and quiet and caught up with something. Connor knew what his face looked like when he was posing for a camera, or when he was laughing and when he was happy, but truth was, he had no idea what he looked like on a daily basis. How Murphy saw him everyday. But now he had pictures of it. In his hands, and he was surprised how many there really were.

He had always thought that his brother had only ever used the camera to tease and annoy him, to take silly pictures and stupid pictures of him, but this was different. He looked at one picture after another and came to the conclusion that his brother was just as much of a secret stalker as him, because now there were just a whole bunch of pictures of him, hell, even one of him sleeping. Connor chuckled. Macho Murph. That fucking perverted softy. After shuffling through the photos he finally reached the very first ones, the ones they had taken down on the bridge. Just another bunch of silly ones, but then he discovered two photos of them which he actually really liked. Murphy wasn't fucking around too much in them. One of them looked really fucking perfect, the other one was just funny. Connor looked at the two pictures and remembered why they had taken them, then he got up to search for an envelope. He didn't have a hard time deciding which one he was going to send their Ma. And so it was, on the next day, that some of Murphy's pictures finally made their way to Ireland, the funny one right on top. Connor loved his mother very much, but he still had refused to sent her the best picture of them, because this one was just for them, this was the one that would greet them with happy smiles on their fridge every day.