"What are you doing?"

Roger looked down at the spectacled filmmaker sprawled on the ground in a tangle of brown glossy filmstrips.

"We don't have enough money to buy garland and crap for the tree. I'm going to use these old film reels instead."

"What if you decide you need them later?"

"Come look, do you really want this stuff saved?"

"And here's Roger. He's a little stoned at the moment. Yay for coping mechanisms!" Mark quipped.

It was the three-month anniversary of April's death and Roger was taking it hard. He still blamed himself for leaving her alone that day.

"Fuck you." Roger slurred.

"And he speaks! That's pretty rare these days. If we had the money he'd be going to rehab. For now, we're just trying to keep him alive and away from the general public."

Bailing him out of jail once had depleted the group's collective emergency funds. Collins wanted to leave his ass in the slammer for a while to 'let the message sink in' but Mark let it slip that Roger was HIV positive and that was the end of that.

"So what are your plans for Christmas, Roger? Adding a little more snow to the loft?"

He'd traded injecting heroin for snorting cocaine. There was a fine film on most of the flat surfaces.

Roger continued staring at the floor, eyes bloodshot and unfocused.

"And that's what most of our days have been like for the past three months. We won't even get into the times he was toasted and April was still alive. The two of them were a car crash to remember."

"Wave goodbye to the camera Roger."

There was a vague blur that resembled the sticking up of a certain finger.

"That's the closest you're going to get. Please help us."

Mark turned off the camera.

"You better pray that these people are serious about paying for your rehab, man."

Mark prepared the film to be sent out. Only five guys in all of New York City would be chosen for the free state rehab program. Mark hadn't been religious for the balance of his life but lately he'd been praying a lot.

"Shit, Mark. Why the fuck did you save that?"

"I just never threw it out after they sent it back with your rejection letter."

"I was such a wreck."

"Yeah, you really were."

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

"Do you?"

Roger knelt down so he was facing Mark and cupped the pale man's chin with his calloused hand.

"Thank you."

And Mark expressed his gratitude in the best way he knew how.

Lips met lips

And heart met heart

The two roommates

Became lovers

Never to part.

Through good times

And bad

Christmas and

Spring

Mark and Roger

Were the couple to be.

Speaking without words

And feelings the same.

The best things are worth

Waiting for

And wait they did.

Though miracles

Are but illusions

Sometimes it's better

To forget

Reality

And rely

On emotions.