Author's Note: Hey all, back again with the 2nd chapter. Let me know what you think, eh? I want to know if I should still continue this. Do I hear more reviews? )

Benny's room was suddenly suffocating me.

And I couldn't stand sitting on that bed knowing living just down the hall were the people I had always wished were real.

The loft was cold, but I shed my jacket and left it on Benny's bed. Cautiously, I padded down the hall. Mark stood leaning over the couch with his camera rolling where Roger sat plucking away at his guitar. He strummed a few sour chords and slammed it on the arm of the couch.

"This thing won't tune!"

"So we hear." I mumbled.

The roommates turned to me. My jaw dropped. I glanced around and swallowed hard.

"What did you just say?" Roger spoke slowly, his words dripping with disdain.

I was here 15 minutes, and one of the people I lived my life by already hated me.

"I think I can tune it." I whispered.

Roger made a face and then crossed his arms. Mark sat on the arm of the couch, camera lying in his lap, his eyes darting back and forth between me and Roger.

I knew to wait for Roger's permission.

"Be my guest." He stood up and threw out his arms as if to present the guitar.

I padded softly in my fur calf-high boots across the loft to the couch. I looked to Mark; he nodded. So I sat and gripped the guitar. A chill ran through me. The guitar felt weightless in my hands as my frigid fingers slowly positioned themselves. I fiddled with it and could feel Roger's heavy gaze on me the whole time. Mark's eyes were light, but I could feel them too. The chords kept coming out sour, but soon enough a pitch rang and echoed in the empty loft. I heard Mark gasp hesitantly under his breath.

I strummed it once more and looked to Roger. The guitar was big in my lap, and then the weight finally hit me. He grabbed it from me with ease and I ran my frozen hands down my thighs as I stood.

"Should play fine, now." I said to him. There was no movement in his face for a long time. Then a curve of his lip.

"Thanks." He grumbled. It was good enough for me.

"How do you know how to tune a guitar?" Mark wondered, pleasantly surprised. I turned to him and smiled.

"My brother plays a little." It was half-true.

Roger hit a few notes and moved his fingers up and down a scale.

"Perfect." He let out. His eyes met mine; he knew I must be able to play. No one could tune a guitar that fast. Mark sat baffled.

He picked up his camera. "Close on Mia, who dropped in out of nowhere and is giving Roger a run for his money." I put my hand up to block the camera, but Mark danced around me to get a shot so I finally gave in.

"Hey. Not yet." Roger released what resembled a smile. I couldn't feel more on top of the world.

Mark immediately jerked his head to capture that smile. He did. He smiled behind his camera and as it rolled, I silently stood to the side watching the two of them. Mark's face was lit up, and I could hear the fullness of every breath he took. A smile from Roger granted him another day. The loft shone a little brighter just then. Roger avoided the camera, and Mark threw a pillow at him. They bickered back and forth, and I couldn't believe what I was in the middle of. They had so much more then what I had seen onstage so many times.

"A filmmaker, huh? What's the documentary on?" I questioned as I sat beside Roger warily. He scooted over to make room. I knew then I didn't want to leave.

Mark seemed skeptical for a moment, but then smiled. That smile healed all wounds.

"A year in the life of my friends. Just showing how they live and where they're going." He turned to Roger and trailed off. Roger was still fingering the guitar but Mark watched him intently. He wasn't smiling any longer. I saw the pain in Mark's eyes for the first time then. There was fire behind that icy blue; a flame of fear that would always burn from now until the moment Roger was gone.

I didn't want that flame to be extinguished. Because it could only mean one thing.

I reached over to Mark and touched his camera. His gaze broke and he looked down at his lap and then up at me. I tilted my head to the side and as his hands grabbed the camera too, I helped him lift it. I looked to Roger. Mark smiled at me gratefully, and knew to continue filming.

"Tell the folks at home what you're doing Roger."

Roger didn't even look up at Mark. He kept his eyes set on the guitar, tracing figures with his fingertips on the cold instrument.

"I'm writing one great song –"

A ring. The three of us looked up.

"The phone." Mark mumbled.

"Screen."

"Speakkkkkkkk."

"Chestnuts roasting-" A voice sung. Mark jumped out and Roger finally dropped the guitar.

"Collins!" He yelped as soon as he picked up the phone.

"Hey! Nice to see you're still screening." I could hear Collins' voice crackling out of the receiver.

"Yeah, yeah. You here to stay?" Roger leaned forward intently.

"I'm home for Christmas, ain't I? Throw down the key, assholes." Mark tossed the phone over me to Roger. He didn't speak into the receiver. He placed it in my hands.

"You probably have more to say than I do." Brooding Roger was back. I sighed. I placed my hand on his leg and he coiled away. I bit my lip angrily. You've relied on them, but they haven't relied on you.

Mark was fumbling for the keys on the counter.

"Mark-" Collins' voice was suddenly meek. Roger's eyes grew big for a moment in worry, but they deflated back. I held the phone to him. He refused to take it.

"MARK!" A yell of terror. Collins had never screamed like that; I could tell by Roger's face. He stared at the phone and then grabbed it,

"Collins!" The line was dead.

"Roger, what are you doing?"

"Man, he just screamed your name!"

"What?" Mark slowly dropped the keys now in his hand back on the counter and scampered to the fire escape. The phone rang. Mark and Roger both looked to me.

"Hello?"

"Ho, ho, ho!"

"Benny." I blurted. Neither of them took a moment to figure out how I knew his name.

"Shit!"

"Mark? Roger? Guys, I'm on my way there."

"For what?" Roger demanded, ripping the phone from my hands.

"The rent."

"What rent?" Mark hollered. He slammed the speaker button as he passed the phone. He kneeled beside Roger.

"This year's rent. That I let slide for you guys."

"Benny, what are you talking about? You paid our rent. Because you knew about Roger's…" Mark stopped when Roger glared in his direction. Mark gaze him a confused expression, and I saw Roger snap his head toward me. Although, he didn't know I already knew about him. I knew quite a lot about him.

Benny continued to speak. "Times are a'changin' my friends."

"Oh, they have been. Remember when you lived here, Benny?" Mark questioned.

"Vaguely."

"You're charming." Roger sneered. "Surprising you're not working your magic on Alison on Christmas Eve instead of driving two hopeless slobs below the poverty line."

"One of the many perks I receive. Rent is due, boys. Pay it…or pack."

"Benny-" No response.

"Damn him!" Roger yelped, kicking the coffee table.

"An old landlord?" I questioned.

"The worst." Roger bit his lip spitefully.

"Believe it or not, that guy was our best friend." Mark remarked as he reached for his camera to film a little more.

"Times are a'changin' then, aren't they?" I said to no one in particular.

I watched Mark look to Roger slowly. That same gaze. "Yeah. They really are."

And just then, the loft went dark.

"Perfect." Roger grunted.

"The power blows." Mark narrated.

"Dammit Mark, put the camera down and help me find some matches." I suddenly felt Mark pulling my hands out of my pockets and placing his camera in them. I think he smiled just then, but there was no light to verify it.

"Top drawer next to the sink." I heard Roger open that drawer, and Mark disappeared down the hallway.

"Where is he going?" I asked Roger.

"Fuel." He responded.

Mark returned with a bunch of manila folders and stapled packets of paper overflowing in his hands. I went to him and grabbed a few folders from the top of the stack and he breathed a 'thank you' as he stumbled to find the coffee table. He dropped them at once.

He exhaled deeply and looked to me. "Screenplays."

"They any good?" I asked Mark as I sat on the couch with one of the stapled packets in my lap.

"If they were, would I be burning them?"

"Good point." I smiled up at him.

"Mark, here." Roger tossed him a bunch of matches. Mark threw a couple of his screenplays down into the stove and threw in the match.

"How can you do that?" I wondered aloud.

"What?" Mark threw in another huge stapled screenplay down.

"Part with something that took so much of yourself to create?"

"It's not who I am anymore." He said solemnly and continued to throw a few more. I heard a huge rip. I whirled around to see Roger clawing at the wall.

"And what is that? Artwork you're not too proud of?"

"Hardly." He smiled sarcastically. "Posters."

"The Well-Hungarians, eh?" I stood up and waltzed over to him.

"How did you know?" He didn't turn to glare at me this time. Maybe they were getting used to eeriness of how much I knew about them.

"I saw the posters when I came in."

"Yeah well, I don't need them anymore." He ripped down another. He tilted his head to another one on the far wall, meaning for me to tear it down. I did as asked.

"You don't play anymore?" I queried as I headed toward the other wall.

"Not enough." He supplied. I ran my hand over the smooth poster. The edges were crumbling, but the center was perfectly intact. There was a glorious picture of Roger with his arm outstretched above his head, hand clenched into a fist, guitar slung over his shoulder and his head down. I could make out his eyes in the picture, and that's when I saw everything that Roger had lost.

"How long has it been?" I asked without looking back at him.

"Too long." Roger hurried over to me and ripped the poster from beneath my hands. He glared at me hard and crumbled them into balls before throwing them into the flames.

I stood besides Mark and watched him glare down into the fire. Roger stood opposite us and I looked at their faces and couldn't help but feel a wave of happiness wash over me. Here I stood, now being enveloped in two lives I had known so well and has wished to be part of for so long.

"Was he good, Mark?" I whispered.

"The best." He sighed. I picked up one of his screenplays still on the coffee table. I got through a few sentences on top before Mark grabbed it from me. He spitefully threw it into the flames.

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to…"

"I could never write scripts. It's too difficult to capture what life is with words. There aren't enough."

There weren't enough words then for me to respond. So I stood in silence with these two boys and suddenly realized that I had no desire to ever go home. This felt more like home to me.

The phone rang.

"Screen." Roger mumbled, still watching the flames eat at his past.

"Nah, Rog. Maybe it's Collins. I wonder what happened to him." Mark flashed a smile at me before going to answer the phone.

"Hello…Maureen?" I perked up suddenly. Roger took this for confusion.

"His ex-girlfriend."

"How long ago did they break up?"

"A month. And she dumped him."

"He take it bad?" I stepped closer to Roger.

"Yeah. It killed him. But, he didn't show it." I followed Roger's eyes as he stared pained at Mark crumbling at the sound of her voice. "He never shows it."

Roger stuck out his arm to lead me to the couch and he took a seat beside me. The loft felt a lot warmer with the fire raging. Roger crossed his feet on the coffee table and knocked over a few stacks of screenplays. He threw them to the flames.

"Your equipment? ... How long? ... Maureen, isn't there- … Okay. Alright. I'll go." Mark hung up the phone heavily and took a long breath with tightly shut eyes. He paced over to us.

"I have to go help Maureen."

"You know, normally when someone crushes you Mark, you don't go running off to help them." Roger sneered.

"Thank you, Roger. But there's no one else who can do it."

"Heh. I bet her new girlfriend will be there waiting for you." Roger kicked the last of Mark's screenplays on the floor. Instinctively, Mark hurried to them.

"Roger." He groaned annoyed. He looked to me as he arranged the papers.

"So your girlfriend's a lesbian?" I said before he could explain anything. He let out a nervous chuckle.

"So it seems." He remarked standing up now.

"C'est la vie." I heard myself spit out. Immediately, I caught myself and looked away.

"You sound like my mother." Mark rolled his eyes. He held the pile of screenplays in his arms and looked down at them frowning. Then, he tossed them all into the fire that was now dwindling. I saw one just miss the stove and waft to the floor.

"Any way I can convince you to come out tonight, Roger?" Mark dug his hands into his pockets.

"Zoom in on my empty wallet." Roger mocked Mark's narration.

"Touch'e." The words couldn't have felt more new. "Take your AZT." Mark reached for his camera but Roger kicked his hand away.

"Don't touch it." He sneered. Mark backed away.

"Mia, would you wanna take a little detour with me? I wouldn't want to spend any more time if I were you in this god-forsaken place."

I looked to Roger who was staring at his guitar still on the chair. Then his eyes met the window. It was Christmas Eve. Roger would be alone. I was going to change that.

"No Mark, I'll stay with Roger if that's okay."

"Sure. He could use some company." Mark picked up his camera and placed it in a bag he slung over his shoulder.

"I'll be back. The fire's going to go down soon. Make sure to keep warm, okay?" He motioned for me to come over to him.

"I know this is not something you should have to worry about but, uh…make sure he takes his AZT, okay? There's a bag on the counter."

"Don't worry. He will. I'll make sure of it." I assured him. He put his hand on my shoulder.

"Thank you." He said earnestly. I started to the couch when my eyes caught the screenplay still on the floor. Mark went to the stove, and before he could see it I picked it up and held it behind my back. He stayed glaring into the dwindling flames for a few minutes, a painful silence swallowing the loft. Finally, he looked up at Roger.

"How we gunna pay?"

Author's Note: So, I'm very happy with how this chapter came out. I'd like to hear what you all think. Thank you again!