Work Text:
"What about this?"
Owen stares up at Matt from the top of the hill, hands posted on the camera. "Should we get a camera guy? Or-"
"No. This is good. It's found footage."
"I thought you hated found footage."
Matt stares at him over the expansive view of the world from above. Up here, at school after hours, the world feels more peaceful. Just for the moment. Matt realizes he's expected to respond to Owen's musings. "I do," he admits, shoveling his pale palms into his pockets. "I think people who use found footage as a- a means of storytelling without reason are morons. We have a reason though."
Owen's hair falls over his face as he watches Matt kick gravel off the roof. As it tumbles down below, his stomach drops a little. "What's the reason?"
"Oh, you know," Matt shrugs, his rhythmic steps across old school red brick making his friend a little more than nervous. "We're doing some camera work up here. Trying to figure out how we want the shot to look. The sunset's a great- it's a great thing, isn't it?"
"Do we need to do room tone?"
Matt looks at him like it's the dumbest question he's ever asked. Maybe they both suffer from wanting to hear their own voices. Nevertheless he answers. "We're not in a room."
"I knew that," Owen stammers, stepping back towards the window they both helped themselves out of. "I knew that, I just- I thought that, y'know..." he doesn't know how to make sense of anything anymore, really. "Actually, back to the found footage thing. Who's...finding the footage? In this case? 'Cause, like, meta-narrative, or what you were talking about..."
Matt turns around. The world seems to revolve around him in that singular moment, with the way his eyes light up and the sun begins to frame his blond curls. Owen didn't even really know he was blond until now, or hadn't considered it to this degree. It makes his heart feel weird. He wants to take a picture and keep it forever.
The world doesn't stop. "Oh, well that's up to our interpretation," Matt dismisses, waving a hand and turning away. The moment releases, but the golden glow still stays there, permanently fixed to the sky. Owen wonders what he'd have to do to have him do that again. "it's like, if the plan and stuff goes through, then it'll be like, something they find after. You're still down with the movie stuff, right?"
No response. He doesn't take it to heart. "Well-"
"Can I record? Audio and stuff?"
The question catches Matt off guard, but he doesn't think much of it. "Huh? Oh, for like, the extras, right? Sure. Yeah, dude, record whatever. I didn't even know that you weren't recording."
He fumbles with the lav mic, fidgeting with it until it sits on top of the camera. "Are we on 1 or 2?" he frets, flicking the faded switch that still might say F1 and F2.
"1," Matt replies, not even watching him. He seems distracted with life, untouchable from above. "I...think, at least. Does it matter? Hold on, where's the mic?"
Owen nods, fishing for the microphone from his pocket. "Here, put it on."
He watches as the boy messes with it, trying to clip it onto his puffer jacket. It's not working, and they both know that he looks a little stupid. Matt chuckles awkwardly as he pinches the alligator clip. "I think I gotta thread it through a sleeve or something, man," he jokes, looking up to watch his friend's reaction. "Wait, no, 'cause the jacket's gonna..."
Matt watches as Owen steps closer to help him fidget with it. The cold of early spring makes the closeness they share feel all the more strange. "Should I just- take my jacket off? 'Cause it's gonna make a lot of-" he gestures vaguely, moving his arms in a way that makes the nylon rub against itself. Owen shakes his head.
"You're gonna catch another cold and this project's gonna be delayed another while," he grumbles, trying to clamp it on. Finally, he relents, unzipping Matt's jacket a few centimeters and clipping it to the collar of his shirt underneath. For a millisecond, their bare skin is touching, and he nearly launches himself backward. "Okay. Great."
"You know, I feel like- like...you know in movies? When the wife is like, important but dead, and they're saying things that sound like they're alluding to the fact she's gonna die?"
Owen laughs, stepping back and watching that ring of light surround Matt again. "Like, 'Oh, these flowers were always my favorite,'" he snickers.
"And she's like, a shadow behind a sheet on clotheslines or some shit."
"S'that what you are? Dead wife?" The words feel gummy in his mouth, even if they're a joke. His hands feel like they're going to freeze off, but his face is all warm from the look Matt's been giving him. He can't stop himself. "You want a dead wife photo?"
Beat. He holds for a moment, bracing for the worst, before Matt sits down on the ledge. "Do it," he dares, looking back at him in a way he knows to be choreographed.
There's a part of him, a deep, unfounded part of Owen Williams, that fears that the Matt Johnson he's known for all of his high school days is a facsimile, a curated identity, a perpetual actor. He worries how far these plans, these bizarre designs they've made up together, all the time they've spent laying face to face, mattress to mattress, is as real to him as a stage play. Even if that were the case, he could hope Matt was some sort of young, up and coming method actor.
He gets on one knee, the gravel pressing into his soft shins as he aims the shot as best as his shaky shutter finger can. Matt's body, sitting on the ledge, eclipses the sun perfectly. He wishes this would be his forever, that Matt wouldn't realize that he was too good for him and move on. He wants this feeling to stay in this pit in his stomach. It feels like he could fly. If he, Matt, really were some sort of dead wife, he'd finally understand the stupid trope, this dumb idea of a hardened soldier going soft for some loved one. He opens his eyes, and he's still not a hardened soldier, and Matt still isn't a dead wife in a montage.
"Owen? S'this a recording or a photo?"
His hands are shaking. "Shit, I forgot to bring a deadcat."