FIC: Caught Up In the Moment (CMSB - FRC - 1/1)
Title: Caught Up In the Moment
Author: Sam
Fandom: CMSB
Pairing: None really but could be read as Mick/Prophet or Mick/Cooper if you squint.
Rating: FRC - reflection?
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Disclaimer: Not mine, no money made.
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Summary: In quiet moments Mick catches them all on film.
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A/N: Prompt fill for my own prompt CMSB - Mick/Prophet or Mick/Cooper - in quiet moments Mick catches them all on film. I'm working on fills for prompts other than my own, promise. O.o
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He likes it because their lives are never this simple.
They never get the stark, pure clarity that lives in that one simple moment caught on film. Clean. Crisp. Just one moment captured before it becomes contaminated, altered by all the moments that come after it.
A gasp in the ever-changing breath of time, frozen by his will and the click of the shutter.
Beth is captured in that rare moment she is taken out of herself; when her shoulders and the hands clasped around her knee are relaxed, a soft little smile resting on her lips as she watches Cooper spar. He focuses on her face, her eyes, the dark fall of her hair, allowing the leather, brick, and mortar of the gym to soften and fade around her. Her moment.
Gina he catches laughing. Unlike Beth, there is no way Gina will ever fade into the background, it just isn't in her nature. So Gina he catches outside in the sunshine; the light bouncing off of her hair, turning the blond strands caught in their pony tail into a fall of spun gold, her eyes closed in her joy, her mouth open. He can still hear her laughing at whatever it was Prophet had just said. He normally doesn't shoot in color, but nothing about Gina is black and white, and so he debates bleeding the color out of this one. In the end he makes a copy and saves them both. Her moment.
Cooper is a bit harder. The man is never unaware of his surroundings and as a consequence always has a little smile on his lips whenever Mick tries to catch him off guard. He tries at the gym, at his desk; he even tries when he's sparring, but still, even caught up in the violence and concentration that is the dance of Kali, Cooper always knows he's there. In the end he cheats; he goes to the bar across the street and camps out with his lens trained on Cooper's window, hoping to catch something he can call candid. The shot is a little off, the angle awkward, but he gets Cooper silhouetted in the light of his loft, easel set up with just the sharp, tacked edge of the stretched canvas visible as the older man lifts the brush to set another line; another memory. The next frame and that little smile is back, and Mick shakes his head, smiling in return. He's not sure who's moment that was, Cooper's or his, but he likes the play of color in the bracelets that adorn the wrist that leads to the strong fingers that once again raise the brush so he switches to digital and takes another shot, smile and all, determined to leave it. Maybe it's his and Cooper's, both.
Prophet...he has way too many pictures of Prophet, if he were honest. But, well, Prophet is easy. Part of that is a bone structure that holds and carries the shadow, part of it is that there is a zen like quality to the older man that the camera loves. It draws his eye and he doesn't realize just how lost he is until he reassesses the latest shot only to find the finger Prophet has hoisted his way back over his shoulder, body in profile, eyes sparkling, little smile on his lips even as his body language is focused on the baseball game on screen. So Mick gives in and makes a production of circling Prophet's desk, frame after frame catching the denim and sneakers of long legs resting on the blotter, crossed at the ankles, the arms in their plaid crossed over his chest, the rolling eyes over a knowing grin caught before the Atlanta cap is pulled down low. By the end everyone is chuckling and Mick has taken 17 pictures - including the one snapped as Prophet jumps up from the desk, crowing at a Braves come-from-behind victory, fist pumped in the air, body in motion, eyes bright, mouth open in a victory cry. Everyone's moment.
Checking the in-box on his desk a week later he opens a large manilla envelope with his name on it, smiling as he pulls out an 8X10 of that moment, caught by someone down on the gym floor. It's taken through the floor to ceiling windows that separate the office from the main floor, a bit off kilter and there is a bit of empty, wasted space with the wall and staircase at the bottom, but it has all of them in it, and that's what makes him smile. Prophet in his victory whirl, Gina and Beth with their heads together, light and dark, smiles on their faces obvious as they share a comment on Prophet's cackling, Mick's antics, or both, Cooper grinning at all of them, his head taken out of the Almighty Notebook in his hand. And Mick himself with his camera held up by his shoulder, the strap hanging down his arm, a smug smile and his heart on his face from the lucky shot that he had just snapped.
He carefully tacks the photo up in a clear spot of the cork message board with a pin for each corner and settles in to check his email before the others get in.
These are their moments, and they're his, too. The victories, the quiet and not-so-quiet celebrations of a life. Or lives. Their lives.
Moments that they've shared and memories they've made frozen on film by his will - and sometimes the will of others - and the click of the shutter.
end