Work Text:
Tape 1.
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A strange woman in a glittery party dress is leaning against the wall, glass of wine in hand. She's beautiful -- dark curls twisting to her shoulders, a sweet, round face, warm brown eyes that spark with laughter behind their gold-rimmed glasses when they land on the camera.
"Tim," she lilts, "what the hell is that?"
"It was a Christmas present." His own voice, defensive yet light. "It takes VHS tapes. I think it's cool. Vintage, y'know?"
The stranger smirks at something beyond the camera. "Vintage, eh? Martin must be rubbing off on you. This reminds me of all his talk about 'lo-fi charm'."
"Well, so what if he is? There are worse influences out there," Tim shoots back. The doorbell rings. "Speaking of..." The camera does a sharp about-face and bounces toward the door to Tim's flat. Said door opens onto Jon, shifting nervously in his dark green button-down, his dark hair combed back and shorter than Tim remembers it, his unscarred hands nervously clutching a bottle of champagne.
"Jonny boy! Happy almost-2016!" Tim greets, and the camera retreats slightly as he steps back to let Jon in.
"Please don't call me that," Jon answers, but he's smiling. "Happy New Year. I'm not too late, am I?"
"Nah, the only person who beat you here was Sasha." The camera swings briefly, dizzyingly, back to the woman at the wall. She looks a lot more familiar than she did just a moment ago. "But it's not like this is gonna be some huge thing anyway. There's a couple more Institute people coming, but I kinda wanted to keep things small this year."
"What, are you outgrowing ragers?" The Sasha at the wall asks playfully, walking up and jostling the camera like she's thrown an arm around Tim's shoulders. "How boring."
"That hurts, Sash, really," Tim protests. "Just you wait for 2017. I'll throw the most epic party you've ever seen. I'm promising you right now, there's a ninety percent chance we'll start next year in prison. Well, next-next year, I mean. Still not midnight yet."
Jon chuckles. "Have fun explaining that one to Elias."
Sasha sips her wine and smirks. "Screw Elias, I'd be worried about Gertrude."
There's another knock at the door just then, and Tim opens it to greet his guests. Before he goes, though, he sets the camera on the table beside Sasha. "Watch this for me?" He asks. "I wanna make sure I get as much of the party as possible."
"Alright, nerd," Sasha scoops up the camera and points it at Tim himself as he turns to go. He looks nice, wearing a fancy black shirt and an easy smile. "How long d'you want me filming for?"
"As long as you want." Tim grins past the camera at Sasha. "I'll take all the keepsakes I can get."
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Tape 2.
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"Oh my god, are you seeing this?"
Sasha's voice stands out from the din of the party as Tim raises the camera, the tape within having just been replaced. It points to her, dark eyes alight with mischief and glee as she focuses on something across the room. The camera swings around, lands on Jon and Martin, zooms in. Jon is rambling, gesturing wildly with the beer he has clutched in one hand. His combed-back hair is beginning to fall into his face. Martin looks on, fiddling nervously with the cuff of his shirt, his mystified yet rapt expression obvious even on the low-quality video.
"Damn. They're really hitting it off," Tim snorts.
"Always wondered how those two would get on if they actually met," Sasha muses. "I think you're right. It seems like it's going well." Jon pauses, takes a long drink from his beer, and keeps right on talking. Martin giggles at something he says. Beside Tim, Sasha giggles too.
"Wonder what they're talking about," Tim murmurs.
"Well, Jon's a theater kid, Martin's a poetry dork, so at a guess...Shakespeare." The pride in her own conclusion is evident in Sasha's voice. When the camera swings back to her, there's a smug little smile on her face.
"You really think they'd be talking Shakespeare at a New Year's party?" Tim scoffs.
"Sorry, have you met Jonathan Sims?" Sasha laughs and hops up to sit on the counter. "Especially when he's drunk? At the office holiday party, he waxed poetic to me for twenty minutes about the brewing of the beer that one of the secretaries brought."
"Huh. Good point. Think I should go over there so he doesn't scare Martin away?"
"Martin doesn't look all that scared to me."
The camera swings back to the pair across the room, and Sasha is right. Martin's bemused gaze hasn't changed. He may have even leaned in closer while the camera was angled away, his pale face flushed red (possibly from alcohol, maybe from Jon?).
But then Jon stops talking and looks right at the camera. His expression changes. A hissed "shit!" comes from Tim as the camera jerks away. It is set quickly on the ground, revealing Tim and Sasha ducking behind the counter, curling into each other and fighting laughter. His arm around her shoulders. Her knees resting against his leg. There's hardly an inch of space between them anywhere.
Sasha lifts her head and whispers a question into Tim's ear. Still trembling with fought-back giggles, he shakes his head and murmurs, "I dunno."
Footsteps approach. "Tim, were you filming me?" Jon's voice comes from somewhere above the counter.
Tim whispers something, probably a swear, and Sasha bursts out laughing in earnest as he pulls (reluctantly) away from her to shut the camera off.
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Tape 3.
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A more disjointed collection of videos, little stop-starts from throughout the night.
Start.
Sasha is belting her heart out into a karaoke mic that has materialized from somewhere in the living room, probably courtesy of one of the party guests. The audio is loud enough that it's beginning to distort, but the song is still audible as "Holiday" by Green Day. She looks like an honest-to-god performer, tossing her hair and throwing her arms out wide like she's really onstage. And her voice is good. Genuinely. It's low and full and perfect for the song. She bends forward at the waist to belt out the long note at the end, and the room erupts into cheering so loud and drunken that the audio distorts completely.
Stop. Start.
Tim and Sasha and Martin and Jon are all stumbling down the stairs outside of Tim's flat together. "You can't leave your own party!" Jon is protesting.
"I'm being a good host!" Tim answers. "We're out of snacks! You lot could've stayed to hold down the fort, if you're so worried."
"Nah, it was getting kinda loud in there anyway," Martin answers, fumbling with the door and holding it open for the rest of them.
"Yep. You're stuck with us," Sasha chimes in as their little group walks out into the cold.
Stop. Start.
"It's snowing." The camera is pointed up, and little white smudges that could very well be snowflakes drift in and out of frame. "Guys, do you see, it's snowing!" Tim laughs. "It's a New Years' miracle!"
"Dork," Jon mumbles, barely audible. The camera snaps to him.
"Says the man who spent half the party rambling about Shakespeare," Tim scoffs. Jon looks utterly bewildered, as does Martin.
"What are you talking abou--"
"Y'know, if we wanna get back before it's actually 2016, we'd better hurry," Sasha cuts in. "It's 11:35."
Jon scowls and picks up his pace, as does Martin. Sasha draws close to the camera to speak quietly to Tim, stopping them both on the snowy, deserted sidewalk. "You're welcome. For helping you avoid getting in more trouble about our little spy mission earlier."
Tim snorts. "Yeah, yeah. Thanks."
Stop. Start.
Back in Tim's flat, presumably. The place is packed. So much for outgrowing ragers. There is so much noise, and a lot of jostling. "Hang on, lemme get--" The audio cuts in and out. "--tape--" --almost full--"
Sasha's voice cuts in. "Why--" "--need another--"
"--wanna record--" "--countdown--"
A single clear sentence, from Sasha. "Can't you just live in the moment?"
Stop.
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Tape 4.
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The camera is focused on Tim's TV as bright, colorful numbers flash on the screen, counting down the final seconds of 2015. Everyone in the flat is chanting. "Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three! Two! One!"
The countdown is replaced by a rapidly flashing graphic that reads, simply, 2016. The flat erupts into cheers again. The camera turns, and all it catches is a flash of Sasha's glittering party dress before she moves in so close that all she could possibly be doing is kissing Tim.
She pulls back, there is distorted conversation, and then more jostling as they move in the direction of Tim's room. The door shuts. The din of the party quiets. All the video picks up is shadows.
There is a soft sound from Sasha, then footsteps, as she draws back slightly. "Is that thing off?" She asks.
Tim crosses to the camera, picks it up, fumbles with it for a moment. "Damn buttons. Can't see shit," he mutters. Sasha snorts. The video zooms in slightly, then the camera is set back down. "Should be good now."
"Good," Sasha whispers. There is a soft rustling of fabric as she, presumably, pulls Tim back in for another kiss. The shadows shift, and there is a gentle creak of bedsprings. Then, the scratch of a zipper being pulled open. Then, the click of a belt buckle.
"Hey, Tim?" Sasha says. She is panting. Her voice is soft, gentle. Small.
"Yeah? You okay?" Tim answers, his breathing just as heavy as hers. "We can stop if you want."
"No! No, god, no." Sasha cuts him off quickly. "I'm good with this. Great, actually. Shit, just...happy new year."
Tim chuckles. "Happy new year."
"I think it's gonna be a good one."
"Yeah?" Tim's voice is impossibly fond and barely audible.
"Yeah."
"I think so, too."
A rustling of sheets, another kiss, and Sasha speaks again. "Tim?"
"Yeah?"
"Your bloody camera's still on."
"Fuck."
There is laughter until the video shuts off.
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Tim sits on the floor of his living room -- in a different flat than the one in the video -- holding the camera in shaking, scarred hands. He stares at the now-blank blue screen of his TV, too paralyzed by everything he's just seen to unhook the camera from the screen.
He tries to reconcile the party he just watched with the party he remembers; the Sasha on the screen versus the redheaded, slyly-smiling Not-Sasha that he thought had come to that party. His head was spinning. He hadn't recognized the real Sasha at first, but as soon as he'd heard her name on the video, all he could think was, there you are. Already, her memory was becoming sharper in his head. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have forgotten her? He wants to cry or scream or reach in through the TV screen and beg the real Sasha's forgiveness. He wants to call his mum and thank her for getting him that stupid VHS camera for Christmas.
But mostly, he just wants to hear Sasha's real voice again. Wiping away tears he didn't realize had fallen, he stands up to go see if he has any tapes from Jon's birthday in 2016.
He pauses briefly, staring up at the ceiling. Beyond the ceiling. He wonders if Sasha is up there somewhere, watching him remember her. He hopes with everything in him that she is. An image from the tapes, of her smiling at him, floats into his brain. He closes his eyes and smiles back at her.
"I see you," he whispers.
He opens his eyes and keeps looking.