lens flare
pairing: film director!james potter x actress!reader
summary: a sharp-tongued actress and a sleep-deprived filmmaker collide in the haze of student films, where chaos meets chemistry—and neither of them can call it just art anymore
warnings: slow burn, no use of y/n, english isn’t my first language
word count: 2.4k
a/n: as promised, another drop of Muse — this time, it’s where it all begins: James meets her. sparks, snark, and a little chaos. I’m already cooking up the next bits, so don’t wander too far.
ᯓ★ now playing…
novo amor - anchor
YOU WERE SPRAWLED AGAINST THE COLD BRICK WALL LIKE YOU BELONGED THERE — half sculpture, half threat — flipping through your monologue with the kind of disinterest that made it clear: you were too good for this class, and absolutely bored out of your mind by it.
Your boots were scuffed, your black coat slouched off one shoulder, and your expression was unreadable — the kind of look that made people pause, stare too long, and immediately wish they hadn’t. You had that energy: the don’t-touch, might-bite, velvet-gloved menace. The professors called it “difficult.” You called it honest.
James Potter was late. Typical. Golden boy of the lens, the chosen one of the film department, darling of every professor who wanted a slice of his inevitable fame. You could practically hear the academic bootlicking echo in the halls.
He arrived like a storm half-contained, bag slung over one shoulder, zipper gaping like it had better places to be. His hair was doing that artful chaos thing — possibly by accident, possibly by design. There were dark shadows under his eyes, bruises gifted by insomnia and the weight of too many unfinished scripts. He looked like he hadn’t slept in three days and had filmed through all of them.
You clocked him immediately: the film kid. Addicted to caffeine and the thrill of a perfect shot. The type to fall in love with lighting, to lose sleep over framing. His fingers twitched like they were hunting for a camera, like every second without one was a moment wasted.
He was scanning the crowd, eyes darting like he was looking for a lifeboat in a sea of mediocrity.
Then he saw you.
You didn’t move.
“Is this the line for Film School Disillusionment Anonymous?” he asked, voice low, tentative. Almost charming. Almost.
You glanced up, slow and deliberate, a queen granting an audience. Your eyes flicked over him like a razor.
“No,” you said, voice laced with velvet and venom. “This is the line for ‘Everyone Here Thinks They’re Scorsese But Can’t Even Balance a Tripod.’”
A beat. Then another.
His grin unfurled — lazy, amused, but there was something softer behind it too. Like he knew he’d just found trouble and wasn’t sure if he wanted to run from it or get closer. The best kind of danger.
He laughed, quick and surprised, like your voice had jolted him awake. “Harsh.”
You tilted your head just slightly, your voice smooth like silk pulled over knives. “True.”
He shifted his weight, one foot back like he might leave — but didn’t. “You waiting for Intro to Cinematic Language?”
“No,” you said, eyes flicking back down to your monologue. “I’m waiting for death. But I’ll settle for poorly lit documentaries and secondhand existential dread.”
He laughed again, fuller this time. There was warmth in it — unforced, a little charmed. “So you are in the course.”
You shrugged one shoulder, deliberately careless. “I’m an actor. I only show up when it’s mandatory or when I feel like giving someone a complex.”
That made him blink — caught off guard and clearly intrigued. He looked at you like you were something he hadn’t expected to find, and wasn’t quite sure he deserved to.
“You good?” he asked, quieter now. Less teasing. More... interested.
You looked up again, slower this time. Let your eyes meet his. He didn’t look away.
“I’m the best in my year,” you said simply. Not arrogant — just factual. A truth you were used to people ignoring.
He smiled. A little crooked, a little careful. “Confident.”
“Earned,” you said.
There was a pause — long enough to be uncomfortable, but neither of you filled it.
He stood there, like he wasn’t sure if he should sit down or say something else or just keep looking at you. You felt it then, just a flicker — a pull in your chest you didn’t like. A small, unwelcome ache that told you: Don’t let him leave yet.
So you flipped the page of your monologue but didn’t read it. You didn’t look at him either, but you spoke again.
“You’re the guy, right? Potter. Everyone wants to be in your films.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t?”
“I don’t audition for people who don’t cast me,” you said, voice razor-edged but smooth. Like the words had been practiced. Maybe they had.
His expression shifted. He was studying you now, really studying you — not just your face, but something behind it.
“I haven’t held auditions yet,” he said, quiet. “But I know who you are.”
You finally glanced up, wary. “Do you.”
“Yeah.” A small smile. “You’re the girl who makes professors nervous.”
A pause. Your lips quirked — just a little. Almost a smile. Almost.
“Good,” you said. “They bore me.”
You turned your attention back to your script, as if he didn’t matter, as if you hadn’t already memorized the shape of his voice. But the air between you felt different now. Thicker.
He didn’t leave. And you didn’t ask him to.
The hallway buzzed with idle noise — students shifting bags, someone coughing too dramatically, the hum of fluorescent lights. But between you and him, there was a sudden stillness. Like a breath held too long.
He studied you for a second longer, eyes catching on the way you held your script like it bored you, like it was beneath you, like you might crumple it or set it on fire just to feel something. He looked at you the way someone might look at the edge of a rooftop — not scared, but aware. Tempted.
Then he nodded, slow, like something had just clicked. Like he’d figured out the shape of a puzzle piece he hadn’t realized he was missing.
“Do you do shorts?” he asked.
You blinked. “Do I what?”
“Short films,” he clarified, scratching the back of his neck like he wasn’t used to talking without a camera buffer. “I mean– I’m a director. Or... trying to be. I shoot a lot. I’m always looking for–”
“A muse?” you cut in, the word slicing through the air like broken glass. Dismissive. Dangerous.
He flinched — not in the way most boys did around you, not out of shame or retreat, but something quieter. Like you’d just touched a bruise he forgot he had.
“No,” he said, his voice softer, almost reverent. “A spark.”
You stared at him. Hard. The silence stretched, electric and unyielding. That was a stupid line. Maybe the stupidest you’d ever heard. So earnest it was almost embarrassing.
And yet–
“Jesus,” you muttered under your breath. “You’re serious.”
He looked like he wanted to laugh it off, but didn’t. Instead, he stood there in that soft vulnerability, wearing it like an open wound. He didn’t posture. Didn’t pretend. Just looked at you like you were already part of something he was building in his head.
“Would you ever want to be in something I shoot?” he asked.
Your head tilted, slow and catlike. Curious, but not inviting. Your eyes narrowed, calculating — not in a cruel way, but in the way someone does when they’ve been offered one too many promises that turned out hollow. You were the type who didn’t say yes to just anyone. Especially not boys who talked about sparks like they meant it.
“Let me guess,” you said. “No script. No funding. Lighting by desk lamp and the dim glow of desperation.”
He grinned, something crooked and self-aware curling at the edge of his mouth. “No desk,” he replied, and you hated that it made your lips twitch.
You snorted, sharp, involuntary. “And what, I’m supposed to say yes because you think I’ve got a spark?”
“No,” he said. “You’re supposed to say yes because you want to burn something down with it.”
And there it was.
That flicker.
The temperature changed. The space between you warmed like someone had lit a match and held it too close to your skin. Not enough to blister. Just enough to notice.
Something inside your chest stirred, low and reluctant. A quiet part of you you’d learned to ignore — something that leaned in when you wanted to lean away.
You dropped your gaze back to your monologue, but the words had stopped making sense. Letters blurred, lines floated. You weren’t really reading anymore.
He hadn’t moved. And still, you didn’t tell him to go.
It wasn’t the line. It wasn’t even his voice, though it had a kind of raw, unfiltered warmth that caught on the air like smoke.
It was the weight of what he meant. The stillness behind it. The way he wasn’t flirting, not really — he wasn’t trying to impress you with clever words or movie quotes or whatever boys like him usually lob at girls like you.
No. He was offering you something quieter. A mirror. A lens. A chance to be seen in sharp, honest focus.
You stared at him a beat too long, your gaze fixed and unreadable, your mouth curved into something dangerous — half-smirk, half-warning. Like you were both amused and armed. Like he’d wandered too close to something wild and sleek and waiting.
Then, without a word, you pushed off the wall.
Smooth. Unhurried. Feline.
Your body moved like it already owned the hallway. Your boots echoed against the tile, your bag slung over one shoulder with a kind of practiced elegance that said: I didn’t come here to be chosen. I came to make you regret not choosing me sooner.
As you brushed past him, close enough that your jacket ghosted the sleeve of his hoodie, you let the scent of your perfume trail behind — something heady and dark, like amber lit with ash.
You didn’t look at him. Not really. But your voice followed the movement, low and silken, sharp enough to draw blood:
“You’d better write fast, director.”
The word tasted like velvet and threat in your mouth.
He didn’t answer. Didn’t move. But you felt it — the heat of his eyes on the back of your neck. The way silence bloomed between you like a storm cloud just starting to form.
That was the first time.
You should’ve walked away. Let the moment fizzle, let the tension crackle and fade.
You definitely shouldn’t have shown up to his dorm three days later.
But you did.
You knocked like it meant nothing. And he opened the door like he’d been waiting. Like he knew it would be you.
The place was exactly what you’d expected: cramped, messy in a charming way, too many coffee mugs and half-charged camera batteries, the air thick with the smell of stale takeout and worn books and the citrus-clean scent of him. Scripts were pinned up like prayer scrolls on the wall, half-finished storyboards scattered across his desk, light streaming in through cheap blinds like something divine trying to break in.
He looked surprised. But not shocked.
You raised one eyebrow. “You said you needed a spark.”
He blinked at you, the corner of his mouth pulling into a crooked smile. “You came.”
“I didn’t say I was staying,” you said, crossing the threshold anyway, slow and deliberate, eyes already scanning the room like you were sizing up a scene.
He stepped aside like he couldn’t look away. Like watching you walk into his world was the beginning of something.
And maybe it was.
You saw the script on his desk — half-written, title scratched out, notes in the margins that looked more like obsessions than revisions. Your fingers brushed the cover without picking it up.
“No ending?” you asked.
“Not yet,” he said. “I think I was waiting for you to finish it.”
You hated how that landed. Hated that part of you — the part you didn’t let anyone touch — lit up like a struck match.
You turned away so he wouldn’t see it on your face. The flicker. The crack. That stupid, dangerous spark.
But you didn’t leave.
You could’ve.
You should’ve.
But something about the way he looked at you — like he wasn’t trying to figure you out, like he already had — made your legs forget how to walk away.
You told yourself it was just one scene, one night, one experiment. A favor. A whim.
That first time, with a cereal box propping up a desk lamp and a script scratched onto the back of a torn syllabus, felt like it should’ve been a disaster. But it wasn’t. Not even close.
He watched you through the lens like you were more than just the girl who made snide comments and wore too much eyeliner. Like you were something he’d been looking for without realizing it. Something that made sense in frame. Something that stuck.
So you came back.
And then again.
And again.
Every semester, every half-formed idea he scrawled in a notebook at 3 a.m., every manic, sleepless shoot with zero funding and too much ambition. You ran through rain without permits. Cried in the backseat of borrowed cars. Did five takes of a breakup in a stranger’s kitchen while dawn crawled through the window.
It wasn’t glamorous, not even close — but there was something electric in it. Something alive. You were always there, at the center of it all. His constant. His chaos. The voiceover he wrote lines for before he even had a plot. He filmed you like he couldn’t help it. Like the camera missed you when you were out of frame.
You became the face of his thesis film.
Then the next one.
Then the one he didn’t even tell anyone he was making, just shot in fragments because he couldn’t sleep and missed the sound of your voice.
At some point, it stopped being about the project. Or maybe it always was about the project — only you were the project. The part he didn’t want to finish. He said it was chemistry. You said it was chaos. But even then, even when you laughed it off or rolled your eyes or acted like it didn’t mean anything — deep down, you knew. You’d always known.
There was no story he wanted to tell that didn’t start and end with you.
thankx for reading <3
okay… I think it’s official — I’m obsessed. I’ve spent my entire sunday writing, editing, and making things for Muse, and I’m not even sorry about it. I’ll be posting headcanons soon (my first ever!), all about james and muse. also made a separate masterlist just for this universe — with all the chapters and extra content. not sure if I’ll post everything in chronological order, but I’ll do my best to keep it somewhat organized.
you can always share your opinion in comments or my inbox :3
– your santi 🪐
masterlist // muse script