cold opens
pairing: film director!james potter x actress!reader
summary: james casts you in his first student short. it's a rainy day. you show up in vintage denim and ruins the first take. james falls a little in love
warnings: slow burn, no use of y/n, english isn’t my first language
word count: 2.5k
a/n: new part of muse is up — yay! I’ve decided to post all the parts in timeline order, so this one’s season 1, episode 2 for you all
prev. episode // next episode
IT STARTS IN A GRAVEL LOT BEHIND AN ABANDONED TRAIN DEPOT, where rusted tracks vanish into the hush of rain and a sky swollen with thunder. The air tastes like metal, charged and waiting.
James is already there when you pull in, crouched low over a battered tripod. One hand shields the lens from the spit of drizzle; the other steadies the weight of a camera that looks like it’s seen better decades. His shirt clings to one side, half-untucked, a pencil tucked behind his ear like an afterthought. Notes scrawl wildly across the back of a bus ticket — ink smudged, rain-dappled, undeniably his.
He looks up at the sound of your car door slamming. And pauses.
You’re soaked to the knees. Vintage Levi’s dark with water, lace-up boots swallowed by mud. The blouse you thrifted last week — sheer and romantic in your mirror this morning — now clings to your skin like regret. You hadn’t dressed for a storm. You hadn’t dressed for James, either. And yet.
The actor playing opposite you offers a watery hello. You don’t answer. Can’t find it in you to pretend.
James jogs over, sheepish and warm-eyed. “Hey, I meant to text. Sorry about the–”
“ –rain?” you snap, sharp as broken glass. “Or the script? Or the total lack of shelter? Or maybe the fact that your scene partner looks like he wandered out of a public service announcement on tax fraud?”
James blinks. Then that maddening grin unfurls — slow, sunlit, like nothing’s ever truly that bad. “I was gonna say parking directions, but yeah. All of the above.”
You glare. He shrugs.
This is your first time working with him — James Potter, golden boy of the university’s film program. The kind of director people call promising in that reverent, premature way reserved for boys with good hair and better instincts. The kind with charm that curdles into legend before the footage even gets cut.
You said yes to his short film because you were desperate, not for attention, but for something. Nobody wanted to cast you anymore. Too sharp, too strange, too unwilling to giggle through someone else’s vision. Too difficult, they whispered, like it was a diagnosis. And James Potter — sun-drunk, art-house, a little arrogant — was the only one who didn’t flinch when you spoke. Maybe he liked the bite. Maybe he saw something worth the trouble.
It was supposed to be harmless. Niche enough to avoid scrutiny. Small enough not to matter.
Except now you’re here. And everything does matter. The sodden script pages curling like petals in your lap. The generator’s low growl rattling your spine. The boy with camera-callused hands and a smile too warm for the sky above you.
You drop into a folding chair, water squelching at the back of your knees. Wrung-out sleeves, muddy laces, hair sticking to your cheekbones. You feel like a drowned ghost of the person who left their apartment this morning.
James doesn’t hover — he knows better than to make you a problem he can solve. He flips through his notes, tilts the mic stand half a degree, then lowers beside the tripod. His fingers rest on the focus ring. A breath too long.
“Scene twelve,” he calls. Voice steady. “Rolling.”
You walk into the frame like it’s a battlefield. Rain stings your lashes. The actor delivers his line — flat, lifeless. Like he’s reading off a teleprompter two rooms away.
It was supposed to be the climax. The moment that cracked the whole film open.
And he gives you that?
“Are you kidding me?” The words snap out, brittle and blood-hot. “He’s just confessed to leaving his wife for me, and you respond like you’re ordering a latte?”
The actor stammers. You don’t wait for an answer. James doesn’t call cut.
“I’m not doing this,” you mutter, stepping out of frame, out of reach. “I came here to act, not babysit.”
The silence that follows feels louder than your voice. Someone shifts behind the bounce board. A cough. A held breath. You can hear the label sliding back onto your skin: difficult. Cold. One of those girls — all theory and stormclouds and unmet expectations.
You pull your jacket tighter, pacing, half-slick with rain and fury. You’re angry at the sky. At the script. At your soaked boots and the way your teeth chatter. At James Potter and his goddamn napkin shot list.
At yourself — worst of all — for caring. For hoping. For the way his stupid grin still hums behind your ribs like a song you don’t want to know the words to.
“Hey.”
You glance up.
James stands a few feet away, rain threading through his hair, clinging to the collar of his shirt. His hands are buried deep in the pockets of his jeans. For once, there’s no camera between you. No excuse to pretend this is just about the film.
“That–” he begins, gesturing vaguely toward the emotional wreckage you left in your wake, “ –was perfect.”
You squint at him, unamused. “I wasn’t acting.”
“I know,” he says, like it’s sacred. “That’s why it was perfect.”
You should shut him down. Should spin on your heel, march to your car, and never go back. But instead–
You laugh.
It startles out of you, rough and involuntary, edged with disbelief. It tastes like rainwater and old anger and something frighteningly close to relief.
James laughs too, surprised by it. And for a beat, the world folds in, just the two of you suspended in the storm, a wire strung tight between your ribs and his.
“Reset!” he calls over his shoulder, but his gaze doesn’t leave yours.
You shake your head, exasperated. “This film better be worth it.”
He looks at you like it already is.
The next take is lightning. Every word slips sharp and gleaming from your mouth like broken glass turned art. You cry — effortless, full-bodied, not because the script demands it but because the ache inside you finally found somewhere to go. It spills from you like it belongs to the scene, but you know better. It’s yours. And James knows it too.
He doesn't speak. Doesn’t dare.
He watches you through the lens like he’s forgotten how to breathe.
The scene ends, but silence hangs. He forgets to call cut.
You stand there in the soft roar of rain, chest rising, lashes damp, your whole body lit from within by something raw and holy. Behind you, the boom operator wipes his eyes.
James lowers the camera slowly, reverent. His voice barely breaks the moment. “That’s the one.”
You nod once. A quiet offering. A white flag. A beginning.
Something tender and dangerous, still unnamed, but no longer avoidable.
You stay too long on set.
The crew has packed up. The actors vanished like breath on glass. Even the rain has given up, leaving behind a hushed, glistening quiet, as if the world is holding its breath. The sky hangs low, bruised and secretive. You know you should leave, your jacket’s still damp, your boots a graveyard of mud and gravel, but your body doesn’t listen.
So you hover at the edge. Pretending to scroll your phone, pretending not to watch James coil cables and hum under his breath like the silence doesn’t matter.
He doesn’t speak at first. Just flicks a glance your way now and then, as if you’re part of the set dressing he hasn’t decided how to frame. Then, finally:
“You waiting for someone?”
You shake your head. Then — quieter than you mean to be, softer than he deserves — “I just… wanted to say I’m sorry.”
James pauses mid-knot. His fingers still on the cable, the tension in them mirrored in his shoulders. “Sorry?”
You nod, biting down hard on the word.
“For earlier. The yelling. The whole… storming off thing.” Your voice hitches, raw and reluctant. “I know I’m not easy. People always tell me that. And they’re not wrong.”
He doesn’t speak immediately. Just watches you, his brow knitting like he’s trying to decode a language written in rainwater and restraint. You feel suddenly, unbearably exposed. Like he’s seeing through your jacket, your bones, your carefully constructed armor. Then, quietly: “You wanna watch what I got?”
You blink. “What?”
“The footage. From today.” He lifts a hard drive, thumb tapping against it absently. “I haven’t reviewed it yet, but I think…” A beat. A half-shrug. Casual, but not really. “I think it’s good. And you’re in almost every frame.”
Your mouth opens, then shuts. Something about the way he says it — so matter-of-fact, so unsentimental — lands in your chest like a spark in dry grass.
You’re in almost every frame.
You should say something clever. Or dismissive. Or safe. Instead: “I mean… if you’ve got somewhere else to be–” he adds, suddenly unsure.
But you’re already shaking your head. “No,” you say, steadier now. “No, I’d like that.”
He takes you to a greasy little diner just off campus, the kind that time forgot — all flickering neon and jukebox ghosts. The windows sweat with condensation. The booths are cracked vinyl, patched with duct tape and memory. Someone’s carved a heart into the tabletop, initials long since faded.
You slide into the corner booth beside him. The laptop sits between you, still speckled with rain and fingerprints, battery limping at 23%. The screen casts a pale glow across his features, softening him. Making him look more like a dream than a director.
He doesn’t press play.
Just opens the folder: cold opens // raw takes. Rows of stills flicker by — thumbnails of you mid-scene, mouth open in fury or fear or something too honest to name. Your body, caught in half-motion. Your face, too close to real.
“You’re not difficult,” James says, eyes still on the screen.
You turn to him, startled.
“I know people say that about you,” he goes on, voice low and even. “Heard it before I ever met you. Cold. Intense. Difficult.” He tilts his head, mouth curving into something almost-smile. “And maybe that’s true. But I think they just don’t know what to do with someone who doesn’t flinch.”
Your breath catches.
He doesn’t look at you right away. Just clicks a file.
Play.
There you are — rain-matted, gravel-wounded, your blouse clinging like regret. You’re mid-yell, voice raised, eyes alight with fury that doesn’t quite belong to the character. From here, it’s different. From here, it’s alive. You look like someone breaking open, not breaking down. There’s power in it. A reckless, radiant sort of power. Like if the world dared you to kneel, you’d laugh in its face.
“I didn’t direct that,” James says softly, gaze flicking sideways. “That’s all you.”
And you look at him.
Really look.
Not through the camera. Not through the shell you’ve built for rooms that underestimate you. But through the low diner light, with your sleeves still damp and your guard beginning, impossibly, to peel back.
This boy — James Potter — with stormlight in his eyes and calluses from cradling lenses like they hold holy things. This boy who’s sat through your silence, your fury, your fire, and didn’t once flinch.
You don’t say anything at first.
You just let the quiet stretch, a fragile thread catching on every flicker of neon, every breath between you.
Then, dryly: “So you’re telling me that screaming at your actor in the middle of a thunderstorm made your student film?”
He huffs a laugh. “What can I say? Genius strikes in hostile environments.”
You raise an eyebrow, your voice low and teasing. “Bet that’s what you tell all your temperamental actresses.”
James leans back, eyes still on you. “Only the brilliant ones.”
You roll your eyes, but your mouth won’t stop tilting. You try to hide it behind your straw.
The laptop hums between you, warm and rain-smudged. He scrolls through the footage with careful hands. Like the frames might fall apart if touched too roughly. When your face appears again on-screen, soaked and luminous and furious, you glance over instinctively — not at yourself, but at him.
He’s watching the scene like it’s a secret he hasn’t been trusted with before. Like he’s still trying to figure out how you did it. Or how you are.
“You know,” he says, like he’s thinking out loud, “you’re not what I expected.”
“Let me guess,” you say, crossing your arms. “Colder? Scarier? More likely to murder a sound guy with a boom pole?”
He smirks. “I was gonna say louder. But also, yes. Terrifying.”
You snort. “Charming.”
James looks at you again — really looks, the kind of gaze that pauses before it lands. “I mean it,” he says. “Everyone warned me you were...difficult. Too intense. Too much.”
“And yet here you are,” you say, faux-sweet, “trapped in a diner booth with me. What does that say about your judgment?”
He grins, big and unbothered. “That I have impeccable taste.”
You roll your eyes again, but softer this time. Easier. There’s something in your chest loosening — a knot you didn’t notice until it started to come undone.
Then, after a pause, more careful: “You really think it was good? The footage?”
He doesn’t answer immediately.
He just clicks a clip, lets it play — your face filling the frame, soaked in stormlight and something fierce and unfiltered.
And when the scene ends, James says, “It wasn’t just good.”
A beat.
“You made it art.”
You blink. “Alright, filmmaker. Don’t start getting poetic on me.”
He shrugs. “Too late.”
There’s a new silence now, weightless but crackling, like the second right before a curtain rises. And then, just as you reach for the last of your milkshake, he says it:
“You’re my muse, you know.”
You nearly choke on the straw. “Excuse me?”
He grins, unrepentant. “For real. I’ve already written you into my next project. Autumn term. New script. More dialogue, more light. Less mud.”
You narrow your eyes, playing skeptical. “You sure you can handle me twice?”
James tilts his head, like he’s considering it. “Probably not. But I’m gonna try anyway.”
That gets him a look — flat, amused, half-flattered against your will. You shake your head and mutter, “You’re insufferable.”
“And you’re impossible,” he says, quietly.
But there’s no accusation in it. No edge. Just something almost reverent.
You don’t reply right away. Just reach for a napkin, smear a rain-damp curl off your forehead, and watch yourself flicker once more across the screen — raw, unguarded, real.
Outside, the sky’s still heavy, but the rain’s long gone.
Inside, the diner glows warm and strange. James’s arm brushes yours when he leans forward to rewind a take. You don’t move away.
You sit like that, shoulder to shoulder, in the buzz of cheap neon and soft Elvis crooning from the jukebox, letting the moment spool out around you.
No declarations. No conclusions. Just this, this space that wasn’t here before.
Something beginning.
And when he looks at you again, with that quiet certainty only artists and fools have, you believe him.
Come autumn, you’ll say yes.
Because this time, it’s not desperation.
It’s choice.
It’s curiosity.
It’s the promise of something more.
thankx for reading <3
I’d appreciate any feedback, whether in the comments or my inbox. :3
– your santi 🪐
masterlist // muse script