Famous: A Malec AU Fanfiction

Chapter 22

"Cut, cut! No, no that was terrible." Raphael's harsh voice streamed through the air again. Alec looked over at Raphael, his shoulders hunched inward, expecting to be called out at any moment. The director caught Alec's confused, troubled look, then waved his hand in the air as if he was fanning away sudden smoke that had come into the room.

"Not you, niño," Raphael's voice sounded a bit tired, "I meant her."

Everyone's eyes swung open to look at where the director was pointing. The young actress, who's name Alec kept on forgetting, looked as if she had just been struck across the face by Raphael. Alec felt sorry for her, and tried to catch her eye. She wouldn't look at him.

"Sorry," she muttered, pushing some of her dark hair out of her face, "Not angry enough again?"

"If you know the problem," Raphael said curtly, "Then why don't you fix it yourself? You don't look like a stupid girl, I'm sure you can figure it out."

Alec saw the glimmer of tears that was shining in the corners of her eyes. Something inside of him snapped.

He moved forward in front of her, blocking her from most of everyone else's view.

"Hey, why don't we all take a break?" he suggested, and he hoped that his voice sounded light and unaffected, "It's been a while since we've stopped, and I think it would do everyone good."

This was met with many thankful sighs and moans of relief. Raphael narrowed his eyes at Alec. Alec forced himself to stare back, and not to move away. Still, the director didn't say anything when everyone started talking freely with each other. Out of the corner of his eye, Alec saw one assistant bringing around a plate of large donuts for everyone. He moved away from Raphael, and headed over to the young actress. He knew that she didn't have a huge role in this movie, but she was an important supporting character. Over the few days that they had been filming, Alec had realized how hard it was to shoot a movie. There were times where the script was a mess and parts had to be rewritten on the spot, when there were wardrobe disasters or one of the stars weren't doing your part. What Raphael had said before was right. Everyone had to be able to do their part for all of it to work together, and the smallest mess up would make big changes for the movie. And sometimes the big changes weren't necessarily good changes. He himself felt as if he was working overtime, just like everyone else probably was. Reading the script over and over again until the black, small print swam in front of his eyes, practicing his different expressions in a mirror in between his breaks, all of it was so important. He wondered how Magnus could do this all the time. But then again, Magnus had been making appearances in movies since he was much younger.

"Hey," he told her, and sat down next to her, "You okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, staring straight ahead. Alec knew that body language well: she was trying to fight off the tears.

"Raphael is just not that great at communication," Alec tried, trying to soothe his tone, "you were doing fine."

"No I wasn't," her voice was shaking, and a single tear rolled down her cheek, "I feel like I keep on making mistakes and messing things up for everyone. Maybe I should've listened to some people when they told me I wasn't cut out for films."

"Rebecca," came that familiar voice. Both of them looked up to see Raphael. Alec tensed, preparing to defend Rebecca if it came to it. But, something made him pause. There was a softened look now in Raphael's eyes, although one had to really look in order to see it.

"If you weren't cut out for films," his voice was slow and his accent was clear in it, "Do you think that I would've chosen you for this role? I'm not the smartest person in the world, but it doesn't take a genius to know that a good director won't choose a bad actress."