Chapter Text
His hair is sizzling. Little sparks keep hitting his scalp and burning him.
“It won’t hurt, but we’ll spray you down just in case,” the hair and makeup lady had said as she sprayed water into his hair. Fucking liar.
He doesn’t flinch. He can’t. There are devices strapped to his chest that keep bursting like gunpowder, and Misha is pretty sure it’s exactly what being shot feels like. He stares straight ahead and tries to think about anything other than his burning hair and bursting chest.
The other two actors in the scene are on the other side of the barn aiming shotguns at him, pretending to shoot. Despite his very real pain, Misha has to hold back a laugh. He thinks pantomiming is the most ridiculous thing about acting.
It’s going to be a long day.
“Who are you?”
“I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.”
“Um, yeah. Thanks for that.”
“Cut!”
An artisan comes up to Misha and starts “styling” his hair. Really, she’s just making it look as messy and ridiculous as possible. They had sat him in a chair for an hour this morning and flat-ironed every strand of hair on his now fried head. The result was particularly absurd.
He looks over her shoulder and sees the guy who plays Dean—Jensen Ackles—making a strange face and mouthing something to one of the cameramen. Ackles’ eyes then flick toward Misha, his head tilting slightly in his direction. Misha glares at him until he makes eye contact, and Ackles ducks his head in embarrassment.
What an asshole, Misha thinks with no real malice to back it up. He’s just being self-conscious, believing that the star of this cringe-worthy television show actually cares enough to judge him. It’s not a big deal. He’ll get over it in a few minutes anyway. He’s used to being the guest star, the one-and-done, the guy whose name nobody remembers the second his contract ends.
“You’re auditioning for the role of a demon,” they had told him. “It’s a five-episode arc that will conclude with your demise.”
He got the script, he memorized the lines. It wasn’t until the role had been formally offered to him that they told him that the demon thing was a lie. He was going to be an angel, the first angel ever on Supernatural.
(It wasn’t until later that he would find out that Castiel wasn’t actually the first angel introduced on Supernatural. He was just the first one the narrative revealed immediately as an angel. Richard Speight Jr. would brag about being the actual first for years down the road. It would become a lame joke among the actors.)
They’ve only done two takes of Castiel’s big entrance. The director is trying to figure out how best to angle the part where Dean stabs Castiel in the chest.
The first thing they try is a trick knife that shatters upon contact with Castiel’s coat. Misha thinks it’s a cool idea and wonders how the props people made it. That is, until Jensen Ackles shoves it at his chest and hits Misha so hard he’s probably going to get a bruise over his heart. And it shatters lamely, like dust instead of steel.
“Oh shit, did I hurt you?” Jensen Ackles asks, staring at Misha’s chest with concern in his eyes.
Misha clears his throat and shakes his head. “I’m fine.”
Ackles doesn’t look convinced, but they move on. The director decides that the best course of action is to put a camera behind Misha so that his shoulder blocks the blade. That way, Ackles can stop the knife right before he gets to Misha’s chest and the effect will still work.
Misha braces himself to get hit again, but this take Ackles swings the knife down and stops right before hitting him at all. The movement of his hand is perfect, and he jerks it so that it looks like a blade literally went through Misha’s chest.
An actor who’s actually good at pantomiming. That’s one in a million. And Misha certainly doesn’t include himself in that list.
The director comes back over once again and talks to Ackles, and Ackles surprisingly says that he messed up the movement and can do better on the next take. Misha feels a sense of dread low in his gut. This guy is a whole new level of intimidating.
Not only is he incredibly attractive, but he also seems to take his job seriously. He commits on every goddamn take, and he’s unafraid to speak up to the director when he thinks something isn’t right. Along with feeling intimidated, Misha's vaguely jealous. He wonders what it would feel like to be the star of a television show, to know that the show would literally cease to exist if he decided to quit one day. Jensen Ackles gets to do whatever the fuck he wants because he can get away with whatever the fuck he wants. Misha has never known what that luxury is like.
(He’ll get back to the “incredibly attractive” thing later. It’s not something he was flippantly casting to the side in favor of analyzing Ackles’ work ethic. He is definitely, acutely, worryingly aware of how goddamn attractive his scene partner is.)
On the third try, Misha messes up his own pantomiming and somehow makes it look like Ackles hit him with a curved blade. Ackles smiles at him and reassures him that he's doing fine, but Misha still feels like an idiot. Getting fired on day one. That would be something else.
After a particularly long take, Ackles immediately breaks eye contact with Misha and walks over to the second A.D. Misha watches him as he flips through a script and drinks a bottle of water and whispers with the A.D. They look over at Misha with suspicious smiles on their faces. Misha has to lie to himself and pretend like they aren’t talking about him. He became an expert at that in grade school, but he hadn’t had to use the skill in quite a few years. He thought he was just being self-conscious before, but now he knows for sure. Jensen Ackles is talking about him to crewmembers.
Misha is staring down at his shoes when Ackles returns, and so he’s surprised to find a water bottle being held out to him.
“You keep clearing your throat, so I figured…” Ackles explains a bit shyly, like he’s afraid Misha might bite.
“Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
Ackles furrows his brow and tilts his head, but he doesn’t say anything else before the slate drops again.
(It isn’t until later, much later, that Misha will learn the reason for Ackles’ confusion. Misha’s response was the first time he spoke in his regular speaking voice in front of his costar. The two of them will laugh about it at some point. One day, Misha will forget that he hated his first day on set and that the bulk of that hatred was directed at one Jensen Ross Ackles. One day, they will laugh.)
“Good things do happen, Dean.”
Like a fucking idiot, Misha glances down at the floor to make sure he’s hitting his mark. Ackles blinks in annoyance, and Misha cringes at his mistake. Which, of course, makes him mess up his next line.
“Cut!”
Misha stares down at the mark and mutters to himself, “Why the hell do I have to be this close to you?”
“Hmm?” Ackles asks.
“Oh, um. We’re just standing really close together in this scene, aren’t we? Like, uncomfortably close.”
Ackles shrugs as he takes a pull from his bottled water. He hands the bottle to a P.A. and says, “I’m sure there’s a reason for it. Don’t worry about it. You’re doing great.”
Misha is thrown off guard by the compliment, but not because it was unexpected. More because it sounded like something Ackles just says to people to get them to shut up and do the scene. Who does this guy think he is?
(On the other hand, maybe it was genuine. Maybe Jensen Ackles is actually nice? Who the fuck knows.)
“Hey. You OK?” Ackles asks gruffly.
When Misha meets his eyes, there is no question of his sincerity this time. Ackles really is concerned about Misha, a person he met an hour ago and who he will forget about in a few weeks’ time. “I’m fine. Thank you for asking.”
Ackles furrows his brow and tilts his head as if trying to figure Misha out, but then the slate drops once more and they continue on with the scene.
“What’s the matter?” Misha instinctively tilts his head, the same way Ackles just did to him moments ago. Before he continues, he unfurrows his brow so he’s not totally copying his costar’s mannerisms. “You don’t think you deserve to be saved.”
Ackles blinks, scans Misha’s face, clenches his jaw, swallows. It all happens in a split second, and once again Misha feels incredibly intimidated. “Why’d you do it?”
“Because God commanded it.” He says it too fast, doesn’t look directly at Ackles, accidentally licks his lips.
What a fucking disaster.
When the take ends, Ackles smirks and looks down at the ground. Misha wishes he knew what was going through his head, but it would probably be impolite to ask.
“Hey, Jensen, what are you thinking about?”
“Just how much you fucking suck at this. Can’t wait for your guest spot to be over.”
One of the A.D.’s calls for 10, and Misha looks around lamely as people disperse. Jim Beaver gets up off the floor and startles Misha. He had forgotten he was still here.
“Hey, come to craft services with us,” Ackles says with Beaver by his side.
Misha stupidly looks over his shoulder to see if the actors really are extending the offer to him and not somebody else.
Ackles huffs a laugh and gestures for Misha to follow. “Dude, c’mon. We don’t bite.”
As they walk the several yards to craft services, Misha doesn’t speak. He hangs back a little and listens to Ackles and Beaver complain about the hours they’ve been working lately.
Wow. Riveting. Working actors complaining about work.
At one point, Ackles looks over at Misha with wide eyes but when he notices Misha staring back at him he averts his gaze and rubs the back of his neck. Misha continues looking at him, and once again he wonders what’s going through his head.
“Why the hell do you care?” his wife would say if he decides to tell her how unnerved he feels by Jensen Ackles.
“He’s a coworker, and I think he hates me.”
“So? It’s not like it would be the first time someone hates you.”
“Misha.”
“What?” Misha asks, snapping back to reality and realizing that Ackles and Beaver are both staring at him.
“I asked if this is your first time in Vancouver,” Ackles says, sounding a bit frustrated. Who knows how long he’s been trying to get Misha’s attention.
“No, it’s not. My wife and I came here on vacation once.”
“Really? Vancouver?”
They all grab a cardboard cup of coffee and start walking back toward the stage.
“We’ve been a lot of places.” Don’t be a pretentious asshole, you annoying fuck. “My wife—she’s adventurous. She takes me a lot of places.” Jesus fucking Christ.
“Yeah, but what the hell’s in Vancouver?” Ackles asks. “I mean, maybe I’m biased because I’ve worked here for too long.”
Beaver laughs and mumbles something under his breath. Probably something like, “You can say that again.”
Working actors lamenting the mundaneness of their consistent job. Amazing.
“There are, um, interesting people in Vancouver.”
“That sounds suspicious,” Beaver says.
Misha doesn’t answer. They arrive back at the stage and throw away their empty cups, and the conversation is forgotten. Good thing, too. Misha really didn’t want to explain to these strangers that he and his wife went to Vancouver in order to research whether it would be a good place to have threesomes. (It is.)
After just one more take, the director cuts Jim Beaver for the day. Beaver shakes Ackles’ hand and gives Misha a curt nod before leaving the stage.
So now it’s just him and Jensen Ackles.
The more times they do the scene, the deeper Misha decides to pitch his voice. He doesn’t exactly know why he decided that Castiel would talk as if he was constantly garbling rocks, but he’s already regretting the choice. It scratches his throat and is hard to maintain. On one take he considers using his natural voice, but as he opens his mouth to speak he realizes that would be fucking absurd. The fact that they cut Beaver for the day means they’ve already got the dailies they want. If he suddenly changed the portrayal of his character, he would ruin everything.
So instead, he pitches his voice even lower.
Ackles keeps smirking and looking down at the ground between takes, and Misha just fucking knows this guy is secretly laughing at him. He has to be.
The whole world doesn’t fucking revolve around you, Misha.
Their day comes to a close around 1 a.m. As crewmembers strike the set, Ackles slaps Misha on the back and tells him he did a good job.
“Thank you,” Misha responds lamely.
Ackles smiles with his teeth, and then he winks at Misha before walking away.
What the fuck.