"I love you. I love you, I love you, I -"

"Oh, shut up."

Lily looks up at her potential co-star, whose name she’s already forgotten. Ben Cute-Hair-Weird-Eyes Something. She hopes to God they don’t cast him, he delivers his lines like they’re in a college production of Our Town, all boyish charm and theater-trained intensity on cue. She leans in to kiss him, then -

"Thank you, Ben, we’ll be in touch," says Nancy the casting director.

Lily pulls back and smiles at Ben politely. He’s cute in a Neutrogena commercial way, but he smells like an ad for Axe Body Spray and she bets he’d kiss like a public service announcement. She glances at Nancy, who’s already scrolling through her smartphone and doing her best impression of Very Busy Casting Director Lady. If people were rain, Nancy was a freak occurrence LA thunderstorm that casually ruined your day on its way to the Caribbean.

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“I hate food? Smooth, James. Utterly smooth,” he thought as he rocked back on his heels and tried to find something, anything to occupy the next 4 minutes while he stood there next to her. It was sort of true, though. He did hate food. His childhood was one long experiment of eliminating items from his diet—it started with milk, then eggs, then wheat, and then tomatoes of all things. So he went from the kid that puked on the carpet during storytime—that cafeteria pizza was a perfect storm of allergens—to the kid who couldn’t eat anything; the kid that had to bring his own “special” cookies to every birthday party. But here in LA, where everyone seemed to be on some sort of odd dietary regimen, he didn’t feel so alone. When he saw her eating from the gluten-free selection that morning, he thought that they might have something in common, but apparently two words at a time were all she could muster.

He thought back to last year’s pilot season. He was so excited to finally get something that seemed promising—a tv adaptation of Warm Bodies seemed like the perfect mix of Vampire Diaries and Walking Dead. They’d only had one scene, but was he really that forgettable? Or had that teen witch movie gone to her head?

Regardless, he was here. He liked this project, and he had a good feeling about it. So what if she didn’t like him. He didn’t like her either. And if he could convince everyone that he was in love with her from “Action” to “Cut,” then he would prove that he really was a good actor, that he belonged in this town, in this industry, in this world. But she was a good actor, too. And judging from the three minutes that she spent staring in the opposite direction, she might even be better than him.

Listen, she doesn’t appreciate the tongue. She just doesn’t. They’re professionals. This isn’t a high school production of Romeo and Juliet. 

And the way his glasses kept bumping her cheek?

Yeah, that was annoying. 

Lily knows she can’t blame him for the glasses. He didn’t pick them out. It’s part of the story.

She really needs to let that one go.

She tries, but it’s not working. He’s just so…gangly. 

After they call it a day she goes home and takes a shower. It’s funny, but standing in all that rain dried out her skin. It’s like she soaked up too much of it and her skin is tired. She’s tired. 

After her shower she wraps a towel around her body, tight, and skims her hand across the mirror to wipe away the fog. It reminds her of how his stupid glasses kept fogging up and how when he made a joke about it (that time it was just the two of them - not in the scene - in the scene he’s professional - it’s only when the camera stops that he turns into himself). When he made that joke she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing a little. 

She doesn’t want him to make her laugh. 

She doesn’t want to still feel the spot on her cheekbone where his glasses brushed her skin. 

My attempt at a fan canon writing for Lily and James. Enjoy!

————

He never lets it known he’s never done an onscreen kiss before. It’s his own little secret.

Sure, James has kissed people. Lots of times. Drunk.  Several steady girlfriends.   That time in high school when he’d made out with his best friend of seven years only to determine he was straight and for Sirius to figure out he was bisexual.

And he was a decent kisser or so he was told.  It’s not like it’s something he could compare, being the one doing the kissing but so far, nobody had had any complaints. One girl remarked he had a nice tongue, so he tried to use it often. 

There’s just something intimidating about the onscreen kiss, less than there is with kissing the people in your life.  You have several dozen people watching.  It’s being constantly analyzed by not only the people surrounding you (the director may be the worst one) but by your costar, who is not emotionally attached to you in any capacity. Or. They weren’t supposed to, at least. 

Not that he feels anything for Lily.  Not that he watched her eat a peach curiously on the set of the CW pilot that ultimately failed.  And he certainly hadn’t been disappointed that it failed because it meant he didn’t get to see her again to try to ask her out. It wasn’t that at all.

Doing the onscreen kiss means allowing a certain amount of vulnerability into yourself, into your role.  It’s about putting some guards down and pretending, at least for a few minutes, you have some sort of vested, possibly romantic or lustful interest in this one person. 

He can handle kissing girls in bars or girls in bed.  In front of cameras is another story entirely.

He’s been getting turned down for more and more roles recently.  Not being seen as the romantic lead.  Whispers going around that they don’t see much romance appeal in his demo reel.  When his agent, Arabella, had finally contacted him with this one, he thought it was a good opportunity—a chance to prove his chops.

He’d been a bit surprised seeing Lily standing there when he walked into the room for the call back.  Her hair was as red as ever (rumor was it was from a bottle but he found he didn’t particularly care) and her eyes were twice as bright, despite the boredom and the brief annoyance at their shared recognition.  He’d been so close to finally securing his target goal of getting that kiss, only to learn that he got the part and would have several hundred opportunities to perfect that kiss on set, again and again, in front of dozens of cameras and people and production assistants.

And Lily.

It’s not long after the first take he has a small realization.  Lily being his first onscreen kiss isn’t a bad gig. It isn’t a bad gig at all.

Even though she won’t stop talking about his overuse of tongue.

He could get used to onscreen kisses.

Especially if all of them were with her.

As long as she didn’t open up her mouth afterwards.

It is the third take, and honestly, James is getting tired of running up the stairs after Lily. He is not the most coordinated person on flat ground, and here he is taking two steps at a time, jogging up a wet bricked staircase.

He is soaked, and cold, and he can barely see through the spectacles he has been told to wear.

But he manages to reach Lily, manages not to stumble over his feet and slip backwards and crack his skull open.

And she turns, and he is struck dumb because, god, that framing makes her look beautiful.

Not that she is not beautiful the rest of the time - but there is something about the moment they are in, the scene they are enacting, that enhances the red of her hair.

[She is also unfairly completely dry, and James remembers he has a line to say.]

He almost loses himself into the kiss in this take. Almost. He stumbles over his apology and yeah, James has never been good with women, but does she have to look so annoyed? They do still have to work together for a while, and he would appreciate being on good terms with his co-star, but she appears uninterested.

She is cool and aloof and unattainable, and he just wants to get through this job without Lily hating him, but all he seems to do is make her mad.

He fumbles with his words as the crew pack up, and it is only as Lily walks away that he hits his head.

‘I hate food.’ Really, James? That is the best you could come up with?

He is such an idiot.

James goes to the pub afterwards, the one he wanted to bring Lily to, and pretends that she’s there next to him, laughing disdainfully at his drink order (Pomegranate Martinis are for everyone, ok?) and stealing his Mozzarella Sticks. Cheese is oozing out of one of the Mozzarella Sticks and James reaches for it the same time Lily does and the tip of his pointer finger touches the back of her hand. And for some reason the moment he touches her it feels as though sparks are flying and magic is real.

But none of it is real. He sits there by himself and doesn’t even order Mozzarella Sticks.

He orders those mini burger sliders instead.

Working at Starbucks to support yourself in your acting career is one thing. Working at Starbucks to support yourself in your acting career, and seeing your co-star (who is really the most gigantic dick, and how do you end up with super-fantastic on-screen chemistry with a gigantic dick is what you want to know) “unexpectedly” walk in to get a grande half-caf hazelnut mocha is… something else entirely.

"Imagine meeting you here!" he says with a nervous laugh. "What a coincidence!"

Ugh, he’s such a bad actor! Except he’s a good actor when he’s actually acting. Yeah, you still haven’t figured that one out. You nod with a strained smile. “Aaanything else?” You’re determined to keep your side of the conversation on the subject of the transaction. Small talk just keeps him here longer, and God, you would really rather have him anywhere but here.

"Uhhh, yeah. Yeah, could I have…" He takes his sweet time surveying the baked goods behind the glass. "Could I have a slice of pound cake?"

You were going to keep your side of the conversation on the subject of the transaction, you really were, but you just can’t resist this one sarcastic jab:

"I thought you hated food."