WHO: Annabeth Chatham, Viraj Kumar, Jess Porter, Sol Bell WHAT: An asshole director, an asshole star, and a beleaguered PA: Revisited WHEN: December 6, 2019, Late Afternoon WHERE: On the set of Trial by Water RATING: Language, violence (trigger warning)
It was the slap heard around the world.
Well, it was the slap heard around the soundstage again.
It happened in the lull between scenes, when things were being reset and the cameras moved and the universe arranged for a space of quiet soft enough that the single sharp noise carried. What came next was the whining sound of spells being cast, one right after the other. Off to one corner, on the other side of a fabricated wall, orange and blue sparks made crazy shadows on the wall.
Annabeth stood a couple of feet away from "award-winning" director Thomason, who had come back for some pickup shots that he hadn't been happy with. Her wand was shaking and shooting off blinding sparks, and her chest heaved with just trying to breathe. He was red-faced and looked literally out of sorts, with his tongue bulging grotesquely out of his mouth while his nose appeared to be wandering randomly around his face.
Viraj couldn't help feeling a little smug that he'd managed to get out of most of the pickup shots that Thomason had requested, especially when it was an episode centered around his character. He knew it had little to do with his performance and more to do with the talk he'd had with Jess about refusing to work with the asshole, but he felt justifiably proud of it all the same. He was on set for a handful of transitions and very little dialogue, and he'd promised to be on his best behavior.
Which was why he was surprised enough to nearly stumble over his own feet when he came around the corner to see Annabeth—of all people—hexing said asshole and looking like there was more where that came from. He barely even thought through his movements as he rushed toward them, pulling his wand only to curse and toss it to the ground a second later. He still had the prop wand.
"Hey," Viraj said, instead grabbing the back of Annabeth's wand arm. He'd thought it was the next best thing to a disarming spell, but instead what it got him was a fist to the face. He stumbled back a step, clutching his cheek. "Hey!"
She wasn't a violent person in the slightest, so she was no more shocked than Viraj—whose identity she recognized only after the fact—when her first reaction to a hand suddenly on her person was to spin around and throw her fist into their first available body part. Annabeth had years of set work under her belt; even with magic, she'd accumulated a not inconsiderable bunch of muscles, especially in her arms. It happened so fast that she barely had time to even register the somewhat satisfying give of soft flesh beneath her fist before she even realized what she'd done. Her eyes went wide, and she staggered a couple of steps back from the two men, wand falling slack to her side while the other was kept raised in front of her, like she could physically ward them off.
All the things that her brain had done to try to shield her from what was happening—the mental fog, the protective instinct—fell away. Reality snapped back into place. She heard other footsteps quickly approaching, probably security or other members of the crew. Really, what she needed to do was stay and own up to what had happened. That, of course, was the opposite of what she did. All that protective anger turned right on its head, making Fight turn into Flight. She dropped her arm, turned, and ran off the soundstage.
Viraj had only managed to blink a couple of times and try to figure out what the hell had just happened when she was already running off without a word. He looked from the direction she'd gone and back to Thomason, eyes narrowing at the sight of the man's crooked nose. His own cheek throbbed, but it didn't bring with it any sympathy for the man. Probably didn't hurt that he already couldn't stand him, but there was also the fact that only the week before Annabeth had been coaxing Viraj back to the set after his own confrontation. How had the tables turned like this?
"Better call the medic," he said to one of the other PAs as he passed, barely giving them a look as he attempted to trace Annabeth's path. He'd gotten her general direction but had already lost sight of her. He checked the first couple of nooks and rooms before finding her in a storage closet barely big enough for its contents, much less a couple of people. Still, he pulled the door closed behind him and kept his distance as best he could. "Are you okay?"
The narrow window between holing herself up in the tiny room she'd stumbled into and Viraj of all people finding her hadn't been nearly long enough for her to build herself into any kind of catharsis one way or the other. Her knuckles were starting pulse in time with her heartbeat, which was thundering loud enough to almost drown out his question. She had them braced against some of the shelving, curled around until the skin was white and pulled tight. There was a chance that she'd been crying, maybe still was, but she was numb to everything but the pain in her hand and the need to pull more and more air into lungs that didn't want to accept it. A high, terrible laugh issued from her throat, and the surface beneath her hands groaned in protest. "Gee, golly, I'm just swell, mister!"
Viraj frowned, torn between annoyance at being punched and her flippancy versus concern for the weird way she was acting. He didn't know her that well, but he would have been able to tell this was off even if he hadn't seen her pointing her wand at their famous guest director. The latter won out, and he lifted a hand and gave her the universal gesture for bring it. "Alright, you got in a punch and some sarcasm already. What else have you got? Better if you yell at me now than you go back out there and have to answer questions, if I had to guess."
Another laugh almost slipped out when she saw Viraj's movement in her periphery, but this one was genuine. It was such a weirdly comforting thing, almost normal when right at that moment nothing was. Her brain didn't know what to do with that, so she just turned her face to stare at him for a second before rolling her eyes. "Whatever you say, Neo." That really did set her off laughing, but it didn't last because it quickly gave way to the kind of sobs that had her shaking all over with the effort to hold them back. "I don't wanna yell," she whispered as tears began to well in her eyes. "Because if I start, then I won't stop."
Her gaze sought his, and she stared at him like he might actually have an answer that made sense. "Why won't people stop touching me when I tell them no?"
Viraj wanted to laugh, too, but he could hear the tension in her tone even before it broke. He wanted to put a hand on her shoulder or do something, since talking obviously wasn't what she wanted—but when she continued without his input, he was really glad he hadn't. "Fuck," he said, not attempting to hold back the anger in the word. He looked over his shoulder as if he could see Thomason through the closed door. "Is that why you hexed him? I'd have fucking killed him." He drew in a deep breath and had to force himself to tamp down on the rest. When he breathed out, he said, "You tell me what you need, and you've got it. Alright? Including Thomason's head on a platter."
Even though she knew Viraj detested the guy, it was still enormously satisfying to hear the fury in that one curse. It was sad that she could conceive of a world where he didn't believe her, but she was very glad this wasn't one of them. The very fact that he wasn't demanding the details spoke volumes of his character, and there was a small part of her mind that shifted her way of thinking about him, that would defend him the next time anyone tried to mess with him on or off set. None of that was particularly important right now, however. She looked past him, but didn't really take in the door or anything at all really. "Oh, god," Annabeth croaked as her future evaporated in her mind's eye, "they're going to fire me. I...I need to talk to Jess. Or Sol. Or both of them. I've gotta tell them what happened. Before he does."
Viraj couldn't quite smile—it wouldn't have felt right—but there was definitely a quirk of his lips as he said, "Oh, Jess has already had an earful about this asshole. I'm sure she'd love to get another." Because even if Annabeth didn't want to say much about the encounter, he had plenty to say. He was already pulling out his phone and dialing. As it rang, he added, "Given what I saw of his face, I don't think he's going to be talking for at least a few more minutes." He smirked a little at that and put the phone on speaker.
Jess answered without greeting. "Oh god, what did you do now?"
"What are you talking about? I'm a saint." He paused, looking up at Annabeth again as he added the next part. "Besides, you're going to hear about this plenty, I have a feeling. Better to hear about it first hand. If you're in your office, we're going to drop by."
"We?"
A feeling not unlike panic sent shards of ice plummeting into her stomach as soon as Jess's familiar voice filled the small space. Unconscious of the action, she took a step toward Viraj, like just being close to her mentor's electronic presence could give her the strength she needed. "It's-It's Annabeth, Ms.—Jess. Can we… can I come see you? S-Something happened, and I need you to hear it from me before…" She had to press her lips tight as another wave of emotion threatened to pull her under, but she still managed to force out a cracked, "Please."
"I'm in my office." The sarcastic edge had dropped out of Jess's voice, and she was all business. "I'll let my assistant know to send you in. And Annabeth?" She paused a moment before adding, "Take a deep breath and let's talk." With that, she hung up.
Viraj put his phone away. "Do you actually want me to go with you? Or would you rather I head off interference from the other side? I can be really annoying and distracting when I want to." He raised an eyebrow knowingly.
Despite everything, he managed to get another laugh out of her. "You make it an artform," she said not unkindly and with a watery smile that faded from her eyes from one blink to the next. It took her a moment to gather the strength enough to pull her shoulders back and shake her head. "I'll go. You can either be interference guy or get the heck outta Dodge. I won't blame you for the latter." Annabeth searched his cheek and nearly reached for it, but her hand froze midway between them. She just sort of looked at it before finding his face again. "I'm sorry I hit you. I should've said that sooner."
"Oh no, this is a show I wanna see." Viraj smiled a real smile at that, tinged with plenty of spite. He almost hoped that Thomason still had a little fight left in him. Having an excuse to take the guy down another peg sounded pretty good right now. He shrugged at the apology. He knew the ache would catch up with him later, and probably before he got around to bruise paste, but he'd mostly forgotten about it until she brought it up. "Sorry I grabbed your arm. I would have just disarmed you, but I didn't have my wand on me."
He opened the door and checked the hallway to confirm that there was no danger of running into the asshole director in question. "Looks like it's clear for now. I'll see you around, yeah?"
Unable to do much more of anything else, Annabeth slipped out past him and waved him good-bye. "Guess we'll see if you will," she muttered in passing, but still gave him what small, but grateful smile she could muster. This is probably what the condemned felt like walking to the stake or the gallows or the guillotine. It was ridiculous hyperbole, she knew, but every step seemed to take longer than the last.
In reality, she was at Jess's door only a minute or two later, having taken every shortcut she knew. True to the boss lady's word, her assistant waved her in with only a second to take in the way she looked—which was probably awful. There was a definite note of concern there that gave Annabeth the tiniest hope that word hadn't spread that fast yet. She pushed into Jess's office after a small knock. Yet for as much as she'd attempted to psych herself up, her gaze remained entirely on the floor once she'd shut the door behind her. "I hexed Mr. Thomason."
At the sound of footsteps outside her office door, Jess glanced down at her phone to see that Sol had not answered yet. She'd texted him as soon as she'd disconnected from Viraj, mostly because it was the best thing to fend off the growing ball of dread in the pit of her stomach. She could handle confrontation. She did that all the time, but it was putting know-it-all executives in their place or using it to judge when actors were no longer worth the drama they caused. In Viraj's case, she'd been tempted more than once to tell him where the curb was, except that she kind of liked the guy in spite of himself and in spite of his drama. It was a fine line to walk sometimes.
Hearing the tears in Annabeth's voice—not to mention the hesitation—had put this upcoming conversation into a different light. Jess knew the people to watch, knew where to expect trouble and where to look for strength. Annabeth was firmly in the strength category...which meant that whatever had happened was very potentially going to make this a very bad day for them both.
"Sit," Jess said, gesturing toward the chair across from her. She slid over a box of tissues and the cup of coffee that she'd asked her assistant to go ahead and prepare. Her own mug was already half empty. "Now...tell me what happened as best you can. From the beginning."
It was probably a good thing that she reached for the tissues first, because the way they trembled in her hand would have turned holding the coffee cup into a disastrous enterprise. Annabeth sat at the very end of the seat, and took just a couple of seconds to do a couple of passes over her cheeks. "We were setting up for the second reshoots of the day, and I-I'd gone behind the walls to grab… a box. Yeah, it was plugs for the effects people. Sorry, I know it's probably not important, but I need you to know that I was just doing my job. I'd just picked it up when I...I felt someone behind me. He was"—she broke off and took a shuddering breath—"Thomason was standing right behind me when I stood up. Right behind me. I could f— I said I was sorry, 'cause I thought it might have been an accident. He just kinda laughed and-and reached up and touched my hair. Called me pretty, said I could be something so much more. I asked him—I told him to stop. He kept pushing himself on me. So I hit him. And then I hexed him. And Viraj tried to pull me away, and I accidentally punched him, and then I ran. Which is so stupid."
Sol had been on his way back to the offices anyway when he'd got Jess's text, and he'd arrived partway through Annabeth's story, closing the door quietly behind him, but he heard enough to understand, and for his heart to plummet right down to the floor. He glanced over at Jess, knowing full well how hard these situations were on her, and cleared his throat softly to get Annabeth's attention while he crossed the room, giving the young woman plenty of space as he perched on the edge of Jess's desk and reached for a few scraps of paper and a pen. "Stupid is not a word we'd ever use to describe you," he told her. "Are you all right, physically? Should we get a medic in here to look at your hand?"
His voice stayed level and calm and he kept his eyes on Annabeth, but at the same time he was busy scribbling two notes on the paper scraps: one to the assistant outside to call security to the Trial set to have Frank Thomason quarantined from all cast and crew members until further notice, another to ask Viraj to come to the office at his earliest convenience to give his version of events. Sol showed both notes to Jess before flicking his wand and sending them shooting under the closed door.
Jess kept her expression as carefully neutral as she could while listening to Annabeth's story. She was prepared for handling this sort of situation—it wasn't the first time, nor, unfortunately, likely the last—but Sol's appearance lightened the tension in her shoulders all the same. Only barely, but it was a welcome solace. She made some notes on the pad of paper she had next to her keyboard, but largely kept her eyes on Annabeth, only splitting her attention for long enough to glance over Sol's notes and push them back to him with a slight nod. It was probably best that he handle everything to do with their guest director; she knew herself well enough to know when she didn't have the ability to be impartial.
"We and the studio take accusations like these very seriously," she said, both because it was true and because sticking to the script was the best way to keep steady. "We can go over the details when you feel up to it, but we don't have to discuss any of those official things today. Just know that making an accusation like this does not put your job in danger." Jess wasn't sure what the defensive attack on the director meant for the situation, but the investigators would handle that.
It wasn't like Annabeth had really forgotten her hand, but it definitely seemed to throb harder when Sol asked about it. She'd heard him come in, but had to steamroller through her story just to get it out there. Her gaze lifted from the desk in front of her, and she tried to look at Sol, to give him what she wanted to be a brave smile. His chin was as far as she could go, however, and her face refused to respond the way it should. "Dittany," she half-mumbled, like it was a passing thought given voice. When she continued, it was a little stronger. "I have dittany, sir. And paste. I should've offered it to Viraj. I wasn't thinking. I-I wasn't thinking."
Her teeth ground together hard enough to make her jaw ache. It was the only way she could make herself focus on what Jess was saying, so when she nodded it was with real understanding. The last part really struck a chord, however, and Annabeth looked—actually looked—between the two showrunners. There was no small amount of incredulity in her gaze. A hard shudder shook her entire upper body, and she folded her arms tightly around her as the blood drained from her face. "I'll ruin you." It came out a low, harsh whisper, like she was impersonating someone. "That's what he said. You tell anyone about this, and you're done."
Sol shared a grim look with Jess before turning back to Annabeth. "You work for us, not for any guest director, so that is patently untrue. Like Jess said, your job is not in any danger. And I hope you understand that we're glad that you came to us."
He was getting all kinds of texts just now, and he could guess that most of them were about this situation, but he ignored the phone vibrating in his pocket in favor of folding his hands in front of him, keeping all his attention on Annabeth. "Is this the first time that Mr. Thomason has said or done something like this to you? Or, as far as you're aware, to anyone else on the Trial set?"
For a few moments, Annabeth was somewhere very far away, and it took a considerable effort to drag herself back. Her body ached, and she was pretty sure it was because every muscle had been tense in varying degrees of stress for several minutes now. "I… No. That...that wasn't Thomason. Sorry, sorry. I just mean, he wasn't the one that said that to me." She chewed at the corner of her lip, worrying it until it really started to hurt. Why did it feel like she was well past the statute of limitations on bringing this up? "No, sorry. That's not… This is about now. No. I haven't heard of him doing anything like this to anyone else. And, yes, the first and only time. I-I think I...overreacted."
Jess had to clench her fist and wedge it under her thigh to keep her reactions moderated and stay calm. There was something about the tone of Annabeth's voice, of that low, menacing imitation, that hit all of the wrong chords in her chest. She couldn't quite look the PA in the eye anymore. "You shouldn't have needed to react in the first place," she said, her own voice quiet, edged despite her best effort.
"No," Sol agreed. His brows had drawn completely together for a moment at the revelation that Annabeth seemed to be reliving an entirely different traumatic experience, but he smoothed out his face with a bit of effort. Neither she nor Jess needed to see him upset now (or, probably, ever). "Annabeth, if there's something else you'd like to share with us, someone else who has said or done things to make you uncomfortable, on or off our set, I want you to know that we will listen to you. Or if not us, we can bring in a neutral third party. Just know that your job and your future are not in jeopardy if you make such reports, despite what you may have been told."
A name rolled over and over in her head, and, with it, a wave of nausea caused bile to rise in the back of her throat. But instead of that awful sour taste, something far more like copper pennies coated her tongue. Annabeth only had the barest second to utter, "It was—" before she started to choke on whatever she'd tasted. Pain flared white hot across her stomach, following close on the heels of a purple light that seemed to form a slash beneath her shirt. She couldn't even scream, but it was fine: she'd already lost consciousness by the time she pitched out of the chair.
Jess leapt to her feet, eyes wide, and fumbled for her phone. "Get the medic in here, now!" was all she said to her assistant before hung up and tossed it aside again. "Sol, what the—" She broke off, swallowing hard, and could do nothing but stare across the desk.
For a guy just weeks short of his fiftieth birthday, Sol moved fast; he was down on the floor next to Annabeth before she hit the ground, cushioning her head with his hand before she could smack it. "I don't know," he answered grimly. He'd taken the yearly first-aid course given by the studio and gamely checked her pulse and that her airway was clear just because he could, but clearly there was something going on here that wasn't covered in the two-hour class. "It looks like she's cursed. Jess--" He looked up at his partner. "I'll go with her to the hospital. Can you handle the Thomason situation? Have somebody take Viraj's statement, do everything by the book."
"Don't worry about me," Jess said, looking up as the door opened and one of the on-staff medics rushed into the room. She made a mental note to give her assistant a raise. "Just take care of her. I unfortunately know exactly who I need to call for the rest." She sank down into her chair and reached for her phone, dislike for the upcoming conversations now entirely overshadowed by worry for Annabeth.