Filming was progressing well, and all of the changes Alex wanted to implement were getting done. The director and producer were obviously happy with the sets and props, and they never had problems with the team having the wrong props for the actors. The team had seemed a little unsure when Alex first showed up, but after working with him for a few weeks, they had decided that he was more than capable and deserving of the job.
On Trevor’s side, his day started early with makeup, hair, costuming, and practicing choreography for the fights. The only days that felt difficult was after nights when he had bottomed for Alex. His back was always a little sore afterward, but by the time he made it to the set, it looked like to the others that he had everything under control, though he was teased a few times for needing ibuprofen after a scene.
They made sure that Trevor didn’t bottom right before they were filming the biggest fight scene, wanting him at his best. They filmed the first part, where they were on more even ground, first. That part was before they would be adding blood onto the clothes, so they wanted to make sure that scene was done first.
“Cut,” the director called after they did as close to a perfect take as they could. “Alright, bloody them up for me.”
When they came back into the set, this time with blood put in places where they were supposed to be injured, they were on a set that would include jumping around. It was split into three layers of large, grand steps, with enough of a jump that Trevor was a little nervous.
“You have the choreography down, you’ll be fine,” their fighting instructor told Trevor. Trevor gave a nod and glanced over at where Alex was having his team get any props they needed ready. Alex could see the nerves in Trevor’s eyes. He considered asking the director to skip the shot, but Alex realized he didn’t have that kind of authority on this set, nor did he have the relationship with this director that he had enjoyed on the set of Extracurricular. Alex smiled encouragingly, inwardly worried for Trevor’s safety.
Once the actors were on set, the director called for action, and Trevor and Leander were in motion. Trevor took the first jump away from Leander alright, landing solidly and running to the edge before he turned around. There was dialogue here and there, which they hit perfectly.
They were fighting with swords, and while their rehearsals were all with wooden or blunted ones, they had sharp ones now. They just had to be careful to hit their parts right because they could easily cut each other. Leander accidentally hit too hard when he threw Trevor’s sword from his hand, leaving a cut along his arm behind. Trevor winced but stayed in character, turning to look at where his sword had fallen behind him on the lowest floor.
Small injuries like this could happen on set, and Trevor didn’t want to stop filming just to handle it.
Leander had backed up, and Trevor ran toward him, making Leander’s character look a little startled because he hadn’t been expecting it. Instead of attacking though, Trevor went down, sliding across the stone floor and under Leander’s legs. Once he was past Leander, he turned his body so he finished the slide on his knees and got back up. They shot this scene a few times, making sure Trevor’s slide was smooth. He had padding on his knees to make sure they could handle this part.
Once the director was sure they had that down, he told them they’d shoot the jump, and called action. Trevor backed up and took a running jump off the edge to the final floor, running past Leander before launching himself off the ledge, sailing through the air as the cameras followed him.
This was a farther drop, and he had more speed behind him. When he landed, his knee gave out. Trevor realized what was happening, as the pain that spread through his knee, as well as the weakness, was apparent to him pretty quickly, so he went down into a roll instead. It wasn’t perfectly smooth, but it was believable for the character. Everyone on set was tense as they watched, because the roll wasn’t part of the choreography they had been practicing, and everyone knew it. Most of the crew, including Alex, had seen the choreography being shown to the actors and them practicing the best they could.
Trevor stepped back up, finally back on his feet, and he staggered over to his sword. He scooped it up and turned to look up at where Leander was, holding the sword steady as he held it up. Leander jumped off from where he was, landing easily and coming towards Trevor. They went back into the sword fighting choreography, and Trevor seemed to be stable on his feet again as they finished up the scene.
It was only once the director called cut that Trevor’s face showed the pain he was in. Alex resisted the urge to rush to Trevor’s side and focused on getting his crew moving on resetting the scene once the actors cleared off, in Trevor’s chase limping. The director gave directions for moving the cameras to get a different angle and told Alex the next scene so his set crew could bring up the necessary props and staging.
Trevor, meanwhile, was taken to the medic to look over his knee. It hurt and he figured he sprained it a bit. After talking over his medical upkeep, the medic called their orthopedic doctor to look it over.
“It’s definitely sprained,” the doctor said. “Let me do some stuff to help your pain level, and you’ll need to go easy the next week or so.”
The doctor gave him a shot of Toradol, and gave him a script for a muscle relaxer. Then he did a shot into the joint to relieve the pain. It would be sore for a day, but the hope was it would heal faster and easier this way. They put ice on his knee for twenty minutes and then took it off, telling him to come back after a little bit to do another twenty minutes with ice on.
Trevor had a brace put on and then went back onto set. He gave an almost imperceptible nod to Alex to show he was okay, and then went over to talk to the director about what they wanted to do. They ended up doing the jump from a different angle, but this time with a ton of padding for him to land on. He made sure he landed on his good leg and rolled, and then they moved onto the final scene of the day, which was the final climactic scene of the first movie.
Trevor did the choreography here fine, and his performance even on set left some of the crew and cast with tears. The movie was supposed to end with it questioning whether his and Leander’s characters were still alive. Of course, he had read the books and had signed a contract for three movies, so he knew his character was alive, but it was fun to see audience reactions.
The director asked Alex and his crew to break down and reset for the next day while Trevor went back to ice his knee again. Alex consulted the published set list and got the crew to work preparing for the next shooting day. When the sets were ready to Alex’s satisfaction, he dismissed the crew and knocked on Trevor’s trailer door to let him know he was ready to take them back to the hotel.
Trevor grabbed his stuff and hobbled up to the trailer door. He still had his makeup on, but was wearing his own clothes by then. He followed Alex to the van and groaned as he sat down in the front passenger seat, putting the seat back as far as it would go so he could stretch out his knee. Keeping it bent made it ache more.
“At least they liked the roll,” Trevor said once Alex was in the driver’s seat and heading towards the hotel. “He said that it being a little shaky added more realness to the fight.”
“Gee, how sweet of him. I bet if the bone were sticking out of your knee he would applaud your realism even more!” Alex said, clearly upset.
Trevor took Alex’s hand in his own, squeezing it gently to show he understood. “I know, we should have added some protection for me, since my injured leg is my dominant side. Injuries happen sometimes, though. Even when we do everything right, something can go wrong. And he’s moved the other fight scenes until later so I can heal.”
This information had not calmed Alex down much, however. “Well, isn’t that kind of him?!?” Alex asked heatedly. He seemed to bite back what else he was going to say, though, as he realized he was being angry despite Trevor not being upset.
Trevor had turned to look at Alex, trying to figure out if he was angry at the production side or at him. He rubbed at the injured area absent-mindedly, like he was anxious. “I appreciate that you are worried and upset. It’s hard, though, when the stunt should have been a fairly simple one for someone my age. We have stunt doubles, but they shouldn’t have been needed for that one. It wasn’t the choreography that messed up, or even production, but my body. All thanks to a baseball bat…”
Alex took a couple of deep breaths. “Trevor, your injury is well known in the industry. It’s not hard to recognize that you may not be up to the physicality of some of these stunts. I don’t expect them to completely halt production over it or even sub in stunt doubles all the time, but that’s a big jump even for someone without your injury. At the very least it should have been a cut scene or they could have used one of those suspension harnesses they pay so much money to rent for the entire production for actor safety.”
Trevor let out a breath of his own, looking out the window at the Chicago lights outside. He gave a nod to acknowledge that Alex was right. “I worry sometimes, though, that I need to walk a line of still being physically capable. At what point do I become a liability to the production and people stop hiring me? Disabled people aren’t treated well in this industry.”
“Better to be real about what support you need than to actually disable yourself in the interest of pretending you don’t need help,” Alex chided.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Trevor admitted. “I’ll be more proactive going forward. I promise. For now, we just have to deal with what’s happened. With the medicine and the injections, it should be okay. I’m more angry at myself than anyone else.”
“I’m not,” Alex answered, not much mollified by Trevor’s tendency to take on the blame. “You definitely should have known better, but it is literally the fight coordinator’s job to make sure the talent is safely executing the scenes.”
“He was pretty confident we both had it down,” Trevor commented. “We practiced jumps on the practice blocks.”
Alex didn’t want to argue, so he just looked forward and finished driving back to the hotel without saying another word. When they got to the room, Trevor awkwardly tried to start up a different conversation and Alex focused on that. Trevor could tell that he was still irritated about the aggravation of Trevor’s injury but he had made it obvious that he didn’t blame Trevor.
Still, Alex being upset was anxiety inducing for Trevor. He recognized that part of that was probably because of Paul. Anytime Paul was upset, nothing Trevor did was right, and it would inevitably end up in a big argument, whether Paul had been upset with him initially or not. It made him nervous, and he wasn’t very good at hiding that from Alex, though he was trying to keep busy by running a hot bath to soothe the pain and keep his hands busy so they didn’t shake.
Alex left Trevor to his preparations for the bath in peace while he busied himself in the main part of the room. By the time Trevor had settled into the tub and the water had stopped, Alex came into the bathroom and quietly sat on the toilet. “Trevor, I wasn’t mad with you about what happened. Are you worried that I’m going to take my anger out on you?”
Trevor looked over at Alex with a look that showed he was upset that Alex saw through his nerves. “No, I know you won’t. If you didn’t react to Paul’s bullshit on set, I doubt you’d ever use your anger against me like that. I didn’t realize just how deep some of those emotional scars run though until today…Like being transported right back to that time, despite knowing you aren’t like that. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Alex said calmly, “I know I get a little… protective. I feel like I have every right to be upset with the fight coordinator for not considering your limitations no matter how you were feeling about the scene. I won’t say anything to him if you don’t want me to, but only if you promise to self-advocate better.”
“You do have every right to be upset,” Trevor said, sitting up a little bit in the tub. “I’m just too used to trying to smooth things over and calm down tempers. It’s uncomfortable to not be able to fix things fast. I do promise to self-advocate better, but I wouldn’t stop you from saying something to him if you want to. It’s not like it’s uncalled for, and you have the right to tell him you thought it was a misstep too.”
Alex thought about that. Did he want to come across as the upset lover? Particularly the day after the incident occurred. “I’ll let it slide this time, but you definitely need to talk with him about how that wasn’t a good idea in retrospect. If he doesn’t seem to be receptive to your concern for your safety then I’ll say something to the director, but I think this would be better coming from you.”
Trevor’s eyes flashed for a moment with panic before he ducked his head and gave a nod. Despite being one of the people who had always cleaned up Paul’s messes on set, Trevor was mostly non-confrontational, the baseball bat situation aside as that was protecting people he loved. He tried to find other ways around things, but he understood why Alex was asking him to do that, and he was right that Trevor needed to get in practice with talking about his own concerns rather than putting out fires for others.
“If it helps you to pretend you’re advocating for someone else, think of the future stars who may one day be under his care,” Alex pointed out, almost as if he sensed the source of Trevor’s apprehension.
Trevor tilted his head to one side as he took that in, then nodded again and looked up again so he could meet Alex’s eyes. “That definitely helps, thanks. My therapist would be impressed with you.”
“Why do you say that?” Alex asked, his head tilting slightly to the side, almost exactly like Trevor’s therapist.
Trevor chuckled at that. “Because you speak like a therapist, or someone who is well versed in therapy, anyway. He’s always appreciative of the people in my life that can help me find ways around my anxiety too.”
Alex chuckled, “I’ve been through a lot of therapy. It’s basically the only way I didn’t kill myself growing up in my family. I’m still conversant with them, but I avoid them also because I know how uncomfortable my presence makes them.”
Trevor shook his head at that, annoyed at Alex’s family. He remembered them; he had been over to Alex’s house enough doing homework and projects together. His parents had been polite but distant with Trevor. His siblings had been nicer, but he was only ever close to Alex, and that was even before they first kissed and admitted they liked each other.
“Your family is…” He let out an annoyed breath. “They’re missing out on what an amazing person you are. I can’t imagine you’re very comfortable around them either. At least I had Aunt Naomi. She was my only bright spot in my family. You didn’t even have that.”
Alex shrugged as if trying to shrug off the whole situation. “It’s fine. I understand them, even if I don’t like their position. They’re deeply religious and dogma hasn’t yet caught up with society. Still, I wouldn’t want to end up in any version of heaven where people like me are excluded anyway,” Alex said.
Trevor tapped his leg as he smirked, considering that. “Hell sounds like quite the party if you ask me. All the gay people, all of the atheists, the drag queens, trans people, and more. It’ll be like a rave, with side areas for musical theater and burlesque.”
Alex looked thoughtful. “I hadn’t really considered the big questions, being quite busy with living in the present. I suppose I carry some of the initial conditioning from my parents’ religion in that I believe that humans have free will and I’ve been told my whole life that Allah is a loving god so humans who do not believe in eternal torment won’t go there as it is against their will.”
“That makes a lot of sense actually,” Trevor agreed. “I don’t believe in it at all at this point. Maybe something is out there but I mostly doubt it. I think we have this life and we have to make the most of it. In many ways, I haven’t been living it as well as I could, but I’m trying to do better now.”
Alex patted his hand, careful to keep his own hand dry, saying, “I believe in you.”
Trevor gave a little laugh and shook his head. “That’s kind of you, my love.”
The two of them continued to talk while Trevor let the hot water do its job, and then he drained the tub and carefully, with Alex’s help, got out of the tub and dried off. Once they got back into the bedroom, he pulled out a bottle of Biofreeze to put on his knee before he put the brace back on and laid down on the bed.
“Such a pain in the ass,” Trevor grumbled.
Alex smirked, then said, “Well not lately…”
That made Trevor let out a frustrated groan. “With my knee like this, I won’t be able to do most of our normal positions. Ugh, why couldn’t it have been my ankle?”
Alex patted him sympathetically, “It’s okay. It’s not like sex is all there is. Will you need me to sleep somewhere else while your knee is messed up? You know how much I move around in my sleep…”
Trevor shook his head and took Alex’s hand in his. “No, it’s fine. It’s a big bed, and I’ll just sleep on the side that keeps my hurt leg towards the end of the bed. I’m sure it will feel a lot better in a couple of days.”
Alex nodded, still a little unsure, but trusting Trevor to be able to make his own decisions. “If you change your mind at any point, just wake me up. I’ll sleep on the pull-out if it means you can get a good night’s sleep.”
Trevor agreed and they both finished getting ready for bed and slipped under the blanket together. Alex fell asleep holding Trevor’s hand, since spooning was very likely to result in Alex accidentally hitting Trevor’s leg when he rolled over. When they woke up the next morning, Trevor got up to do some of the strengthening exercises he had been taught while Alex headed onto the set to do his job.
Alex got the crew going on their initial tasking for the day following their daily safety brief. He sought out the director afterward and discussed the changes to the set list following Trevor’s injury. Fortunately, they had lots of B-roll to film while they waited for him to recuperate.
When Trevor got there that day, he had a talk with the fight coordinator first, doing as Alex had asked of him. The fight coordinator did apologize, saying that Trevor was right that they should have used safety measures to slow down his descent so this didn’t happen. After that talk, the director spoke to him and then sent him off to get makeup and costume done so he could do some photoshoots while the others shot scenes without him.
The director asked Alex to set up a green-screen set so they could shoot some action scenes that would later include Trevor. He wanted to make sure he had some backup shots of the stuntmen and body doubles doing their thing for enhancement during post-production. Any scenes they did film with Trevor that week were ones where he was mostly sitting or doing minimal movement. He was focusing more on the photoshoots they needed done and doing little teasers of behind the scenes stuff to get fans excited. He also did a few interviews where they spoke about production and how excited he was to be working with this director and on this set of movies.
By the next week, they were back on schedule, and Trevor was moving around with more ease. It would still be sore by the end of the day but it was better than limping around and resting it constantly. He still kept a brace on it but a much lighter one now that wouldn’t be noticed under the costume.