Entourage fic, 5000 words
Fandom: Entourage
Pairing: Eric/OMC, Eric/Vince
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Alcohol and weed - nothing that's not in the show (well, except for the gay sex).
Summary: Usually Eric hates the "it just happened" shtick, but this, this just happens.
Notes: Huge thanks to sollasollew11 and onlyns for beta. The fic title is taken from one of my favourite songs by my favourite band to listen to while writing Entourage: The Infadels.
Love Like Semtex
Usually Eric hates the "it just happened" shtick, but this, this just happens.
They're in N.Y. catching up with family and friends, and a slow Thursday night out brings them to their regular haunt, where Eric runs into an old friend from the neighborhood.
Mick Healy was their high school's other golden boy, the other guy that people said were going to make it big, when they weren't talking about Vince. Tall and good-looking, and a genius with straight A's. Member of the chess club, the discussion board, editor of the school paper and a better-than-average bass player in a the Police cover band - really it was just ridiculous, and Mick only got away with it by being an honest-to-God nice guy.
Eric had always liked him, although they'd moved in slightly different circles. They'd chatted at the high school reunion, and then Eric'd run into him again when they were in N.Y. filming Queen's Boulevard.
“So, Eric, looks like you‘re on your own tonight.” Mick says.
“Yeah, looks like it.”
Turtle has gone off with a girl who wanted to see Vince's hotel room, and Eric would warn Vince about sleeping in his bed tonight, if Vince hadn't been in a backroom somewhere, making it with the rock chick bartender. Drama is engaged in a conversation with two blondes, waving his arms around wildly, and sometimes doing something that looks unmistakably like the Viking Quest victory call.
So Eric's on his own, talking to Mick. He’s having a few drinks, and listening to Mick's stories about his internship at the Pakistani embassy. He comes off as a pretty brilliant diplomat, even though Eric can tell that he's not even trying.
Then Mick asks him about Hollywood, and what it's like to be a manager. It's an interesting conversation, and so they have a couple of more drinks. Mick orders a round of shots, which means Eric feels obligated to buy them a round, too.
In the end, Eric ends up very, very drunk by the time Mick leans over and puts a hand on his knee, pretending to steady himself "Listen Eric, do you want to go somewhere else?"
And maybe all of the above goes some way to explain it, but Eric still catches himself by surprise when he doesn't brush him off, but lets Mick rest his hand on his thigh, his fingertips curling into the inseam of his jeans.
He can't help but notice that Mick smells really great, and this evening has reminded him how much he’s always liked the guy. Hey, he decides drunkenly, if Mick swings that way, Eric is willing to try it out. It’s been way too fucking long. There's been no one since Sloan. And, anyway, it’s not like he’s never done it before.
...
He wakes up the next morning when his cell rings.
He reaches over the side of the bed and fumbles to get the phone from where it's buried under a heap of clothes. He flips open the phone and croaks "Jesus, Turtle, what?" just as Mick appears in the doorway and says "Hey, you're awake." looking smiley and casual.
Mick is showered and dressed, but Eric is still naked and sticky in a bed that smells like male and sex, with Turtle on the phone.
He freaks out.
It takes him five minutes to get dressed and mumble out an apology about a management crisis. Mick accepts the story without question, but he looks a little downcast. Eric notices the two plates set out on the counter top of Mick's steel and marble kitchen, and through his panic he still manages to feel like an asshole.
When Eric's by the door of what seems to be an upper class studio, Mick grabs him by the neck and pulls him in for a kiss before Eric gets a chance to think. He’s stuck between pulling away and leaning in, and then it’s over.
“I really liked this, E, call me next time you get back to New York.” Mick says, hopefully - and that is just wrong, wrong, wrong, coming from another guy.
When Eric gets back to the hotel, the guys are still having breakfast in the VIP lounge. There's no way he can slip by them unnoticed, so he slows down his steps and tries to shake of the panicky feeling that's been chasing him all the way from Mick‘s apartment.
"Hey guys, I'll just go grab a shower, be right with you."
They all look up at him simultaneously from their continental breakfast plates, and Eric instantly knows that he's fucked.
"Please, please, please tell me that you didn't go home with Mick Healy last night." Turtle says by way of greeting, making the waiter turn around to stare at him, and then at Eric.
Vince is slicing a piece of honey melon with careful precision. Johnny looks like his about to die from asphyxiation.
Eric draws the logical conclusion, "Fuck you, Drama."
"Hey bro, I just told them what I saw." Drama is looking kind of shell-shocked "So, did you?"
Eric can't lie to save shit.
“He’s been trying to hook up with you for while, E, didn’t you know - when we were up here doing QB.” Vince interjects, cool as anything, except Vince is great actor, but Eric has known him all of his life, and he can tell that something's off.
"You know what, fuck you guys. I'm leaving."
He goes to his room and takes a long, hot shower.
---
He has to endure a lot in the next couple of weeks. As soon as Turtle and Johnny get over their gay trauma, they give him endless shit about it. He finds a six foot inflatable dick in his bed (Turtle), Barbara Streisand movies on the flat screen when he comes down for breakfast, a purple bodysuit in his wardrobe, a weird strappy, leather thing in his underwear drawer that he doesn't' even want to try to guess at. And eventually he gets a rehearsed and over-acted It's Okay To Be Gay speech that makes him want to cry, or laugh, or kill something (Drama).
He hooks up with a Maxim model after two weeks just to shut them up, and it works pretty well with Turtle and Drama.
But not with Vince, who's been quietly weird all the time.
Vince keeps looking at him funny, only shifting his gaze away when Eric snaps and asks "What?" in his pissiest voice.
"Mick? Of all people?"
"What? He's a great guy!" Eric can't help being defensive, even if he had decided never to talk about it again.
"Yeah, I know." And Vince totally manages to make that sound like a bad thing.
It's Vince who is strangely protective of Eric's gay virtue, sidling up next to him with fake smiles and sharp teeth when they're out and Eric is trying to make a fucking business date with Francois Ozon. Eric is fuming on the drive home, and it doesn't make him less angry when Vince just laughs it off and refuses to acknowledge what he was doing.
"You realize you just ruined your chance for a role in his The Shadow of the Wind adaptation?"
"What, I was just joining in on a business conversation. After all, I'm the business, aren't I?"
"Come on, that's not what you were doing."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh, screw you." Eric puts on his sunglasses, so fucking tired of this conversation "Look, Vince, it was a mistake, a freak accident, I'm not out and proud, so would you just get over it."
Vince smirks and turns away to look out the passenger side window, but out of the corner of his eye Eric can see the uneasy set of his shoulders.
...
The strange thing is, that Vince ought to be the last one to be weird about it.
A lot of fans want Eric to tell them about Vince's childhood, expecting a Julia Roberts story about the sensitive, ostracized little guy who grew into a swan. Sometimes Eric thinks about coining it like that when he’s going to write Vince’s biography - and cast himself as the tough Irish kid with the heart of gold who helped Vince through primary school. But that's all a crock of shit. Vince was never any different - even when he was ten, and sauntered onto that basketball court, he had the trademark swagger and attitude.
Eric is certain that half of Vince's success is his unfailing conviction that everything is going to work out for him. And everything always has.
Even that time when Vince was sleeping over at Eric’s place, and Eric pulled his t-shirt over his head, and caught Vince looking at him in the mirror. Vince never looked down, or had the common sense to look embarrassed or anxious, even. Vinnie threw him the patented smoldering-gaze-parted-lips-routine “Hey, E, I think we should fuck.”
So they did, in Eric’s one-person bed, with his Catholic mother sitting in the living room on the other side of the door, watching Jeopardy with the set roaring out answers.
They messed around a couple of times. Couple of months. Eric learned that Vince was as stupid fucking confident in bed as he was everywhere else, and a great lay, besides.
And that was that. It wasn't exactly a big gay romance, but it was certainly enough that Vince shouldn't be acting like an asshole about Mick.
...
Three weeks after they return to L.A. they go to a party at the Viper Room. Sometime after midnight they run into one of Vince's many hook-ups - Kari, a B-actress who was on the brink of making it big four years ago.
Turtle and Johnny are long gone - trawling for girls in smaller waters. Eric is happily drunk, and Vince is acting normal, finally leaving his designated spot at Eric's side (where he's been stepping in smoothly between Eric and any openly gay actor or director adressing him) to flirt with Kari.
They end up at her house, and E ends up chatting distractedly with a couple of her girlfriends, while he tries to not look at Vince and Kari, who are kissing heatedly on the couch. The managing part of him wants to go over and tell Vince to cut it off, before a camera phone earns him a front page on the National Enquirer. Usually, Vince is pretty good at being discreet.
"So, uh, Michelle, you're a costume designer?" he says, looking back at Kari's struggling actor girlfriend.
He's shifts his gaze two inches to the left, and Kari's manicured hands are on the small of Vince's back, pressing him down between her legs. Vince takes the cue and starts grinding down, slow and easy.
Eric looks back at Michelle who now has her arms crossed over her expensive looking fake breasts. He realizes that he already asked that question once. He tries to save it by asking another one, and he manages to pay attention to Michelle for about two minutes, before looking towards the couch again.
Kari's hands have disappeared down the back of Vince's jeans. Eric shifts his gaze - and Vince is looking straight at him over the top of Kari's head. He's a little mussed up, eyebrows arched in a question that looks a lot like do you like what you see? or even want to join us? and Eric feels himself flushing hard.
"Excuse me."
He leaves the girls to go to the kitchen where he pours himself a glass of water from the tap. The kitchen is dark and quiet. Eric leans against the kitchen counter and takes a couple of deep breaths, trying to steady himself. He's buzzing, a tingly sensation where his clothes touches his skin. He can't remember feeling this wasted in a long time. Not since - well, not in a long time.
"Hey."
Vince is a shadow in the dark, easily recognizable slouched against the doorframe. Eric opens his mouth to say something, maybe "what was with the peep show?” but he doesn't get to say anything before Vince is standing right in front of him, way up in his personal space. Vince's eyes look a little glassy. His lips are swollen.
"Where's Kari?"
"I told her I needed to talk to my manager."
Eric blinks slowly. Vinnie's hand is hot on Eric's hip, and Eric doesn't even remember him reaching out. He smells like sweat and pot smoke and girl, a strong hot mix. Eric closes his eyes when Vince leans in. He remembers this. He wants this.
Vince's cold teeth scrape over Eric’s parted lips and fuck it, Eric opens his mouth to it, breathing in deep through his nose, and pictures them out there on the couch - Vince’s hips moving against Kari's - while Vince kisses him deeply and adjusts his stance to reach down and cup Eric through his jeans.
Vince’s fingertips rest lightly against his jaw, then move back to fist the hair at the nape of his neck. The edge of the kitchen counter digs into Eric's back. Vince’s hair skims across his face when he moves, changing the angle of the kiss, and then Vince reaches into his half opened jeans and starts jerking him tight and fast, no playing.
Eric tries his fucking best not to make a sound, but in the end he can’t help letting out a choked moan as he comes, back arched, hips twisting forward.
Vince used to make fun of him for being loud.
He’s still catching his breath when Vince does his pants up one-handedly and pulls back. He opens his eyes to Vince looking at him with a smug smile on his face, hands in the air, what did I do, and Eric is not looking at how his right hand is streaked and glistening, or the obvious outline of his erection through his thin trousers.
“Vince, what the fuck?”
But Vince just reaches past him to wipe his hand on a dish towel and walks out, swaggering.
When Eric finally feels ready to leave the kitchen and go back to the others, Vince has disappeared. Kari doesn't know where he's gone to.
"I thought he was with you," she says, sounding a little accusatorial, and Eric feels certain that there's a double entendre there, and decides to get the fuck out. He ends up taking a cab home, alone.
In the cab he almost convinces himself that it was all a weird alcohol-induced hallucination. Except Vince missed one button in his jeans, and Eric can still taste him on his lips. Not at all that different, even if ten years had gone by.
He gets home and crashes out, and he doesn't have the big freak out until next morning, when he stumbles into the kitchen and Vince is sitting by the counter eating breakfast. Johnny's by the stove cooking something complicated, and Turtle is busy texting on his cell. Vince looks up when Eric enters, smiling, casual as you please, like nothing has happened.
Eric turns his back to him and pours himself a cup of coffee. Then he goes out on the balcony and takes a couple of deep breaths, his hand shaking slightly around the mug.
Fuck, how could he have forgotten, or pretend to have forgotten, what it had been like, ten years ago. Yeah, him and Vince had messed around, and Vince had been great in the sack, and it had been good sex, and the seriously most complicated and nerve-wracking thing that Eric has ever done.
He takes a gulp of coffee and burns his tongue a little. He looks out over the hills, and his left hand instinctively goes for the pack of cigarettes that he no longer carries around in his back pocket.
Vince had been the biggest fucking jerk around ever, and Eric hadn't been able to break his habit of falling a little bit in love, even if it was Vince and fucking insane. They'd been jerking each other off in bathroom stalls and alleyways, moving quietly against each other underneath the covers in Eric's bed. All the time pretending like nothing was going on whenever they were around other people, and that had been hard, E remembers, to keep the casual little touches in check, not to lean in too closely, or stand to close together.
They'd broken it off when Vince moved in with Drama, and started getting serious about acting. They never really talked about it, they just stopped. E started dating Cathy, and Vince continued his amazing streak of one night stands - but things had been weird and shaky between them for a long time after, to a degree that Eric had actually been a little relieved to go to college, and not hang around the guys every day, although he'd missed Vince like crazy.
... Well, that isn't happening again.
Eric pushes off the railing and goes back inside. He determinedly sits down opposite Vince and smiles at him briefly before busying himself with the ham/spinach/mushroom omelet that Johnny has pushed in front of him.
"Shit," He says, aware that his voice sounds like it’s being scraped out of his throat "I'm not getting that drunk again for a long time."
Johnny snorts and Turtle tears his attention away from his phone to give Eric a uncomprehending look. Vince just kept eating his dry Cheerios, one by one, with no reaction at all. Eric doesn't know what the fuck to make of it.
He lays off alcohol and weed for a while, and they don't talk about it, and everything is normal except for how Eric can't help tensing up a little bit when Vince slings his arm around him, and how he can't really be in the gym when Vince is working out. Still, he has it under control.
Vince doesn’t change, which basically means that he is still flirty as fuck, flirting with everyone who crosses his path, including Eric himself. Sometimes Eric hates the fact that Vince is an actor, and a fucking good one. Just like the last time, he hasn't a fucking clue what Vince is thinking about any of it.
Every time they go out E only has one beer, and he is tense and on edge and consequently goes through the longest dry spell since he was been seventeen.
Johnny and Turtle pick up on the tension after a while.
"We're going to Stacy's tonight."
Eric looks up from his laptop. Drama and Turtle are standing in the door to the living room, looking weirdly shifty. Vince turns away from the TV to shrug at them. He’s in sweats, playing GTA with his headphones on.
Turtle clears his throat "So, I got some stellar weed from Sarah yesterday, you guys should try it. I mean, if you're not going out tonight, anyway." He walks over and slips a bag into Eric's shirt pocket, with a goodbye pat, looking a little regretful "Here, it's on me."
And that gives Eric a pretty good idea about what is going on. Trust Turtle to try and solve a conflict with weed.
Eric watches him and Drama all but flee the room, and then he looks over at Vince.
Vince pulls the headphones off and turns off the TV "You wanna?"
Eric sighs. It has to be bad if Turtle and Drama feel like they have to intervene. He closes down the laptop. It was just a drunken night, Vince being the impulsive freak that he is, and anyway, Eric can control this.
"Yeah, okay."
---
It really is pretty amazing stuff. After sharing a bong they order take-out from four different places and stuff themselves with sushi, pizza, meat ball subs and lobster. Then they get the sweats and walk out on the patio. The night is hot and dry, and after a little while they both strip down to their boxers and dive into the pool.
Eric gets up after five minutes. He lounges back on the soft grass and lights up a joint while he watches Vince doing laps in the pool, quick and graceful like a seal. He’s learned some pretty neat tricks doing Aquaman. Once in a while he comes up from a long dive, gasping for air, hair dripping water, and looks at Eric.
Eric smiles back peacefully. Seems like they’re good again, and maybe quality weed actually can solve conflicts. Hell, Eric thinks, stubbing out the butt on the lawn, shit like this could probably bring about world peace.
He closes his eyes and meditates on that thought for a while. He hears the splash of Vince getting out of the pool, the wet slap of his feet against the tile, and then Vince is lying down next to him on the grass, the cold skin of his arm grazing Eric, making him shiver pleasantly.
"Hey."
He doesn't open his eyes. Beside him, Vince's breathing slows down.
"Hey."
One cold hand finds Eric's wrist and holds on. Eric turns his head to his side to look at Vince, a question forming slowly in his head.
He is used to having Vince up in his personal space, sharing sofas, sharing half-hugs and high-fives, fighting. But not like this. Vince's skin is reflecting the pale blue light from the pool. He’s wet and loose-limbed, covered in goose bumps. His hair is slicked back, and drops of water are making his eyelashes cling together.
A fucking wet dream come alive - and Eric realizes that, for all his trying, this is turning out exactly like last time, and he has been kidding himself when he thought that he had any control whatsoever.
He rolls over onto his elbow, looking down at Vince, who returns his stare passively, lips parted. He smells like hot skin and pool water. Eric leans down, like gravity pulling him, and kisses Vince.
Vince arches into the touch, no hesitation. Eric licks into his hot mouth, run his hands over his cold skin.
Kissing Vince was always amazing, hot and dirty. After a while Eric is settled with a thigh between Vince's and rubbing up against him, enjoying the contrasting sensations of Vince's body, hot and cold, water-slick and hairy. He is ready to come just from that, just from rutting up against each other and kissing messily. But Vince pushes him away, saying "Wait, wait, I wanna - "
He gets up and grabs the after sun lotion next to the sun chairs, a condom from the pocket of his jeans, handing it to E before skimming off his boxers and lying back down.
Eric swallows. They haven't done this, they hadn't ever -
"Oh, Jesus Christ, E." Vince rolls his eyes and takes the lotion from his hands and pours it over two of his fingers. He reaches down to touch himself.
The guy has no shame. This is the kind of confidence that comes from being told every day that you are the hottest thing alive by girls desperate to fuck you. Eric usually finds it a little annoying, but now he is looking down at Vince, wet and writhing - hands teasing himself open. And okay, it is also a major turn-on.
Finally, Vince tugs at the elastic edge of Eric's boxers "C'mon."
Eric had no idea that he’d want it so much, but he is stupid for it, tearing open the condom wrapper and sliding the condom on with shaking fingers. Vince looks at him through half-closed eyes, completely spaced out, equal parts horny and stoned.
Eric leans in expecting it to be difficult, expecting resistance, but God he slides right home, down into Vince’s arms and his wet mouth, deep kisses while he rocks into him sweetly. In the end, Vince throws his head back and Eric can see his eyes roll back between the narrow slits of his eyelids. He bats Vince’s hand away and grabs hold of his cock, smooth and hot in his palm, jerking shivers and starts out of him.
Vince comes with a drawn-out, satisfied moan, his whole body seizing up. Suddenly the dreamy, pleasure high atmosphere disappears and Eric is fucking dying to come. He scrambles for a better position and draws his legs up to slam into Vince two, three times, before coming,
Vince groans with each thrust, then lays completely still for a long time, arms spread out to each side, breathing deeply. He swallows hard a couple of times, before slowly turning his head to look at Eric beside him.
“Fuuuck,” His voice is choked - still stoned - he rolls over and kisses Eric lazily, unashamed “That was fucking amazing, E.”
Eric laughs nervously, feeling awkward and like the biggest stud ever. Vince’s eyes goes wide, and for a moment Eric worries that it’s going to get weird, that they were going to have to talk about this crazy thing. But in the end, Vince just leans back in and kisses him, and keeps kissing him until they can’t ignore the cold creeping in anymore, and have to go inside. They end up eating the rest of the take-out before going to sleep in separate beds.
---
The next morning, Turtle brings down a girl for breakfast, and he's acting so smug about it that Eric kind of feels like a proud father and graciously doesn't comment on the fact that she has her eyes glued on Vince for the whole time before she leaves.
Then Vince and he have to go to a meeting with Ari, who brings in Francois Ozon, who - to Eric's surprise - does want to offer Vince a role in his new movie. And who - even more to Eric's surprise - keeps sending him these half envious, half admiring "go you!" looks, that maybe has something to do with the fact that Vince has been incredibly touchy-feely with Eric all day, hugging him and laughing, and looking really fucking happy.
It's pure reflex to be signaling with his body language in any way that he can that whoa, you've got it wrong, buddy, but that makes Vince look at him funny - and basically, Eric can't figure out what the hell is going on. He's messed up and turned around. Half-hard from Vince's hand on his neck, his smell of summer skin and cologne, and half freaking the fuck out, worrying about Ari noticing - which he doesn't because he's over the moon that Vince is going to be the star of a movie that's going to be both an Oscar movie and a blockbuster.
On the drive home Vince is telling him a story about something, Eric doesn't even know what, when he casually places a hand on Eric's knee - and that's it - Eric takes the car off Sunset Boulevard, parking between a train wagon diner and Keanu Reeves looking down at them with his one facial expression from a billboard poster.
"Okay, what the fuck is going on?"
Vince takes his hands away from his knee, looking puzzled and maybe a little disappointed "What?" He is leaning languidly back against the car window, a small sarcastic smile around his lips, but Eric has known him since first grade, and somewhere in his expression Eric reads uncertainty.
Eric throws his hands up in a I don't have a clue what's going on gesture.
Vince's shoulders slump, and he looks down at his hands, breathing deeply. It makes Eric break out in a cold sweat. This is not Vince's mock serious face, this is the rarely seen real thing, and shit, Vince is not fucking with him.
"Look... I thought you were straight." Vince begins, and when E repeats the what the fuck gesture, he continues "I thought you were straight, and then maybe you weren't, and. Shit, I don't know how to do this." he glares at Eric "I get stupid about these things, you should know that."
Eric opens his mouth to remind Vince about the, oh, six hundred smooth hook-ups that he has witnessed, but then he remembers Mandy, and shuts his mouth with an audible smack. He realizes that, if you think about it that way - which apparently Vince is - then he has been the only other relationship that Vince has ever had.
"Yeah," Vince says, like he knows exactly what Eric is thinking. Eric has never seen him this nervous, not even auditioning for Head On.
"So, you wanna do this with me?"
The managing part of Eric's brain is hitting brakes and waving red flags, but this is Vince, the hottest guy on the planet if you‘re into that kind of thing (which, okay, Eric is), his best friend, and the guy he's been half-way in love with ever since he was fifteen.
"Yeah." Eric's mouth is dry as paper.
They don't kiss. They're just off Sunset, and there are tourists with huge motherfucking cameras everywhere. But Vince slides his hand back on Eric's thigh and squeezes. Eric can feel his heart going a hundred miles a minute, and he's aware that he's smiling like a dope, but he guesses that it’s okay, because Vince is doing the same thing back at him.
Then he coughs nervously, trying to get a grip "But we're keeping it on the down low, no PDA's, and you bring dates on premiere nights. Nobody hears about this."
"Might be a little late for that." Vince is smiling.
“What do you mean?”
“When we fucked by the pool? You are still fucking loud, E.”
Vince keeps a straight face for about half a minute - where Eric can literally feel the blood draining from his face - then breaks out laughing “I‘m messing with you.”
Eric lets his head fall forward onto the wheel with a relieved laugh.
“Fuck you! I‘m never having sex with you again!” he says weakly. But he is a lousy actor, and when he looks up, he can tell by Vince’s smile that he doesn’t believe it for one second.
Pairing: Eric/OMC, Eric/Vince
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Alcohol and weed - nothing that's not in the show (well, except for the gay sex).
Summary: Usually Eric hates the "it just happened" shtick, but this, this just happens.
Notes: Huge thanks to sollasollew11 and onlyns for beta. The fic title is taken from one of my favourite songs by my favourite band to listen to while writing Entourage: The Infadels.
Love Like Semtex
Usually Eric hates the "it just happened" shtick, but this, this just happens.
They're in N.Y. catching up with family and friends, and a slow Thursday night out brings them to their regular haunt, where Eric runs into an old friend from the neighborhood.
Mick Healy was their high school's other golden boy, the other guy that people said were going to make it big, when they weren't talking about Vince. Tall and good-looking, and a genius with straight A's. Member of the chess club, the discussion board, editor of the school paper and a better-than-average bass player in a the Police cover band - really it was just ridiculous, and Mick only got away with it by being an honest-to-God nice guy.
Eric had always liked him, although they'd moved in slightly different circles. They'd chatted at the high school reunion, and then Eric'd run into him again when they were in N.Y. filming Queen's Boulevard.
“So, Eric, looks like you‘re on your own tonight.” Mick says.
“Yeah, looks like it.”
Turtle has gone off with a girl who wanted to see Vince's hotel room, and Eric would warn Vince about sleeping in his bed tonight, if Vince hadn't been in a backroom somewhere, making it with the rock chick bartender. Drama is engaged in a conversation with two blondes, waving his arms around wildly, and sometimes doing something that looks unmistakably like the Viking Quest victory call.
So Eric's on his own, talking to Mick. He’s having a few drinks, and listening to Mick's stories about his internship at the Pakistani embassy. He comes off as a pretty brilliant diplomat, even though Eric can tell that he's not even trying.
Then Mick asks him about Hollywood, and what it's like to be a manager. It's an interesting conversation, and so they have a couple of more drinks. Mick orders a round of shots, which means Eric feels obligated to buy them a round, too.
In the end, Eric ends up very, very drunk by the time Mick leans over and puts a hand on his knee, pretending to steady himself "Listen Eric, do you want to go somewhere else?"
And maybe all of the above goes some way to explain it, but Eric still catches himself by surprise when he doesn't brush him off, but lets Mick rest his hand on his thigh, his fingertips curling into the inseam of his jeans.
He can't help but notice that Mick smells really great, and this evening has reminded him how much he’s always liked the guy. Hey, he decides drunkenly, if Mick swings that way, Eric is willing to try it out. It’s been way too fucking long. There's been no one since Sloan. And, anyway, it’s not like he’s never done it before.
...
He wakes up the next morning when his cell rings.
He reaches over the side of the bed and fumbles to get the phone from where it's buried under a heap of clothes. He flips open the phone and croaks "Jesus, Turtle, what?" just as Mick appears in the doorway and says "Hey, you're awake." looking smiley and casual.
Mick is showered and dressed, but Eric is still naked and sticky in a bed that smells like male and sex, with Turtle on the phone.
He freaks out.
It takes him five minutes to get dressed and mumble out an apology about a management crisis. Mick accepts the story without question, but he looks a little downcast. Eric notices the two plates set out on the counter top of Mick's steel and marble kitchen, and through his panic he still manages to feel like an asshole.
When Eric's by the door of what seems to be an upper class studio, Mick grabs him by the neck and pulls him in for a kiss before Eric gets a chance to think. He’s stuck between pulling away and leaning in, and then it’s over.
“I really liked this, E, call me next time you get back to New York.” Mick says, hopefully - and that is just wrong, wrong, wrong, coming from another guy.
When Eric gets back to the hotel, the guys are still having breakfast in the VIP lounge. There's no way he can slip by them unnoticed, so he slows down his steps and tries to shake of the panicky feeling that's been chasing him all the way from Mick‘s apartment.
"Hey guys, I'll just go grab a shower, be right with you."
They all look up at him simultaneously from their continental breakfast plates, and Eric instantly knows that he's fucked.
"Please, please, please tell me that you didn't go home with Mick Healy last night." Turtle says by way of greeting, making the waiter turn around to stare at him, and then at Eric.
Vince is slicing a piece of honey melon with careful precision. Johnny looks like his about to die from asphyxiation.
Eric draws the logical conclusion, "Fuck you, Drama."
"Hey bro, I just told them what I saw." Drama is looking kind of shell-shocked "So, did you?"
Eric can't lie to save shit.
“He’s been trying to hook up with you for while, E, didn’t you know - when we were up here doing QB.” Vince interjects, cool as anything, except Vince is great actor, but Eric has known him all of his life, and he can tell that something's off.
"You know what, fuck you guys. I'm leaving."
He goes to his room and takes a long, hot shower.
---
He has to endure a lot in the next couple of weeks. As soon as Turtle and Johnny get over their gay trauma, they give him endless shit about it. He finds a six foot inflatable dick in his bed (Turtle), Barbara Streisand movies on the flat screen when he comes down for breakfast, a purple bodysuit in his wardrobe, a weird strappy, leather thing in his underwear drawer that he doesn't' even want to try to guess at. And eventually he gets a rehearsed and over-acted It's Okay To Be Gay speech that makes him want to cry, or laugh, or kill something (Drama).
He hooks up with a Maxim model after two weeks just to shut them up, and it works pretty well with Turtle and Drama.
But not with Vince, who's been quietly weird all the time.
Vince keeps looking at him funny, only shifting his gaze away when Eric snaps and asks "What?" in his pissiest voice.
"Mick? Of all people?"
"What? He's a great guy!" Eric can't help being defensive, even if he had decided never to talk about it again.
"Yeah, I know." And Vince totally manages to make that sound like a bad thing.
It's Vince who is strangely protective of Eric's gay virtue, sidling up next to him with fake smiles and sharp teeth when they're out and Eric is trying to make a fucking business date with Francois Ozon. Eric is fuming on the drive home, and it doesn't make him less angry when Vince just laughs it off and refuses to acknowledge what he was doing.
"You realize you just ruined your chance for a role in his The Shadow of the Wind adaptation?"
"What, I was just joining in on a business conversation. After all, I'm the business, aren't I?"
"Come on, that's not what you were doing."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh, screw you." Eric puts on his sunglasses, so fucking tired of this conversation "Look, Vince, it was a mistake, a freak accident, I'm not out and proud, so would you just get over it."
Vince smirks and turns away to look out the passenger side window, but out of the corner of his eye Eric can see the uneasy set of his shoulders.
...
The strange thing is, that Vince ought to be the last one to be weird about it.
A lot of fans want Eric to tell them about Vince's childhood, expecting a Julia Roberts story about the sensitive, ostracized little guy who grew into a swan. Sometimes Eric thinks about coining it like that when he’s going to write Vince’s biography - and cast himself as the tough Irish kid with the heart of gold who helped Vince through primary school. But that's all a crock of shit. Vince was never any different - even when he was ten, and sauntered onto that basketball court, he had the trademark swagger and attitude.
Eric is certain that half of Vince's success is his unfailing conviction that everything is going to work out for him. And everything always has.
Even that time when Vince was sleeping over at Eric’s place, and Eric pulled his t-shirt over his head, and caught Vince looking at him in the mirror. Vince never looked down, or had the common sense to look embarrassed or anxious, even. Vinnie threw him the patented smoldering-gaze-parted-lips-routine “Hey, E, I think we should fuck.”
So they did, in Eric’s one-person bed, with his Catholic mother sitting in the living room on the other side of the door, watching Jeopardy with the set roaring out answers.
They messed around a couple of times. Couple of months. Eric learned that Vince was as stupid fucking confident in bed as he was everywhere else, and a great lay, besides.
And that was that. It wasn't exactly a big gay romance, but it was certainly enough that Vince shouldn't be acting like an asshole about Mick.
...
Three weeks after they return to L.A. they go to a party at the Viper Room. Sometime after midnight they run into one of Vince's many hook-ups - Kari, a B-actress who was on the brink of making it big four years ago.
Turtle and Johnny are long gone - trawling for girls in smaller waters. Eric is happily drunk, and Vince is acting normal, finally leaving his designated spot at Eric's side (where he's been stepping in smoothly between Eric and any openly gay actor or director adressing him) to flirt with Kari.
They end up at her house, and E ends up chatting distractedly with a couple of her girlfriends, while he tries to not look at Vince and Kari, who are kissing heatedly on the couch. The managing part of him wants to go over and tell Vince to cut it off, before a camera phone earns him a front page on the National Enquirer. Usually, Vince is pretty good at being discreet.
"So, uh, Michelle, you're a costume designer?" he says, looking back at Kari's struggling actor girlfriend.
He's shifts his gaze two inches to the left, and Kari's manicured hands are on the small of Vince's back, pressing him down between her legs. Vince takes the cue and starts grinding down, slow and easy.
Eric looks back at Michelle who now has her arms crossed over her expensive looking fake breasts. He realizes that he already asked that question once. He tries to save it by asking another one, and he manages to pay attention to Michelle for about two minutes, before looking towards the couch again.
Kari's hands have disappeared down the back of Vince's jeans. Eric shifts his gaze - and Vince is looking straight at him over the top of Kari's head. He's a little mussed up, eyebrows arched in a question that looks a lot like do you like what you see? or even want to join us? and Eric feels himself flushing hard.
"Excuse me."
He leaves the girls to go to the kitchen where he pours himself a glass of water from the tap. The kitchen is dark and quiet. Eric leans against the kitchen counter and takes a couple of deep breaths, trying to steady himself. He's buzzing, a tingly sensation where his clothes touches his skin. He can't remember feeling this wasted in a long time. Not since - well, not in a long time.
"Hey."
Vince is a shadow in the dark, easily recognizable slouched against the doorframe. Eric opens his mouth to say something, maybe "what was with the peep show?” but he doesn't get to say anything before Vince is standing right in front of him, way up in his personal space. Vince's eyes look a little glassy. His lips are swollen.
"Where's Kari?"
"I told her I needed to talk to my manager."
Eric blinks slowly. Vinnie's hand is hot on Eric's hip, and Eric doesn't even remember him reaching out. He smells like sweat and pot smoke and girl, a strong hot mix. Eric closes his eyes when Vince leans in. He remembers this. He wants this.
Vince's cold teeth scrape over Eric’s parted lips and fuck it, Eric opens his mouth to it, breathing in deep through his nose, and pictures them out there on the couch - Vince’s hips moving against Kari's - while Vince kisses him deeply and adjusts his stance to reach down and cup Eric through his jeans.
Vince’s fingertips rest lightly against his jaw, then move back to fist the hair at the nape of his neck. The edge of the kitchen counter digs into Eric's back. Vince’s hair skims across his face when he moves, changing the angle of the kiss, and then Vince reaches into his half opened jeans and starts jerking him tight and fast, no playing.
Eric tries his fucking best not to make a sound, but in the end he can’t help letting out a choked moan as he comes, back arched, hips twisting forward.
Vince used to make fun of him for being loud.
He’s still catching his breath when Vince does his pants up one-handedly and pulls back. He opens his eyes to Vince looking at him with a smug smile on his face, hands in the air, what did I do, and Eric is not looking at how his right hand is streaked and glistening, or the obvious outline of his erection through his thin trousers.
“Vince, what the fuck?”
But Vince just reaches past him to wipe his hand on a dish towel and walks out, swaggering.
When Eric finally feels ready to leave the kitchen and go back to the others, Vince has disappeared. Kari doesn't know where he's gone to.
"I thought he was with you," she says, sounding a little accusatorial, and Eric feels certain that there's a double entendre there, and decides to get the fuck out. He ends up taking a cab home, alone.
In the cab he almost convinces himself that it was all a weird alcohol-induced hallucination. Except Vince missed one button in his jeans, and Eric can still taste him on his lips. Not at all that different, even if ten years had gone by.
He gets home and crashes out, and he doesn't have the big freak out until next morning, when he stumbles into the kitchen and Vince is sitting by the counter eating breakfast. Johnny's by the stove cooking something complicated, and Turtle is busy texting on his cell. Vince looks up when Eric enters, smiling, casual as you please, like nothing has happened.
Eric turns his back to him and pours himself a cup of coffee. Then he goes out on the balcony and takes a couple of deep breaths, his hand shaking slightly around the mug.
Fuck, how could he have forgotten, or pretend to have forgotten, what it had been like, ten years ago. Yeah, him and Vince had messed around, and Vince had been great in the sack, and it had been good sex, and the seriously most complicated and nerve-wracking thing that Eric has ever done.
He takes a gulp of coffee and burns his tongue a little. He looks out over the hills, and his left hand instinctively goes for the pack of cigarettes that he no longer carries around in his back pocket.
Vince had been the biggest fucking jerk around ever, and Eric hadn't been able to break his habit of falling a little bit in love, even if it was Vince and fucking insane. They'd been jerking each other off in bathroom stalls and alleyways, moving quietly against each other underneath the covers in Eric's bed. All the time pretending like nothing was going on whenever they were around other people, and that had been hard, E remembers, to keep the casual little touches in check, not to lean in too closely, or stand to close together.
They'd broken it off when Vince moved in with Drama, and started getting serious about acting. They never really talked about it, they just stopped. E started dating Cathy, and Vince continued his amazing streak of one night stands - but things had been weird and shaky between them for a long time after, to a degree that Eric had actually been a little relieved to go to college, and not hang around the guys every day, although he'd missed Vince like crazy.
... Well, that isn't happening again.
Eric pushes off the railing and goes back inside. He determinedly sits down opposite Vince and smiles at him briefly before busying himself with the ham/spinach/mushroom omelet that Johnny has pushed in front of him.
"Shit," He says, aware that his voice sounds like it’s being scraped out of his throat "I'm not getting that drunk again for a long time."
Johnny snorts and Turtle tears his attention away from his phone to give Eric a uncomprehending look. Vince just kept eating his dry Cheerios, one by one, with no reaction at all. Eric doesn't know what the fuck to make of it.
He lays off alcohol and weed for a while, and they don't talk about it, and everything is normal except for how Eric can't help tensing up a little bit when Vince slings his arm around him, and how he can't really be in the gym when Vince is working out. Still, he has it under control.
Vince doesn’t change, which basically means that he is still flirty as fuck, flirting with everyone who crosses his path, including Eric himself. Sometimes Eric hates the fact that Vince is an actor, and a fucking good one. Just like the last time, he hasn't a fucking clue what Vince is thinking about any of it.
Every time they go out E only has one beer, and he is tense and on edge and consequently goes through the longest dry spell since he was been seventeen.
Johnny and Turtle pick up on the tension after a while.
"We're going to Stacy's tonight."
Eric looks up from his laptop. Drama and Turtle are standing in the door to the living room, looking weirdly shifty. Vince turns away from the TV to shrug at them. He’s in sweats, playing GTA with his headphones on.
Turtle clears his throat "So, I got some stellar weed from Sarah yesterday, you guys should try it. I mean, if you're not going out tonight, anyway." He walks over and slips a bag into Eric's shirt pocket, with a goodbye pat, looking a little regretful "Here, it's on me."
And that gives Eric a pretty good idea about what is going on. Trust Turtle to try and solve a conflict with weed.
Eric watches him and Drama all but flee the room, and then he looks over at Vince.
Vince pulls the headphones off and turns off the TV "You wanna?"
Eric sighs. It has to be bad if Turtle and Drama feel like they have to intervene. He closes down the laptop. It was just a drunken night, Vince being the impulsive freak that he is, and anyway, Eric can control this.
"Yeah, okay."
---
It really is pretty amazing stuff. After sharing a bong they order take-out from four different places and stuff themselves with sushi, pizza, meat ball subs and lobster. Then they get the sweats and walk out on the patio. The night is hot and dry, and after a little while they both strip down to their boxers and dive into the pool.
Eric gets up after five minutes. He lounges back on the soft grass and lights up a joint while he watches Vince doing laps in the pool, quick and graceful like a seal. He’s learned some pretty neat tricks doing Aquaman. Once in a while he comes up from a long dive, gasping for air, hair dripping water, and looks at Eric.
Eric smiles back peacefully. Seems like they’re good again, and maybe quality weed actually can solve conflicts. Hell, Eric thinks, stubbing out the butt on the lawn, shit like this could probably bring about world peace.
He closes his eyes and meditates on that thought for a while. He hears the splash of Vince getting out of the pool, the wet slap of his feet against the tile, and then Vince is lying down next to him on the grass, the cold skin of his arm grazing Eric, making him shiver pleasantly.
"Hey."
He doesn't open his eyes. Beside him, Vince's breathing slows down.
"Hey."
One cold hand finds Eric's wrist and holds on. Eric turns his head to his side to look at Vince, a question forming slowly in his head.
He is used to having Vince up in his personal space, sharing sofas, sharing half-hugs and high-fives, fighting. But not like this. Vince's skin is reflecting the pale blue light from the pool. He’s wet and loose-limbed, covered in goose bumps. His hair is slicked back, and drops of water are making his eyelashes cling together.
A fucking wet dream come alive - and Eric realizes that, for all his trying, this is turning out exactly like last time, and he has been kidding himself when he thought that he had any control whatsoever.
He rolls over onto his elbow, looking down at Vince, who returns his stare passively, lips parted. He smells like hot skin and pool water. Eric leans down, like gravity pulling him, and kisses Vince.
Vince arches into the touch, no hesitation. Eric licks into his hot mouth, run his hands over his cold skin.
Kissing Vince was always amazing, hot and dirty. After a while Eric is settled with a thigh between Vince's and rubbing up against him, enjoying the contrasting sensations of Vince's body, hot and cold, water-slick and hairy. He is ready to come just from that, just from rutting up against each other and kissing messily. But Vince pushes him away, saying "Wait, wait, I wanna - "
He gets up and grabs the after sun lotion next to the sun chairs, a condom from the pocket of his jeans, handing it to E before skimming off his boxers and lying back down.
Eric swallows. They haven't done this, they hadn't ever -
"Oh, Jesus Christ, E." Vince rolls his eyes and takes the lotion from his hands and pours it over two of his fingers. He reaches down to touch himself.
The guy has no shame. This is the kind of confidence that comes from being told every day that you are the hottest thing alive by girls desperate to fuck you. Eric usually finds it a little annoying, but now he is looking down at Vince, wet and writhing - hands teasing himself open. And okay, it is also a major turn-on.
Finally, Vince tugs at the elastic edge of Eric's boxers "C'mon."
Eric had no idea that he’d want it so much, but he is stupid for it, tearing open the condom wrapper and sliding the condom on with shaking fingers. Vince looks at him through half-closed eyes, completely spaced out, equal parts horny and stoned.
Eric leans in expecting it to be difficult, expecting resistance, but God he slides right home, down into Vince’s arms and his wet mouth, deep kisses while he rocks into him sweetly. In the end, Vince throws his head back and Eric can see his eyes roll back between the narrow slits of his eyelids. He bats Vince’s hand away and grabs hold of his cock, smooth and hot in his palm, jerking shivers and starts out of him.
Vince comes with a drawn-out, satisfied moan, his whole body seizing up. Suddenly the dreamy, pleasure high atmosphere disappears and Eric is fucking dying to come. He scrambles for a better position and draws his legs up to slam into Vince two, three times, before coming,
Vince groans with each thrust, then lays completely still for a long time, arms spread out to each side, breathing deeply. He swallows hard a couple of times, before slowly turning his head to look at Eric beside him.
“Fuuuck,” His voice is choked - still stoned - he rolls over and kisses Eric lazily, unashamed “That was fucking amazing, E.”
Eric laughs nervously, feeling awkward and like the biggest stud ever. Vince’s eyes goes wide, and for a moment Eric worries that it’s going to get weird, that they were going to have to talk about this crazy thing. But in the end, Vince just leans back in and kisses him, and keeps kissing him until they can’t ignore the cold creeping in anymore, and have to go inside. They end up eating the rest of the take-out before going to sleep in separate beds.
---
The next morning, Turtle brings down a girl for breakfast, and he's acting so smug about it that Eric kind of feels like a proud father and graciously doesn't comment on the fact that she has her eyes glued on Vince for the whole time before she leaves.
Then Vince and he have to go to a meeting with Ari, who brings in Francois Ozon, who - to Eric's surprise - does want to offer Vince a role in his new movie. And who - even more to Eric's surprise - keeps sending him these half envious, half admiring "go you!" looks, that maybe has something to do with the fact that Vince has been incredibly touchy-feely with Eric all day, hugging him and laughing, and looking really fucking happy.
It's pure reflex to be signaling with his body language in any way that he can that whoa, you've got it wrong, buddy, but that makes Vince look at him funny - and basically, Eric can't figure out what the hell is going on. He's messed up and turned around. Half-hard from Vince's hand on his neck, his smell of summer skin and cologne, and half freaking the fuck out, worrying about Ari noticing - which he doesn't because he's over the moon that Vince is going to be the star of a movie that's going to be both an Oscar movie and a blockbuster.
On the drive home Vince is telling him a story about something, Eric doesn't even know what, when he casually places a hand on Eric's knee - and that's it - Eric takes the car off Sunset Boulevard, parking between a train wagon diner and Keanu Reeves looking down at them with his one facial expression from a billboard poster.
"Okay, what the fuck is going on?"
Vince takes his hands away from his knee, looking puzzled and maybe a little disappointed "What?" He is leaning languidly back against the car window, a small sarcastic smile around his lips, but Eric has known him since first grade, and somewhere in his expression Eric reads uncertainty.
Eric throws his hands up in a I don't have a clue what's going on gesture.
Vince's shoulders slump, and he looks down at his hands, breathing deeply. It makes Eric break out in a cold sweat. This is not Vince's mock serious face, this is the rarely seen real thing, and shit, Vince is not fucking with him.
"Look... I thought you were straight." Vince begins, and when E repeats the what the fuck gesture, he continues "I thought you were straight, and then maybe you weren't, and. Shit, I don't know how to do this." he glares at Eric "I get stupid about these things, you should know that."
Eric opens his mouth to remind Vince about the, oh, six hundred smooth hook-ups that he has witnessed, but then he remembers Mandy, and shuts his mouth with an audible smack. He realizes that, if you think about it that way - which apparently Vince is - then he has been the only other relationship that Vince has ever had.
"Yeah," Vince says, like he knows exactly what Eric is thinking. Eric has never seen him this nervous, not even auditioning for Head On.
"So, you wanna do this with me?"
The managing part of Eric's brain is hitting brakes and waving red flags, but this is Vince, the hottest guy on the planet if you‘re into that kind of thing (which, okay, Eric is), his best friend, and the guy he's been half-way in love with ever since he was fifteen.
"Yeah." Eric's mouth is dry as paper.
They don't kiss. They're just off Sunset, and there are tourists with huge motherfucking cameras everywhere. But Vince slides his hand back on Eric's thigh and squeezes. Eric can feel his heart going a hundred miles a minute, and he's aware that he's smiling like a dope, but he guesses that it’s okay, because Vince is doing the same thing back at him.
Then he coughs nervously, trying to get a grip "But we're keeping it on the down low, no PDA's, and you bring dates on premiere nights. Nobody hears about this."
"Might be a little late for that." Vince is smiling.
“What do you mean?”
“When we fucked by the pool? You are still fucking loud, E.”
Vince keeps a straight face for about half a minute - where Eric can literally feel the blood draining from his face - then breaks out laughing “I‘m messing with you.”
Eric lets his head fall forward onto the wheel with a relieved laugh.
“Fuck you! I‘m never having sex with you again!” he says weakly. But he is a lousy actor, and when he looks up, he can tell by Vince’s smile that he doesn’t believe it for one second.