FIC: Just Another Sad Love Song (Entourage)
And I continue to find things on my computer that I never posted. Some of these are several years old and past the point where someone would care. oh well!
Title: Just Another Sad Love Song
Fandom: Entourage
Spoilers: General series; I wrote this back in Season 4.
Pairing/Focus: Eric; one-sided Eric/Vince
Length: 1,100 words
Summary: In which Eric thinks about Vince more than he'd like, but not more than he can take.
**
So this is the thing: You get back together with Kristen for the seventh time after Cannes, because you're no good at being single and she never asks the uncomfortable questions. The passive aggressive, pushy as hell questions, yes, but never the ones you can't answer. She's known you long enough to know the deal, to be near family. You can't be sure when she'll stop returning calls, fuck with your mind, or fuck the barista, but you can trust her.
You will never receive that voice mail from Ari: hyperventilating and intermittently bleating, dictating a letter published in Teen Beat to the tune of,
Dear TB,
My boyfriend has been in love with Vincent Chase since puberty.
P.S. my boyfriend is his manager
Love,
A Vindictive Bitch
**
She's never liked you much, it seems, but then she doesn't seem to like anybody. You don't take it personally. She smiles at you sometimes, soft and shadowed by the down-swing of her hair, and she pushes sometimes when you need it.
It's easy to sleep in with her, listening to the rattle of your cell dancing across her long, oak dresser. Her shoulders are warm when you rub your face across them, tucking down under the covers to hide from the morning. The sheets always smell clean and feel fresh and dry against your skin. You can allow yourself this. She knows you have to get up, and will kick you out of bed.
She will let you spend nights, days out of that apartment.
She hates Vince for you - in spite of you, because of you - and that's closer to love than you've ever done a single thing to deserve. You don't have anything but the regular anger left for him. It seems pointless, stupid, unfair to blame him. She's a bitch, and has no such qualms. She is resentful, belittling, and vicious when threatened.
She's the best thing that's ever happened to you, and that's why you keep coming back.
**
You sucked him off once. When you were drunk, of course, because this is that kind of predictable story.
He maybe doesn't remember it. If he does, he maybe thinks it wasn't you. He's never mentioned the incident. And this is actually good, really fucking great, because the memory is washed out, art decco blurriness but you think it was mostly terrible. If anyone ever asked (and they haven't, and hopefully never will, the fuckers), you would never claim to be an expert in gay sex. Plus, the whole falling down, intoxicated to the point of stumbling nausea aspect.
So it was basically a stupid, drunk accident that you pray he mostly slept through (though, finally, he came), because there are certain things you have to believe, to, like, keep on living. And one of them is that Vince won't be with you because he doesn't swing that way, or he does, but he doesn't swing your way, and it's understandable because you're short and sort of unextraordinary, while he's all sleek, effortless charm and casually gorgeous to an almost (okay, completely) obnoxious extent. Not that he's queer, and would fuck you, and maybe fall in love with you, except you're really bad in bed.
There are such things as adding just too much insult to injury. Fuck that shit.
**
Your name is Eric Murphy, though nobody who matters calls you that, and this isn't the life you're supposed to lead.
People like you, they mean well, they do okay. They don't shoot for the stars, but their heart's in the right place. They skip a little school, lose their virginity on prom night. They never get out of that town. They drop out of college, meet a nice but not too bright girl, and get drunk only on weekends. And the story goes: your parents love her, you love her, and you plan a simple summer back-yard wedding.
You should have pulled longer hours, pushed harder, and moved on up to a nice sit-down place where pasta is not seven dollars but nineteen. You would be generous, endlessly rearranging the shift schedules, and forgive too many fake flus and sudden food poisonings. You would have moved out from mom's -- should be sharing an apartment with some guys named Dave and Dan, or Dan and Ernesto, or Jacob and the name of whatever kind of guy who will start secretly fucking your girlfriend, and paying double your share in utilities.
Or maybe you would have come, you still had to come when he called, but you're supposed to be a complete emotional wreck, sabotaging Vince's every attempt at happiness in between smoking too much and only sporadically washing your hair.
It shouldn't be as normal as it is, but you can deal, you're not some pussy, and the short-lived desperate pining phase ended right about that time when Turtle was trying to be all sensitive and helpful, telling you to keep hope alive because "dude, he really likes anal in porn" (to which you think you said, "Oh my god," and, "we are never discussing this again," but you can't be certain because you're mostly repressing that entire month, because Jesus).
**
So Turtle always means it when he calls you an asshole. You can be an insufferable, smug asshole. And it hurts (though you know it's true) (because it's true, and you never meant to). And he makes up for it each and every time he nixes a gay scene, because he understands there are just some things you can't take to be faked.
They've known, Drama and Turtle and Dom, since you were sixteen, and it's not so much as you were (are) obvious about it, but that it's just always been there.
It was there before they noticed, before you noticed, had something to call it.
It's a part of you-- but just a part, no bigger than the rest. They all know, of course they know, but nobody's mentioned it for years (even alone, or in two or threes). Like how they all stopped talking as if Turtle could be an engineer like his uncle, like how Dom'll be an officer in the Marines. It's sort of, like, respect for the dead. The possibilities a guy thinks up before he knows what he can have.
They're just a part, set aside but staying with you. Rest in peace.
end.
Title: Just Another Sad Love Song
Fandom: Entourage
Spoilers: General series; I wrote this back in Season 4.
Pairing/Focus: Eric; one-sided Eric/Vince
Length: 1,100 words
Summary: In which Eric thinks about Vince more than he'd like, but not more than he can take.
**
So this is the thing: You get back together with Kristen for the seventh time after Cannes, because you're no good at being single and she never asks the uncomfortable questions. The passive aggressive, pushy as hell questions, yes, but never the ones you can't answer. She's known you long enough to know the deal, to be near family. You can't be sure when she'll stop returning calls, fuck with your mind, or fuck the barista, but you can trust her.
You will never receive that voice mail from Ari: hyperventilating and intermittently bleating, dictating a letter published in Teen Beat to the tune of,
Dear TB,
My boyfriend has been in love with Vincent Chase since puberty.
P.S. my boyfriend is his manager
Love,
A Vindictive Bitch
**
She's never liked you much, it seems, but then she doesn't seem to like anybody. You don't take it personally. She smiles at you sometimes, soft and shadowed by the down-swing of her hair, and she pushes sometimes when you need it.
It's easy to sleep in with her, listening to the rattle of your cell dancing across her long, oak dresser. Her shoulders are warm when you rub your face across them, tucking down under the covers to hide from the morning. The sheets always smell clean and feel fresh and dry against your skin. You can allow yourself this. She knows you have to get up, and will kick you out of bed.
She will let you spend nights, days out of that apartment.
She hates Vince for you - in spite of you, because of you - and that's closer to love than you've ever done a single thing to deserve. You don't have anything but the regular anger left for him. It seems pointless, stupid, unfair to blame him. She's a bitch, and has no such qualms. She is resentful, belittling, and vicious when threatened.
She's the best thing that's ever happened to you, and that's why you keep coming back.
**
You sucked him off once. When you were drunk, of course, because this is that kind of predictable story.
He maybe doesn't remember it. If he does, he maybe thinks it wasn't you. He's never mentioned the incident. And this is actually good, really fucking great, because the memory is washed out, art decco blurriness but you think it was mostly terrible. If anyone ever asked (and they haven't, and hopefully never will, the fuckers), you would never claim to be an expert in gay sex. Plus, the whole falling down, intoxicated to the point of stumbling nausea aspect.
So it was basically a stupid, drunk accident that you pray he mostly slept through (though, finally, he came), because there are certain things you have to believe, to, like, keep on living. And one of them is that Vince won't be with you because he doesn't swing that way, or he does, but he doesn't swing your way, and it's understandable because you're short and sort of unextraordinary, while he's all sleek, effortless charm and casually gorgeous to an almost (okay, completely) obnoxious extent. Not that he's queer, and would fuck you, and maybe fall in love with you, except you're really bad in bed.
There are such things as adding just too much insult to injury. Fuck that shit.
**
Your name is Eric Murphy, though nobody who matters calls you that, and this isn't the life you're supposed to lead.
People like you, they mean well, they do okay. They don't shoot for the stars, but their heart's in the right place. They skip a little school, lose their virginity on prom night. They never get out of that town. They drop out of college, meet a nice but not too bright girl, and get drunk only on weekends. And the story goes: your parents love her, you love her, and you plan a simple summer back-yard wedding.
You should have pulled longer hours, pushed harder, and moved on up to a nice sit-down place where pasta is not seven dollars but nineteen. You would be generous, endlessly rearranging the shift schedules, and forgive too many fake flus and sudden food poisonings. You would have moved out from mom's -- should be sharing an apartment with some guys named Dave and Dan, or Dan and Ernesto, or Jacob and the name of whatever kind of guy who will start secretly fucking your girlfriend, and paying double your share in utilities.
Or maybe you would have come, you still had to come when he called, but you're supposed to be a complete emotional wreck, sabotaging Vince's every attempt at happiness in between smoking too much and only sporadically washing your hair.
It shouldn't be as normal as it is, but you can deal, you're not some pussy, and the short-lived desperate pining phase ended right about that time when Turtle was trying to be all sensitive and helpful, telling you to keep hope alive because "dude, he really likes anal in porn" (to which you think you said, "Oh my god," and, "we are never discussing this again," but you can't be certain because you're mostly repressing that entire month, because Jesus).
**
So Turtle always means it when he calls you an asshole. You can be an insufferable, smug asshole. And it hurts (though you know it's true) (because it's true, and you never meant to). And he makes up for it each and every time he nixes a gay scene, because he understands there are just some things you can't take to be faked.
They've known, Drama and Turtle and Dom, since you were sixteen, and it's not so much as you were (are) obvious about it, but that it's just always been there.
It was there before they noticed, before you noticed, had something to call it.
It's a part of you-- but just a part, no bigger than the rest. They all know, of course they know, but nobody's mentioned it for years (even alone, or in two or threes). Like how they all stopped talking as if Turtle could be an engineer like his uncle, like how Dom'll be an officer in the Marines. It's sort of, like, respect for the dead. The possibilities a guy thinks up before he knows what he can have.
They're just a part, set aside but staying with you. Rest in peace.
end.