Entourage FF: Getting the message [Ari, Eric/Vince; R; spoilers for 5.12]
Title: Getting the message
Fandom: Entourage
Characters/Pairing: Ari POV, Eric/Vince
Rating: R for language
Length: 4,100 words
Disclaimer: All belongs to Doug Ellin et al
Spoilers: Through 5.12, very spoilery for that episode.
Summary: Eric tries to revoke his forgiveness. Ari is asked to intervene.
Ari has always known Vince doesn’t see farther than the next movie, but it’s one thing to know it, and another to see it in action. Eric is screaming now, not caring that they’re surrounded by people. “If I’m doing such a god-awful job then why don’t you just fucking fire me again?” Eric turns, with a dramatic flair that is learnt and not inherent, and storms out of the room.
Vince, of course, looks stunned. Ari is not surprised.
* * * *
Ari had never intended to be a commuter. He left Chicago and never looked back, growing warm and sated in sunny California. There are trips, of course, for business and pleasure, but he is only ever at home now in L.A. New York is foreign to him, this place which Vince and the boys inhabit so easily. They have never really left Queens, where Ari never really belonged in Chicago. It was always the dread scenario: having to go back home to Illinois and be a lawyer. He’s never understood the way Vince holds New York as a safe haven, the way Eric has fled home to hide.
And now the boys are working in New York, but currently in LA while Drama shoots promos and Vince makes some well-timed appearances. Eric had been flying in and out, what with Charlie, and his psychotic writers, and that one singer-turned-actress. Now he has run back to New York, and normally Ari would be mocking.
He knocks on the door and, when Eric answers, says, “Running back to your Mommy, E? This is not your finest hour.”
Eric only takes a moment to recover with, “Fuck you, Ari.”
“I missed you too. Don’t you have a job? I know keeping your two clients happy must be taxing, but this really wasn’t the time for a vacation. Vince is-”
Eric makes a frantic, disapproving noise, and closes the door, leaving them both outside. He sits on the porch and, after a moment, Ari drops down beside him. Eric says, “My mom doesn’t know.”
“Doesn’t know what? That you bailed on Vinnie like a little bitch at the first sign of trouble in paradise?”
Eric sighs. “Not the first sign. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe the last one. Maybe the last one was months ago and I just didn’t notice.”
This is worse than Ari had thought. He remembers the long note of tension in Vince’s voice when he had suggested that maybe Ari might like to try bringing E home. Remembers thinking that it couldn’t be so hard - Eric is already where they want him to be, he just needs to still be here when Vince flies in. Remembers thinking that, yeah, Eric had been pissed, but Eric’s always mad at the world about something. He spends too much of his time trying to keep Vince in line, and that’s a job that would try the patience of a saint. Eric’s no saint.
Eric just sighs, shakes his head, and stands up. “You coming in? There’s coffee if you want.”
Yeah, this is going to be harder than Ari thought.
* * * *
Eric’s bedroom is tiny. When Ari comments on this, Eric mutters something about his older sister, and Ari can sympathise. He doesn’t say that, though, and when he comes out of the bathroom, he walks fully into the room. Eric’s mother has set up her laundry room in here - it smells of clean folded clothes, and Ari has to push past them to get into the room.
Eric clearly got no action as a teenager - the room has a little single bed, with a frame that creaks when Ari sits down. It looks abandoned, rather than packed up: Vince had said I need you here, E, and Eric had upped and left. It’s a room permanently arrested, belonging to a man barely grown, and there are photographs pinned to the wall. Just a few, because Eric, contrary to Ari’s assertions, isn’t actually a teenage girl. The boys (and Dom) on a porch that looks almost identical to Eric’s. Turtle and Eric and Vince, in what must be the summer before he left, because this Vince looks as Ari remembers him from back then. And one which has slipped from its place, into the crack between the chest of drawers and the wall. It figures. Eric and Vince, Eric twisting away from the camera, caught in the circle of Vince’s arm. Vince’s three-quarter face, turning from Eric to the camera; Eric in profile, staring at Vince and reluctantly smiling. Ari doesn’t have a picture that looks anything like this. Not with any of his buddies from high school, not with anyone he came up with from the mail room. It’s the kind of photo he has on his desk at work.
Ari looks at the picture for a while, teasing at its smooth edge, and the tiny hole above Eric’s head, where the pin had come loose.
Eric comes in, and pulls the photo from Ari’s hands. Ari expects a fight, but gets, “Thought I lost this.”
“Nope. Just cunningly hidden.” Ari takes the photo back, and waves it in Eric’s face, “Which is good, because if anyone else saw this-”
Eric does fight now: “What, Ari?”
“Hollywood doesn’t need another story about a blockbuster cocksucker.”
And Ari thinks, as Eric swings his arm, catching Ari in the upper chest, that maybe this is what he’s been looking for the whole time. The press of Eric’s fist, sliding up to cover Ari’s neck with his arm. Other hand slammed against the wall; he traps Ari between his body and the chipped paint.
Ari asks, quietly, “Why're you doing this?" and even he isn’t sure what he means.
Eric says, "Cause I can't do it to Vince," and definitely doesn’t know.
Ari pauses to consider. "Really? Because I'm pretty sure he'd let you."
"Not this." Eric trails off, turns his head and punches the wall. "Fuck! Jesus, I'm just so... I'm so fucking tired of this. Of begging things for him, and from him. Of all the goddamn sorries and thank-yous. And, God help me, but I'm so fucking tired of saying please."
It sounds like something he’s heard before, Eric stealing from the movie-land he inhabits with Vince. To Ari, it sounds like something from a courtroom: the man to the wife he’s divorcing, the woman to the husband she’s snapped and killed. It’s not borne of anger, just the slow cold burn of desperation. It’s what happens when you’re finally pushed beyond the limit of endurance, and E is there. Eric, who forgives Vince before the frown is wiped off his face. There’s more here, but Ari doesn’t have all the pieces.
Ari shrugs. “Then you got into the wrong industry, E, because this is what we do.”
“You don’t.”
“You think I don’t. You don’t see what I have to do some days. Trust me, your best buddy being mad at you is nothing.”
Eric pulls back, no longer confused, but coolly furious. “He fired me.” He walks out of the door. Ari shrugs, and leaves the photograph, face-down, on the set of drawers.
He calls Vince, who says, “Please, Ari? He won’t talk to me.”
Ari mutters, “Well, you wouldn’t like what he’s saying to me,” and hangs up the phone.
* * * *
“He fired me. I wanted him back, so I got him. So did you."
Eric seems surprised that Ari has come back the next day, but not at the topic of conversation. He counters with, "Scorsese got me back."
"And Medellín," Ari pauses to spit, "got me back. Who cares?"
"You blamed him. Or me, whatever, I don't know. You didn't think it was your fault. You didn't let him convince you that you deserved it."
“That’s because, unlike you, I’m not a fucking moron.”
This, naturally, is the point at which Mrs Murphy chooses to make an appearance. Ari is beginning to wonder why he ends up surrounded by terrifying women. It’s not that she cuts a particularly imposing figure, but she has a look. She kind of reminds Ari of his own mother, and all the reasons why he’s a gentleman around women that aren’t Babs or Dana. All the women that aren’t industry, and Mrs Murphy is nothing like an industry woman. She glares at Ari until he says, “Sorry. But he is.”
She frowns and says, “Maybe so, but there’s no need for that in the house.”
“Ma,” Eric protests.
She presses a kiss to his cheek and murmurs, “You’re a good boy. But you always let Vince upset you.”
“See?” Ari mocks.
Eric turns his head. “When Vince fired you, you attacked your therapist on a golf course.”
Ari can’t get his words in order quick enough to protest that. “I didn’t- who the hell told you I attacked her? Was it her? Because I will fire that bitch so fast. I consulted her on a golf course. And that was nothing to do with Vince - it was about work.”
“Vince isn’t work?”
“Vince is a fucking lifetime of misery. Sorry, Mrs Murphy.”
She pats his shoulder gently. “Don’t do it again.”
Eric laughs, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Then, over Eric’s head, she grins at Ari. He nods back, and ignores Eric’s expression of paranoid confusion.
* * * *
Day three, and Eric’s back pops when he unfolds from the pool table. He looks at Ari. “Don’t you have a job? Clients, maybe?”
“Don’t you?”
“I’m working on that. Plus, I don’t have a wife. Is she even still talking to you?”
She is, but only barely, and only because she’s weirdly fond of Eric. So is Lloyd, and he’s taken to leaving little encouraging messages on Ari’s answering service. The last one must have been when Lloyd was drunk (see what happens when Ari leaves him alone?) because he’d started explaining why Ari would make a fabulous yenta. In retribution, Ari tells him to take a meeting with Bob Coates, who makes quasi-porn ‘erotic thrillers’, calls all women sweetheart, and wears jeans that are too tight just about everywhere. Lloyd will be horrified by his mere existence, let alone Ari’s instructions to get him on board with his equally appalling script. Ari has to get his kicks somewhere.
Eric saunters to the bar and orders some of Drama’s liquor. He can’t be too annoyed, because he looks over his shoulder and says, “You ever planning on leaving, or do you want me to start running you up a tab?”
“Scotch.”
Eric nods, and makes a motion with his fingers at the barman that’s either really insulting, or a request for more than a few measures of alcohol.
Eric comes back with the drinks and points at the table. “You play?”
“Well enough to wipe your sorry ass over the floor, yeah.”
Eric raises an eyebrow. “Okay. Fifty bucks?”
“You can take the boy out of Queens, but you can’t-“
“We’re in Queens, jackass.”
“Let’s just say I was expecting something a little more interesting. I mean I always knew you were a cheap-ass fuck, but I didn’t know you were a coward, too.”
“Yeah? I thought I was a little chicken-shit who ran out at the first sign of trouble.”
“Okay, so apart from that.”
“So? How much do you want to bet? Bearing in mind that your kids go to private school, and I’d hate to have to be the reason they went public.”
“How about, I win, you come back with me to L.A. tomorrow? You and Vinnie make nice, everyone’s happy, and I actually get to go pick up my kids from their private school. How about that, E?”
“No.”
“No? Scared?”
“Never bet anything you can’t afford to lose. I can’t-“
Ari shrugs. “So don’t lose.”
* * * *
E is a fucking shark, and Ari knows this because he is drunk, and E is not, and E is dragging him home. Eric says something about a cab, and his strong desire to stuff Ari into one head-first, but Ari is too busy trying to keep his head up, and his feet pointed in the right direction.
“Your alcohol is wrong,” Ari says.
“No,” Eric says, “but I think you might be. What the hell did you order after the first game?”
Truth be told, Ari has no idea what he might have ordered. It was almost certainly in an attempt to get E drunk enough to not notice being smuggled back in a suitcase, but, then, E’s a shark.
“You switched to water, didn’t you? You’re a cheater and a liar.”
“Getting shit-faced wasn’t part of the game, Ari.”
“Well, it should have been. Because I promised that little- Vince. I promised Vince.”
“You promised Vince you’d get me drunk?”
“I promised I’d come back with you or not at all. This was a campaign of military precision, if you hadn’t ruined it with your lying cheating ways.”
Eric turns his head and, because he has an arm around Ari’s waist, his face is now very close. He says, “Vince can fight his own battles.”
“No he can’t. That’s what he pays us for. Go home and do your fucking job, Eric.”
Eric flinches, like the first time Ari’s managed to actually wound him. They both stumble, but Eric rights them. They walk the rest of the way in silence; Eric drops him on the battered couch without a word.
* * * *
Ari wakes up still feeling more drunk than hung over; his head is spinning rather than pounding, and his thoughts track strangely. He thinks: we’re like a pair of overwrought new parents (a pair of battered spouses), we smile when he laughs, we cringe when he frowns. There’s probably a solid half-million in the L.A. area exactly like them, but it feels right now like Ari has a unique perspective on just why Eric’s cracking up. This is why he doesn’t ever get this drunk.
There is a banging at the door. Ari stumbles towards it, but Mrs Murphy gets there first. She smiles, opening her arms wide. “Vince. There you are.”
“Here I am.” He pulls her close. “How are you?”
“I’d be better if my baby boy wasn’t walking around like there’s storm clouds over his head.”
Vince raises his hands like he’s going to try to apologise, but she has turned her head. She calls, “Ari, honey, would you lift me down some coffee cups? Vince and the boys could probably use something warm.”
Ari can hear the boys snickering perfectly well. He adds this to this list. Lloyd thinks keeping a list of personal slights is unhealthy, but one day, Ari will ascend to power. One day, Ari will work his way down that list.
Ari is distracted from more homicidal thoughts by Eric’s voice, coming down the stairs ahead of him. Eric hasn’t heard Vince. Eric is saying, “You think Vince would do 30 Rock? We’re in the right place, for once, and they say they’d book him in during his off days on the shoot. He never gets to do comedy, I think it might be-”
Eric stops.
Vince does lift his hands now, in a halfway, helpless shrug. “E.”
“Vince.”
“It’s kind of a mountain-Mohammed thing. You wouldn’t return my calls.”
“You sent Ari.”
“I did, but he didn’t come back, so I kind of thought maybe you’d snapped and buried him under the basketball court.”
“Thought about it,” Eric replies, and Ari isn’t even offended. He doesn’t have time to be offended, not when there’s an explosion about to happen, and he hasn’t worn E down, and he hasn’t warned Vince, and this is about to-
“Yeah? So what about me then?” Vince asks.
“What about you?”
“You gonna bury me there too? Or is ignoring me all the strategy you’ve got? You don’t want to, maybe, talk?”
“Not now.”
“Yes, now. Why not now?”
“You really want to have this out here. Really? Because-”
They’re very close to each other now, Vince advancing on Eric, and Eric barely holding his ground. Immovable object, wavering, because Vince is hurting and he was the cause.
“You didn’t even-” Vince says, and grabs Eric’s shoulder.
Eric wrenches away, and breaks. “You got pissed at me because I wouldn’t sleep with you again!”
Oh Christ. Vince looks like he was slapped, backing into the wall. Even Eric has paled, not quite believing he said that out loud. The weirdest thing is, only the two of them stay surprised for very long. Ari can’t bring himself to act shocked - this is the worst case scenario, but it’s not something outside the playbook. He’s known this whole time that something had happened that Vince wasn’t telling him. Vince has always been a selective truth-teller when it comes to the things that matter.
Vince manages, “I-”
“You got everything else. I forgave you, I said I’d manage you again. The only thing I said - the only thing I said, Vince - was that I wasn’t gonna fuck around with you again. We need some lines. You said that.”
“I didn’t say it. E, I didn’t-”
“Business, remember?”
“You know I didn’t mean that.”
“Well, maybe I did. Maybe I meant it when I left. I know I meant it when I told you no. We can’t keep on like this. I can’t keep coming back because you ask me.”
“Why not?” Vince asks, and then, “Why not just stop leaving?”
Mrs Murphy touches Ari’s elbow, and points him out of the room. Turtle looks like he’s thinking about staying, but whatever Mrs Murphy does with her fingernails in his ear gets him moving. Drama backs out of the room, his expression conflicted. Pick a side, Ari thinks.
* * * *
At six, Ari was dyslexic. Now he reads Jackson-length epics overnight and no one is any the wiser. It’s not so much that it got easier, as Ari got harder. That, and long hours of doing nothing else. There’s nothing so difficult that repeating won’t make it come faster the next time.
The door is open a crack. Vince says, “I’m sorry, okay?”
Eric says, “Fuck you.”
“That’s how it’s gonna be, huh? Just like that, done? I’ve known you since we were six, but now you’re gonna bail on me?”
Their voices fade out, and Ari refuses to be like Turtle, and creep closer to the door. He shouldn’t even be here, he has so many other things he should be doing. Starting with convincing his wife that he’s not having an affair with Eric Murphy. He’s never been so invested in the mental well-being of someone he wasn’t married or related to. He remembers when full-service agency meant hiring someone to source exotic orchids, illegally transport pets across borders, or translate scripts into Maltese so the new girlfriend could read them. It isn’t supposed to mean getting the client back together with his career-threatening boyfriend-slash-manager.
Eric’s voice rises, and Ari just catches, “-even know why you cared so much.”
“I wanted it because it was yours!”
“I’m sorry?”
“It was yours, E. Your movie, your other guys. Your guys that aren’t me. I mean, it should have been a good film, but that wasn’t why I wanted it. It was yours.”
Ari didn’t know that Vince thought about why he wanted anything. (That’s not quite fair - he’s heard Vince articulate all kinds of strange indie-artistic reasons why he wants a film. Recently though, it has always seemed to come down to: I just want this one). Ari moves sideways until he can see them through the - now wider - gap.
Vince touches Eric’s shoulder. “I wanted to do good in something you liked, okay? That’s all. No big mystery. You hated Medellín, you never loved Aquaman, and Q.B. had Billy. I just wanted you to like it.”
Eric is tense under Vince’s hand, but not pulling away. “It wasn’t worth it.”
“Trying to-“
“The movie, Vince. It wasn’t worth it. I’m going to like this one. Maybe I’ll like it even better if I’m not-“
“No.”
“No?”
“You can’t just-“
“So you can just fire me, but I can’t just quit?”
“Are you ever going to forgive me? I was scared, and humiliated, and mad at everyone. That was it.”
“You think I wasn’t all those things? You think I like going to directors and begging them to just take a look at anything? But I do it, you know why?”
“Why?”
“Because you fucking deserve it. You deserve to be a star, Vince. But I deserve better than this too. I can’t live my life terrified that I’m screwing up yours.”
“You didn’t need to go to Gus. I didn't ask you to. You could have just-”
“There was nothing to lose. They all think I’m nuts anyway. If it’d gone bad, all you would have had to do was…”
“Fire you? Yeah, that worked out real well for me last time,” Vince drawls. Eric swallows a gulp of sudden laughter, and Vince takes his opening for what it is. “E.”
Eric is still laughing, quietly, and Vince is walking towards him. Mrs Murphy comes back, and shuts the door firmly.
* * * *
Eric’s window looks out over the porch. Ari looks through it; the guys are sitting below. Vince perches on the edge of the brickwork, idly poking E with his foot. Ari watches while Turtle drops down behind Vince, and Drama settles on Vince’s other side. It’s a tiny porch (a tiny house) and when Vince slides off the wall, he nearly lands in Eric’s lap. Ari covers his eyes with his hands, remembers there are no cameras here, but doesn’t repent the sentiment.
Mrs Murphy comes to stand beside Ari. She says, “Eric never got it, you know? When they were sixteen, Vince did a play. He was dating a girl Eric didn’t like.” She pauses to screw up her face. “I didn’t like her either: skinny little thing, with a baby-talk voice. Vince adored her, and she took advantage. Eric and Vince fought about it, and Eric said he wouldn’t go and see Vince in the play.”
“But Vince-“
“Turned up on my doorstep twenty minutes before curtain up and told me to tell Eric he’d broken up with her.”
“And E showed up, of course.”
“Front row. But Eric only remembers the second part. I think Vince is maybe the only one who knows it goes both ways.”
Ari peeks out from between his fingers. “The fuck he is.”
She laughs then, a little like Eric does, when he doesn’t mean to let Ari get to him. She pats his shoulder and bangs the window open. The boys startle, and look up.
“Ari!” Vince calls, “Want to come get a drink with us before we go back?” He looks at Eric, and then down at the steps. “You’re coming?”
Eric nods, acting casual. “I have a thing with Charlie.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Ari meets them down at the door. “E has to come back anyway. I won him in a game of pool.”
“You did not!”
“You cheated, you forfeited.”
“I didn’t cheat, Ari.”
Vince cuffs Eric’s arm. “E, did you hustle Ari?” His mouth twists with what is meant to be disapproval, but looks more like a burgeoning grin.
“I didn’t hustle him! I won fair and square, it’s not my fault he can’t hold New York liquor. Or aim straight, for that matter. Where did you learn to play - the open sea?”
Ari opens his mouth to answer back, but Vince has wrapped his arm around Eric, steering him down the street. Vince says, “You bet so you wouldn’t have to come back to me?” He’s smiling, but not enough to hide the last two words of that sentence.
“I bet so Ari couldn’t drag me back. I’m coming back anyway, you really care why?”
Vince leans down like he’s just talking into Eric’s ear, resting a hand on Eric’s back because of the height difference. He brushes something unintelligible against Eric’s temple. “Not enough to ask. Home?”
Eric’s hand slides under Vince’s coat, resting on the small of his back. Ari walks behind them, blocking the other lines of sight. Drama and Turtle fill in on the other sides. It doesn’t matter: they drop contact when they hit the next block. Ari sighs in relief, and Vince looks over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. Ari just nods, and tries to ignore the gentle, persistent way Vince’s hand returns to Eric’s side. The equally gentle, equally persistent way that Eric ignores him, but clenches his fists tightly to stop from reaching out.
Fuck but Ari hates that he’s not idiot enough to ignore this.
FIN
Fandom: Entourage
Characters/Pairing: Ari POV, Eric/Vince
Rating: R for language
Length: 4,100 words
Disclaimer: All belongs to Doug Ellin et al
Spoilers: Through 5.12, very spoilery for that episode.
Summary: Eric tries to revoke his forgiveness. Ari is asked to intervene.
Ari has always known Vince doesn’t see farther than the next movie, but it’s one thing to know it, and another to see it in action. Eric is screaming now, not caring that they’re surrounded by people. “If I’m doing such a god-awful job then why don’t you just fucking fire me again?” Eric turns, with a dramatic flair that is learnt and not inherent, and storms out of the room.
Vince, of course, looks stunned. Ari is not surprised.
* * * *
Ari had never intended to be a commuter. He left Chicago and never looked back, growing warm and sated in sunny California. There are trips, of course, for business and pleasure, but he is only ever at home now in L.A. New York is foreign to him, this place which Vince and the boys inhabit so easily. They have never really left Queens, where Ari never really belonged in Chicago. It was always the dread scenario: having to go back home to Illinois and be a lawyer. He’s never understood the way Vince holds New York as a safe haven, the way Eric has fled home to hide.
And now the boys are working in New York, but currently in LA while Drama shoots promos and Vince makes some well-timed appearances. Eric had been flying in and out, what with Charlie, and his psychotic writers, and that one singer-turned-actress. Now he has run back to New York, and normally Ari would be mocking.
He knocks on the door and, when Eric answers, says, “Running back to your Mommy, E? This is not your finest hour.”
Eric only takes a moment to recover with, “Fuck you, Ari.”
“I missed you too. Don’t you have a job? I know keeping your two clients happy must be taxing, but this really wasn’t the time for a vacation. Vince is-”
Eric makes a frantic, disapproving noise, and closes the door, leaving them both outside. He sits on the porch and, after a moment, Ari drops down beside him. Eric says, “My mom doesn’t know.”
“Doesn’t know what? That you bailed on Vinnie like a little bitch at the first sign of trouble in paradise?”
Eric sighs. “Not the first sign. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe the last one. Maybe the last one was months ago and I just didn’t notice.”
This is worse than Ari had thought. He remembers the long note of tension in Vince’s voice when he had suggested that maybe Ari might like to try bringing E home. Remembers thinking that it couldn’t be so hard - Eric is already where they want him to be, he just needs to still be here when Vince flies in. Remembers thinking that, yeah, Eric had been pissed, but Eric’s always mad at the world about something. He spends too much of his time trying to keep Vince in line, and that’s a job that would try the patience of a saint. Eric’s no saint.
Eric just sighs, shakes his head, and stands up. “You coming in? There’s coffee if you want.”
Yeah, this is going to be harder than Ari thought.
* * * *
Eric’s bedroom is tiny. When Ari comments on this, Eric mutters something about his older sister, and Ari can sympathise. He doesn’t say that, though, and when he comes out of the bathroom, he walks fully into the room. Eric’s mother has set up her laundry room in here - it smells of clean folded clothes, and Ari has to push past them to get into the room.
Eric clearly got no action as a teenager - the room has a little single bed, with a frame that creaks when Ari sits down. It looks abandoned, rather than packed up: Vince had said I need you here, E, and Eric had upped and left. It’s a room permanently arrested, belonging to a man barely grown, and there are photographs pinned to the wall. Just a few, because Eric, contrary to Ari’s assertions, isn’t actually a teenage girl. The boys (and Dom) on a porch that looks almost identical to Eric’s. Turtle and Eric and Vince, in what must be the summer before he left, because this Vince looks as Ari remembers him from back then. And one which has slipped from its place, into the crack between the chest of drawers and the wall. It figures. Eric and Vince, Eric twisting away from the camera, caught in the circle of Vince’s arm. Vince’s three-quarter face, turning from Eric to the camera; Eric in profile, staring at Vince and reluctantly smiling. Ari doesn’t have a picture that looks anything like this. Not with any of his buddies from high school, not with anyone he came up with from the mail room. It’s the kind of photo he has on his desk at work.
Ari looks at the picture for a while, teasing at its smooth edge, and the tiny hole above Eric’s head, where the pin had come loose.
Eric comes in, and pulls the photo from Ari’s hands. Ari expects a fight, but gets, “Thought I lost this.”
“Nope. Just cunningly hidden.” Ari takes the photo back, and waves it in Eric’s face, “Which is good, because if anyone else saw this-”
Eric does fight now: “What, Ari?”
“Hollywood doesn’t need another story about a blockbuster cocksucker.”
And Ari thinks, as Eric swings his arm, catching Ari in the upper chest, that maybe this is what he’s been looking for the whole time. The press of Eric’s fist, sliding up to cover Ari’s neck with his arm. Other hand slammed against the wall; he traps Ari between his body and the chipped paint.
Ari asks, quietly, “Why're you doing this?" and even he isn’t sure what he means.
Eric says, "Cause I can't do it to Vince," and definitely doesn’t know.
Ari pauses to consider. "Really? Because I'm pretty sure he'd let you."
"Not this." Eric trails off, turns his head and punches the wall. "Fuck! Jesus, I'm just so... I'm so fucking tired of this. Of begging things for him, and from him. Of all the goddamn sorries and thank-yous. And, God help me, but I'm so fucking tired of saying please."
It sounds like something he’s heard before, Eric stealing from the movie-land he inhabits with Vince. To Ari, it sounds like something from a courtroom: the man to the wife he’s divorcing, the woman to the husband she’s snapped and killed. It’s not borne of anger, just the slow cold burn of desperation. It’s what happens when you’re finally pushed beyond the limit of endurance, and E is there. Eric, who forgives Vince before the frown is wiped off his face. There’s more here, but Ari doesn’t have all the pieces.
Ari shrugs. “Then you got into the wrong industry, E, because this is what we do.”
“You don’t.”
“You think I don’t. You don’t see what I have to do some days. Trust me, your best buddy being mad at you is nothing.”
Eric pulls back, no longer confused, but coolly furious. “He fired me.” He walks out of the door. Ari shrugs, and leaves the photograph, face-down, on the set of drawers.
He calls Vince, who says, “Please, Ari? He won’t talk to me.”
Ari mutters, “Well, you wouldn’t like what he’s saying to me,” and hangs up the phone.
* * * *
“He fired me. I wanted him back, so I got him. So did you."
Eric seems surprised that Ari has come back the next day, but not at the topic of conversation. He counters with, "Scorsese got me back."
"And Medellín," Ari pauses to spit, "got me back. Who cares?"
"You blamed him. Or me, whatever, I don't know. You didn't think it was your fault. You didn't let him convince you that you deserved it."
“That’s because, unlike you, I’m not a fucking moron.”
This, naturally, is the point at which Mrs Murphy chooses to make an appearance. Ari is beginning to wonder why he ends up surrounded by terrifying women. It’s not that she cuts a particularly imposing figure, but she has a look. She kind of reminds Ari of his own mother, and all the reasons why he’s a gentleman around women that aren’t Babs or Dana. All the women that aren’t industry, and Mrs Murphy is nothing like an industry woman. She glares at Ari until he says, “Sorry. But he is.”
She frowns and says, “Maybe so, but there’s no need for that in the house.”
“Ma,” Eric protests.
She presses a kiss to his cheek and murmurs, “You’re a good boy. But you always let Vince upset you.”
“See?” Ari mocks.
Eric turns his head. “When Vince fired you, you attacked your therapist on a golf course.”
Ari can’t get his words in order quick enough to protest that. “I didn’t- who the hell told you I attacked her? Was it her? Because I will fire that bitch so fast. I consulted her on a golf course. And that was nothing to do with Vince - it was about work.”
“Vince isn’t work?”
“Vince is a fucking lifetime of misery. Sorry, Mrs Murphy.”
She pats his shoulder gently. “Don’t do it again.”
Eric laughs, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Then, over Eric’s head, she grins at Ari. He nods back, and ignores Eric’s expression of paranoid confusion.
* * * *
Day three, and Eric’s back pops when he unfolds from the pool table. He looks at Ari. “Don’t you have a job? Clients, maybe?”
“Don’t you?”
“I’m working on that. Plus, I don’t have a wife. Is she even still talking to you?”
She is, but only barely, and only because she’s weirdly fond of Eric. So is Lloyd, and he’s taken to leaving little encouraging messages on Ari’s answering service. The last one must have been when Lloyd was drunk (see what happens when Ari leaves him alone?) because he’d started explaining why Ari would make a fabulous yenta. In retribution, Ari tells him to take a meeting with Bob Coates, who makes quasi-porn ‘erotic thrillers’, calls all women sweetheart, and wears jeans that are too tight just about everywhere. Lloyd will be horrified by his mere existence, let alone Ari’s instructions to get him on board with his equally appalling script. Ari has to get his kicks somewhere.
Eric saunters to the bar and orders some of Drama’s liquor. He can’t be too annoyed, because he looks over his shoulder and says, “You ever planning on leaving, or do you want me to start running you up a tab?”
“Scotch.”
Eric nods, and makes a motion with his fingers at the barman that’s either really insulting, or a request for more than a few measures of alcohol.
Eric comes back with the drinks and points at the table. “You play?”
“Well enough to wipe your sorry ass over the floor, yeah.”
Eric raises an eyebrow. “Okay. Fifty bucks?”
“You can take the boy out of Queens, but you can’t-“
“We’re in Queens, jackass.”
“Let’s just say I was expecting something a little more interesting. I mean I always knew you were a cheap-ass fuck, but I didn’t know you were a coward, too.”
“Yeah? I thought I was a little chicken-shit who ran out at the first sign of trouble.”
“Okay, so apart from that.”
“So? How much do you want to bet? Bearing in mind that your kids go to private school, and I’d hate to have to be the reason they went public.”
“How about, I win, you come back with me to L.A. tomorrow? You and Vinnie make nice, everyone’s happy, and I actually get to go pick up my kids from their private school. How about that, E?”
“No.”
“No? Scared?”
“Never bet anything you can’t afford to lose. I can’t-“
Ari shrugs. “So don’t lose.”
* * * *
E is a fucking shark, and Ari knows this because he is drunk, and E is not, and E is dragging him home. Eric says something about a cab, and his strong desire to stuff Ari into one head-first, but Ari is too busy trying to keep his head up, and his feet pointed in the right direction.
“Your alcohol is wrong,” Ari says.
“No,” Eric says, “but I think you might be. What the hell did you order after the first game?”
Truth be told, Ari has no idea what he might have ordered. It was almost certainly in an attempt to get E drunk enough to not notice being smuggled back in a suitcase, but, then, E’s a shark.
“You switched to water, didn’t you? You’re a cheater and a liar.”
“Getting shit-faced wasn’t part of the game, Ari.”
“Well, it should have been. Because I promised that little- Vince. I promised Vince.”
“You promised Vince you’d get me drunk?”
“I promised I’d come back with you or not at all. This was a campaign of military precision, if you hadn’t ruined it with your lying cheating ways.”
Eric turns his head and, because he has an arm around Ari’s waist, his face is now very close. He says, “Vince can fight his own battles.”
“No he can’t. That’s what he pays us for. Go home and do your fucking job, Eric.”
Eric flinches, like the first time Ari’s managed to actually wound him. They both stumble, but Eric rights them. They walk the rest of the way in silence; Eric drops him on the battered couch without a word.
* * * *
Ari wakes up still feeling more drunk than hung over; his head is spinning rather than pounding, and his thoughts track strangely. He thinks: we’re like a pair of overwrought new parents (a pair of battered spouses), we smile when he laughs, we cringe when he frowns. There’s probably a solid half-million in the L.A. area exactly like them, but it feels right now like Ari has a unique perspective on just why Eric’s cracking up. This is why he doesn’t ever get this drunk.
There is a banging at the door. Ari stumbles towards it, but Mrs Murphy gets there first. She smiles, opening her arms wide. “Vince. There you are.”
“Here I am.” He pulls her close. “How are you?”
“I’d be better if my baby boy wasn’t walking around like there’s storm clouds over his head.”
Vince raises his hands like he’s going to try to apologise, but she has turned her head. She calls, “Ari, honey, would you lift me down some coffee cups? Vince and the boys could probably use something warm.”
Ari can hear the boys snickering perfectly well. He adds this to this list. Lloyd thinks keeping a list of personal slights is unhealthy, but one day, Ari will ascend to power. One day, Ari will work his way down that list.
Ari is distracted from more homicidal thoughts by Eric’s voice, coming down the stairs ahead of him. Eric hasn’t heard Vince. Eric is saying, “You think Vince would do 30 Rock? We’re in the right place, for once, and they say they’d book him in during his off days on the shoot. He never gets to do comedy, I think it might be-”
Eric stops.
Vince does lift his hands now, in a halfway, helpless shrug. “E.”
“Vince.”
“It’s kind of a mountain-Mohammed thing. You wouldn’t return my calls.”
“You sent Ari.”
“I did, but he didn’t come back, so I kind of thought maybe you’d snapped and buried him under the basketball court.”
“Thought about it,” Eric replies, and Ari isn’t even offended. He doesn’t have time to be offended, not when there’s an explosion about to happen, and he hasn’t worn E down, and he hasn’t warned Vince, and this is about to-
“Yeah? So what about me then?” Vince asks.
“What about you?”
“You gonna bury me there too? Or is ignoring me all the strategy you’ve got? You don’t want to, maybe, talk?”
“Not now.”
“Yes, now. Why not now?”
“You really want to have this out here. Really? Because-”
They’re very close to each other now, Vince advancing on Eric, and Eric barely holding his ground. Immovable object, wavering, because Vince is hurting and he was the cause.
“You didn’t even-” Vince says, and grabs Eric’s shoulder.
Eric wrenches away, and breaks. “You got pissed at me because I wouldn’t sleep with you again!”
Oh Christ. Vince looks like he was slapped, backing into the wall. Even Eric has paled, not quite believing he said that out loud. The weirdest thing is, only the two of them stay surprised for very long. Ari can’t bring himself to act shocked - this is the worst case scenario, but it’s not something outside the playbook. He’s known this whole time that something had happened that Vince wasn’t telling him. Vince has always been a selective truth-teller when it comes to the things that matter.
Vince manages, “I-”
“You got everything else. I forgave you, I said I’d manage you again. The only thing I said - the only thing I said, Vince - was that I wasn’t gonna fuck around with you again. We need some lines. You said that.”
“I didn’t say it. E, I didn’t-”
“Business, remember?”
“You know I didn’t mean that.”
“Well, maybe I did. Maybe I meant it when I left. I know I meant it when I told you no. We can’t keep on like this. I can’t keep coming back because you ask me.”
“Why not?” Vince asks, and then, “Why not just stop leaving?”
Mrs Murphy touches Ari’s elbow, and points him out of the room. Turtle looks like he’s thinking about staying, but whatever Mrs Murphy does with her fingernails in his ear gets him moving. Drama backs out of the room, his expression conflicted. Pick a side, Ari thinks.
* * * *
At six, Ari was dyslexic. Now he reads Jackson-length epics overnight and no one is any the wiser. It’s not so much that it got easier, as Ari got harder. That, and long hours of doing nothing else. There’s nothing so difficult that repeating won’t make it come faster the next time.
The door is open a crack. Vince says, “I’m sorry, okay?”
Eric says, “Fuck you.”
“That’s how it’s gonna be, huh? Just like that, done? I’ve known you since we were six, but now you’re gonna bail on me?”
Their voices fade out, and Ari refuses to be like Turtle, and creep closer to the door. He shouldn’t even be here, he has so many other things he should be doing. Starting with convincing his wife that he’s not having an affair with Eric Murphy. He’s never been so invested in the mental well-being of someone he wasn’t married or related to. He remembers when full-service agency meant hiring someone to source exotic orchids, illegally transport pets across borders, or translate scripts into Maltese so the new girlfriend could read them. It isn’t supposed to mean getting the client back together with his career-threatening boyfriend-slash-manager.
Eric’s voice rises, and Ari just catches, “-even know why you cared so much.”
“I wanted it because it was yours!”
“I’m sorry?”
“It was yours, E. Your movie, your other guys. Your guys that aren’t me. I mean, it should have been a good film, but that wasn’t why I wanted it. It was yours.”
Ari didn’t know that Vince thought about why he wanted anything. (That’s not quite fair - he’s heard Vince articulate all kinds of strange indie-artistic reasons why he wants a film. Recently though, it has always seemed to come down to: I just want this one). Ari moves sideways until he can see them through the - now wider - gap.
Vince touches Eric’s shoulder. “I wanted to do good in something you liked, okay? That’s all. No big mystery. You hated Medellín, you never loved Aquaman, and Q.B. had Billy. I just wanted you to like it.”
Eric is tense under Vince’s hand, but not pulling away. “It wasn’t worth it.”
“Trying to-“
“The movie, Vince. It wasn’t worth it. I’m going to like this one. Maybe I’ll like it even better if I’m not-“
“No.”
“No?”
“You can’t just-“
“So you can just fire me, but I can’t just quit?”
“Are you ever going to forgive me? I was scared, and humiliated, and mad at everyone. That was it.”
“You think I wasn’t all those things? You think I like going to directors and begging them to just take a look at anything? But I do it, you know why?”
“Why?”
“Because you fucking deserve it. You deserve to be a star, Vince. But I deserve better than this too. I can’t live my life terrified that I’m screwing up yours.”
“You didn’t need to go to Gus. I didn't ask you to. You could have just-”
“There was nothing to lose. They all think I’m nuts anyway. If it’d gone bad, all you would have had to do was…”
“Fire you? Yeah, that worked out real well for me last time,” Vince drawls. Eric swallows a gulp of sudden laughter, and Vince takes his opening for what it is. “E.”
Eric is still laughing, quietly, and Vince is walking towards him. Mrs Murphy comes back, and shuts the door firmly.
* * * *
Eric’s window looks out over the porch. Ari looks through it; the guys are sitting below. Vince perches on the edge of the brickwork, idly poking E with his foot. Ari watches while Turtle drops down behind Vince, and Drama settles on Vince’s other side. It’s a tiny porch (a tiny house) and when Vince slides off the wall, he nearly lands in Eric’s lap. Ari covers his eyes with his hands, remembers there are no cameras here, but doesn’t repent the sentiment.
Mrs Murphy comes to stand beside Ari. She says, “Eric never got it, you know? When they were sixteen, Vince did a play. He was dating a girl Eric didn’t like.” She pauses to screw up her face. “I didn’t like her either: skinny little thing, with a baby-talk voice. Vince adored her, and she took advantage. Eric and Vince fought about it, and Eric said he wouldn’t go and see Vince in the play.”
“But Vince-“
“Turned up on my doorstep twenty minutes before curtain up and told me to tell Eric he’d broken up with her.”
“And E showed up, of course.”
“Front row. But Eric only remembers the second part. I think Vince is maybe the only one who knows it goes both ways.”
Ari peeks out from between his fingers. “The fuck he is.”
She laughs then, a little like Eric does, when he doesn’t mean to let Ari get to him. She pats his shoulder and bangs the window open. The boys startle, and look up.
“Ari!” Vince calls, “Want to come get a drink with us before we go back?” He looks at Eric, and then down at the steps. “You’re coming?”
Eric nods, acting casual. “I have a thing with Charlie.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Ari meets them down at the door. “E has to come back anyway. I won him in a game of pool.”
“You did not!”
“You cheated, you forfeited.”
“I didn’t cheat, Ari.”
Vince cuffs Eric’s arm. “E, did you hustle Ari?” His mouth twists with what is meant to be disapproval, but looks more like a burgeoning grin.
“I didn’t hustle him! I won fair and square, it’s not my fault he can’t hold New York liquor. Or aim straight, for that matter. Where did you learn to play - the open sea?”
Ari opens his mouth to answer back, but Vince has wrapped his arm around Eric, steering him down the street. Vince says, “You bet so you wouldn’t have to come back to me?” He’s smiling, but not enough to hide the last two words of that sentence.
“I bet so Ari couldn’t drag me back. I’m coming back anyway, you really care why?”
Vince leans down like he’s just talking into Eric’s ear, resting a hand on Eric’s back because of the height difference. He brushes something unintelligible against Eric’s temple. “Not enough to ask. Home?”
Eric’s hand slides under Vince’s coat, resting on the small of his back. Ari walks behind them, blocking the other lines of sight. Drama and Turtle fill in on the other sides. It doesn’t matter: they drop contact when they hit the next block. Ari sighs in relief, and Vince looks over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. Ari just nods, and tries to ignore the gentle, persistent way Vince’s hand returns to Eric’s side. The equally gentle, equally persistent way that Eric ignores him, but clenches his fists tightly to stop from reaching out.
Fuck but Ari hates that he’s not idiot enough to ignore this.
FIN