Entourage FF: Well, winter's going to end [Eric/Vince; PG-13]
Title: Well, winter's going to end
Fandom: Entourage
Characters: Eric/Vince
Rating: PG-13/R for swearing
Length: 1950 words
Disclaimer: All belongs to Doug Ellin et al
Spoilers: Through S5.
Summary: Eric and Vince, stuck in a hotel in New York, with the snow outside. Eric has places to be; Vince doesn't mind so much.
AN: Irredeemable, unapologetic festive-type fluff, jotted down quickly. Because, although I will conceed it is much colder in other places, I'm still losing feeling in my extremities here.
There’s six inches of snow on the runaway at JFK airport, a gale is blowing, and Eric is just about ready to kick Vince out of the hotel window.
“You try LaGuardia?” Vince asks.
“It’s snowing there too, Vin. Besides, you leave out of LaGuardia, you need to stop and change in Cleveland or something.”
“Newark?”
“Believe it or not, it’s snowing here, it’s snowing in Jersey.”
“E.”
“You planned this.”
Vince holds out his hands wide, palms up. “You think I made it snow?”
“I think you gave me a guilt-trip so I’d change to a later flight, and I think you’re not unhappy that the weather took a turn, yeah.”
“Paranoia’s not a good look for you, E.”
“Fuck you. I’m supposed to be in LA right now. You know that. I told you I couldn’t miss this meeting, and you fucking pouted ‘til I changed and booked into the latest possible flight home.”
“Latest possible flight to LA. We’re supposed to be home now, remember? Or do you really hate being back here that much?”
“Jesus Christ, Vince. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Against your will.”
“Yeah, against my will. I had a meeting!”
“You’ve always got fucking meetings.” Vince slams the door on his way out.
* * *
Eric follows Vince down to the lobby after maybe three full minutes of cursing at his Blackberry, the mini-bar, and the walls of the hotel room. Vince is standing at the front counter, flirting with the girl on the desk. Eric walks behind him and coughs, pointedly. Vince ignores him.
Eric starts listening to what Vince is saying. “So, we need a conference room. Something with really good high-speed connections, for video-calls. And not whatever crap you give to the brokers and real estate jerks, right? Eric-” here, Vince leans behind and puts a hand on Eric’s shoulder to push him forward, “is trying to get the network to order the back nine episodes of Dawn Patrol for his guy.”
“Yeah?” She looks interested now. “The show’s really funny. Who do you work for? The guy who plays Mike is really cute.”
Vince is already nodding. “Yeah, Charlie’s great. And Eric needs to take this meeting, but the airports are closed. Can you help us out?”
She leans over the counter, whispering. “I think so. The suite’s normally for business account guys, but they’ve all gone home for the holidays.”
At that, Eric looks hard at Vince, who doesn’t turn his head.
* * *
Eric has to get dressed up for the meeting (he should have told them that the video conference part wasn’t really necessary) so he doesn’t see Vince until just before he needs to call in. Assuming, always, that the LA guys are there at all. Network execs don’t like to be told that the guy asking them for more money has better places to be.
Charlie has already cursed him out again, but that’s probably more nerves than anything else. The show’s good, and it’s been doing good, but network economics is something that smarter people than Eric still can’t get their heads around.
Vince is waiting inside the conference room, leaning up against the wall. Eric raises an eyebrow at him.
“Hmm?” Vince asks. “I’ll stay out of the sightline, okay? I just wanna watch.”
Eric shrugs. “Sure, why not? Not like the meeting can get any worse, right?”
Vince just leans further into the corner of the room, and points at the computer screen in command. “It’s all set up. I talked to the guy’s assistant down there, so it’s fine.”
Eric sits in front of the screen, and tries to ignore the camera. It’s not like, if this was a normal meeting, they wouldn’t be able to see him, but this feels weird. He has to fight the urge to fidget.
The meeting goes precisely as bad as he’s been expecting for about the first six minutes. Charlie veers between condescension and inappropriate joking, and these are suits of such calibre that Billy would have had to find a new word for them. One of them smiles, insincerely, and says, “Well, Eric, for those of us who made the effort not to book our vacations until the year’s work was over-”
And Vince is by his shoulder, leaning in. “Yeah, I’m really sorry, that was my fault.”
“Vince,” Eric hisses.
“Vince,” someone on the other side of the country says.
“So,” Vince continues, “I kind of volunteered Eric into fixing a production problem we were having over here. Most of the crew had already flown home, and then the weather happened, and Marty asked if I knew anybody who could go perform a miracle on the location shoot.”
“Marty?” the network VP asks weakly.
“Sorry, Martin,” Vince corrects. “But, I mean, you’d think he’d be all Academy Award winner, Martin Scorsese, and he’s not. It’s cool. Anyway… So, it was my fault. Sorry about that. And Marty says if you ever want him to come direct an episode, he’d be happy to.” Vince waves, and retreats back to the wall.
For some reason, the meeting goes a lot better after that.
* * *
Blinking awake with a start, Eric looks at Vince, standing at the side of the bed. “What the hell?” he murmurs.
“I’m cold,” Vince states.
“O-kay.”
Vince shuffles from foot to foot, and Eric looks at his bare toes, curled against the thick carpet.
Eric says, “You couldn’t just turn the thermostat up?”
“I tried. It kept beeping at me when I push the buttons. Maybe it’s child-proof.”
Eric can’t help his laughter. He sits up in bed to look at Vince properly. “You’ve been defeated by child-proofing? This from a guy who convinced the hotel to let me use their conference room for free tonight, and then a broadcast network to green light nine episodes, and a higher budget, for a sitcom even I can’t describe in one sentence.”
“I didn’t want you to miss your meeting. And it’s a good show.”
“I know it’s a good show. But you’re okay with losing your toes to frostbite?”
Vince shrugs, and leans his head to one shoulder. Eric’s curtains are open. They’re too high up for anyone to see in, and the glow of streetlights casts Vince’s face in shadows. His expression is impossible to read.
Eric shifts in the bed, and Vince’s lips part momentarily. He sways on his feet towards the bed, like the gusting outside is pushing him forward. Eric lifts the blanket.
“Come in if you’re coming.”
Vince’s swaying takes him backwards for a moment, and then he is crawling under the covers. He shivers when the warmth hits him, and Eric doesn’t think too hard about stretching out his hand. He pulls Vince underneath his arm. Eric curses when Vince slides his cold feet between Eric’s ankles. He’s all bones and chilled skin.
Vince huffs out a breath of laughter on Eric’s shoulder. “I told you I was cold.”
“You’re an idiot, is what you are.” Eric wraps both of his hands around Vince’s one, and chafes it warm. He swaps hands and points out, “You could have called down to the front desk.”
Vince squirms. He turns in Eric’s arms. “I wanted to talk to you.” His voice is directed at Eric’s chest.
Eric already knows what he’s going to say. He keeps his reply low and quiet. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, so I lied before.”
“Yeah.”
“I swear, I didn’t mean for you to get stuck here. But I maybe wasn’t unhappy about it.”
“No kidding.”
“E.” Vince pokes him in the side. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“It’s not for the reason you think,” Vince says. “I just- You’re always working. You work longer hours than anyone I know. You must’ve clocked up enough airmiles to buy your own plane.”
“We could do with a plane.”
“E.” Vince trails off, and his fingers trace the hem of Eric’s t-shirt. Eric shivers this time, and Vince stops, surprised. Vince says, “And I know what I should do. I should say ‘E, I don’t need you here all the time.’ I should tell you to stay in LA, instead of spending all your free time flying back here to work again.”
“You should tell me that, huh?”
“Yeah. I won’t though. I’ve always been a selfish little fuck, remember?” Vince’s grin is wry, and Eric has always fallen for him like this.
“I remember,” Eric says. And thinks: you came with me today, when you didn’t need to. Thinks, mostly, insanely: and anyway I don’t care. I don’t care. He says “Vince” and when Vince tilts his head up, Eric kisses him. Vince’s lips are chapped from the cold, but his skin is warm now when he presses closer.
Vince breaks off first. His eyes are bright, and open wide. He whispers it like a confession in the little space between them: “I was glad you had to stay. It feels weird when you’re not here.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
Eric closes his eyes, and waits for Vince to move in again. “Okay. It’s okay. Thank you. For the room. And coming to sit in. And for this.”
“I was cold,” Vince says.
Eric says, “I know,” and settles his hands on Vince’s waist to twist his body into shape. They roll sideways, Eric’s face against Vince’s back, and Vince’s hands covering Eric’s where they are clasped around Vince’s waist.
Outside, snow continues to fall.
* * *
Eric wakes, and the sunlight on the snow outside fills the room with blue-white glow.
They have turned around in the night, or Vince has turned, and Eric has moved to accommodate him. Eric wouldn’t have moved like this: Vince stretched out on his back, pulling Eric on top of him, and holding tight. Eric shifts.
Vince mutters something about the cold, and pulls the covers over both of them again. He says, “It’s early. Or- do you have somewhere to be?”
“Nope. Nothing else ‘til after New Years. Want to spend Christmas with our folks?”
“I want to spend Christmas with you.”
“Vin.”
“Little cheesy?”
“Maybe a little. But I appreciate the sentiment. Reciprocate, even. Still, your Mom’ll kill you if you don’t go home.”
“I’m going home. I just want to make sure you’re going too.”
“I’m going too.”
“Good.” Vince wraps his hand around Eric’s. Eric has never been much of a hand-holder, even with girlfriends who were. Vince is, though. Eric lets his hand go slack, and Vince’s fingers slip between his.
Eric steps out of the bed, pulling Vince after him. He walks to the window, to see that the snow has finally eased off. The world is white, but moves on. This is New York - no time to stop and stare. Vince stands behind him, slouching, and rests his chin on Eric’s shoulder. Eric says, “I swear sometimes you’re made up of nothing but sharp points.”
Vince laughs, and stands up straight, clasping his arms across Eric’s chest. He whispers, “You weren’t complaining last night.”
“So, this is gonna be a thing, is it?”
“Oh, I’d think so, E. You kissed me, after all.”
“You kissed back!”
“Yep.”
“So?”
“No so. Just yes.” Vince turns his head just enough to brush his lips against the side of Eric’s head. Eric shivers, and Vince tightens his arms. His tone is deliberately casual. “Maybe we should just stay in bed ‘til they get the roads clear? Ma won’t mind if we’re a bit late home.”
Or anyway, Eric thinks, as Vince walks him backwards into the bed, and under the covers, it won’t be the worst excuse they’ve come up with. It’s worth it. He needs the break from everything that isn’t this. Vince smiling, and closing his eyes. Leaning back on the bed, and waiting for Eric to kiss away the cold.
FIN. AN2: Title is from Bright Eyes 'An Attempt To Tip The Scales', though the fic itself has little to do with it. S'a good song though. Also, I'm not sure if they'd be filming around Christmas - Entourage's timelines have always been a little hazy to me. And if Charlie's show already has a name, I'd love to know it. I stopped looking for a better one once I realised the research was taking longer than the writing!
Fandom: Entourage
Characters: Eric/Vince
Rating: PG-13/R for swearing
Length: 1950 words
Disclaimer: All belongs to Doug Ellin et al
Spoilers: Through S5.
Summary: Eric and Vince, stuck in a hotel in New York, with the snow outside. Eric has places to be; Vince doesn't mind so much.
AN: Irredeemable, unapologetic festive-type fluff, jotted down quickly. Because, although I will conceed it is much colder in other places, I'm still losing feeling in my extremities here.
There’s six inches of snow on the runaway at JFK airport, a gale is blowing, and Eric is just about ready to kick Vince out of the hotel window.
“You try LaGuardia?” Vince asks.
“It’s snowing there too, Vin. Besides, you leave out of LaGuardia, you need to stop and change in Cleveland or something.”
“Newark?”
“Believe it or not, it’s snowing here, it’s snowing in Jersey.”
“E.”
“You planned this.”
Vince holds out his hands wide, palms up. “You think I made it snow?”
“I think you gave me a guilt-trip so I’d change to a later flight, and I think you’re not unhappy that the weather took a turn, yeah.”
“Paranoia’s not a good look for you, E.”
“Fuck you. I’m supposed to be in LA right now. You know that. I told you I couldn’t miss this meeting, and you fucking pouted ‘til I changed and booked into the latest possible flight home.”
“Latest possible flight to LA. We’re supposed to be home now, remember? Or do you really hate being back here that much?”
“Jesus Christ, Vince. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Against your will.”
“Yeah, against my will. I had a meeting!”
“You’ve always got fucking meetings.” Vince slams the door on his way out.
* * *
Eric follows Vince down to the lobby after maybe three full minutes of cursing at his Blackberry, the mini-bar, and the walls of the hotel room. Vince is standing at the front counter, flirting with the girl on the desk. Eric walks behind him and coughs, pointedly. Vince ignores him.
Eric starts listening to what Vince is saying. “So, we need a conference room. Something with really good high-speed connections, for video-calls. And not whatever crap you give to the brokers and real estate jerks, right? Eric-” here, Vince leans behind and puts a hand on Eric’s shoulder to push him forward, “is trying to get the network to order the back nine episodes of Dawn Patrol for his guy.”
“Yeah?” She looks interested now. “The show’s really funny. Who do you work for? The guy who plays Mike is really cute.”
Vince is already nodding. “Yeah, Charlie’s great. And Eric needs to take this meeting, but the airports are closed. Can you help us out?”
She leans over the counter, whispering. “I think so. The suite’s normally for business account guys, but they’ve all gone home for the holidays.”
At that, Eric looks hard at Vince, who doesn’t turn his head.
* * *
Eric has to get dressed up for the meeting (he should have told them that the video conference part wasn’t really necessary) so he doesn’t see Vince until just before he needs to call in. Assuming, always, that the LA guys are there at all. Network execs don’t like to be told that the guy asking them for more money has better places to be.
Charlie has already cursed him out again, but that’s probably more nerves than anything else. The show’s good, and it’s been doing good, but network economics is something that smarter people than Eric still can’t get their heads around.
Vince is waiting inside the conference room, leaning up against the wall. Eric raises an eyebrow at him.
“Hmm?” Vince asks. “I’ll stay out of the sightline, okay? I just wanna watch.”
Eric shrugs. “Sure, why not? Not like the meeting can get any worse, right?”
Vince just leans further into the corner of the room, and points at the computer screen in command. “It’s all set up. I talked to the guy’s assistant down there, so it’s fine.”
Eric sits in front of the screen, and tries to ignore the camera. It’s not like, if this was a normal meeting, they wouldn’t be able to see him, but this feels weird. He has to fight the urge to fidget.
The meeting goes precisely as bad as he’s been expecting for about the first six minutes. Charlie veers between condescension and inappropriate joking, and these are suits of such calibre that Billy would have had to find a new word for them. One of them smiles, insincerely, and says, “Well, Eric, for those of us who made the effort not to book our vacations until the year’s work was over-”
And Vince is by his shoulder, leaning in. “Yeah, I’m really sorry, that was my fault.”
“Vince,” Eric hisses.
“Vince,” someone on the other side of the country says.
“So,” Vince continues, “I kind of volunteered Eric into fixing a production problem we were having over here. Most of the crew had already flown home, and then the weather happened, and Marty asked if I knew anybody who could go perform a miracle on the location shoot.”
“Marty?” the network VP asks weakly.
“Sorry, Martin,” Vince corrects. “But, I mean, you’d think he’d be all Academy Award winner, Martin Scorsese, and he’s not. It’s cool. Anyway… So, it was my fault. Sorry about that. And Marty says if you ever want him to come direct an episode, he’d be happy to.” Vince waves, and retreats back to the wall.
For some reason, the meeting goes a lot better after that.
* * *
Blinking awake with a start, Eric looks at Vince, standing at the side of the bed. “What the hell?” he murmurs.
“I’m cold,” Vince states.
“O-kay.”
Vince shuffles from foot to foot, and Eric looks at his bare toes, curled against the thick carpet.
Eric says, “You couldn’t just turn the thermostat up?”
“I tried. It kept beeping at me when I push the buttons. Maybe it’s child-proof.”
Eric can’t help his laughter. He sits up in bed to look at Vince properly. “You’ve been defeated by child-proofing? This from a guy who convinced the hotel to let me use their conference room for free tonight, and then a broadcast network to green light nine episodes, and a higher budget, for a sitcom even I can’t describe in one sentence.”
“I didn’t want you to miss your meeting. And it’s a good show.”
“I know it’s a good show. But you’re okay with losing your toes to frostbite?”
Vince shrugs, and leans his head to one shoulder. Eric’s curtains are open. They’re too high up for anyone to see in, and the glow of streetlights casts Vince’s face in shadows. His expression is impossible to read.
Eric shifts in the bed, and Vince’s lips part momentarily. He sways on his feet towards the bed, like the gusting outside is pushing him forward. Eric lifts the blanket.
“Come in if you’re coming.”
Vince’s swaying takes him backwards for a moment, and then he is crawling under the covers. He shivers when the warmth hits him, and Eric doesn’t think too hard about stretching out his hand. He pulls Vince underneath his arm. Eric curses when Vince slides his cold feet between Eric’s ankles. He’s all bones and chilled skin.
Vince huffs out a breath of laughter on Eric’s shoulder. “I told you I was cold.”
“You’re an idiot, is what you are.” Eric wraps both of his hands around Vince’s one, and chafes it warm. He swaps hands and points out, “You could have called down to the front desk.”
Vince squirms. He turns in Eric’s arms. “I wanted to talk to you.” His voice is directed at Eric’s chest.
Eric already knows what he’s going to say. He keeps his reply low and quiet. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, so I lied before.”
“Yeah.”
“I swear, I didn’t mean for you to get stuck here. But I maybe wasn’t unhappy about it.”
“No kidding.”
“E.” Vince pokes him in the side. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“It’s not for the reason you think,” Vince says. “I just- You’re always working. You work longer hours than anyone I know. You must’ve clocked up enough airmiles to buy your own plane.”
“We could do with a plane.”
“E.” Vince trails off, and his fingers trace the hem of Eric’s t-shirt. Eric shivers this time, and Vince stops, surprised. Vince says, “And I know what I should do. I should say ‘E, I don’t need you here all the time.’ I should tell you to stay in LA, instead of spending all your free time flying back here to work again.”
“You should tell me that, huh?”
“Yeah. I won’t though. I’ve always been a selfish little fuck, remember?” Vince’s grin is wry, and Eric has always fallen for him like this.
“I remember,” Eric says. And thinks: you came with me today, when you didn’t need to. Thinks, mostly, insanely: and anyway I don’t care. I don’t care. He says “Vince” and when Vince tilts his head up, Eric kisses him. Vince’s lips are chapped from the cold, but his skin is warm now when he presses closer.
Vince breaks off first. His eyes are bright, and open wide. He whispers it like a confession in the little space between them: “I was glad you had to stay. It feels weird when you’re not here.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
Eric closes his eyes, and waits for Vince to move in again. “Okay. It’s okay. Thank you. For the room. And coming to sit in. And for this.”
“I was cold,” Vince says.
Eric says, “I know,” and settles his hands on Vince’s waist to twist his body into shape. They roll sideways, Eric’s face against Vince’s back, and Vince’s hands covering Eric’s where they are clasped around Vince’s waist.
Outside, snow continues to fall.
* * *
Eric wakes, and the sunlight on the snow outside fills the room with blue-white glow.
They have turned around in the night, or Vince has turned, and Eric has moved to accommodate him. Eric wouldn’t have moved like this: Vince stretched out on his back, pulling Eric on top of him, and holding tight. Eric shifts.
Vince mutters something about the cold, and pulls the covers over both of them again. He says, “It’s early. Or- do you have somewhere to be?”
“Nope. Nothing else ‘til after New Years. Want to spend Christmas with our folks?”
“I want to spend Christmas with you.”
“Vin.”
“Little cheesy?”
“Maybe a little. But I appreciate the sentiment. Reciprocate, even. Still, your Mom’ll kill you if you don’t go home.”
“I’m going home. I just want to make sure you’re going too.”
“I’m going too.”
“Good.” Vince wraps his hand around Eric’s. Eric has never been much of a hand-holder, even with girlfriends who were. Vince is, though. Eric lets his hand go slack, and Vince’s fingers slip between his.
Eric steps out of the bed, pulling Vince after him. He walks to the window, to see that the snow has finally eased off. The world is white, but moves on. This is New York - no time to stop and stare. Vince stands behind him, slouching, and rests his chin on Eric’s shoulder. Eric says, “I swear sometimes you’re made up of nothing but sharp points.”
Vince laughs, and stands up straight, clasping his arms across Eric’s chest. He whispers, “You weren’t complaining last night.”
“So, this is gonna be a thing, is it?”
“Oh, I’d think so, E. You kissed me, after all.”
“You kissed back!”
“Yep.”
“So?”
“No so. Just yes.” Vince turns his head just enough to brush his lips against the side of Eric’s head. Eric shivers, and Vince tightens his arms. His tone is deliberately casual. “Maybe we should just stay in bed ‘til they get the roads clear? Ma won’t mind if we’re a bit late home.”
Or anyway, Eric thinks, as Vince walks him backwards into the bed, and under the covers, it won’t be the worst excuse they’ve come up with. It’s worth it. He needs the break from everything that isn’t this. Vince smiling, and closing his eyes. Leaning back on the bed, and waiting for Eric to kiss away the cold.
FIN. AN2: Title is from Bright Eyes 'An Attempt To Tip The Scales', though the fic itself has little to do with it. S'a good song though. Also, I'm not sure if they'd be filming around Christmas - Entourage's timelines have always been a little hazy to me. And if Charlie's show already has a name, I'd love to know it. I stopped looking for a better one once I realised the research was taking longer than the writing!