Surrender 2/3 V/E Complete
Title: Surrender 2/3 Complete
Pairing: Vince/Eric, Vince/Canon Character Implied, Eric/Canon Character Implied
Warnings: Angst, Domestic Violence (mention
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2237
Prompt # 48: E/Vince - The boys meet in some sort of high stress situation - hostage crisis, kidnapping rescue, mugging, plane crash, etc. and there is an instant connection/attraction. Months later they reunite. Vince insists it’s love, E is just as sure it’s a combination of adrenaline/hero worship.
Disclaimer: Still negotiating with Ari. Still a no go.
A/N: Written for entourage_fest. 2nd fic for the fest, 2nd Entourage fic ever. I need a nap. Posted in three parts cause more than likely it’s too long for a single post
It’s eight weeks later and he’s talking to Lloyd, his head waiter and best friend about a stack of resumes on his desk for an open wait position. Lloyd’s eyes suddenly widen in a ‘wow’ followed by the leer. The wow leer combination happens when anyone either famous and, or good looking comes into the restaurant. Given their location, he sees that look on Lloyd’s face a lot, but his friend always manages to keep it together. This time he seems so completely floored that Eric wonders if George Clooney is standing behind him. It’s clear that it’s going to take Lloyd a couple minutes to get his tongue up off the floor, so Eric turns to explain that they aren’t open yet. But the soft “Hey” behind him is the cat that gets his tongue. He knows the voice.
The last time he heard it, it was filled with pain, edging towards panic. He turns to find the man with the dark curls from the bank grinning at him. The first thing that pops into Eric’s head is god, he’s tall. Lanky, dark haired men are his thing and it takes him by surprise to realize how perfectly the man in front of him fits that bill.
“I just wanted to -” Vince’s voice drops to a kind of whisper, “see you.” Eric understands that. Hearing on the news that everyone injured in the bank was going to live, including the guard who had been shot in the stomach, was one thing. Vince, the man he’d held onto during the bedlam standing in front of him, alive and well produced a relief so profound it made his knees wobble.
“It’s mostly healed up,” Vince continues smiling shyly and pointing to his temple. “Still a little tender. The doc says that the hair might not grow back in that spot.” The hair is indeed noticeably shorter than the hair in the same place on the opposite side of his head.
Eric doesn’t remember lifting his hand, but it hovers awkwardly in the air close to where he’d pressed his shirt to stop the bleeding.
“It’s okay you can touch it if you want. I do all the time. It’s kind of freaky.” Eric doesn’t need to be invited twice. Taking one step, he is close enough to brush his fingers lightly over the jagged dent.
“Weird, right?”
The sense memory is almost overwhelming. The noise, the uncertainty about whether or not they would be okay, the feeling of desperate importance that the injured man believe that they would be okay.
Unlike in the bank, he can move freely, can get closer without consequence and so he moves in closer to the ex-hostage. With his thumb, Eric begins a gentle stroking across the disfigured flesh. The other man responds instantly, tilting his head down into the touch. His eyes flutter closed. For a moment there is no one else in the restaurant, but the two of them.
Behind him, Lloyd clears his throat. Loudly. Startled, Eric snatches his hand away as if burned. Vince opens slightly dazed eyes. Smirking at his friend, Lloyd reaches over Eric’s shoulder.
“Hi, I’m Lloyd. I’m going into the kitchen to talk to a guy about a thing.”
Vince extends his hand, shakes, blushes, “Vince.” Bending close to Eric’s ear. Lloyd stage whispers, “You are in so much trouble.”
Both men watch Lloyd disappear completely through the door to the kitchen, before either of them speaks again.
“You wanna sit?” At the enthusiastic nod of the curly head, Eric directs his unexpected visitor to a back booth.
“I pass by this place all the time. I can’t believe how close you are. I bet I use to see you before. How long have you worked here?”
“About eight years. Started as a busboy.”
“Really, that’s cool. You must really like it.”
“Yeah. I’m actually hoping to open my own place by the end of the year. Oh, shit." Eric’s eyes dart guiltily around the dining room.
"What, what's wrong?" Vince's eyes track the same path.
"I -," He looks around again. They are alone in the dining room. Lloyd’s fingerprints are all over that. Grimacing, Eric suspects he’ll have to pay for it later. For the moment, he is grateful for the privacy.
"Lloyd’s my best friend and I haven’t told him yet. I was in the bank to talk to a loan officer. I just told everyone I had a problem with my atm card. Lloyd’s gonna be pissed."
"Wow. I bet you'd be amazing in your own place. You’re so together. I don’t understand why your best friend wouldn’t be happy for you?"
“We, uh -. I wanna open a place near where we grew up in Burbank, maybe on Riverside Drive maybe in Toluca Lake. There are a couple of spaces I really like. I’d have to drag Lloyd kicking and screaming to get him back over the hill though. When we graduated, he pretty much shook off all that Valley boy dust from his shoes. Never to return.”
“Why go back?”
“I’ve lived on this side of the hill for about ten years. It hasn’t been bad you know. I like it, but it’s a little quieter in Burbank, the pace is a little slower. Thirty is around the corner, time for a change.”
“What kind of food?”
“Classic, American comfort food.”
“Mashed potatoes?”
“Definitely mashed potatoes.”
“It’s already new my favorite restaurant,” Vince declares.
“Yeah, well,” Eric says ducking his head and trying to hide a pleased smile, “it won't be today.”
“Whenever it is.” The intense sincerity in Vince’s eyes makes Eric shift uncomfortably in his seat. It’s disconcerting to have those eyes looking at him with anything other than pain. To look at him as if he is more than an acquaintance.
“You work around here too?”
“I work at my brother’s gym.”
“Oh yeah, which gym?”
“Chase’s on San Vicente.”
“That place is a gym? I thought it was some kind of clothing store or hairdressers or something.”
“Chase’s is a 'boutique fitness experience'.” Vince grins at him.
“A what?
“A ‘boutique fitness experience’. Johnny, my brother, doesn’t like to call it a gym.”
“You a personal trainer?” The man laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s heard in a while.
“Uh, not exactly. My brother, likes me to hang out, make nice with the customers. If enrollment is low in a class I show up for a couple of sessions, maybe flirt a little.”
Eric’s mouth twists like he’s just tasted something sour.
“You like working for your brother like that? Being a honey trap?”
“A what?”
“A shill to promote his ‘fitness experience’.”
“Wow, man that’s - . He’s not ripping anyone off. They get what he advertises. His place is really great. Besides I’m not a freeloader. I’m happy to help my brother. He really helped me out of a situation and I -.”
“What kind of situation?” Vince suddenly flushes, then pales. The ease between them dissipates into awkwardness.
“Never mind it’s none of my business. I'm glad you're well Vince. Really.” Eric makes a motion to get out of the booth. Ryan’s opens in an hour. Before his is fully up, long fingers close around his wrist. He pulls just a little, but Vince doesn’t let go.
“No, no wait, wait. It’s okay. I just -. Wow. I mean I want to tell you. I haven’t wanted to tell anyone for two years.” Eric hesitates for just a second before he slides back into the booth. His staff is professional, they can get the service up and running without him.
Vince screws and unscrews the salt shaker top. “The truth is kind of…it’s not what people expect. I let people assume I came out here to be an actor."
Eric is happier than he can say at the implication that Vince is not an actor, but it dawns on him that he should put a stop to this. There’s no reason for the other man to tell him anything other than what he would tell anyone else. They aren't anything to each other.
But he says nothing, simply allows the same tone the man had in his voice when he accepted that Eric was telling him the truth in the bank wash over him. Complete trust. It unnerves him that that dynamic exists in the safety of Ryan’s mid-morning calm where it isn‘t necessary.
There are a couple of false starts before Vince is able to get out a complete string of sentences. “I, uh. I have an ex, he uh. He did some time. After he got out of jail, he was different. Angry. Jealous.”
The flicker of pain in green eyes moves Eric to reach across the table and brush his thumb reassuringly across the back of Vince’s hand. Vince flips his hand palm up and clasps Eric’s.
“He punched me a couple of times, prison reflex. I thought it would stop, once he’d been out for a little while. Once he was settled. A year later, he broke my arm. My brother came and got me. He‘s kind of my hero. So you say what was it honey trap? I say an expression of gratitude.”
“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have implied that there was anything wrong with your job.”
“You weren’t trying to hurt me on purpose.” Again, a deep certainty in the tone. Eric looks down at the table. They are holding hands. Pale fingers looking like they belong cupped in the darker hand. And that’s a little bit more than Eric can really handle without gunfire and the other man bleeding. He withdraws into the back of the booth allowing his hand to slide out of Vince’s.
“So, you don’t drive?” The attempt to change the subject and the mood is blatant, but all Vince does is smile and splay his fingers against the tabletop.
“Nah, I’m from back east. I don’t even have a license. I’m use to walking. There are a lot of things you miss when you’re in a car, like how busy this place always is.”
“We do alright.”
“I’d say better than alright. You must be pretty good at this running a restaurant thing.” Eric knows that he is. Ryan’s doesn’t run without him. The owner is primarily absentee, except when he isn’t and that is a whole other story. He doesn’t need the compliment, that isn’t how his ego works, but something about the words coming from Vince suffuses him with warmth. And pride. He shakes it off.
“Would you like to stay for lunch? On the house.”
“Dude, you saved my life. I can’t let you buy me lunch too.”
“I did not save your life. S.W.A.T. saved your life. Saved our lives. I was just there with you.”
“I was about to freak out, but you held onto me. My head was killing me but, I could feel you all around me. Keeping me safe. Even in the ambulance I still felt it. These last couple of months have been -. I’ll pay for my own lunch and watch you in action.”
Grinning, Eric pushes himself out of the booth. “I’m not sure how much action you’re gonna see here. Our lunch crowd is pretty tame. We make them leave the automatic weapons at the door.” A shadow crosses Vince’s face.
“Shit, I’m sorry man. I shouldn’t be joking about guns.”
“It’s okay, I let the bad part go. Kept only the good.”
Playfulness alights in green eyes.
“I’ll get you a menu.”
They get slammed during lunch. The wait staff is a person short and they are still experiencing some residual effect of his being held hostage. Word passed among the Ryan’s regulars until it got out into the general populace that Eric had been one of the hostages.
People started showing up a few days after, wanting to get a look at him. Wanting to hear the story, take a picture. They also ordered food, which helped the bottom line, but added to the madness. After a couple of weeks the morbid curiosity had worn thin. One of his waiters who, was more interested in finding a cougar mommy, than working hard had quit in frustration.
They are still feeling that lack. He has been interviewing, but he’s having trouble finding a waiter who isn‘t doubling as an actor.
Eric is taking up the slack on the floor. In the bustle of lunch, he’s lost track of Vince. The booth is in Lloyd’s section, so he knows that his fellow ex-hostage is being taken care of. He also knows that he’s going to have to spend the dinner service dodging Lloyd’s inevitable questions.
Next chase65.livejournal.com/21534.html
Pairing: Vince/Eric, Vince/Canon Character Implied, Eric/Canon Character Implied
Warnings: Angst, Domestic Violence (mention
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2237
Prompt # 48: E/Vince - The boys meet in some sort of high stress situation - hostage crisis, kidnapping rescue, mugging, plane crash, etc. and there is an instant connection/attraction. Months later they reunite. Vince insists it’s love, E is just as sure it’s a combination of adrenaline/hero worship.
Disclaimer: Still negotiating with Ari. Still a no go.
A/N: Written for entourage_fest. 2nd fic for the fest, 2nd Entourage fic ever. I need a nap. Posted in three parts cause more than likely it’s too long for a single post
It’s eight weeks later and he’s talking to Lloyd, his head waiter and best friend about a stack of resumes on his desk for an open wait position. Lloyd’s eyes suddenly widen in a ‘wow’ followed by the leer. The wow leer combination happens when anyone either famous and, or good looking comes into the restaurant. Given their location, he sees that look on Lloyd’s face a lot, but his friend always manages to keep it together. This time he seems so completely floored that Eric wonders if George Clooney is standing behind him. It’s clear that it’s going to take Lloyd a couple minutes to get his tongue up off the floor, so Eric turns to explain that they aren’t open yet. But the soft “Hey” behind him is the cat that gets his tongue. He knows the voice.
The last time he heard it, it was filled with pain, edging towards panic. He turns to find the man with the dark curls from the bank grinning at him. The first thing that pops into Eric’s head is god, he’s tall. Lanky, dark haired men are his thing and it takes him by surprise to realize how perfectly the man in front of him fits that bill.
“I just wanted to -” Vince’s voice drops to a kind of whisper, “see you.” Eric understands that. Hearing on the news that everyone injured in the bank was going to live, including the guard who had been shot in the stomach, was one thing. Vince, the man he’d held onto during the bedlam standing in front of him, alive and well produced a relief so profound it made his knees wobble.
“It’s mostly healed up,” Vince continues smiling shyly and pointing to his temple. “Still a little tender. The doc says that the hair might not grow back in that spot.” The hair is indeed noticeably shorter than the hair in the same place on the opposite side of his head.
Eric doesn’t remember lifting his hand, but it hovers awkwardly in the air close to where he’d pressed his shirt to stop the bleeding.
“It’s okay you can touch it if you want. I do all the time. It’s kind of freaky.” Eric doesn’t need to be invited twice. Taking one step, he is close enough to brush his fingers lightly over the jagged dent.
“Weird, right?”
The sense memory is almost overwhelming. The noise, the uncertainty about whether or not they would be okay, the feeling of desperate importance that the injured man believe that they would be okay.
Unlike in the bank, he can move freely, can get closer without consequence and so he moves in closer to the ex-hostage. With his thumb, Eric begins a gentle stroking across the disfigured flesh. The other man responds instantly, tilting his head down into the touch. His eyes flutter closed. For a moment there is no one else in the restaurant, but the two of them.
Behind him, Lloyd clears his throat. Loudly. Startled, Eric snatches his hand away as if burned. Vince opens slightly dazed eyes. Smirking at his friend, Lloyd reaches over Eric’s shoulder.
“Hi, I’m Lloyd. I’m going into the kitchen to talk to a guy about a thing.”
Vince extends his hand, shakes, blushes, “Vince.” Bending close to Eric’s ear. Lloyd stage whispers, “You are in so much trouble.”
Both men watch Lloyd disappear completely through the door to the kitchen, before either of them speaks again.
“You wanna sit?” At the enthusiastic nod of the curly head, Eric directs his unexpected visitor to a back booth.
“I pass by this place all the time. I can’t believe how close you are. I bet I use to see you before. How long have you worked here?”
“About eight years. Started as a busboy.”
“Really, that’s cool. You must really like it.”
“Yeah. I’m actually hoping to open my own place by the end of the year. Oh, shit." Eric’s eyes dart guiltily around the dining room.
"What, what's wrong?" Vince's eyes track the same path.
"I -," He looks around again. They are alone in the dining room. Lloyd’s fingerprints are all over that. Grimacing, Eric suspects he’ll have to pay for it later. For the moment, he is grateful for the privacy.
"Lloyd’s my best friend and I haven’t told him yet. I was in the bank to talk to a loan officer. I just told everyone I had a problem with my atm card. Lloyd’s gonna be pissed."
"Wow. I bet you'd be amazing in your own place. You’re so together. I don’t understand why your best friend wouldn’t be happy for you?"
“We, uh -. I wanna open a place near where we grew up in Burbank, maybe on Riverside Drive maybe in Toluca Lake. There are a couple of spaces I really like. I’d have to drag Lloyd kicking and screaming to get him back over the hill though. When we graduated, he pretty much shook off all that Valley boy dust from his shoes. Never to return.”
“Why go back?”
“I’ve lived on this side of the hill for about ten years. It hasn’t been bad you know. I like it, but it’s a little quieter in Burbank, the pace is a little slower. Thirty is around the corner, time for a change.”
“What kind of food?”
“Classic, American comfort food.”
“Mashed potatoes?”
“Definitely mashed potatoes.”
“It’s already new my favorite restaurant,” Vince declares.
“Yeah, well,” Eric says ducking his head and trying to hide a pleased smile, “it won't be today.”
“Whenever it is.” The intense sincerity in Vince’s eyes makes Eric shift uncomfortably in his seat. It’s disconcerting to have those eyes looking at him with anything other than pain. To look at him as if he is more than an acquaintance.
“You work around here too?”
“I work at my brother’s gym.”
“Oh yeah, which gym?”
“Chase’s on San Vicente.”
“That place is a gym? I thought it was some kind of clothing store or hairdressers or something.”
“Chase’s is a 'boutique fitness experience'.” Vince grins at him.
“A what?
“A ‘boutique fitness experience’. Johnny, my brother, doesn’t like to call it a gym.”
“You a personal trainer?” The man laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s heard in a while.
“Uh, not exactly. My brother, likes me to hang out, make nice with the customers. If enrollment is low in a class I show up for a couple of sessions, maybe flirt a little.”
Eric’s mouth twists like he’s just tasted something sour.
“You like working for your brother like that? Being a honey trap?”
“A what?”
“A shill to promote his ‘fitness experience’.”
“Wow, man that’s - . He’s not ripping anyone off. They get what he advertises. His place is really great. Besides I’m not a freeloader. I’m happy to help my brother. He really helped me out of a situation and I -.”
“What kind of situation?” Vince suddenly flushes, then pales. The ease between them dissipates into awkwardness.
“Never mind it’s none of my business. I'm glad you're well Vince. Really.” Eric makes a motion to get out of the booth. Ryan’s opens in an hour. Before his is fully up, long fingers close around his wrist. He pulls just a little, but Vince doesn’t let go.
“No, no wait, wait. It’s okay. I just -. Wow. I mean I want to tell you. I haven’t wanted to tell anyone for two years.” Eric hesitates for just a second before he slides back into the booth. His staff is professional, they can get the service up and running without him.
Vince screws and unscrews the salt shaker top. “The truth is kind of…it’s not what people expect. I let people assume I came out here to be an actor."
Eric is happier than he can say at the implication that Vince is not an actor, but it dawns on him that he should put a stop to this. There’s no reason for the other man to tell him anything other than what he would tell anyone else. They aren't anything to each other.
But he says nothing, simply allows the same tone the man had in his voice when he accepted that Eric was telling him the truth in the bank wash over him. Complete trust. It unnerves him that that dynamic exists in the safety of Ryan’s mid-morning calm where it isn‘t necessary.
There are a couple of false starts before Vince is able to get out a complete string of sentences. “I, uh. I have an ex, he uh. He did some time. After he got out of jail, he was different. Angry. Jealous.”
The flicker of pain in green eyes moves Eric to reach across the table and brush his thumb reassuringly across the back of Vince’s hand. Vince flips his hand palm up and clasps Eric’s.
“He punched me a couple of times, prison reflex. I thought it would stop, once he’d been out for a little while. Once he was settled. A year later, he broke my arm. My brother came and got me. He‘s kind of my hero. So you say what was it honey trap? I say an expression of gratitude.”
“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have implied that there was anything wrong with your job.”
“You weren’t trying to hurt me on purpose.” Again, a deep certainty in the tone. Eric looks down at the table. They are holding hands. Pale fingers looking like they belong cupped in the darker hand. And that’s a little bit more than Eric can really handle without gunfire and the other man bleeding. He withdraws into the back of the booth allowing his hand to slide out of Vince’s.
“So, you don’t drive?” The attempt to change the subject and the mood is blatant, but all Vince does is smile and splay his fingers against the tabletop.
“Nah, I’m from back east. I don’t even have a license. I’m use to walking. There are a lot of things you miss when you’re in a car, like how busy this place always is.”
“We do alright.”
“I’d say better than alright. You must be pretty good at this running a restaurant thing.” Eric knows that he is. Ryan’s doesn’t run without him. The owner is primarily absentee, except when he isn’t and that is a whole other story. He doesn’t need the compliment, that isn’t how his ego works, but something about the words coming from Vince suffuses him with warmth. And pride. He shakes it off.
“Would you like to stay for lunch? On the house.”
“Dude, you saved my life. I can’t let you buy me lunch too.”
“I did not save your life. S.W.A.T. saved your life. Saved our lives. I was just there with you.”
“I was about to freak out, but you held onto me. My head was killing me but, I could feel you all around me. Keeping me safe. Even in the ambulance I still felt it. These last couple of months have been -. I’ll pay for my own lunch and watch you in action.”
Grinning, Eric pushes himself out of the booth. “I’m not sure how much action you’re gonna see here. Our lunch crowd is pretty tame. We make them leave the automatic weapons at the door.” A shadow crosses Vince’s face.
“Shit, I’m sorry man. I shouldn’t be joking about guns.”
“It’s okay, I let the bad part go. Kept only the good.”
Playfulness alights in green eyes.
“I’ll get you a menu.”
They get slammed during lunch. The wait staff is a person short and they are still experiencing some residual effect of his being held hostage. Word passed among the Ryan’s regulars until it got out into the general populace that Eric had been one of the hostages.
People started showing up a few days after, wanting to get a look at him. Wanting to hear the story, take a picture. They also ordered food, which helped the bottom line, but added to the madness. After a couple of weeks the morbid curiosity had worn thin. One of his waiters who, was more interested in finding a cougar mommy, than working hard had quit in frustration.
They are still feeling that lack. He has been interviewing, but he’s having trouble finding a waiter who isn‘t doubling as an actor.
Eric is taking up the slack on the floor. In the bustle of lunch, he’s lost track of Vince. The booth is in Lloyd’s section, so he knows that his fellow ex-hostage is being taken care of. He also knows that he’s going to have to spend the dinner service dodging Lloyd’s inevitable questions.
Next chase65.livejournal.com/21534.html