Entourage Fic: Romantic Comedy
Title: Romantic Comedy
Fandom: Entourage
Summary: Vin wants a lead role. E/girl!Vince
Rating: light R, mainly for cursing and drug use.
Word Count: ~2000
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers through Season 4 of the show.
Disclaimer:
Romantic comedy: a movie with a light-hearted, humorous plotline, centered on romantic ideals such as true love able to surmount all obstacles.
--Wikipedia
After Aquaman, Vin walks into Ari’s office and says, “I want to do a movie.”
“Great,” says Ari. “I’m an agent; you’re a movie star. That’s how it works. What’d you think of the script I sent? Jake Gyllenhaal’s attached.”
“Not for me,” says Vin. “I want to play the lead.”
“Vin, sweetie, the lead’s a guy.” Ari smiles, attempting sweetness, comes off predatory. Vicious, shark smile.
“No dumbass,” snarls E. “She wants a different movie. One with a female lead”.
Vin doesn’t smile gratefully at him. She tosses her hair, shimmer of black, and stands up.
“That’s all Ari. Let E know when you get something.”
E follows her out.
- - -
“Wow,” said Ari when he first met E. “You really put the toy in boytoy.”
“Fuck you,” said E.
Vin twirled her hair. “Play nice boys.”
- - -
“You ever think it’d be easier,” asks Turtle, “if Vin was a dude?”
“Easier how?” E frowns at his phone. Vin should be done by now.
“Well,” says Turtle with a pitying look. “You wouldn’t be in love with her then.”
“I’m not in love with her now, douchebag,” snaps E.
Vin texts then I’m done. Come get me.
They don’t continue the conversation after that, and Vin walks around all day with her just been fucked grin.
- - -
“I can’t live here,” said E, standing in the front room of Vin’s mansion, when he first moved out to LA.
“You can’t afford to live anywhere else,” said Vin.
“It’ll be bad for your reputation. Your publicist will castrate me,” argued E. “I can get my own place.”
“Drama and Turtle live here,” Vin pointed out.
“Yeah, your brother and your bodyguard. Not your… whatever the fuck I am.”
“My best friend,” said Vin sunnily. “And I already have a reputation.”
She smiled. Her lipstick was coral, bright against the bronze of her skin, the white of her teeth.
E ended up moving into a tiny apartment in the Valley. Three months later, all his stuff disappeared.
“I need you closer,” Vin explained, showing him into the guesthouse. “Not in the fucking Valley, E.”
E sat on his bed, looked at the family photos arranged on the night table, looked out the window. He had a better view.
“Don’t do Head On,” he said finally. “Do the chick flick. You need to diversify. No more love interests of action heroes.”
“You’ll still watch it even though it’s chick flick?” Vin asked, leaning against the doorway, her face lighting up slowly as she realized E wasn’t gonna argue about being involuntarily relocated.
“I’ll see you no matter what you do.”
“Yeah,” laughed Vin. “But will you still respect me in the morning?”
- - -
“Bonnie and Clyde,” offers Ari, after a week of silence. “Emile Hirsch as Clyde.”
“No,” says Vin.
“Come on Vin,” wheedles Ari. “You’ll share top billing. Half the title’s your fucking character.”
“Tell them to ask Keira Knightly,” says Vin. “I want something that passes the Bechdel test.”
“The what?” Ari looks at E.
“Has to have two female characters,” translates E, “who talk about more than boys. “
“This isn’t porn,” grouses Ari. “No one’s gonna pay to see a couple of lesbians.”
“The answer’s still no,” says Vin.
E checks his watch. It’s time to go.
- - -
“I’m tired of being your mistress,” snapped Kristen in the middle of an argument. There were thin lines between her eyes, pinched in at her mouth.
“You’re not,” said E, taken aback, angry tone dropping from his voice.
“What am I then?” she asked.
“You’re my girlfriend.” He took her hand, pressed it tight.
Kristen drew away. She cocked her head to the side, nose scrunched. "Am I?"
E and Kristen broke up not long afterward. Vin didn’t say much, just smiled kindly.
“The next girl E,” she said. “That’ll be the one.”
Vin never liked Kristen anyway; thought she was too manipulative.
- - -
“You’re whipped E,” Ari tells him after Vin turns down Bonnie and Clyde. They’ve had too much to drink.
“You’re one to talk,” laughs E.
“Hey,” says Ari. “At least I’m getting pussy.”
E’s confused. “Sloan and I-”
“-I was talking about Vin, you leprechaun reject. You’re a lapdog. Paris Hilton’s fucking purse dog except to Vin.”
“Vin and I aren’t,” E protests.
“Exactly,” says Ari, interrupting again. He shakes his head sadly. “That’s what makes you so damn pitiful.”
- - -
“I want a raise,” said E.
“From what?” said Vin, then frowned. “For what?”
“Exactly,” said E, “and for being your manager.”
“You’re not my manager, E.”
“Someone’s your manager,” snapped E. “And it’s certainly not Turtle.”
She looked at him over her sunglasses, cool, appraising.
“I want ten percent,” said E, “and medical.”
Vin frowned. “Why are you asking this now? I thought we were good. Nothing’s gotta change E.”
- - -
E hates Billy Walsh. Not because Billy wants to fuck Vin. Every straight guy in the world wants to fuck Vin; it’s E’s job to capitalize on that.
No, E dislikes Billy because Billy is a fucking asshole. The skeeviness is just a bonus.
But Billy also has a script.
“La Malinche,” says Vin.
“Who’s Cortes?” asks E.
“Does it matter? The movie’s about me.”
Not you, E doesn’t say. La Malinche.
“He’ll probably make you learn Spanish,” points out E.
Vin shrugs. “And Mayan and Nahuatl.” Her lips move carefully around the unfamiliar word. “Drama’ll help. He’s good with languages.”
“You’re still playing a romantic role,” says E.
“Yeah E,” teases Vin. “It’s a romcom with Hernando Cortes. Gwyneth Paltrow almost kicked my ass to get the part.”
- - -
Sloan was the next girl after Kristen. She was gorgeous, funny, smart.
“What actress do you admire most?” she asked Vin, making small talk after E introduced them to each other at one of Terrence’s charity galas.
E knew the answer to that one Audrey Hepburn, had been since Vin was thirteen and couldn’t even fill a training bra.
Vin smiled. Slow smile, sharp glint of white teeth, an Ari kind of smile.
“Angelina Jolie.”
- - -
“Three months in Mexico?” says Sloan, sleepy and loose from mid-afternoon sex.
“Yeah,” says E. He kisses the top of her head. Her shampoo smells sweet, like flowers. Vin’s used grapefruit since 9th grade, bursts sharp and tangy and E always knows when she’s been in a room, the scent of her left behind like a fingerprint.
“With Vin?”
“And Turtle and Drama and Billy Walsh,” says E.
Sloan gets out of bed.
“Where are you going?” asks E.
She doesn’t look at him as she searches the floor for her clothes. She’s beautiful all the time, but especially when she’s naked, post coital flush still warming her skin.
“I have dinner plans with my father,” she explains. “I forgot.”
- - -
“I will end him,” swore Drama after Orlando Bloom broke Vin’s heart for a second time.
He probably would have, or at least tried. Johnny Drama is ridiculously protective of his little sister.
Vin didn’t say anything, just curled in on herself on the couch.
“The next guy,” promised E, sitting down next to her, hand on her back.
Vin still didn’t say anything.
She said a lot when she decided to quit Aquaman and even more when E decided to quit working for her.
She didn’t really apologize later, but that was okay. E didn’t apologize either, and neither of them really quit.
- - -
La Malinche’s not a romantic comedy. Walsh calls it a feminist manifesto. It’s the strangest feminist manifesto E’s ever seen. It’s sprawling and grand with intricately designed historical set pieces and intimate zooms to Vin’s face as she kneels- in her father’s palace, in the jungle, in Cortes’ tent, in the chapel, spends half the movie fucking kneeling.
“It captures her inner turmoil Suit,” snarls Billy, deigning to speak to him. “The overwhelming oppression of her time.”
There are swordfights and battles and two sex scenes that border on rape, leaving E feeling nauseous and dry mouthed each time they take the scenes.
“They don’t border,” Vin tells him later, in her trailer. “They are rape. There is no border.”
“Okay,” says E. “So why are you doing this?”
“Because,” says Vin, checking her makeup. “It’s a good story.”
The movie is an epic.
It’s also too damn fucking long.
“We need to edit it,” says E, when they get back to LA. "Walsh doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing."
“Walsh is a genius,” assures Vin, stretching lazily in the passenger seat. “He’ll figure it out.”
She stares out the window; E glances at her. She’s tanner than usual, hair grown long and unruly past her waist. The sun slants in, red, lights her face bloody.
“Let’s go to Italy,” she says suddenly.
Rapid change of subject; it’s a familiar trick that E’s used to and still falls for.
“I can’t,” he says, exasperated. “Sloan will-”
“-Sloan will wait,” says Vin firmly. She smiles at him, blindingly bright, and pats his knee.
They go to Italy.
- - -
E’s never slept with Vin. No one ever believes him, but he hasn’t.
They’ve kissed though, just once, after prom. He and Vin went together, as friends. Vin didn’t like having dates to dances.
“It makes me feel like a whore,” she explained. "They pay for tickets, for dinner, for the corsage, and at the end of the evening, I put out.”
So E went to prom with the hottest girl in school and they split the cost of everything. Afterwards, they sat in his car, getting high and pretending they could see the stars through the smudgy orange flatness of the night sky. It was the same car E took with him to LA, driving cross-country, and there were plenty of places he could see the stars then.
“I’m gonna be a movie star,” said Vin, bold like she was in everything. It was the reason people didn’t like her; she had too much confidence. “Right after graduation, I’m gonna move to Hollywood and live with Drama.” She smiled at him, and he was already feeling dizzy from the pot.
“You should come with me.”
“I dunno,” he said. “Mom wants me to go to college.”
“Come on E,” she pressed. “You gotta live your own life.”
“I can’t,” said E. He snickered. "I don’t have your balls.”
“E,” said Vin, and she put the joint they were sharing on the dashboard. She leaned over, placed her hand on his knee.
“E,” she repeated, very seriously.
“Vin,” he said. Their faces were close; he could see the sweep of her eyelashes.
She kissed him them. He could taste the pot-sweet of her mouth, smell the tang of her hair. Her lips were soft, chapped.
“Come to Hollywood with me,” she murmured when she finished kissing him, and he could feel her breath on his cheek.
He breathed in deep. “Why?”
“You’re my best friend,” she said, and her hand moved higher on his leg.
He pushed her off gently.
“I can’t Vin,” he said.
She touched her hair, looked down at the skirt of her dress.
“Okay,” she said quietly, finally. “You should probably take me home.”
- - -
They’re at the Trevi Fountain, thick crowd of people and uncomfortable stench all around them. Vin has on her designer sunglasses, the ones that swallow half her face, hair wrapped up in a sky blue scarf. You can still tell she’s beautiful; you just can’t tell she’s her.
“Sloan broke up with me,” admits E, watching Drama and Turtle push their way to the front of the crowd.
Vin looks at him, expression obscured and unreadable. Then she smiles, slow, slow, glacier slow and finds his hand with her own. She squeezes it.
“Next girl,” she promises. “She’ll be the one. Till then, looks like it’s you and me.”
E disentangles his fingers from Vin’s, shoves his hand into his pocket.
He licks his lips. They’re dry, salty; he needs a drink.
“Yeah Vin,” he says, not looking at her. “The next girl.”
AN: I swear to God, this was a lot more pretentious before I decided to actually use quotation marks. Anyway, this came out of my frustration at the treatment of women (and the relative scarcity of decent women's roles) in Hollywood. And, I suppose, continuing gender inequalities in our society. (And who says feminism is dead?) I'm not sure if I actually addressed that, but... *pokes at fic* I have a feeling this is one of those fics where what you want to say about it is longer than the actual fic itself.
For those curious, the Bechdel Test is from the comic "Dykes to Watch Out For," which I've never read but have heard good things about. La Malinche, for those of you who missed your perfunctory five minutes of Mexican history, was a Native American woman who acted as an interpretator (among other things) for Hernan Cortes during his conquest of Mexico. She's a very interesting figure, and to this day, the term "malinchista" means "traitor" for Mexicans, much as "Benedict Arnold" does for those of us in the States. (Also see: Quisling.)
Feedback is good karma. Thanks for reading!
Fandom: Entourage
Summary: Vin wants a lead role. E/girl!Vince
Rating: light R, mainly for cursing and drug use.
Word Count: ~2000
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers through Season 4 of the show.
Disclaimer:
Romantic comedy: a movie with a light-hearted, humorous plotline, centered on romantic ideals such as true love able to surmount all obstacles.
--Wikipedia
After Aquaman, Vin walks into Ari’s office and says, “I want to do a movie.”
“Great,” says Ari. “I’m an agent; you’re a movie star. That’s how it works. What’d you think of the script I sent? Jake Gyllenhaal’s attached.”
“Not for me,” says Vin. “I want to play the lead.”
“Vin, sweetie, the lead’s a guy.” Ari smiles, attempting sweetness, comes off predatory. Vicious, shark smile.
“No dumbass,” snarls E. “She wants a different movie. One with a female lead”.
Vin doesn’t smile gratefully at him. She tosses her hair, shimmer of black, and stands up.
“That’s all Ari. Let E know when you get something.”
E follows her out.
- - -
“Wow,” said Ari when he first met E. “You really put the toy in boytoy.”
“Fuck you,” said E.
Vin twirled her hair. “Play nice boys.”
- - -
“You ever think it’d be easier,” asks Turtle, “if Vin was a dude?”
“Easier how?” E frowns at his phone. Vin should be done by now.
“Well,” says Turtle with a pitying look. “You wouldn’t be in love with her then.”
“I’m not in love with her now, douchebag,” snaps E.
Vin texts then I’m done. Come get me.
They don’t continue the conversation after that, and Vin walks around all day with her just been fucked grin.
- - -
“I can’t live here,” said E, standing in the front room of Vin’s mansion, when he first moved out to LA.
“You can’t afford to live anywhere else,” said Vin.
“It’ll be bad for your reputation. Your publicist will castrate me,” argued E. “I can get my own place.”
“Drama and Turtle live here,” Vin pointed out.
“Yeah, your brother and your bodyguard. Not your… whatever the fuck I am.”
“My best friend,” said Vin sunnily. “And I already have a reputation.”
She smiled. Her lipstick was coral, bright against the bronze of her skin, the white of her teeth.
E ended up moving into a tiny apartment in the Valley. Three months later, all his stuff disappeared.
“I need you closer,” Vin explained, showing him into the guesthouse. “Not in the fucking Valley, E.”
E sat on his bed, looked at the family photos arranged on the night table, looked out the window. He had a better view.
“Don’t do Head On,” he said finally. “Do the chick flick. You need to diversify. No more love interests of action heroes.”
“You’ll still watch it even though it’s chick flick?” Vin asked, leaning against the doorway, her face lighting up slowly as she realized E wasn’t gonna argue about being involuntarily relocated.
“I’ll see you no matter what you do.”
“Yeah,” laughed Vin. “But will you still respect me in the morning?”
- - -
“Bonnie and Clyde,” offers Ari, after a week of silence. “Emile Hirsch as Clyde.”
“No,” says Vin.
“Come on Vin,” wheedles Ari. “You’ll share top billing. Half the title’s your fucking character.”
“Tell them to ask Keira Knightly,” says Vin. “I want something that passes the Bechdel test.”
“The what?” Ari looks at E.
“Has to have two female characters,” translates E, “who talk about more than boys. “
“This isn’t porn,” grouses Ari. “No one’s gonna pay to see a couple of lesbians.”
“The answer’s still no,” says Vin.
E checks his watch. It’s time to go.
- - -
“I’m tired of being your mistress,” snapped Kristen in the middle of an argument. There were thin lines between her eyes, pinched in at her mouth.
“You’re not,” said E, taken aback, angry tone dropping from his voice.
“What am I then?” she asked.
“You’re my girlfriend.” He took her hand, pressed it tight.
Kristen drew away. She cocked her head to the side, nose scrunched. "Am I?"
E and Kristen broke up not long afterward. Vin didn’t say much, just smiled kindly.
“The next girl E,” she said. “That’ll be the one.”
Vin never liked Kristen anyway; thought she was too manipulative.
- - -
“You’re whipped E,” Ari tells him after Vin turns down Bonnie and Clyde. They’ve had too much to drink.
“You’re one to talk,” laughs E.
“Hey,” says Ari. “At least I’m getting pussy.”
E’s confused. “Sloan and I-”
“-I was talking about Vin, you leprechaun reject. You’re a lapdog. Paris Hilton’s fucking purse dog except to Vin.”
“Vin and I aren’t,” E protests.
“Exactly,” says Ari, interrupting again. He shakes his head sadly. “That’s what makes you so damn pitiful.”
- - -
“I want a raise,” said E.
“From what?” said Vin, then frowned. “For what?”
“Exactly,” said E, “and for being your manager.”
“You’re not my manager, E.”
“Someone’s your manager,” snapped E. “And it’s certainly not Turtle.”
She looked at him over her sunglasses, cool, appraising.
“I want ten percent,” said E, “and medical.”
Vin frowned. “Why are you asking this now? I thought we were good. Nothing’s gotta change E.”
- - -
E hates Billy Walsh. Not because Billy wants to fuck Vin. Every straight guy in the world wants to fuck Vin; it’s E’s job to capitalize on that.
No, E dislikes Billy because Billy is a fucking asshole. The skeeviness is just a bonus.
But Billy also has a script.
“La Malinche,” says Vin.
“Who’s Cortes?” asks E.
“Does it matter? The movie’s about me.”
Not you, E doesn’t say. La Malinche.
“He’ll probably make you learn Spanish,” points out E.
Vin shrugs. “And Mayan and Nahuatl.” Her lips move carefully around the unfamiliar word. “Drama’ll help. He’s good with languages.”
“You’re still playing a romantic role,” says E.
“Yeah E,” teases Vin. “It’s a romcom with Hernando Cortes. Gwyneth Paltrow almost kicked my ass to get the part.”
- - -
Sloan was the next girl after Kristen. She was gorgeous, funny, smart.
“What actress do you admire most?” she asked Vin, making small talk after E introduced them to each other at one of Terrence’s charity galas.
E knew the answer to that one Audrey Hepburn, had been since Vin was thirteen and couldn’t even fill a training bra.
Vin smiled. Slow smile, sharp glint of white teeth, an Ari kind of smile.
“Angelina Jolie.”
- - -
“Three months in Mexico?” says Sloan, sleepy and loose from mid-afternoon sex.
“Yeah,” says E. He kisses the top of her head. Her shampoo smells sweet, like flowers. Vin’s used grapefruit since 9th grade, bursts sharp and tangy and E always knows when she’s been in a room, the scent of her left behind like a fingerprint.
“With Vin?”
“And Turtle and Drama and Billy Walsh,” says E.
Sloan gets out of bed.
“Where are you going?” asks E.
She doesn’t look at him as she searches the floor for her clothes. She’s beautiful all the time, but especially when she’s naked, post coital flush still warming her skin.
“I have dinner plans with my father,” she explains. “I forgot.”
- - -
“I will end him,” swore Drama after Orlando Bloom broke Vin’s heart for a second time.
He probably would have, or at least tried. Johnny Drama is ridiculously protective of his little sister.
Vin didn’t say anything, just curled in on herself on the couch.
“The next guy,” promised E, sitting down next to her, hand on her back.
Vin still didn’t say anything.
She said a lot when she decided to quit Aquaman and even more when E decided to quit working for her.
She didn’t really apologize later, but that was okay. E didn’t apologize either, and neither of them really quit.
- - -
La Malinche’s not a romantic comedy. Walsh calls it a feminist manifesto. It’s the strangest feminist manifesto E’s ever seen. It’s sprawling and grand with intricately designed historical set pieces and intimate zooms to Vin’s face as she kneels- in her father’s palace, in the jungle, in Cortes’ tent, in the chapel, spends half the movie fucking kneeling.
“It captures her inner turmoil Suit,” snarls Billy, deigning to speak to him. “The overwhelming oppression of her time.”
There are swordfights and battles and two sex scenes that border on rape, leaving E feeling nauseous and dry mouthed each time they take the scenes.
“They don’t border,” Vin tells him later, in her trailer. “They are rape. There is no border.”
“Okay,” says E. “So why are you doing this?”
“Because,” says Vin, checking her makeup. “It’s a good story.”
The movie is an epic.
It’s also too damn fucking long.
“We need to edit it,” says E, when they get back to LA. "Walsh doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing."
“Walsh is a genius,” assures Vin, stretching lazily in the passenger seat. “He’ll figure it out.”
She stares out the window; E glances at her. She’s tanner than usual, hair grown long and unruly past her waist. The sun slants in, red, lights her face bloody.
“Let’s go to Italy,” she says suddenly.
Rapid change of subject; it’s a familiar trick that E’s used to and still falls for.
“I can’t,” he says, exasperated. “Sloan will-”
“-Sloan will wait,” says Vin firmly. She smiles at him, blindingly bright, and pats his knee.
They go to Italy.
- - -
E’s never slept with Vin. No one ever believes him, but he hasn’t.
They’ve kissed though, just once, after prom. He and Vin went together, as friends. Vin didn’t like having dates to dances.
“It makes me feel like a whore,” she explained. "They pay for tickets, for dinner, for the corsage, and at the end of the evening, I put out.”
So E went to prom with the hottest girl in school and they split the cost of everything. Afterwards, they sat in his car, getting high and pretending they could see the stars through the smudgy orange flatness of the night sky. It was the same car E took with him to LA, driving cross-country, and there were plenty of places he could see the stars then.
“I’m gonna be a movie star,” said Vin, bold like she was in everything. It was the reason people didn’t like her; she had too much confidence. “Right after graduation, I’m gonna move to Hollywood and live with Drama.” She smiled at him, and he was already feeling dizzy from the pot.
“You should come with me.”
“I dunno,” he said. “Mom wants me to go to college.”
“Come on E,” she pressed. “You gotta live your own life.”
“I can’t,” said E. He snickered. "I don’t have your balls.”
“E,” said Vin, and she put the joint they were sharing on the dashboard. She leaned over, placed her hand on his knee.
“E,” she repeated, very seriously.
“Vin,” he said. Their faces were close; he could see the sweep of her eyelashes.
She kissed him them. He could taste the pot-sweet of her mouth, smell the tang of her hair. Her lips were soft, chapped.
“Come to Hollywood with me,” she murmured when she finished kissing him, and he could feel her breath on his cheek.
He breathed in deep. “Why?”
“You’re my best friend,” she said, and her hand moved higher on his leg.
He pushed her off gently.
“I can’t Vin,” he said.
She touched her hair, looked down at the skirt of her dress.
“Okay,” she said quietly, finally. “You should probably take me home.”
- - -
They’re at the Trevi Fountain, thick crowd of people and uncomfortable stench all around them. Vin has on her designer sunglasses, the ones that swallow half her face, hair wrapped up in a sky blue scarf. You can still tell she’s beautiful; you just can’t tell she’s her.
“Sloan broke up with me,” admits E, watching Drama and Turtle push their way to the front of the crowd.
Vin looks at him, expression obscured and unreadable. Then she smiles, slow, slow, glacier slow and finds his hand with her own. She squeezes it.
“Next girl,” she promises. “She’ll be the one. Till then, looks like it’s you and me.”
E disentangles his fingers from Vin’s, shoves his hand into his pocket.
He licks his lips. They’re dry, salty; he needs a drink.
“Yeah Vin,” he says, not looking at her. “The next girl.”
AN: I swear to God, this was a lot more pretentious before I decided to actually use quotation marks. Anyway, this came out of my frustration at the treatment of women (and the relative scarcity of decent women's roles) in Hollywood. And, I suppose, continuing gender inequalities in our society. (And who says feminism is dead?) I'm not sure if I actually addressed that, but... *pokes at fic* I have a feeling this is one of those fics where what you want to say about it is longer than the actual fic itself.
For those curious, the Bechdel Test is from the comic "Dykes to Watch Out For," which I've never read but have heard good things about. La Malinche, for those of you who missed your perfunctory five minutes of Mexican history, was a Native American woman who acted as an interpretator (among other things) for Hernan Cortes during his conquest of Mexico. She's a very interesting figure, and to this day, the term "malinchista" means "traitor" for Mexicans, much as "Benedict Arnold" does for those of us in the States. (Also see: Quisling.)
Feedback is good karma. Thanks for reading!