The Decisions We Make (Entourage. Shauna, Vince/E.)
Title: The Decisions We Make.
Fandom: Entourage.
Characters: Shauna, Vince, Eric (Vince/Eric implied)
Rating: PG-13? Nothing you wouldn't get on the show itself.
Notes: This is a new fandom for me so I haven't really mastered the voices yet, but it's a fun fandom, y'all should write for it! There are pretty men and snarky women, it's awesome. 2,000 words, give or take a few.
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Shauna wouldn't put up with this from most of her clients. She's a good publicist -- no, actually, she's a great publicist -- and she has enough clients on her books that losing one, especially one that causes her this much trouble, wouldn't exactly break her. But Vincent Chase has a way of inspiring loyalty and she's sort of fond of Eric too, so when she sees the picture of the two of them that's splashed across the cover of US Weekly she manages to keeps her lecture to just over an hour and only threatens to quit once. Well, okay, twice. Per half hour. But she doesn't quit, that's how they know she still likes them.
No matter how many times she repeats herself, neither of them have ever learnt that she needs advance notice when there are things they expect her to control. She's good at her job but that doesn't mean she can work magic, even the best need a heads up every now and then, and the problem with Vince is that he doesn't seem to believe in sharing information, outside of with his boys, until he absolutely has to.
So here she is, pacing back and forth around their living room while they wait for Ari, with Vince and Eric sitting on the couch -- Eric looking a little worried and vaguely apologetic and Vince looking nothing of the sort -- wishing she didn't care about either of them so she could give in to the impulse to tear their fucking heads off and possibly save what little is left of her sanity.
"Look, Shauna. We're both really sorry, okay, but--"
"No, Eric," she snarls, "It is not okay. You assholes ever pull a stunt like this again and I am fucking done with you, do you hear me? I should let you drown in this mess."
"Shauna."
"Do you have any idea how this makes me look? Like I have no control over my fucking clients is how, when there are pictures like this out there for everyone to see and I didn't even fucking know about them until it was too late to do anything about it! You should have called me the second they got the fucking shot. Christ. How stupid are you two?"
"Shauna, c'mon, it wasn't like that," Vince says, holding his hands out to placate her as he trains his big, puppy dog eyes on her and silently pleads for her to understand. "We didn't know they got the picture, I swear, or of course we'd have called you."
Shauna's encountered just about every brand of Hollywood charm there is and she can resist all of them, but even she isn't entirely immune to Vincent Chase. Mostly but not entirely and it pisses her off.
"Don't look at me like that, Vincent. Do you have any idea how badly this could fuck up your career?" She spins away from him, still angry. "Was it worth it, huh? Was it?"
"Yes," he says simply, as open and honest and sincere as she's ever seen him, and she thinks great, now we're all fucked because that's something she can't ignore. She'd like to pretend she can, but she has a heart, as much as she usually tries to hide it, and she's not against them being happy. She just doesn't need them being happy on the cover of a magazine unless she's personally approved it.
Her rage fades and she sinks down on to an available chair, drops her head into her hands and tries to figure out where they can possibly go from here. She has to find a way to spin this and she will find a way to spin this, just as soon as her head stops pounding so she can think again.
She sighs and looks up and even Vince looks contrite, although she's pretty sure he's never really been acquainted with the emotion. Some days it's hard to remember why she ever wanted to get into this business to begin with.
"What can we do?" Eric asks quietly.
He's frowning, more concerned what this will mean for Vince and Vince's career than Vince is, darting worried glances at her, and she groans as Vince reaches out to rest an arm across his shoulders, rubbing his neck in soothing, circular motions.
"You can stop doing that, to start," she snaps at Vince, who pays absolutely no attention to her whatsoever. "Do you even know the meaning of the word 'discretion' or do I need to find you a fucking dictionary so you can look it up?"
"We're in our own home, for fuck's sakes," Eric snaps back and Shauna glares at him in a way that would have him laid out cold on the floor in seconds if looks could actually kill.
"And if you kept it to your own home we wouldn't have this problem, would we? But no, you had to go all Brokeback in public instead."
"You know what-- fuck this," Vince says, turning to Eric with a wild look in his eyes that makes Shauna's headache increase three-fold and her stomach sink with dread. She doesn't exactly know where this is going but she already knows she doesn't like it.
"Vince," Eric says, and Vince shakes his head.
"E, I'm serious." He grabs Eric's arm. "Fuck it. We came from nothing, right? I mean, yeah, I like this life but I don't need it and neither do you."
"Vincent," Shauna warns, rising to her feet to stare them both down. "Do not even think about doing what I think you're thinking about doing, because I swear to God--"
"Why not?" Vince challenges, staring right back. "I'm not putting my life on hold for anyone. Not for the business, not for you and not for Ari. Fuck that. Either you help me or you can leave right now."
"Enough," Eric says, putting a hand on Vince's arm and shooting Shauna an apologetic look. "Vince, just think about this for a second, okay? Ever since we were kids, this is what you've wanted to do. We fucked up, we weren't careful enough. Shauna's just trying to protect you. It's what you pay her for."
"She's not protecting me, E," Vince says, "She's covering her own ass, and Ari's and any one else who makes money off my pretty face."
Shauna's opening her mouth to respond to that when Eric shakes his head at Vince and pinches the bridge of his nose, looking as tired and drained as Shauna feels, and instead of speaking she watches. Watches Vince's expression soften as he puts his hand on Eric's shoulder, squeezing gently, and the way Eric reacts to it, and stamps down on the impulse to strangle them as she mentally switches tracks from deny everything to minimise the fallout. She hates that she can't ignore this.
"E, I don't want this life enough to give you up if I have to choose," he says sincerely, and Shauna thinks he might well have forgotten she's even in the room, as focused as he is. "You and me, that's the way it's always been and that's never gonna change, you have to know that."
"I do know that," Eric says. "But we do this, you know it can't be undone, right? You put this out there and it's gonna follow you for life."
"I don't care, E," Vince says, and Shauna thinks that's probably true.
Vince doesn't care because things have always worked out for him somehow. She doesn't think he knows what it's like to not eventually get whatever it is he wants.
"I don't care," he repeats, and this time he's looking at Shauna when he says it, eyes full of defiance and only the tiniest hint of fear.
It's that hint of fear that gets to her and she sighs -- briefly, but only briefly, regretting the day she agreed to take on Vincent Chase as a client -- then nods and waves a hand in resignation, sinking back into her chair. This whole situation is fucked up and any minute now, Ari's going to come barrelling up the driveway to out-rant her when he gives them his thoughts on the matter, and Shauna already knows she'll step up for them when he does. Because as much trouble as it's going to be and as much as it could potentially cost them, their feelings for each other are all too real in a town where everything is fake and no one can be trusted.
"Fine," she mutters, rubbing her temples. "It's your life, Vince. This is what you want then this is what you want, but don't think it'll be easy."
"Nothing ever is," Vince shrugs, his smile movie-star bright and his eyes shining. "But there's no other option, Shauna, not for me."
"Morons," she sighs, but she only half means it. Damn them both. "I need a drink."
"I think we have champagne," Vince offers. "And we have beer, or scotch, or, uh, other stuff. I'll go see."
He leaves and Shauna looks at Eric.
"Is there any chance his career's gonna survive this?" Eric asks, and his eyes are pleading for hope she's not sure she should be giving him when she doesn't know the answer. But then that's part of her job: making other people believe things, whether they're true or not. Whether she believes them or not.
"He'll survive it," she says, and thinks that, hey, maybe it'll even be true, maybe Vince is the one who can survive this unscathed, since god only knows he's been lucky so far. "But it'll take time."
"You actually believe that?" Eric asks, tiredly, because he knows too much about this business now to trust what she says without question. "Or are you just trying to make me feel better?"
"Like I give a fuck about your feelings," Shauna snorts. "Vince is a star, Eric. He's still gonna be a star, even romantically attached to your Irish ass."
"I'm not sure I want to know why you're thinking about Eric's ass," Vince says as he returns to the room, juggling an assortment of bottles and glasses and ignoring the way she rolls her eyes. "And, um, Ari just got here."
"We are so fucked," Eric says, reaching for a bottle of beer.
Vince drops down to sit next to him and Shauna pours herself a drink. She can hear Ari yelling even while he's still in the driveway and Turtle's voice raises in argument as the front door slams behind him. Eric's eyes harden and Vince slumps into his side, stealing his beer and taking a swig from the bottle.
Ari crashes into the room, full of fury and bluster and blind threats and Shauna takes a deep breath, jumping in before Eric can, in the hopes that she can control this and prevent any of them making it worse than it already is.
"Ari, sit down and shut the fuck up," she snaps, handing him a tumbler of whisky and refilling it when he downs it in one. "We need a plan."
The boys look both surprised and then pathetically grateful for the support and she thinks it'll do them no harm to remember that she is ultimately on their side. Maybe next time the shit hits the fan she'll get a call when it happens, instead of when she already knows. Of course, she doubts that, but Vince and Eric aren't the only ones who sometimes need a little hope.
"Fucking US Weekly!" Ari howls, throwing his glass against the wall where it shatters into a million pieces. "My top star is kissing his fucking manager on the front cover of US-fucking-Weekly! We need more than a fucking plan!"
He's off again, dire predictions and insults, the usual Ari Gold overreaction well under way, and she lets him rant for a few minutes while she digs in her bag for aspirin, swallows a handful of pills down with a healthy dose of alcohol and wills it to kick in soon.
One thing she knows for sure is that if she leaves this to them they'll never find a fucking solution, they'll still be yelling back and forth about it a week from now. She thinks it's probably one of the reasons why there are so many women in publicity; women get things done.
So she slams her glass down on the table to get their attention and says loudly, "Listen up, assholes, this is what we're going to do," and hopes that the next thing she says contains the basics of a workable plan.
Fandom: Entourage.
Characters: Shauna, Vince, Eric (Vince/Eric implied)
Rating: PG-13? Nothing you wouldn't get on the show itself.
Notes: This is a new fandom for me so I haven't really mastered the voices yet, but it's a fun fandom, y'all should write for it! There are pretty men and snarky women, it's awesome. 2,000 words, give or take a few.
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Shauna wouldn't put up with this from most of her clients. She's a good publicist -- no, actually, she's a great publicist -- and she has enough clients on her books that losing one, especially one that causes her this much trouble, wouldn't exactly break her. But Vincent Chase has a way of inspiring loyalty and she's sort of fond of Eric too, so when she sees the picture of the two of them that's splashed across the cover of US Weekly she manages to keeps her lecture to just over an hour and only threatens to quit once. Well, okay, twice. Per half hour. But she doesn't quit, that's how they know she still likes them.
No matter how many times she repeats herself, neither of them have ever learnt that she needs advance notice when there are things they expect her to control. She's good at her job but that doesn't mean she can work magic, even the best need a heads up every now and then, and the problem with Vince is that he doesn't seem to believe in sharing information, outside of with his boys, until he absolutely has to.
So here she is, pacing back and forth around their living room while they wait for Ari, with Vince and Eric sitting on the couch -- Eric looking a little worried and vaguely apologetic and Vince looking nothing of the sort -- wishing she didn't care about either of them so she could give in to the impulse to tear their fucking heads off and possibly save what little is left of her sanity.
"Look, Shauna. We're both really sorry, okay, but--"
"No, Eric," she snarls, "It is not okay. You assholes ever pull a stunt like this again and I am fucking done with you, do you hear me? I should let you drown in this mess."
"Shauna."
"Do you have any idea how this makes me look? Like I have no control over my fucking clients is how, when there are pictures like this out there for everyone to see and I didn't even fucking know about them until it was too late to do anything about it! You should have called me the second they got the fucking shot. Christ. How stupid are you two?"
"Shauna, c'mon, it wasn't like that," Vince says, holding his hands out to placate her as he trains his big, puppy dog eyes on her and silently pleads for her to understand. "We didn't know they got the picture, I swear, or of course we'd have called you."
Shauna's encountered just about every brand of Hollywood charm there is and she can resist all of them, but even she isn't entirely immune to Vincent Chase. Mostly but not entirely and it pisses her off.
"Don't look at me like that, Vincent. Do you have any idea how badly this could fuck up your career?" She spins away from him, still angry. "Was it worth it, huh? Was it?"
"Yes," he says simply, as open and honest and sincere as she's ever seen him, and she thinks great, now we're all fucked because that's something she can't ignore. She'd like to pretend she can, but she has a heart, as much as she usually tries to hide it, and she's not against them being happy. She just doesn't need them being happy on the cover of a magazine unless she's personally approved it.
Her rage fades and she sinks down on to an available chair, drops her head into her hands and tries to figure out where they can possibly go from here. She has to find a way to spin this and she will find a way to spin this, just as soon as her head stops pounding so she can think again.
She sighs and looks up and even Vince looks contrite, although she's pretty sure he's never really been acquainted with the emotion. Some days it's hard to remember why she ever wanted to get into this business to begin with.
"What can we do?" Eric asks quietly.
He's frowning, more concerned what this will mean for Vince and Vince's career than Vince is, darting worried glances at her, and she groans as Vince reaches out to rest an arm across his shoulders, rubbing his neck in soothing, circular motions.
"You can stop doing that, to start," she snaps at Vince, who pays absolutely no attention to her whatsoever. "Do you even know the meaning of the word 'discretion' or do I need to find you a fucking dictionary so you can look it up?"
"We're in our own home, for fuck's sakes," Eric snaps back and Shauna glares at him in a way that would have him laid out cold on the floor in seconds if looks could actually kill.
"And if you kept it to your own home we wouldn't have this problem, would we? But no, you had to go all Brokeback in public instead."
"You know what-- fuck this," Vince says, turning to Eric with a wild look in his eyes that makes Shauna's headache increase three-fold and her stomach sink with dread. She doesn't exactly know where this is going but she already knows she doesn't like it.
"Vince," Eric says, and Vince shakes his head.
"E, I'm serious." He grabs Eric's arm. "Fuck it. We came from nothing, right? I mean, yeah, I like this life but I don't need it and neither do you."
"Vincent," Shauna warns, rising to her feet to stare them both down. "Do not even think about doing what I think you're thinking about doing, because I swear to God--"
"Why not?" Vince challenges, staring right back. "I'm not putting my life on hold for anyone. Not for the business, not for you and not for Ari. Fuck that. Either you help me or you can leave right now."
"Enough," Eric says, putting a hand on Vince's arm and shooting Shauna an apologetic look. "Vince, just think about this for a second, okay? Ever since we were kids, this is what you've wanted to do. We fucked up, we weren't careful enough. Shauna's just trying to protect you. It's what you pay her for."
"She's not protecting me, E," Vince says, "She's covering her own ass, and Ari's and any one else who makes money off my pretty face."
Shauna's opening her mouth to respond to that when Eric shakes his head at Vince and pinches the bridge of his nose, looking as tired and drained as Shauna feels, and instead of speaking she watches. Watches Vince's expression soften as he puts his hand on Eric's shoulder, squeezing gently, and the way Eric reacts to it, and stamps down on the impulse to strangle them as she mentally switches tracks from deny everything to minimise the fallout. She hates that she can't ignore this.
"E, I don't want this life enough to give you up if I have to choose," he says sincerely, and Shauna thinks he might well have forgotten she's even in the room, as focused as he is. "You and me, that's the way it's always been and that's never gonna change, you have to know that."
"I do know that," Eric says. "But we do this, you know it can't be undone, right? You put this out there and it's gonna follow you for life."
"I don't care, E," Vince says, and Shauna thinks that's probably true.
Vince doesn't care because things have always worked out for him somehow. She doesn't think he knows what it's like to not eventually get whatever it is he wants.
"I don't care," he repeats, and this time he's looking at Shauna when he says it, eyes full of defiance and only the tiniest hint of fear.
It's that hint of fear that gets to her and she sighs -- briefly, but only briefly, regretting the day she agreed to take on Vincent Chase as a client -- then nods and waves a hand in resignation, sinking back into her chair. This whole situation is fucked up and any minute now, Ari's going to come barrelling up the driveway to out-rant her when he gives them his thoughts on the matter, and Shauna already knows she'll step up for them when he does. Because as much trouble as it's going to be and as much as it could potentially cost them, their feelings for each other are all too real in a town where everything is fake and no one can be trusted.
"Fine," she mutters, rubbing her temples. "It's your life, Vince. This is what you want then this is what you want, but don't think it'll be easy."
"Nothing ever is," Vince shrugs, his smile movie-star bright and his eyes shining. "But there's no other option, Shauna, not for me."
"Morons," she sighs, but she only half means it. Damn them both. "I need a drink."
"I think we have champagne," Vince offers. "And we have beer, or scotch, or, uh, other stuff. I'll go see."
He leaves and Shauna looks at Eric.
"Is there any chance his career's gonna survive this?" Eric asks, and his eyes are pleading for hope she's not sure she should be giving him when she doesn't know the answer. But then that's part of her job: making other people believe things, whether they're true or not. Whether she believes them or not.
"He'll survive it," she says, and thinks that, hey, maybe it'll even be true, maybe Vince is the one who can survive this unscathed, since god only knows he's been lucky so far. "But it'll take time."
"You actually believe that?" Eric asks, tiredly, because he knows too much about this business now to trust what she says without question. "Or are you just trying to make me feel better?"
"Like I give a fuck about your feelings," Shauna snorts. "Vince is a star, Eric. He's still gonna be a star, even romantically attached to your Irish ass."
"I'm not sure I want to know why you're thinking about Eric's ass," Vince says as he returns to the room, juggling an assortment of bottles and glasses and ignoring the way she rolls her eyes. "And, um, Ari just got here."
"We are so fucked," Eric says, reaching for a bottle of beer.
Vince drops down to sit next to him and Shauna pours herself a drink. She can hear Ari yelling even while he's still in the driveway and Turtle's voice raises in argument as the front door slams behind him. Eric's eyes harden and Vince slumps into his side, stealing his beer and taking a swig from the bottle.
Ari crashes into the room, full of fury and bluster and blind threats and Shauna takes a deep breath, jumping in before Eric can, in the hopes that she can control this and prevent any of them making it worse than it already is.
"Ari, sit down and shut the fuck up," she snaps, handing him a tumbler of whisky and refilling it when he downs it in one. "We need a plan."
The boys look both surprised and then pathetically grateful for the support and she thinks it'll do them no harm to remember that she is ultimately on their side. Maybe next time the shit hits the fan she'll get a call when it happens, instead of when she already knows. Of course, she doubts that, but Vince and Eric aren't the only ones who sometimes need a little hope.
"Fucking US Weekly!" Ari howls, throwing his glass against the wall where it shatters into a million pieces. "My top star is kissing his fucking manager on the front cover of US-fucking-Weekly! We need more than a fucking plan!"
He's off again, dire predictions and insults, the usual Ari Gold overreaction well under way, and she lets him rant for a few minutes while she digs in her bag for aspirin, swallows a handful of pills down with a healthy dose of alcohol and wills it to kick in soon.
One thing she knows for sure is that if she leaves this to them they'll never find a fucking solution, they'll still be yelling back and forth about it a week from now. She thinks it's probably one of the reasons why there are so many women in publicity; women get things done.
So she slams her glass down on the table to get their attention and says loudly, "Listen up, assholes, this is what we're going to do," and hopes that the next thing she says contains the basics of a workable plan.