Not like I don't do that kind of thing all the time (see also user name).

Yeah, I believe that Cordy could have gotten a part in a play or something.Even Joey from "Friends" got those, and he was never considered to be very good at all. And Cordy's hot,and go away, little Ivy plot bunny, I don't need you right now. But seriously, Cordy has beautiful brown eyes and is faintly emasculating...how much would Ari love her? And yes, almost everything about Vision Quest is LOL-worthy, except for the tired old stereotype about the sexless blogger in his mom's basement...I'm getting a bit sensitive about that, to tell you the truth. Back to the acting thing: But that's the thing, isn't it? The stakes in that business are so high that talented, worthy people fail. Or don't even fail, just stumble a little, and the machine spits them out.(That's why Ari pushes the popcorn flicks, huh?) I mean, I think all Drama did was grow up. Either that or get typecast from his couple years on the Kevin Sorbo circuit, but either way, it wasn't really his fault. Which is something that most TV isn't designed to cope with...and I better stop before I get an essay going I think, but yes, that actor lets us see Drama's self-protective bullshitter side, but also that he's a real guy chasing a real dream.

This is not really what I needed to write right now, but I've learned if you don't take what the muses give, they can get ugly. Part six of maybe 10...House/ Entourage Rating R, for language and sex-talk.

The guys were feeling better after the first dose of antibiotic, but somehow there was still comfort in numbers in hanging around together on the last night before Vince was due back on the set.

"Ok," Turtle said. "Quick poll: would you or would you not hit it with Dr. Cuddy? I say yes, she's like a MILF without the annoying kids."

"Older women do have certain skills," Drama acknowledged. "And she has a certain knowledge of male physiology as well."

"What?" Turtle said.

"She knows where all your buttons are," Eric supplied, out of habit."Why do we do this all the time? Turtle, I think your only criteria is that the woman be breathing, and you're starting to relax that one, too. In fact, there's a crack in the wall that begged me to protect it last night."

"That's not the question...the question is would you tap that sweet medical ass. Like, if she begged you and said "E, I've gotten bored and horny hanging out over these test tubes and shit...would you please fuck me, Eric Murphy, sir?' would you do it?"

"That wouldn't happen," Eric said. "I'm pretty sure she knows all the names of medical equipment, and I'd be worried about the insane doctor with the cane."

Turtle snorted. "One no, from our resident pussy."

Eric said "I'm not a pussy, but you know how Ari gets when we tease him about Mrs. Ari...shit, we still don't know her fuckin' name, and I still got the feeling that Dr. House could make that look like a day trip to Coney Island...survival instinct, bro."

Drama nodded sagely. Eric had a fleeting urge to slap the shit out of him. "Maslow's theory of needs....the need to survive is the only thing that trumps the need to mate."

Vince shot Drama a look. "Where do you get this shit, Drama?"

"What? I read a lot waiting for auditions. Excuse me for broadening my mind."Drama shrugged.

"That would be fine. Too bad it worked better on your ass,Drama."

"Turtle, if I looked like you, I'd never say the word ass, you know?"

"Guys..." Eric broke in.

"It's okay, E. Let 'em fight. They've been agreeing too much lately...it's freaking me out." Vince suggested.

"Ok, Turtle," Eric said. "Put me down as a 'maybe'. I am curious. Kristen says the brain is the most potent sexual organ."

Vince took a deep breath, paused, and put on one of his few serious expressions. "Now, E, don't get mad, okay, but how would she know?"

"So, what is she, stupid now?"

"No, not the brain part, the potent part...now, you've been making it with Kristen for mumble-mumble years now, and I agree that she's cute in a Barbie gets PMS kind of way, but she never struck me as the most *passionate* girl on the planet. Like when was the last time she made your toes curl, buddy? When was the last time you got hard thinking of her?"

"Kristen wouldn't like it if I talked about her this way."Eric squirmed and wished the fire alarm would go off.

"I'll bet."

Turtle said "Finally, somebody's talking some sense. Vince would definitely bang Dr. Cuddy, wouldn't you, Vince?"

"I'm not really into getting laid right now, Turtle."

"He was walloped by the strep thing pretty hard, no pun intended." Eric said, doing the loyal manager thing. He could probably do it in his sleep by now, and in the last few blurry days, he probably had. Somebody had to have signed for the elaborate basket of popsicles and juice that Ari sent over...but he didn't remember it. He suspected it meant something in one of Kristen's classes that Gold's card was positioned near the top, next to the pointiest bomb pop.

"Maybe he's delirious," Drama offered. "I played delirious on Little House once...had the cot right next to Shannen Doherty's. Shannen was perfectly nice when she was twelve...I don't know what happened (continued...)

( continues...) since."

Vince looked up at the ceiling and sighed. "It's not that, my head's all fucked up. I mean, I got out of Queens so I could come to LA and play a poor schmuck with a drunk for a father. In Queens.They had a casting call to see which dude sounded best when he called me good-for-nothing, and which was most believable when he cried later and felt bad about it...they did more picking a father for me than God ever did."

"I wasn't your manager then, Vince. I didn't get any input on that bit of casting. If I had, Jesus Christ..."

"You'd have given St. Peter hell, huh?"

"Damn straight...it's probably easier than going three rounds with Ari Gold."

::has no words::

Erika, it's like watching the fucking show, woman. You are AWESOME.

Thank you...that's a beautiful compliment. Even if it did mean that I'm really good at being a twelve-year-old boy. (And I'm making the assumption, since we don't really ever see it, that E & Vince were attracted to SB because it has a lot of raw, autobiographical material in it. But that can be a real mindfuck, I'd imagine, because it's like "Let's see you Emote through the Worst. Moment. Of Your Life.) Or one that's, like, close enough, right? It was hard, because I *am* an introspective intellectual who's been in tons of therapy, so I was constantly fighting my urge for E. and Vince to give away the store, emotionally, in the last bit. I was constantly thinking "Hello? Young guys?"

So, Ari gets a little vulnerable in this bit. For Ari, anyway.Maybe not for most people.

Ari Gold had that dream where he was at his office and he wasn't wearing pants(or,to clarify, the less-fun version, without his lovely new assistant Eliza Whatsis, that bad one from the vampire show his niece liked) This one was purely an anxiety dream, of the sort he'd had on and off since law school, and Ari hated it. He was also puzzled, as they tended to decline in frequency once the money came in, or maybe that was just because he slept less.

He looked around the darkened anonymous hotel room, unsure of where he was, and when he tried to call Lloyd his throat burned and a sniff came out of him that reminded him of the little problem with the powder from his bachelor days.

"Lisa," he said into his cell phone. "Come over. I'm dying."

He then spent the twenty minutes of his waning life torn between the urge to call his wife(he decided he wouldn't. Let his one decent act be one morning where she could lie unmolested by calls coming from the other coast. It wasn't like she didn't know where the insurance stuff was; she put it there.) and wondering vaguely whether calling a hot doctor in his last moments would cause a John Garfield legend to build up around him. He decided he would like that, but maybe his wife wouldn't. It might interfere with the only good thing about being dead--the chance to be fucking idealized.

Finally, the knock at the door. "You keep a dying man waiting?"

"You're not dying. I was at the pharmacy. So, I guess you're not bulletproof. I'm sorry about that. I did warn you this could happen."

"But it can't. I have a sit-down with Bruckheimer at 9:01 on Friday."

"So what, you're going to name-drop this germ into submission? I don't think so, Ari. Besides, isn't he the jerk that makes all the movies where the water towers blow up? I hate those kinds of movies."

"You're not a fifteen year old boy,"And she thought she saw his gaze linger on her breasts, and the disturbing part was she wasn't sure how she felt about that.High School Lisa would be very appalled as High School Ari was in AV and very much a step down for even a science-geek loner like she had been, but he wasn't too short anymore and surely those rumors about him hanging around gymnastics practice with a Polaroid were just that, rumors, and surely she was old enough not to pay attention to petty gossip. To cover her discomfort, she busied herself opening a package of paper cups and the antibiotics."Here," she said, handing him a bottle of water and a pink pill. "Take that."

"If I take two of these bitches...will I get better faster?"

"No! You're still not any good at science, are you?"

"You should have seen your fuckin' face, Lisa. I haven't seen a woman get that appalled since Cancun '92. But you got all white and shit...nice. Made me think you really cared.If you can tell me how you did it, I might not completely screw the pooch on this Bruckheimer thing."

"I care if you die, Ari."

"Wow, that is the second sweetest thing a woman ever said to me....well, without Dr. Grossman moderating."

""And I'm actually feeling a little guilty. Because, when you called me to come to your room, I thought..."

Gold held up a hand. "No confessions. We're both a little wacky here, me from what I can only assume is a fever, although it can't be helped by proximity to that Crusading Doctor thing you've got going on. I've got transference wood, Lisa. I am serious. If I were my whole self, I would totally take you over to that piece of shit table and give you a transcendent experience. It's the least I could do...you saved my life. Do you ever just wake up, Lisa, and think 'I'm Lisa Cuddy, and I'm going to make some disease my bitch today? Because you should. Because you can."

"No, Ari, I don't do that," Cuddy told him, though there was some new pep in her step, she had to admit."Because my job isn't some big glorified game of paintball where I count (continued...)

( continues...) up the corpses every day."

"You know, people say that to me all the time. Well, usually not twice, but you can get by with it because you knew me before I had hair on my dick...okay, I still don't get it. If that's the way I experience what I do, how am I glorifying it?"

"Maybe you should rest now, Ari.Try to sleep. I understand transcendent experiences take a lot out of a person."

More of my fic:
Cuddy couldn't believe her ears when she heard Gold sound so chastened on the phone "Baby, it's me. No, I won't be home till tomrrow. I'm sick. What do you mean, you know? What kind of thing is that to say...what do you think Doctor GrossmanETA: I decided he was Grossman before...will fix. ED) would say if he knew you said that? We both signed that agreement about not poisoning the well, remember? No, of course I won't tell him, but I'm just saying, darling. Tell Sarah Vince is also fine. Yes, he went back to work this morning. But I could get comlplications if I fly and it could be hard to pay for weeks in the South of France if I'm suddenly deaf. Although it might be an advantage with some of my clients, ha, ha. Oh, I'm sure the doctors will be absolutely thrilled to know about the doctors your dad knows at Sloan-Kettering, although those are oncologists, darling and I'm like, 90% sure I don't have throat cancer...of course I'll pass along their names anyway. Just in case. Sure. Yes, I know your dad could never do enough for me. When I'm flat on my fuckin' back...no, there was no tone. I just sound funny from all the medication. Love and kisses." And then Ari made kissing noises in the phone, and for a moment he looked like that boy that couldn't name the parts of a cell all over again.

"I'll handle it," House said, when Cuddy told him.

"You? Sure, because when I have a ticklish interpersonal situation I always ask myself what you would do. But mostly so I can do the opposite."

"Well, that explains the blouse."

"With the two of you around, a polo shirt seemed right for some reason." Cuddy's cheeks were pink. "Don't be obnoxious."

"But how would you recognize me? Apart from the bitchin' cane."

"No, on the phone. They are funding my women's clinic, House. Pretend to be a normal person...promise me."

"For a woman like Mrs. Gold, I'm better than a normal person. I'm a doctor."

And he took the phone from the downcast agent's hand. Ari being too upset to pay attention to the fact that House wiped it down before he used it.

House played the odds and hit one on the agent's speed-dial.

"Shalom, Mrs. Gold, yes, I have your husband here. He's very upset not to be flying to see you tonight, but I told him he couldn't...uh huh.What? Nephrology and infectious disease...no, I'm absolutely not trying to soft-pedal that something is wrong with your husband's kidneys. Not at all...Johns Hopkins. Mostly cause I didn't get in at the University of Chicago like your oh-so-clever spouse. Oh, somebody's quite a fast hand with the Google isn't she? Well, what can I say, Mrs. Gold? As the philosopher says, I fight authority, authority always wins. See, it's not every talented man, if I may say so, who has the kind of civilizing influence someone like you provides."

House said goodbye and clicked END.

"You're sending flowers,"

"You don't have to do that, man. Although I love you for offering."

"I'm not; Dr.Wilson is."

"House," Cuddy warned him. "You have to stop stealing from Wilson."

"It wouldn't be a month for Wilson without my unauthorized charges, Cuddy."

"I would say I'd erect a statue to you,doctor, But I wouldn't want you getting excited." Gold replied.

"Just never try to hug me again and we're fine. I'd hate to have you slip on my cane again."

is slain