[ o n . e m p t y . b a l c o n i e s ]
by kHo

Tinkling glasses ring out through the night, drifting over the Hollywood hills like locusts on a hot summer night in Kentucky. He thinks he´d much rather be in Kentucky, and it´s the first time he´s thought that in a while. Laughter that reeks of hollowness wafts past him, and the scent of too much perfume in too confined of a space makes him itch to somehow slink out of his body just to get away.

He´s managed to find his way to the lone balcony though, and the cool air dissipates the noxiously fragrant air just enough to let him breathe. There are stars out, and he´s got a bottle of wine resting on the ledge, and things seem to slow down enough for him to finally smile. He´s not unaccustomed to tuning things out, and he´s almost succeeded in forgetting there are 10´s of 1000´s of fake smiling assholes at his back.

There´s a creak, and a slide, and as he turns his head he sees a figure quickly duck out onto the balcony with him. He smiles softly to himself as he sees the figure look through the window back at the party in a weirdly suspicious way, as if playing hide and seek.

“Fucking God damn jackals,” the man says, turning. His eyes widen as he sees him sitting there. “Oh, I´m sorry. I thought this was empty out here.”

“That´s okay,” Johnny says, nodding to the chair in front of him. “Sit.”

The taller man hesitates, his fingers lingering on the door handle that leads back to the party. “Do you mind? Cause I was really just looking for some place I could--”

Johnny laughs. “Breathe?” At the man´s nod he laughs again, dropping his feet from the chair and pulling it closer to him. “I don´t mind, Vince. Sit.”

Vince laughs and plops heavily down into the chair, flinging his feet up on the ledge and leaning his head back. “I fucking hate these things.”

Johnny nods, filling his glass to the top with dark red wine and handing it over to Vince. “Me too, which is why I´m out here.”

Vince opens one eye and looks over at Johnny, not moving his head as he swirls the wine in a lazy roll. “You sure you don´t mind me barging in on your little slice of serenity? I could find somewhere else, ya know.”

“Nah,” Johnny says, tapping his fingers on the sides of the bottle of wine. “You I don´t mind.”

Vince heaves a laborious sigh, reaching into his pocket and getting a cigarette out. Johnny´s lighter hovers in his face before he can locate his own and he smiles in appreciation as he leans over to light it. “I have to say, Johnny, I didn´t expect to see you here.”

Johnny frowns, lighting his own cigarette. “Out *here* here, or at this party, here?”

“At this party,” Vince says, giggling and leaning his head back against the chair again. “You don´t seem the Hollywood Party type these days.”

“I´m very much not,” Johnny says with an adamant shake of the head. “But I felt obligated.”

Vince nods. “I figured.”

Johnny shrugs. “I got nominated, ya know? And that´s crazy, and out of this world, but… it´s a huge compliment, and I´d feel as though I weren´t being appreciative if I didn´t put in at least a little face time.”

“Deserved it, babe,” Vince says, nodding his head. “Years ago, but what are ya gonna do?”

Johnny laughs. “I don´t know about all that, but thank you.”

“So have they started yet,” Vince asks, his mouth quirked up in a smirk.

“Started what?”

Vince sits up, making a sympathetic face and touching Johnny on the arm. “I´m so sorry you lost Johnny. You deserved to win. How are you feeling? Can I get anything for you?”

Johnny feels the laughter bubble up in his throat and is almost surprised when he lets it rumble out. “Yes. Exactly. They have,” he says, laughing again and shaking his head. “The only bad part of the night has been the sympathy that´s getting thrown my way. I didn´t care about the losing, but the people saying they´re sorry. That´s-- That´s just--”

“Really fucking annoying.”

“Yes.”

“Well how about this,” Vince says, laying his hand on Johnny´s arm. “I´ll promise to never treat you with sympathy for losing, if you promise to never treat me with sympathy for never being nominated. Ever.”

Johnny laughs, covering Vince´s hand with his own. “Deal.”

As they smoke the rest of their cigarettes a comfortable silence fills the air, and Johnny wonders why he´d never really talked to Vince Vaughn before. He´s seen him around, at parties and the like, but they´ve never said more than a few sentences to each other before moving on. He looks over at him and smiles, pleased that the man who´d walked in on his serenity was a man as wary of the bullshit of Hollywood as himself.

“I´m glad you came out here,” he says, smiling and nodding. “We´ve never really gotten a chance to talk before.”

“Different circles,” Vince says, letting out a puff of smoke before laughing. “Besides, I never go to France.”

Johnny starts to reply but there´s a loud ruckus below them followed by the shattering of glass and he looks at Vince as he rises to see what it was. They both stand and look down at a smattering of people in the parking lot, drunk and teetering on the edge of sanity, yelling at a rapidly retreating car.

“Ya know what its like, Johnny,” Vince says, crossing his arms over the ledge and tilting his head towards him. “High school.”

Johnny laughed. “Yeah. It is.”

“There´s this little clique, that never never ever talks to this little clique. And there´s these guys that you don´t mess with, or even look at. And then there´s those girls over there that all they do is gossip and smoke cigarettes they don´t even inhale. Then you have these guys over there that no one likes but they have money and wheels, so all the girls fawn over them even though they´d never fuck them.” He shakes his head. “It´s fucking high school.”

Johnny laughs, nodding. “Exactly.”

Vince groans, turning around and resting his back against the wall, crossing his arms. “I almost envy you. Living in France I mean. Escaping this bullshit. I´m in the rags all the time. Vince with the temper. Vince the partier. Vince, the big man with all the rage.”

Johnny smirks. “Yeah, I´m not exactly unfamiliar with that particular label.”

Vince frowns for a moment before realization dawns in his eyes. “Ah, right. The hotel.”

Johnny nods. “And the menacing a photographer with a bat.”

Vince laughs. “I broke a dude´s camera once. You´d have thought I shot his kid.”

“Yeah,” Johnny asks, smirking up at him. “Try being blamed for River Phoenix´s death.”

“Mmm,” Vince grunts in sympathy. “That one I don´t envy.”

“I´m just waiting for the ‘he´s gay´ rumors to start flying,” Johnny says, laughing and lighting another cigarette. “I´m sure that´s next when *The Libertine* comes out.”

“Oh, Johnny, they´re already there,” Vince says with a smirk. “Don´t you know American girls? A man has any kind of chemistry with another man in a movie, next thing you know thousands of girls start thinking dirty little thoughts in their heads about ‘what if´.”

Johnny laughs, nodding his head. “True.”

“In fact, I´m willing to lay bets,” Vince says, slinging his arm around Johnny´s shoulders and winking at him. “Anyone gets a picture of me and you tonight, someone´s going to see it, and it´s going to get passed around. Next thing you know, there´s little stories popping up on the internet about how after the shutter clicked we were making out like schoolgirls.”

“Well who can blame them,” Johnny says, grinning and licking his lips. “Two good looking men like us? Surely we can´t keep our hands off each other.”

“That *is* true,” Vince says, giggling and tugging on a strand of Johnny´s hair.

“Not that it would bother me,” Johnny says, chewing on his lip contemplatively. “It´s not as though I´ve never had thoughts of another man before.”

Vince´s eyebrows rise as he looks down at him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, of course,” Johnny says, laughing. “Hasn´t everyone?”

Vince´s grin slowly spreads as he nods his head. “Most everyone anyway. Don´t usually admit it though.”

“Some men just have a fluid sexuality,” Johnny continues, drawing in a slow drag from his cigarette. “You do, as a matter of fact,” he says, pointing at Vince and smiling softly.

“Do I,” Vince asks, winding a lock of Johnny´s hair around his finger as his smile turns a slight bit more feral.

Johnny looks at him and finds it a little harder to swallow, nodding his head. “Yeah.”

“So you´ve thought about it,” Vince says, his thumb lightly brushing the side of Johnny´s neck. His grin widens as Johnny´s eyes fall half way shut. “But have you ever acted on it?”

“I, uh--” Johnny´s hand comes up to rest on his neck, blocking the ticklish path Vince´s thumb had been making. He purses his lips and tries to steady his voice. “Yes. A few times anyway.”

Vince´s grin widens even more. “Anyone I know?”

Johnny raises an eyebrow at him, smiling softly. “Not that I´d tell you.”

“Too bad,” Vince says, curling his fingers under Johnny´s hand and brushing a finger over his palm. “Might be an interesting fact to hold over their head.”

Johnny´s laugh is a little shakier than he would have expected it to be. Things had certainly taken an interesting and unexpected turn. “Precisely why I wouldn´t tell you.”

Vince hummed in agreement, taking a step to face Johnny more squarely. “And if I were to kiss you right now. Would you tell anyone I had?”

Johnny´s grin widened, surprised by Vince´s bluntness. “No,” he says, looking up at him and trying to figure out how serious he was. “I don´t reckon I would.”

“Good,” Vince says, his hand covering Johnny´s and his other coming up to brush over his cheek. “Cause I´d hate to spread the rumor. The rags tend to blow innocent little things like that out of proportion.”

“Yes, they do,” Johnny says, just barely above a whisper.

Vince grins as he leans forward, lightly brushing his lips over Johnny´s. He pulls back and looks at him, narrowing his eyes slightly as Johnny stares back at him. “Am I making a wrong call here,” he asks.

Johnny shakes his head, reaching forward and gathering a fistful of Vince´s white button up shirt in his hand, pulling him closer. “Not in the slightest.”

When Vince´s lips descend on his again, it´s not as tender. It´s bruising almost, and Johnny can feel Vince pushing his back into the wall as it intensifies. He opens his mouth in invitation and without hesitation Vince has taken it upon himself to wind his tongue lazily into Johnny´s mouth. Vince leans harder into him and he feels a moan escape out of him before he realizes it´s going to.

Suddenly all the noise, all of the alcohol, and all of the fake laughter has faded away. The only thing Johnny hears is Vince´s heartbeat in his throat, the only thing he feels is Vince´s body pressed so closely to his. He feels as though he´s floated away on some cloud of nothingness, and the only things that mattered were the hands in his hair and the tongue in his mouth.

When Vince pulls away it takes a good moment or two before Johnny can pry his eyes open, and when he does he can´t help but laugh at the self-satisfied smirk on Vince´s face. It´s a smirk he knows well, and it´s a smirk he´s seen in the mirror more than a few times. He takes a deep breath and reaches behind him to steady himself on the wall behind him.

“Well that was interesting,” he said, grinning.

Vince raises his eyebrows and tilts his head. “Is that all?”

Johnny laughs and starts to reply, stopping as he sees someone open the door and poke his head out. “Someone to see you, Mr. Vaughn,” he says instead, smiling and licking his lips.

Vince turns, smiling at the newly appeared man and motioning for him to come outside. “Jonny Favz. You found me.”

Jon smiled at Johnny, nodding his head. “Yeah, looks like.” He looks at Vince and narrows his eyes. “What are you two up to?”

Vince grins, winking at Johnny. “Just havin´ a chat, Favzy. You ready to hit the road?”

“Yeah,” Jon says, nodding. He looks over at Johnny and frowns slightly. “Sorry about tonight Johnny. You deserved to win.”

Johnny smiles, nodding his head. “Thank you.”

Vince rolls his eyes, slinging an arm around the shorter man´s shoulders. “Original, Favzy,” he says, smiling at Johnny and reaching out a hand to him. “Nice talkin´ to ya, Depp.”

Johnny shakes his hand, holding back a laugh. “Same, Vince.”

He leans against the wall and watches the two of them enter the party that was still going strong, a hand lifting to his mouth. He could still feel Vince´s lips on his, and he wonders what might have happened if Jon Favreau hadn´t popped his head in on them at that moment. His smile deepens as he thinks it doesn´t matter, because he´d have gone along for the ride anyway.

So here´s to the Oscars, and here´s to the after parties, because you never know what´ll happen behind closed doors.

Or on empty balconies, as it were.

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