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konstantyaTitle: They’ll Ask Me Why and I’ll Tell Them I’d Rather
Fandom: This Gun For Hire (1942)
Genre: AU, drama, romance.
Characters/pairings: Philip Raven/Ellen Graham
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 6,020
Summary: Sequel to There Are Dreams I Must Gather. Philip Raven returns to the club, as promised. (Or, in a very special performance, Miss Ellen Graham deconstructs the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope.)
Notes: It wasn’t necessary to mention it in There Are Dreams I Must Gather, but for the purposes of these fics, I headcanon that Ellen moves away from California after the events of the film. I suspect she becomes pretty well known in L.A. (and even San Francisco) as “that nightclub singer who was taken hostage by that guy who stole all that money,” and when you combine that with her breaking up with Michael, well, I can see her wanting to get away and start fresh, so to speak. So this fic and the previous one actually take place in Chicago.
If you’d like to leave a comment, please do so on AO3!
“So what should I call you these days?” Ellen asked. “Since you said you changed your name.” She adjusted her gloves in the evening air, surprised not for the first time by just how chilly Chicago could be, even halfway into May. She’d grown fond of the city—maybe even loved it—but sometimes she had to wonder if she would ever entirely get used to the climate. Even her native state of Missouri hadn’t been quite so cold.
“‘Phil,’ I guess,” he said with a shrug, his own hands buried in the pockets of his trench coat. “If that ain’t too familiar for you.”
In truth, it was; she’d never really liked the sound of just ‘Phil.’ “Is ‘Philip’ all right?”
He shrugged again. “Sure.”
Philip, then. That night was the third time he’d come to the club in as many weeks, and rather than stay tucked away at some corner table, she’d managed to invite him back to her place. Ostensibly, he’d accepted simply to meet her cat, but she also suspected the atmosphere of the club was beginning to be a bit much for him—all the music and dancing and drinking, none of which he seemed to have any genuine interest in. Her apartment was more conducive to conversation anyway, and—much as she liked her place of work—even she had to admit that she was looking forward to the extra privacy.
“And your last name?” Ellen asked. She added a little teasingly, “In case I ever have to introduce you to anyone?” A tension gathered in his shoulders, and he turned his head away and mumbled something. “Sorry, did you say ‘Gray’?”
“‘Graham,’” he corrected, this time too loudly and clearly to be mistaken. Ellen came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the sidewalk.
“You mean you… You took my name?”
Philip stopped as well, and turned to face her somewhat defensively. “Hey, last I knew, you were gettin’ married,” he pointed out. “Didn’t think you’d be needin’ it much more.”
“But…you took my name,” she said again, and a flattered smile came over her features. Was this what men felt, she wondered, upon their wedding days? Or was it something so expected, they simply took it for granted?
“Yeah? So what?” he challenged gruffly. “It’s a good name. Nice and common.”
“But…” She shook her head and let the issue drop. In a way, she shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, he’d flouted enough cultural conventions in his time—don’t murder people, don’t take people hostage, don’t steal cars, etc., etc.—that she supposed it only made sense for him to flout this one as well. She resumed walking, and Philip fell back in step beside her. “Fine. But just for the record,” she added, with a sly sideways glance at him, “you never get to say anything ever again about the fact that I named my cat after you.”
He didn’t blush, of course he didn’t, but something about his demeanor turned slightly chagrined all the same. “Deal,” he said, and Ellen laughed.
They continued on like that for a while—in easy silence, at a casual pace—until the ludicrousness of the whole situation hit her, and suddenly another laugh bubbled up out of her throat. At the sound, Philip looked at her sharply, but she waved him off with her hand.
“Sorry,” she said, managing to subdue her giggles. “I was just thinking about how strange it is to be walking with you so leisurely for once. You know, not running or otherwise being dragged behind you.”
He seemed to take a moment to let that register. “I could grab your upper arm, if you think that’d make you feel any better,” he offered, and Ellen burst into a fresh round of titters. He looked at her again, but this time a touch curiously, and a half-smile tugged hesitantly at his mouth. “Was that funny?” he asked, as if he wasn’t quite sure how humor worked, and she dashed tears of mirth away from her eyes.
“I don’t know,” she confessed, grinning at him helplessly. “I don’t know. Maybe?”
---
“Nice place,” he said, surveying the room upon her seeing them in. He wasn’t one for small talk, so Ellen had to assume he meant it.
“Thanks.” She shucked her hat and jacket, hooking them on her coat rack. “Another friend of mine keeps saying I should go for something larger, but I like the size. It’s just me and the cat, after all, and neither of us take up a lot of space. Feel free to hang up your coat, by the way,” she told him, moving toward the kitchen. “Would you like a cup of coffee? A glass of water?”
“Coffee’s okay.” He draped his own coat and hat over the rack, then followed her into the other room. There was a small table with a couple of chairs tucked under the window, but rather than sit, Philip propped himself against the wall next to them. There was something a bit uncertain about him, like he was still learning how to interact with people on a personal level, so Ellen let it slide. Instead, she loaded her percolator and plugged it in. From there, she turned to her cupboard to pull down two cups, but was distracted by a black shadow slinking through the kitchen doorway.
“Well,” she drawled, “look who decided to show up?” She was about to officially introduce the cat, but Philip had already pushed himself away from the wall, crouching down to balance on the balls of his feet.
“Hey, there, fella,” he said affectionately. He held out his hand, and Ellen blinked, once again finding herself surprised by how incredibly boyish he became around animals. The change in his manner was so severe, one would almost think he was an entirely different person, and she couldn’t help but wonder if this was what he’d been like, back before the incident with his aunt. Back before she’d broken his wrist and maybe something else, something more intangible, with it.
Raven slowly approached and gave his fingers a suspicious sniff. Philip tried to scratch behind his ear, but the cat undulated away, moving to the side of the stove where he proceeded to sit like some reluctant sentry.
Ellen smirked a little ruefully. “I told you he doesn’t really like being pet. And sorry if he stares at you for the rest of the night. He isn’t too keen on visitors, either.”
Philip grinned, brushing it off with ease. “Nah, don’t worry about it. He’s probably just bein’ protective. Makin’ sure you’re doin’ okay, you know?”
It was such an apt description of his own behavior—that had led him to the club that very first night—that she stopped in the middle of reaching for her sugar bowl. She looked at him, still crouched on the floor, but his eyes were focused wholly on the cat, and if he’d meant anything beyond the obvious with the words, there was no outward indication of it. After a moment, he must have sensed her silence, for he turned and questioningly raised his eyebrows at her. Ellen shook her head, slightly embarrassed, and resumed the retrieval of her sugar bowl. The coffee was beginning to perk, and she poured a measure of milk into a creamer, then set both additives on the table. Philip brought himself back to his full height, hovering unsurely, and it was only when she brought the two drinks to the table that he finally sat down.
“Thanks again for agreeing to come back with me,” she said, putting a standard spoonful of sugar and a dollop of milk into her coffee. “As a performer, I’m used to being a night owl, but I know not everyone keeps such late hours. I was worried you might have to wake up early or something. You never did tell me what your schedule was.” And with that, all of a sudden, Ellen became anxious. He’d mentioned working in freight before, so what if he was only in town for a relatively short while? What if he’d only agreed to come back to her apartment that night because he knew he’d soon be gone?
It turned out to be a moot concern. “In between jobs at the moment,” he said. “Though it’s time I should probably start lookin’ for another.” She surreptitiously released a breath of relief, then watched in wonder as he added no sugar but nearly double cream into his own cup. Somehow, she’d expected him to be the type to religiously drink it black.
She took a sip, considering what he’d said. “You know, if you want, I could see if there’s anything available at the club. If nothing else, I know the kitchen is almost always looking for dishwashers.”
Philip grimaced at the prospect. “Lots of people in kitchens.”
“Well,” she said diplomatically, “it’s better than waiting tables, as far as avoiding people goes.”
“True,” he relinquished, and she smiled briefly in amusement.
“I’m serious, though. I could put in a good word for you.”
He made some vague, dismissive motion with his head and ran a fingertip along the rim of the porcelain. “You don’t have to help me out.”
Men and their ever-loving pride, Ellen thought. He might have been unusual enough to have no problem taking a woman’s last name, but there still seemed to be some masculine foibles even he couldn’t fully avoid. “I know I don’t have to,” she conceded. “But if I want to?”
He quirked a skeptical eyebrow at her and she shot back her most winning smile, throwing in a few bats of her eyelashes for good, comedic measure. It was refreshing to interact with a man who was so utterly impervious to her physical charms, and she found herself having fun with it more and more often. At the display, Philip sighed long-sufferingly, then took a drink of his coffee. “I’ll think about it,” he said, and Ellen laughed and let it go.
---
“‘Graham’?” Millie asked, when Ellen made the introductions on his first day of work.
“It’s just a coincidence,” she lied, with a breezy roll of her eyes. “He isn’t some long-lost relative or anything, trust me.”
“I guess stranger things have been known to happen,” Millie acknowledged with a shrug. “Old friends from California, you said?” Ellen nodded. “Well, that’s swell, your getting back in touch over here. How’d you guys first meet, if you don’t mind my asking?” And the question shouldn’t have thrown her, it really shouldn’t have, but Ellen still found herself standing there, befuddled, remembering only a pistol poking her in the back, and being towed all around L.A., and the earnestness of his expression when he’d offered to help her in exchange for her acting as a decoy.
“Um…” she stammered, and once again Philip unexpectedly came to her rescue.
“On a train,” he told Millie. “San Francisco to Los Angeles.”
“We ended up sitting next to each other,” Ellen elaborated, and a part of her had to marvel at their dynamic in that moment, how he noticed she needed some sort of lead, and how easily she managed to follow it when provided.
“Oh, neat,” Millie remarked. “And you guys just hit it right off?”
They looked at each other, and Ellen couldn’t help but laugh a little nervously. “Not…exactly?”
“I tried to steal five bucks from her,” Philip bluntly said. Millie blinked, but before she could say anything, Ellen waved it off with an indulgent smile.
“He was short on cash; it was all just a big misunderstanding.”
“Oh,” Millie said. But then she laughed and took the story in stride. “Well. Hell of a start to a friendship, that’s for sure.”
---
“So this Philip guy,” Millie said one day, while they were out on lunch break at one of the local cafés. “Not your usual type, is he? Pretty quiet and standoffish.”
Ellen’s jaw slowed down in the middle of chewing a bite of chicken salad sandwich. She swallowed and tried to play it casual. “So?”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining,” Millie clarified, finishing the rest of her soup. “I’m of the firm opinion that more men should know how to keep their mouths shut, after all. I was just wondering what the draw for you is.”
“Oh. Well, um… It’s kind of hard to describe,” Ellen hedged. She took a sip of her drink to buy herself some time. “It’s, um…kind of personal…”
Millie pulled out a cigarette and lit it with the confidence of a mystery solved. “Ah, good in the bedroom. Got it.”
“Oh, my God, Millie!” Ellen whisper-shrieked. “No! It isn’t like that!”
“Really? Because I’ve been with a couple quiet types, myself, and in my experience it’s the ones who don’t feel the need to brag who are usually the best at what they d—”
“No. I mean we’re just friends.”
“Oh,” Millie said. “Well, in that case, do you mind if I have a go at him?”
“Millie,” Ellen warned, but the other woman just laughed.
“All right, all right,” she yielded with a mischievous grin, “claim staked, I understand. Rest assured, you don’t have to worry about me muscling in on your territory.”
Ellen was blushing furiously, and she put down the tail-end of her sandwich, her appetite for it fleeing altogether. “It isn’t like that,” she said again. “We’re just friends.”
Millie cocked her head and raised a sculpted eyebrow, a bit too perceptive for her own good. “But you wouldn’t mind being more, is that what I’m getting here?”
“I…” And Ellen trailed off, looking at her plate, because she hardly knew, herself.
“Look,” Millie said, “I don’t bring it up just to tease, you know. I bring it up because I think you should go for it.”
Ellen jerked her head up, stunned yet again. “What?”
“Well, yeah,” she said, brandishing the rest of her coffee. “I mean, I know you normally go for more lighthearted guys, but they never seem to stick, Ell. You go on, what?—two, three, maybe four dates, and then you drop ’em like a sack of old potatoes. And sure, maybe his job isn’t as illustrious as it could be, but the change of pace might be good for you. Maybe dour dishwasher Philip Graham is just what the doctor ordered.”
---
“Do we really have to do this?” Philip asked sourly. It was a Monday, after lunch, and they stood in the middle of her living room. His suit jacket was draped over her coat rack and her coffee table had been pushed off to the side to make more space on the floor.
“Yes!” she insisted with a laugh. “You’re thirty-two years old, and you don’t know how to dance.”
“Why the hell do I need to know how to dance?” he fired back. Ellen raised her chin at him defiantly.
“What if there ends up being a girl you like, who you want to take out sometime?” Philip’s eyebrow dipped so low at the question, the expression was almost comical.
“Unlikely,” was all he said.
“Well, then, what if I want to dance with you sometime in the future?” His features morphed into a begrudging scowl, and Ellen suppressed a satisfied smirk. Despite his efforts to avoid it, he’d become a sucker for her all the same.
Philip complained, “That’s dirty pool, and you know it.”
“Well,” she said primly, taking his left hand in her right and placing the other on his shoulder, “if I’m ruthless these days, I learned it from you. Now put your arm around my back. A little bit lower. There.
“Now,” she went on, “it’s important that you keep your feet staggered, otherwise you’ll end up stepping on your partner’s toes. This is the basic foxtrot step I’m about to teach you, by the way, and you can use the foxtrot just about anywhere. So start with your left foot and take two slow steps forward…then a quick step to the side. And then you do the same thing, except go backwards this time. So left foot, back…back…then quick to the side. Now, technically,” Ellen said, as she pulled him forward again, “you should be the one leading, but we’ll get to that in time. For now, just try to get the hang of the movements. I know you’re worried about my feet, but you don’t need to look down, trust me. As long as you kind of lead with your knee, I’ll be able to tell where your leg’s going.” They reached the edge of the floor space, and she turned them around. “Okay, now let’s go back.”
“I feel ridiculous,” Philip muttered with a frown. Ellen patted his shoulder consolingly.
“I won’t lie—you’re a little stiff,” she granted. “But you’ll get better with practice, I promise! After all, you scaled a wall and managed to catch a moving train underneath you—or so I heard, at least. You aren’t completely without a sense of grace or timing.”
Philip stopped and looked down at her. “You’re always doin’ that,” he said, but it was more of a curious statement of fact than an accusation. “You did it back then, and you’re doin’ it again now.”
Ellen blinked, baffled. “Doing what?”
“Believin’ in me. Tellin’ me I can be somethin’ more.”
She blinked again, taken aback by the insight. “Well…” she began, a little embarrassed, “somebody has to, right?”
“I’m not sayin’ I’m ungrateful,” he pointed out. “I’m just…wonderin’ why.”
“Well, because…” she began, but immediately trailed off, at a loss. She took a breath and tried again. “Because…” But she found she had to swallow, and all she could do was look up at him, at his youthfully handsome face and oddly piercing eyes. His left hand was still clasped around hers, and his right was still resting on the back of her ribs, and she was suddenly reminded of when she’d come to in Willard Gates’ house. Was suddenly reminded of how he’d helped her sit up, of how frighteningly close he’d held her and how thankful she’d been, despite herself. And then there she was, trembling in his arms again like a leaf, and her throat simply closed right up with the realization.
Because I have to believe you can be something more, she thought. Because if you can’t be, then what was it all worth? All the worry and fear and sympathy and being attacked. All the running about Los Angeles and crawling through a drain pipe and twisting her ankle and patching his wrist. All her disappointment with him for breaking one promise and her pride in him for keeping another, all her fights with Michael and her long days at rehearsal, trying to lose herself, all the tears and effort and anger and exhaustion. What was it all worth in the end? She’d helped her country, sure, and even had a formal letter of thanks from Washington to prove it, but sometimes it all seemed so distant and abstract. If she hadn’t been successful back then, would it really have spelled disaster for the overall war effort? Against her will, her eyes welled up, and Philip abruptly looked as if he’d taken a wrong turn in a bad neighborhood.
“Aw, Jesus,” he said, uncharacteristically anxious, “don’t cry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“I know,” Ellen said, aware of the absurdity, but nevertheless unable to stop the tears from falling. “I’m sorry. I’m just—” And there it was: “I’m such a mess.” Finally, she pulled away from him and shakily sank down onto the edge of her sofa. Philip spent a panicked moment scanning the room, then plucked a decorative handkerchief off of a shelf. He handed it to her wordlessly, and she took it without looking at him, burying her mouth in the fabric as great sobs engulfed her. Slowly, he lowered himself down next to her on the piece of furniture.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, brokenly. “I don’t know what’s come over me. I just—” She gestured at him, so unaccountably lost. “I just don’t know what to do with you.”
He started at that and quietly offered, “Look, I can go if y—”
“No,” Ellen said, frantically cutting him off, because somehow if he left, that would be even worse. “No, I don’t want you to go. I just don’t know what to do with you,” she repeated. She looked at him helplessly through watery eyes. “I mean, what do you do with a man who almost killed you and then saved your life?”
He blinked, and appeared profoundly uneasy at the question, rhetorical though it had been. After a moment he said, “I’m sorry about that, you know.”
“But you aren’t,” she chided. “Or you weren’t, at least. And that’s okay. Or—I don’t know, maybe it isn’t. I just—” She broke off again. A good minute passed, and she managed a couple gasping breaths. The handkerchief was thoroughly damp with tears, and her nose felt red and congested.
“I don’t want you to go,” she said again, just to make sure he got it. “Don’t—” She swallowed and turned to him beseechingly. “Don’t disappear on me again, all right? Sometimes it seems you’re the only thing left in the world that’s real.” Miserably, she sniffled and added, “I don’t know—that probably sounds crazy.”
“No,” Philip said, and there was something about the word—something about how quickly and gravely he spoke it—that made her wonder if maybe he’d felt the same thing, but had simply been too afraid to give voice to it. She looked at him, and he told her sincerely, “No, it doesn’t sound crazy at all.”
Ellen took a large lungful of air, and let it out unsteadily. She found a relatively clean corner of the handkerchief and wiped under her eyes. Mascara smudges already stained the fabric, and she could only imagine how horrible her face must have looked right then. She fidgeted the square of cotton in her hands, and after a long stretch of silence, desolately confided, “That first night you came to the club, you know, you wanted to know if I was okay. And I told you I was, but maybe it was a lie. Maybe I’ve just been fooling myself this whole time.” She blew her nose, then paused to collect her thoughts. “Back when Michael and I finally broke up, he said I’d changed. And he wasn’t mean about it or anything, just…matter-of-fact: ‘You’ve changed, Ellen.’ And he didn’t know how to deal with it. At the time, I don’t think I honestly believed him, but maybe he was right. Maybe everything that happened back then affected me more than I’ve wanted to admit. I mean, look at me,” she laughed, the epiphany landing swiftly and sorrowfully. “I picked up and moved halfway across the country to get away from it.”
“Well…” Philip eventually said, “you did go through quite a lot back then. Some of which was my fault.”
“But not all of it,” Ellen insisted, because it was important that he believe that. She still remembered the pile of rope next to her upon waking, the way he’d handed her her purse as he’d helped her out of Gates’ house. She shook her head desperately, willing him to understand. “Not all of it.”
Philip didn’t exactly respond to that. Instead, he merely rubbed his palm against his thigh and said, “You know, if it makes you feel any better, a similar sort of thing happened to some guys in the service.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded. “Go in okay, but come out all jumpy or angry or prone to drinkin’ too much. Be fine one minute, but then the smallest little thing’d set ’em off.”
Ellen let that sink in. In a way, it did make her feel better, though maybe only because misery loved company. After a few seconds, she turned to him and realized, “But you came out all right.”
Philip looked uncomfortably at some distant part of the floor. “Well,” he said shortly, “I’d already been through some stuff, you know?” It was the first time since that night in the train yard that he’d even come close to talking about his childhood, and she swallowed at the memory of that wretched tale.
“Yeah,” she murmured, “I guess I do.”
They sat next to each other like that for another minute, and Ellen found herself staring at his hands, at the taut way they were poised on his knees, as if in anticipation of something terrible—though whether they’d be on the giving or the receiving end was anyone’s guess. It was a strange concept, to hate a person she’d never met—a person she’d never even seen a picture of—but in that moment, Ellen was reasonably sure she hated his aunt. Hated her for turning what could have been such a tenderhearted boy into such a twisted, tragic man. Almost against her will, her hand reached out, and she gently tugged his shirt cuff back from his wrist. Frozen, he let her, and she proceeded to lightly run her fingertips over the bulbous and badly-healed bone, the skin still glistening with old scar tissue. A hot iron, he’d said, and she felt like crying again for his sake.
“Does it still hurt?” she wondered, because there was some part of her that needed to know. Maybe this weird wound inside her was something similar, and she wanted to know if it would always ache as acutely as it did then.
“I’m used to it,” he said, somewhat dodging the question. “Most of the time I don’t even notice it anymore. Sometimes if the weather’s really bad, but that’s about it.”
“…But it still hurts,” she concluded, and Philip paused for a pregnant moment.
“Yeah,” he confessed. “Yeah, it still hurts.”
She slid her hand under his then, and laced their fingers together. And then she lifted up his arm and pressed a kiss to his bare wrist. His hand shook at the feeling of her lips on his skin, and Ellen closed her eyes as more tears ran down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” she said, though whether she was apologizing for his injury or her own emotions, she wasn’t sure.
Philip swallowed audibly. “It ain’t your fault.”
“I know,” Ellen whispered, “but I’m still so sorry.”
On a sigh, she at last let their hands fall back down to his leg, and—fingers still entwined—leaned her head against his shoulder. She was too tired to worry about what he might think in that moment, too tired to deny herself the physical closeness of another person. About a half-minute passed in silence, and then she observed, “You smell different.”
Philip tensed, caught slightly off guard. “What?”
“You used to smell like gunpowder,” she said, in that same soft, musing tone. “When you gave me your coat back then, it smelled like gunpowder.”
“…And now?”
And now he smelled like shaving soap and coffee and a hint of sweat. He smelled like safety and comfort and belonging. But that sounded silly, even to her, so Ellen simply shook her head against him. “I don’t know,” she said. “You just smell like you.”
At that, Philip shifted, and she could tell he was looking down at her. “You know…” he told her quietly, “sometimes I don’t know what to do with you, either.”
Ellen laughed, a bit remorsefully. “Aren’t we two peas in a pod,” she joked, but the words were wet and weary.
Carefully, Philip rested his own cheek against the top of her head in return, and his fingers tightened tentatively around hers—a fledgling attempt at offering support. “Yeah,” he agreed, “I guess we are.”
---
They must have fallen asleep like that, because the next thing Ellen knew, she was opening her eyes to find them half-sprawled in the corner of her couch, his head tipped back against the cushion, and her own body pressed up against his side. She blinked at the way the light had changed in the room, wondering how long they’d been out, and blearily lifted her head from where it was still resting against his shoulder. Philip woke, himself, at the movement, and dislodged his arm from where it had been trapped around her.
“Aw, Jesus,” he said, checking his watch. His voice was a little rough from sleep, and he rapidly brought himself to his feet. “I gotta go. I’m gonna be late.”
Ellen sat up straight, herself, and tried not to think about how much she missed his warmth. Her eyes were swollen and scratchy from crying, but she managed to squint at her wall clock. 4:40. And his shift was scheduled to start at 5:00.
She stood, brushing her hair back from her face. Philip was already stuffing his arms into his suit jacket. “If you want,” she offered, “I can call the club and let them know. After all,” she added guiltily, “it is my fault that you didn’t leave earlier.”
“Nah,” he said, straightening the collar about his neck, “don’t worry about it. I’ve gotten outta tighter scrapes than this before.” And he grinned his rare, crooked grin at her that made her heart skip.
Ellen smiled back, though the expression was a bit wobbly. “I guess you’re right,” she agreed. Philip plucked his hat from her coat rack, and she moved to see him out, but rather than leave, he merely stood on her threshold, staring at her. And then he bent down and brushed a quick, clumsy kiss across her cheek. It put her in mind of a schoolboy, sweet and awkward, but before she could say anything, he was gone.
It was strange, Ellen thought, as she found herself overcome with a fresh bout of tears, that the fixing of a heart should somehow feel so similar to when one broke. Perhaps it was akin to a bone being reset, or the sting of rubbing alcohol as it cleaned out a cut.
---
It became routine, their sleeping together after that—their literal sleeping together. He’d come over on the days they both had off, and they’d curl up on her couch in the afternoon, her windows open and the noises of summer passing through.
“Do you still dream these days?” she eventually asked. His head was on her hip, her hand was carding through his hair, and Gershwin was playing faintly on the radio.
“Sometimes,” he admitted. “Sometimes the dreams are different.”
“Good?” she hoped.
“Boring.”
Ellen laughed lowly. “So better, at least.”
“Better,” Philip agreed, and seemed to drink in her touch. His eyes were closed, and he reminded her of her cat—or would have, if Raven was the type to cuddle in laps. As it was, the cat had taken to lying across the back of the furniture cushions, and Ellen thought the two strays made quite a pair right then, both of their heads leaning in the same direction and completely relaxed.
And so it continued, until one day in late July, when she woke to find him already alert, one hand behind his head and his gaze thoughtfully focused on the ceiling. She propped herself up from where she was stretched out beside him and angled her head inquisitively. “Something on your mind?”
“The future, I guess,” Philip said. “Been thinkin’ that maybe it’s time I found an actual apartment.” His eyes shifted to look around the room. “Doubt I can afford as nice a place as this, but I can probably afford to move out of a boardin’ house.”
Ellen smiled and arched an eyebrow. “Put down some roots, as it were?” A lock of hair had slipped in front of her face, and he reached out to tuck it back behind her ear—and then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he let his thumb lightly sweep across the corner of her mouth.
“You’re real pretty when you smile,” Philip told her softly, and though it was far from the most elegant praise she’d ever received, something about the sheer simplicity of the words affected her more than any flowery speech might have. She flushed and couldn’t help but grin wider.
“So are you,” she said, because he was mirroring her expression. But then she laughed and corrected, “Well, handsome, I mean.”
A puff of a laugh escaped his own lips, as he clearly didn’t know what to do with the compliment, and Ellen was suddenly struck by the significance of the moment. This was the part where other men would kiss her, she knew, but Philip Graham—née Raven—was hardly like other men. There was something downright innocent about him when it came to romance, and it was one of the reasons their relationship had progressed the way it had. Even now, lying half on top of him as she currently was, she knew he would never interpret it as anything more, knew she’d never wake up from one of their naps to find his hands wandering where they shouldn’t.
It was peculiar, to recognize that she felt safer with a former assassin than she did with any other man these days, but the fact of the matter was she had changed since that first night she met him, and she was finally starting to accept that for what it truly was. Maybe Millie had been right all along, and maybe the reason she hadn’t had a steady boyfriend this whole time was because she’d been subconsciously waiting for him. And so, where she might have hesitated in the past—out of fear of being too eager or misunderstood or disparaged—Ellen simply hoisted herself up and gently pressed her lips against his.
The kiss was a chaste one, and she didn’t linger in case he didn’t like it, but when she pulled back, she could feel his heart beating underneath her hand. Philip blinked in bewilderment, and looked at her like a man inextricably in love, and then he raised his head and repeated the action.
---
“I thought you weren’t one for music,” she said with a speculative smile. It was another afternoon, they’d just returned from having lunch together, and Ellen came out of the bathroom to see him fiddling with her radio. After a moment of searching the stations, Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade” filled the flat.
Philip shrugged shortly. “Some of it ain’t so bad. ’Sides,” he added, and bent down to swing her coffee table out of the way, “the way I understand it, you generally need music for dancin’.” He straightened and regarded her from across the room. “You never did get very far with those lessons,” he noted.
Ellen blinked, and after a beat shook her head, suddenly ashamed. In hindsight, it was easy to see that her earlier attempt to teach him had been mostly about making herself feel better. “You can just forget that, you know,” she said. “You don’t have to learn on my account.”
“But if I want to?” he asked, an echo of her own words all those weeks ago. He tilted his head and looked at her meaningfully. “I’m thinkin’ there’s a girl I might wanna take out sometime.”
She couldn’t help it; she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close as tears once again sprang to her eyes. Philip’s own hands settled shyly on her sides, haltingly hugging her back.
“Are you gonna start cryin’ every time we try to dance?” he wondered, and there was such apprehension in his voice that Ellen had to laugh.
“No,” she said, wiping the happy tears away. “No, I promise. And it’s a good cry this time, I swear.” And with that, she pulled back, kissed his cheek, lifted his left hand into the correct position, and came home.
-----
A/N: This is probably the softest romance I’ve ever written. (THEY’VE BOTH GONE THROUGH ENOUGH SHIT; THEY DON’T NEED AN ANGSTY COURTSHIP ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE. I JUST WANT THEM TO BE HAPPY. *sobs*)
You might have noticed that the nightclub Ellen works at never actually gets named (in either fic). I had full intentions of naming it here, but at the end I went back and it…didn’t…really seem necessary? Like, in just about every case, inserting a full, formal name would have screwed up the flow of the writing and rendered sentences awkward, so I ended up just skipping it altogether (convenient, because naming things is hard, yo). If you’re the kind of person who really needs it to have a name, though, let’s just call it “The Blonde Dahlia,” because meta jokes, amirite?
Also, let it be known that I love Millie. If you’re familiar with the original Graham Greene novel, I’ll admit that I was a little inspired by book!Ruby—maybe not so much the jaded cynicism, but the matter-of-factness certainly. I like to think that Ellen knows her from her St. Louis days (in the film, her “agent” mentions catching her act in St. Louis, so I headcanon that they both got their starts there, and that Millie headed north while Ellen headed west). Anyway, I like to headcanon that they know each other from back in the day, and that Ellen gets back in touch with her when she realizes she wants to get out of California—maybe for some leads regarding jobs and a place to stay, you know? They’re good pals, but Millie’s definitely more unapologetic about her sexuality. She’s probably a huge fan of Mae West, pfft.
All other fics can be found here.
Fandom: This Gun For Hire (1942)
Genre: AU, drama, romance.
Characters/pairings: Philip Raven/Ellen Graham
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 6,020
Summary: Sequel to There Are Dreams I Must Gather. Philip Raven returns to the club, as promised. (Or, in a very special performance, Miss Ellen Graham deconstructs the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope.)
Notes: It wasn’t necessary to mention it in There Are Dreams I Must Gather, but for the purposes of these fics, I headcanon that Ellen moves away from California after the events of the film. I suspect she becomes pretty well known in L.A. (and even San Francisco) as “that nightclub singer who was taken hostage by that guy who stole all that money,” and when you combine that with her breaking up with Michael, well, I can see her wanting to get away and start fresh, so to speak. So this fic and the previous one actually take place in Chicago.
If you’d like to leave a comment, please do so on AO3!
- They’ll Ask Me Why and I’ll Tell Them I’d Rather -
“So what should I call you these days?” Ellen asked. “Since you said you changed your name.” She adjusted her gloves in the evening air, surprised not for the first time by just how chilly Chicago could be, even halfway into May. She’d grown fond of the city—maybe even loved it—but sometimes she had to wonder if she would ever entirely get used to the climate. Even her native state of Missouri hadn’t been quite so cold.
“‘Phil,’ I guess,” he said with a shrug, his own hands buried in the pockets of his trench coat. “If that ain’t too familiar for you.”
In truth, it was; she’d never really liked the sound of just ‘Phil.’ “Is ‘Philip’ all right?”
He shrugged again. “Sure.”
Philip, then. That night was the third time he’d come to the club in as many weeks, and rather than stay tucked away at some corner table, she’d managed to invite him back to her place. Ostensibly, he’d accepted simply to meet her cat, but she also suspected the atmosphere of the club was beginning to be a bit much for him—all the music and dancing and drinking, none of which he seemed to have any genuine interest in. Her apartment was more conducive to conversation anyway, and—much as she liked her place of work—even she had to admit that she was looking forward to the extra privacy.
“And your last name?” Ellen asked. She added a little teasingly, “In case I ever have to introduce you to anyone?” A tension gathered in his shoulders, and he turned his head away and mumbled something. “Sorry, did you say ‘Gray’?”
“‘Graham,’” he corrected, this time too loudly and clearly to be mistaken. Ellen came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the sidewalk.
“You mean you… You took my name?”
Philip stopped as well, and turned to face her somewhat defensively. “Hey, last I knew, you were gettin’ married,” he pointed out. “Didn’t think you’d be needin’ it much more.”
“But…you took my name,” she said again, and a flattered smile came over her features. Was this what men felt, she wondered, upon their wedding days? Or was it something so expected, they simply took it for granted?
“Yeah? So what?” he challenged gruffly. “It’s a good name. Nice and common.”
“But…” She shook her head and let the issue drop. In a way, she shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, he’d flouted enough cultural conventions in his time—don’t murder people, don’t take people hostage, don’t steal cars, etc., etc.—that she supposed it only made sense for him to flout this one as well. She resumed walking, and Philip fell back in step beside her. “Fine. But just for the record,” she added, with a sly sideways glance at him, “you never get to say anything ever again about the fact that I named my cat after you.”
He didn’t blush, of course he didn’t, but something about his demeanor turned slightly chagrined all the same. “Deal,” he said, and Ellen laughed.
They continued on like that for a while—in easy silence, at a casual pace—until the ludicrousness of the whole situation hit her, and suddenly another laugh bubbled up out of her throat. At the sound, Philip looked at her sharply, but she waved him off with her hand.
“Sorry,” she said, managing to subdue her giggles. “I was just thinking about how strange it is to be walking with you so leisurely for once. You know, not running or otherwise being dragged behind you.”
He seemed to take a moment to let that register. “I could grab your upper arm, if you think that’d make you feel any better,” he offered, and Ellen burst into a fresh round of titters. He looked at her again, but this time a touch curiously, and a half-smile tugged hesitantly at his mouth. “Was that funny?” he asked, as if he wasn’t quite sure how humor worked, and she dashed tears of mirth away from her eyes.
“I don’t know,” she confessed, grinning at him helplessly. “I don’t know. Maybe?”
“Nice place,” he said, surveying the room upon her seeing them in. He wasn’t one for small talk, so Ellen had to assume he meant it.
“Thanks.” She shucked her hat and jacket, hooking them on her coat rack. “Another friend of mine keeps saying I should go for something larger, but I like the size. It’s just me and the cat, after all, and neither of us take up a lot of space. Feel free to hang up your coat, by the way,” she told him, moving toward the kitchen. “Would you like a cup of coffee? A glass of water?”
“Coffee’s okay.” He draped his own coat and hat over the rack, then followed her into the other room. There was a small table with a couple of chairs tucked under the window, but rather than sit, Philip propped himself against the wall next to them. There was something a bit uncertain about him, like he was still learning how to interact with people on a personal level, so Ellen let it slide. Instead, she loaded her percolator and plugged it in. From there, she turned to her cupboard to pull down two cups, but was distracted by a black shadow slinking through the kitchen doorway.
“Well,” she drawled, “look who decided to show up?” She was about to officially introduce the cat, but Philip had already pushed himself away from the wall, crouching down to balance on the balls of his feet.
“Hey, there, fella,” he said affectionately. He held out his hand, and Ellen blinked, once again finding herself surprised by how incredibly boyish he became around animals. The change in his manner was so severe, one would almost think he was an entirely different person, and she couldn’t help but wonder if this was what he’d been like, back before the incident with his aunt. Back before she’d broken his wrist and maybe something else, something more intangible, with it.
Raven slowly approached and gave his fingers a suspicious sniff. Philip tried to scratch behind his ear, but the cat undulated away, moving to the side of the stove where he proceeded to sit like some reluctant sentry.
Ellen smirked a little ruefully. “I told you he doesn’t really like being pet. And sorry if he stares at you for the rest of the night. He isn’t too keen on visitors, either.”
Philip grinned, brushing it off with ease. “Nah, don’t worry about it. He’s probably just bein’ protective. Makin’ sure you’re doin’ okay, you know?”
It was such an apt description of his own behavior—that had led him to the club that very first night—that she stopped in the middle of reaching for her sugar bowl. She looked at him, still crouched on the floor, but his eyes were focused wholly on the cat, and if he’d meant anything beyond the obvious with the words, there was no outward indication of it. After a moment, he must have sensed her silence, for he turned and questioningly raised his eyebrows at her. Ellen shook her head, slightly embarrassed, and resumed the retrieval of her sugar bowl. The coffee was beginning to perk, and she poured a measure of milk into a creamer, then set both additives on the table. Philip brought himself back to his full height, hovering unsurely, and it was only when she brought the two drinks to the table that he finally sat down.
“Thanks again for agreeing to come back with me,” she said, putting a standard spoonful of sugar and a dollop of milk into her coffee. “As a performer, I’m used to being a night owl, but I know not everyone keeps such late hours. I was worried you might have to wake up early or something. You never did tell me what your schedule was.” And with that, all of a sudden, Ellen became anxious. He’d mentioned working in freight before, so what if he was only in town for a relatively short while? What if he’d only agreed to come back to her apartment that night because he knew he’d soon be gone?
It turned out to be a moot concern. “In between jobs at the moment,” he said. “Though it’s time I should probably start lookin’ for another.” She surreptitiously released a breath of relief, then watched in wonder as he added no sugar but nearly double cream into his own cup. Somehow, she’d expected him to be the type to religiously drink it black.
She took a sip, considering what he’d said. “You know, if you want, I could see if there’s anything available at the club. If nothing else, I know the kitchen is almost always looking for dishwashers.”
Philip grimaced at the prospect. “Lots of people in kitchens.”
“Well,” she said diplomatically, “it’s better than waiting tables, as far as avoiding people goes.”
“True,” he relinquished, and she smiled briefly in amusement.
“I’m serious, though. I could put in a good word for you.”
He made some vague, dismissive motion with his head and ran a fingertip along the rim of the porcelain. “You don’t have to help me out.”
Men and their ever-loving pride, Ellen thought. He might have been unusual enough to have no problem taking a woman’s last name, but there still seemed to be some masculine foibles even he couldn’t fully avoid. “I know I don’t have to,” she conceded. “But if I want to?”
He quirked a skeptical eyebrow at her and she shot back her most winning smile, throwing in a few bats of her eyelashes for good, comedic measure. It was refreshing to interact with a man who was so utterly impervious to her physical charms, and she found herself having fun with it more and more often. At the display, Philip sighed long-sufferingly, then took a drink of his coffee. “I’ll think about it,” he said, and Ellen laughed and let it go.
“‘Graham’?” Millie asked, when Ellen made the introductions on his first day of work.
“It’s just a coincidence,” she lied, with a breezy roll of her eyes. “He isn’t some long-lost relative or anything, trust me.”
“I guess stranger things have been known to happen,” Millie acknowledged with a shrug. “Old friends from California, you said?” Ellen nodded. “Well, that’s swell, your getting back in touch over here. How’d you guys first meet, if you don’t mind my asking?” And the question shouldn’t have thrown her, it really shouldn’t have, but Ellen still found herself standing there, befuddled, remembering only a pistol poking her in the back, and being towed all around L.A., and the earnestness of his expression when he’d offered to help her in exchange for her acting as a decoy.
“Um…” she stammered, and once again Philip unexpectedly came to her rescue.
“On a train,” he told Millie. “San Francisco to Los Angeles.”
“We ended up sitting next to each other,” Ellen elaborated, and a part of her had to marvel at their dynamic in that moment, how he noticed she needed some sort of lead, and how easily she managed to follow it when provided.
“Oh, neat,” Millie remarked. “And you guys just hit it right off?”
They looked at each other, and Ellen couldn’t help but laugh a little nervously. “Not…exactly?”
“I tried to steal five bucks from her,” Philip bluntly said. Millie blinked, but before she could say anything, Ellen waved it off with an indulgent smile.
“He was short on cash; it was all just a big misunderstanding.”
“Oh,” Millie said. But then she laughed and took the story in stride. “Well. Hell of a start to a friendship, that’s for sure.”
“So this Philip guy,” Millie said one day, while they were out on lunch break at one of the local cafés. “Not your usual type, is he? Pretty quiet and standoffish.”
Ellen’s jaw slowed down in the middle of chewing a bite of chicken salad sandwich. She swallowed and tried to play it casual. “So?”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining,” Millie clarified, finishing the rest of her soup. “I’m of the firm opinion that more men should know how to keep their mouths shut, after all. I was just wondering what the draw for you is.”
“Oh. Well, um… It’s kind of hard to describe,” Ellen hedged. She took a sip of her drink to buy herself some time. “It’s, um…kind of personal…”
Millie pulled out a cigarette and lit it with the confidence of a mystery solved. “Ah, good in the bedroom. Got it.”
“Oh, my God, Millie!” Ellen whisper-shrieked. “No! It isn’t like that!”
“Really? Because I’ve been with a couple quiet types, myself, and in my experience it’s the ones who don’t feel the need to brag who are usually the best at what they d—”
“No. I mean we’re just friends.”
“Oh,” Millie said. “Well, in that case, do you mind if I have a go at him?”
“Millie,” Ellen warned, but the other woman just laughed.
“All right, all right,” she yielded with a mischievous grin, “claim staked, I understand. Rest assured, you don’t have to worry about me muscling in on your territory.”
Ellen was blushing furiously, and she put down the tail-end of her sandwich, her appetite for it fleeing altogether. “It isn’t like that,” she said again. “We’re just friends.”
Millie cocked her head and raised a sculpted eyebrow, a bit too perceptive for her own good. “But you wouldn’t mind being more, is that what I’m getting here?”
“I…” And Ellen trailed off, looking at her plate, because she hardly knew, herself.
“Look,” Millie said, “I don’t bring it up just to tease, you know. I bring it up because I think you should go for it.”
Ellen jerked her head up, stunned yet again. “What?”
“Well, yeah,” she said, brandishing the rest of her coffee. “I mean, I know you normally go for more lighthearted guys, but they never seem to stick, Ell. You go on, what?—two, three, maybe four dates, and then you drop ’em like a sack of old potatoes. And sure, maybe his job isn’t as illustrious as it could be, but the change of pace might be good for you. Maybe dour dishwasher Philip Graham is just what the doctor ordered.”
“Do we really have to do this?” Philip asked sourly. It was a Monday, after lunch, and they stood in the middle of her living room. His suit jacket was draped over her coat rack and her coffee table had been pushed off to the side to make more space on the floor.
“Yes!” she insisted with a laugh. “You’re thirty-two years old, and you don’t know how to dance.”
“Why the hell do I need to know how to dance?” he fired back. Ellen raised her chin at him defiantly.
“What if there ends up being a girl you like, who you want to take out sometime?” Philip’s eyebrow dipped so low at the question, the expression was almost comical.
“Unlikely,” was all he said.
“Well, then, what if I want to dance with you sometime in the future?” His features morphed into a begrudging scowl, and Ellen suppressed a satisfied smirk. Despite his efforts to avoid it, he’d become a sucker for her all the same.
Philip complained, “That’s dirty pool, and you know it.”
“Well,” she said primly, taking his left hand in her right and placing the other on his shoulder, “if I’m ruthless these days, I learned it from you. Now put your arm around my back. A little bit lower. There.
“Now,” she went on, “it’s important that you keep your feet staggered, otherwise you’ll end up stepping on your partner’s toes. This is the basic foxtrot step I’m about to teach you, by the way, and you can use the foxtrot just about anywhere. So start with your left foot and take two slow steps forward…then a quick step to the side. And then you do the same thing, except go backwards this time. So left foot, back…back…then quick to the side. Now, technically,” Ellen said, as she pulled him forward again, “you should be the one leading, but we’ll get to that in time. For now, just try to get the hang of the movements. I know you’re worried about my feet, but you don’t need to look down, trust me. As long as you kind of lead with your knee, I’ll be able to tell where your leg’s going.” They reached the edge of the floor space, and she turned them around. “Okay, now let’s go back.”
“I feel ridiculous,” Philip muttered with a frown. Ellen patted his shoulder consolingly.
“I won’t lie—you’re a little stiff,” she granted. “But you’ll get better with practice, I promise! After all, you scaled a wall and managed to catch a moving train underneath you—or so I heard, at least. You aren’t completely without a sense of grace or timing.”
Philip stopped and looked down at her. “You’re always doin’ that,” he said, but it was more of a curious statement of fact than an accusation. “You did it back then, and you’re doin’ it again now.”
Ellen blinked, baffled. “Doing what?”
“Believin’ in me. Tellin’ me I can be somethin’ more.”
She blinked again, taken aback by the insight. “Well…” she began, a little embarrassed, “somebody has to, right?”
“I’m not sayin’ I’m ungrateful,” he pointed out. “I’m just…wonderin’ why.”
“Well, because…” she began, but immediately trailed off, at a loss. She took a breath and tried again. “Because…” But she found she had to swallow, and all she could do was look up at him, at his youthfully handsome face and oddly piercing eyes. His left hand was still clasped around hers, and his right was still resting on the back of her ribs, and she was suddenly reminded of when she’d come to in Willard Gates’ house. Was suddenly reminded of how he’d helped her sit up, of how frighteningly close he’d held her and how thankful she’d been, despite herself. And then there she was, trembling in his arms again like a leaf, and her throat simply closed right up with the realization.
Because I have to believe you can be something more, she thought. Because if you can’t be, then what was it all worth? All the worry and fear and sympathy and being attacked. All the running about Los Angeles and crawling through a drain pipe and twisting her ankle and patching his wrist. All her disappointment with him for breaking one promise and her pride in him for keeping another, all her fights with Michael and her long days at rehearsal, trying to lose herself, all the tears and effort and anger and exhaustion. What was it all worth in the end? She’d helped her country, sure, and even had a formal letter of thanks from Washington to prove it, but sometimes it all seemed so distant and abstract. If she hadn’t been successful back then, would it really have spelled disaster for the overall war effort? Against her will, her eyes welled up, and Philip abruptly looked as if he’d taken a wrong turn in a bad neighborhood.
“Aw, Jesus,” he said, uncharacteristically anxious, “don’t cry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“I know,” Ellen said, aware of the absurdity, but nevertheless unable to stop the tears from falling. “I’m sorry. I’m just—” And there it was: “I’m such a mess.” Finally, she pulled away from him and shakily sank down onto the edge of her sofa. Philip spent a panicked moment scanning the room, then plucked a decorative handkerchief off of a shelf. He handed it to her wordlessly, and she took it without looking at him, burying her mouth in the fabric as great sobs engulfed her. Slowly, he lowered himself down next to her on the piece of furniture.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, brokenly. “I don’t know what’s come over me. I just—” She gestured at him, so unaccountably lost. “I just don’t know what to do with you.”
He started at that and quietly offered, “Look, I can go if y—”
“No,” Ellen said, frantically cutting him off, because somehow if he left, that would be even worse. “No, I don’t want you to go. I just don’t know what to do with you,” she repeated. She looked at him helplessly through watery eyes. “I mean, what do you do with a man who almost killed you and then saved your life?”
He blinked, and appeared profoundly uneasy at the question, rhetorical though it had been. After a moment he said, “I’m sorry about that, you know.”
“But you aren’t,” she chided. “Or you weren’t, at least. And that’s okay. Or—I don’t know, maybe it isn’t. I just—” She broke off again. A good minute passed, and she managed a couple gasping breaths. The handkerchief was thoroughly damp with tears, and her nose felt red and congested.
“I don’t want you to go,” she said again, just to make sure he got it. “Don’t—” She swallowed and turned to him beseechingly. “Don’t disappear on me again, all right? Sometimes it seems you’re the only thing left in the world that’s real.” Miserably, she sniffled and added, “I don’t know—that probably sounds crazy.”
“No,” Philip said, and there was something about the word—something about how quickly and gravely he spoke it—that made her wonder if maybe he’d felt the same thing, but had simply been too afraid to give voice to it. She looked at him, and he told her sincerely, “No, it doesn’t sound crazy at all.”
Ellen took a large lungful of air, and let it out unsteadily. She found a relatively clean corner of the handkerchief and wiped under her eyes. Mascara smudges already stained the fabric, and she could only imagine how horrible her face must have looked right then. She fidgeted the square of cotton in her hands, and after a long stretch of silence, desolately confided, “That first night you came to the club, you know, you wanted to know if I was okay. And I told you I was, but maybe it was a lie. Maybe I’ve just been fooling myself this whole time.” She blew her nose, then paused to collect her thoughts. “Back when Michael and I finally broke up, he said I’d changed. And he wasn’t mean about it or anything, just…matter-of-fact: ‘You’ve changed, Ellen.’ And he didn’t know how to deal with it. At the time, I don’t think I honestly believed him, but maybe he was right. Maybe everything that happened back then affected me more than I’ve wanted to admit. I mean, look at me,” she laughed, the epiphany landing swiftly and sorrowfully. “I picked up and moved halfway across the country to get away from it.”
“Well…” Philip eventually said, “you did go through quite a lot back then. Some of which was my fault.”
“But not all of it,” Ellen insisted, because it was important that he believe that. She still remembered the pile of rope next to her upon waking, the way he’d handed her her purse as he’d helped her out of Gates’ house. She shook her head desperately, willing him to understand. “Not all of it.”
Philip didn’t exactly respond to that. Instead, he merely rubbed his palm against his thigh and said, “You know, if it makes you feel any better, a similar sort of thing happened to some guys in the service.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded. “Go in okay, but come out all jumpy or angry or prone to drinkin’ too much. Be fine one minute, but then the smallest little thing’d set ’em off.”
Ellen let that sink in. In a way, it did make her feel better, though maybe only because misery loved company. After a few seconds, she turned to him and realized, “But you came out all right.”
Philip looked uncomfortably at some distant part of the floor. “Well,” he said shortly, “I’d already been through some stuff, you know?” It was the first time since that night in the train yard that he’d even come close to talking about his childhood, and she swallowed at the memory of that wretched tale.
“Yeah,” she murmured, “I guess I do.”
They sat next to each other like that for another minute, and Ellen found herself staring at his hands, at the taut way they were poised on his knees, as if in anticipation of something terrible—though whether they’d be on the giving or the receiving end was anyone’s guess. It was a strange concept, to hate a person she’d never met—a person she’d never even seen a picture of—but in that moment, Ellen was reasonably sure she hated his aunt. Hated her for turning what could have been such a tenderhearted boy into such a twisted, tragic man. Almost against her will, her hand reached out, and she gently tugged his shirt cuff back from his wrist. Frozen, he let her, and she proceeded to lightly run her fingertips over the bulbous and badly-healed bone, the skin still glistening with old scar tissue. A hot iron, he’d said, and she felt like crying again for his sake.
“Does it still hurt?” she wondered, because there was some part of her that needed to know. Maybe this weird wound inside her was something similar, and she wanted to know if it would always ache as acutely as it did then.
“I’m used to it,” he said, somewhat dodging the question. “Most of the time I don’t even notice it anymore. Sometimes if the weather’s really bad, but that’s about it.”
“…But it still hurts,” she concluded, and Philip paused for a pregnant moment.
“Yeah,” he confessed. “Yeah, it still hurts.”
She slid her hand under his then, and laced their fingers together. And then she lifted up his arm and pressed a kiss to his bare wrist. His hand shook at the feeling of her lips on his skin, and Ellen closed her eyes as more tears ran down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” she said, though whether she was apologizing for his injury or her own emotions, she wasn’t sure.
Philip swallowed audibly. “It ain’t your fault.”
“I know,” Ellen whispered, “but I’m still so sorry.”
On a sigh, she at last let their hands fall back down to his leg, and—fingers still entwined—leaned her head against his shoulder. She was too tired to worry about what he might think in that moment, too tired to deny herself the physical closeness of another person. About a half-minute passed in silence, and then she observed, “You smell different.”
Philip tensed, caught slightly off guard. “What?”
“You used to smell like gunpowder,” she said, in that same soft, musing tone. “When you gave me your coat back then, it smelled like gunpowder.”
“…And now?”
And now he smelled like shaving soap and coffee and a hint of sweat. He smelled like safety and comfort and belonging. But that sounded silly, even to her, so Ellen simply shook her head against him. “I don’t know,” she said. “You just smell like you.”
At that, Philip shifted, and she could tell he was looking down at her. “You know…” he told her quietly, “sometimes I don’t know what to do with you, either.”
Ellen laughed, a bit remorsefully. “Aren’t we two peas in a pod,” she joked, but the words were wet and weary.
Carefully, Philip rested his own cheek against the top of her head in return, and his fingers tightened tentatively around hers—a fledgling attempt at offering support. “Yeah,” he agreed, “I guess we are.”
They must have fallen asleep like that, because the next thing Ellen knew, she was opening her eyes to find them half-sprawled in the corner of her couch, his head tipped back against the cushion, and her own body pressed up against his side. She blinked at the way the light had changed in the room, wondering how long they’d been out, and blearily lifted her head from where it was still resting against his shoulder. Philip woke, himself, at the movement, and dislodged his arm from where it had been trapped around her.
“Aw, Jesus,” he said, checking his watch. His voice was a little rough from sleep, and he rapidly brought himself to his feet. “I gotta go. I’m gonna be late.”
Ellen sat up straight, herself, and tried not to think about how much she missed his warmth. Her eyes were swollen and scratchy from crying, but she managed to squint at her wall clock. 4:40. And his shift was scheduled to start at 5:00.
She stood, brushing her hair back from her face. Philip was already stuffing his arms into his suit jacket. “If you want,” she offered, “I can call the club and let them know. After all,” she added guiltily, “it is my fault that you didn’t leave earlier.”
“Nah,” he said, straightening the collar about his neck, “don’t worry about it. I’ve gotten outta tighter scrapes than this before.” And he grinned his rare, crooked grin at her that made her heart skip.
Ellen smiled back, though the expression was a bit wobbly. “I guess you’re right,” she agreed. Philip plucked his hat from her coat rack, and she moved to see him out, but rather than leave, he merely stood on her threshold, staring at her. And then he bent down and brushed a quick, clumsy kiss across her cheek. It put her in mind of a schoolboy, sweet and awkward, but before she could say anything, he was gone.
It was strange, Ellen thought, as she found herself overcome with a fresh bout of tears, that the fixing of a heart should somehow feel so similar to when one broke. Perhaps it was akin to a bone being reset, or the sting of rubbing alcohol as it cleaned out a cut.
It became routine, their sleeping together after that—their literal sleeping together. He’d come over on the days they both had off, and they’d curl up on her couch in the afternoon, her windows open and the noises of summer passing through.
“Do you still dream these days?” she eventually asked. His head was on her hip, her hand was carding through his hair, and Gershwin was playing faintly on the radio.
“Sometimes,” he admitted. “Sometimes the dreams are different.”
“Good?” she hoped.
“Boring.”
Ellen laughed lowly. “So better, at least.”
“Better,” Philip agreed, and seemed to drink in her touch. His eyes were closed, and he reminded her of her cat—or would have, if Raven was the type to cuddle in laps. As it was, the cat had taken to lying across the back of the furniture cushions, and Ellen thought the two strays made quite a pair right then, both of their heads leaning in the same direction and completely relaxed.
And so it continued, until one day in late July, when she woke to find him already alert, one hand behind his head and his gaze thoughtfully focused on the ceiling. She propped herself up from where she was stretched out beside him and angled her head inquisitively. “Something on your mind?”
“The future, I guess,” Philip said. “Been thinkin’ that maybe it’s time I found an actual apartment.” His eyes shifted to look around the room. “Doubt I can afford as nice a place as this, but I can probably afford to move out of a boardin’ house.”
Ellen smiled and arched an eyebrow. “Put down some roots, as it were?” A lock of hair had slipped in front of her face, and he reached out to tuck it back behind her ear—and then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he let his thumb lightly sweep across the corner of her mouth.
“You’re real pretty when you smile,” Philip told her softly, and though it was far from the most elegant praise she’d ever received, something about the sheer simplicity of the words affected her more than any flowery speech might have. She flushed and couldn’t help but grin wider.
“So are you,” she said, because he was mirroring her expression. But then she laughed and corrected, “Well, handsome, I mean.”
A puff of a laugh escaped his own lips, as he clearly didn’t know what to do with the compliment, and Ellen was suddenly struck by the significance of the moment. This was the part where other men would kiss her, she knew, but Philip Graham—née Raven—was hardly like other men. There was something downright innocent about him when it came to romance, and it was one of the reasons their relationship had progressed the way it had. Even now, lying half on top of him as she currently was, she knew he would never interpret it as anything more, knew she’d never wake up from one of their naps to find his hands wandering where they shouldn’t.
It was peculiar, to recognize that she felt safer with a former assassin than she did with any other man these days, but the fact of the matter was she had changed since that first night she met him, and she was finally starting to accept that for what it truly was. Maybe Millie had been right all along, and maybe the reason she hadn’t had a steady boyfriend this whole time was because she’d been subconsciously waiting for him. And so, where she might have hesitated in the past—out of fear of being too eager or misunderstood or disparaged—Ellen simply hoisted herself up and gently pressed her lips against his.
The kiss was a chaste one, and she didn’t linger in case he didn’t like it, but when she pulled back, she could feel his heart beating underneath her hand. Philip blinked in bewilderment, and looked at her like a man inextricably in love, and then he raised his head and repeated the action.
“I thought you weren’t one for music,” she said with a speculative smile. It was another afternoon, they’d just returned from having lunch together, and Ellen came out of the bathroom to see him fiddling with her radio. After a moment of searching the stations, Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade” filled the flat.
Philip shrugged shortly. “Some of it ain’t so bad. ’Sides,” he added, and bent down to swing her coffee table out of the way, “the way I understand it, you generally need music for dancin’.” He straightened and regarded her from across the room. “You never did get very far with those lessons,” he noted.
Ellen blinked, and after a beat shook her head, suddenly ashamed. In hindsight, it was easy to see that her earlier attempt to teach him had been mostly about making herself feel better. “You can just forget that, you know,” she said. “You don’t have to learn on my account.”
“But if I want to?” he asked, an echo of her own words all those weeks ago. He tilted his head and looked at her meaningfully. “I’m thinkin’ there’s a girl I might wanna take out sometime.”
She couldn’t help it; she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close as tears once again sprang to her eyes. Philip’s own hands settled shyly on her sides, haltingly hugging her back.
“Are you gonna start cryin’ every time we try to dance?” he wondered, and there was such apprehension in his voice that Ellen had to laugh.
“No,” she said, wiping the happy tears away. “No, I promise. And it’s a good cry this time, I swear.” And with that, she pulled back, kissed his cheek, lifted his left hand into the correct position, and came home.
-----
A/N: This is probably the softest romance I’ve ever written. (THEY’VE BOTH GONE THROUGH ENOUGH SHIT; THEY DON’T NEED AN ANGSTY COURTSHIP ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE. I JUST WANT THEM TO BE HAPPY. *sobs*)
You might have noticed that the nightclub Ellen works at never actually gets named (in either fic). I had full intentions of naming it here, but at the end I went back and it…didn’t…really seem necessary? Like, in just about every case, inserting a full, formal name would have screwed up the flow of the writing and rendered sentences awkward, so I ended up just skipping it altogether (convenient, because naming things is hard, yo). If you’re the kind of person who really needs it to have a name, though, let’s just call it “The Blonde Dahlia,” because meta jokes, amirite?
Also, let it be known that I love Millie. If you’re familiar with the original Graham Greene novel, I’ll admit that I was a little inspired by book!Ruby—maybe not so much the jaded cynicism, but the matter-of-factness certainly. I like to think that Ellen knows her from her St. Louis days (in the film, her “agent” mentions catching her act in St. Louis, so I headcanon that they both got their starts there, and that Millie headed north while Ellen headed west). Anyway, I like to headcanon that they know each other from back in the day, and that Ellen gets back in touch with her when she realizes she wants to get out of California—maybe for some leads regarding jobs and a place to stay, you know? They’re good pals, but Millie’s definitely more unapologetic about her sexuality. She’s probably a huge fan of Mae West, pfft.
All other fics can be found here.
