fic: she wore plastic boots for rain (damages)
she wore plastic boots for rain
damages. she didn’t plan this, but sometimes it’s easiest to run with the obvious answers. ellen; ellen/tom. rated r. 1630 words.
note: vague spoilers through 2.06. i have no idea at all what motivated me to write this.
let me back
i promise to be good
don’t look in the mirror
at the face you don’t recognize
help me call the doctor
put me inside
put me inside
(a wolf at the door (it girl. rag doll.), radiohead)
-
Tom is a liar.
When you know that much it makes everything a little easier.
Tom’s a liar, but see, here’s the thing:
Ellen’s a liar too.
(Patty’s a liar and Tom’s a liar, even David was a liar, to her face, behind her back, he lied. They all lied. His sister lied - she still lies. Hollis lied, OMISSION is what that word is, a business card and an unfinished warning. The Feds are liars and they call that honor, and Wes lies lies lies. She knows it. He lies. He smells like it but she still lets him take her by the arm sometimes, pull her aside so he can lie a little more, and she still leans over tables and leans heavy with secrets she lie, lie, lies about.
Purcell lied and Patty wants blood. Patty lied and Ellen wants payback.
Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.
Liars, liars - they’re all gonna burn).
-
There is something new, something unfamiliar, itching in her blood.
Ellen doesn’t know what to do in her own skin anymore.
A cold drink soothes, but her body still burns.
She wants to call it revenge.
She thinks that might be too easy.
-
West Virginia happens.
She goes because she’s told to, and Tom does the same. He wears the tasks of Patty Hewes’s differently around his neck. But that probably makes sense, she would reason.
She doesn’t; she observes and tries for little more than that.
She is very tired. The inside of the car is warm, the volume of the radio low enough that it is barely a hum. She wants to close her eyes but Ellen watches the road instead.
In the end, it is all so cheap and easy and simple in a way Ellen never could have predicted.
He knocks on her door. He knocks on her door, and she opens it - she opens it with the same effortlessness that repeats itself when she opens her legs to him, later.
She doesn’t think this is what she wanted. But it works.
-
Ellen comes, and it feels a bit like a betrayal.
Tom comes, and he grunts an apology against the whorl of her ear, then down along her neck. His lips are wet and his tongue slicks skin on the words so sorry.
She doesn’t know who he means but it makes her feel sick all the same.
It makes her clench that much harder around him, and Tom offers one last desperate thrust.
This time he says her name.
(His hands hold her up, her knees buckle a little, his weight at her back and her own hands pressed flat against the faux wood dresser, West Virginia, motel room, muggy night air.
His chest sticks to her bare back, sweat and skin, and he’s got one hand flat against her lower abdomen and another clutching her left breast.
Ellen stares dazed into the mirror in front of her. Her cheeks are flushed pink and she can just see the top of Tom’s head as he presses his face into the matted tangle of hair at the nape of her neck.
She feels nothing.
She feels nothing except their combined wetness leaking between her legs.)
-
“I am handling this,” Ellen says.
She might be losing her grip on what that means, now.
But she says it all the same.
-
Ellen plays close to Patty with a quiet kind of desperation that should be noticeable to the woman.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.
She’s a liar.
Patty talks UNR and Ellen listens, takes notes, edits briefs.
She fucks Tom a couple more times. Not enough for it to be anything, but enough.
She likes the way she feels, after. There’s the almost crestfallen look on his face, like Ellen, naked and a messy bed are personal failures that belong to him alone.
She thinks what she feels then is triumph. There is that, and the ache right through her that takes a day or two to settle.
They sometimes make eye contact, and if Patty knows she doesn’t say a word.
-
Maybe that’s what Ellen’s been waiting for.
She lets him fuck her in her bed (this isn’t her bed her real bed is gone along with her real home and a lot of other real things she thought were here for her for good). He’s rougher than she expected, this time at least, but that’s alright.
She wraps her leg around his hip and he pushes in deeper.
She imagines the look on his face when Patty corners him with the words:
“I know.”
She cants her hips up and fights against a smile with his lips and mouth and teeth.
-
Patty never says those words, at least not to Tom.
It’s a disappointment. And not the only one.
Things fall apart.
Ellen takes pills so she won’t dream.
Frobisher shows up in Patty’s office.
Ellen can taste bile.
-
Sometimes she forgets. She isn’t the only one overcome by the word broken.
He doesn’t even call her. He texts her, just the name of a bar and the street it’s on - the word now ending the message, no please.
When Ellen gets there Tom is at the bar. She sits next to him.
“She lost the baby,” Tom says. His back is curved and his weight is balanced on his elbows against the wood of the bar. Ellen leans a little closer and Tom smells like scotch, the expensive kind.
“She lost the baby,” he repeats, like maybe he thinks she didn’t hear him, or maybe, and more probable, he’s saying it for himself.
Ellen thinks it’s a terrible way to phrase things. “She lost the baby.” It makes it sound as though his wife put the baby down somewhere and can’t remember where exactly that was - like a ring of keys or a wallet, like things that can be eventually found and recaptured with a fair bit of sleuthing.
“I’m sorry,” she tells Tom instead. If she was thinking linearly, she would think that this is the point when an affair would logically begin. The man lost the baby. Or the wife lost the baby. Whatever. Ellen orders a whiskey and water for herself and she doesn’t think in timelines. She doesn’t think that this should be the start as opposed to the middle and she doesn’t think about the word appropriate when she places her hand over his.
At first their fingers barely touch. Her palm hovers just over the back of his hand.
He links two fingers up with hers and curls their joined hands into a fist.
-
Patty offers time off to Tom but he says no and Patty expected that. Ellen expected that. Tom’s wife expected that.
He skulks around the office with a frightening smile, a bad parody of his usual expression. Coworkers offer condolences and he shrugs them off with a peculiar amount of self-consciousness. Sometimes his mouth will twist in a funny line as though warring between honesty and whatever he was been trying to wear in its stead.
There is still Kendrick and Maddox, Purcell, Frobisher, always Frobisher, and a whole host of people, a whole host of intentions and consequences. Ellen keeps manila folders pressed against her chest as she walks.
“God,” she says to Tom. She interrupts him. “I hate them all. I hate everybody.”
It is a moment of surprise, if only for the fact Ellen realizes she meant the words. She meant them more than she thought possible at this point.
Tom realizes it too and his eyes go first wide and sad. He looks at her the way people look at skeletons, at people that come back from the dead. Ellen has never seen these people, but she can imagine. She can commiserate.
“Jesus Christ. What the hell have we done to you?” he asks.
Just as fast he leans back in his chair and rubs at his eyes with balled fists. He waves a hand at her; “Nevermind,” he doesn’t say, but Ellen gets it.
She trails her left hand across his bared forearm when she leaves. His sleeves are rolled to his elbows and the tips of her fingers barely press against the skin as they pass.
She thinks that counts for something.
-
Later:
“I need a favor,” Ellen says.
Tom’s hands still at his belt buckle. Three buttons on his shirt are still undone.
“Shoot,” he says.
-
Ellen shuts the car door.
“Tom,” she says. She stops. She smells like Wes and she knows it. She doesn’t bother to hide it. Sometimes Tom smells like his wife, like that perfume with a heavy scent of roses, too feminine for her, but that’s not what this is about. Ownership. Romance. Same thing, same difference.
“I know,” Tom says.
He passes it over to her and looks at her carefully. She looks out the window with just as much care and strangers cross the street with an enviable sort of abandon.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?” she thinks he asked. She wasn’t listening.
“Thank you,” Ellen says. She opens the car door.
He got her the gun.
-
“Liars. All of them liars,” she thinks.
And then she shoots.
Bang.
Bang.
It’s cheap and it’s easy, simple, in a way she never would have expected.
-
fin.
damages. she didn’t plan this, but sometimes it’s easiest to run with the obvious answers. ellen; ellen/tom. rated r. 1630 words.
note: vague spoilers through 2.06. i have no idea at all what motivated me to write this.
let me back
i promise to be good
don’t look in the mirror
at the face you don’t recognize
help me call the doctor
put me inside
put me inside
(a wolf at the door (it girl. rag doll.), radiohead)
-
Tom is a liar.
When you know that much it makes everything a little easier.
Tom’s a liar, but see, here’s the thing:
Ellen’s a liar too.
(Patty’s a liar and Tom’s a liar, even David was a liar, to her face, behind her back, he lied. They all lied. His sister lied - she still lies. Hollis lied, OMISSION is what that word is, a business card and an unfinished warning. The Feds are liars and they call that honor, and Wes lies lies lies. She knows it. He lies. He smells like it but she still lets him take her by the arm sometimes, pull her aside so he can lie a little more, and she still leans over tables and leans heavy with secrets she lie, lie, lies about.
Purcell lied and Patty wants blood. Patty lied and Ellen wants payback.
Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.
Liars, liars - they’re all gonna burn).
-
There is something new, something unfamiliar, itching in her blood.
Ellen doesn’t know what to do in her own skin anymore.
A cold drink soothes, but her body still burns.
She wants to call it revenge.
She thinks that might be too easy.
-
West Virginia happens.
She goes because she’s told to, and Tom does the same. He wears the tasks of Patty Hewes’s differently around his neck. But that probably makes sense, she would reason.
She doesn’t; she observes and tries for little more than that.
She is very tired. The inside of the car is warm, the volume of the radio low enough that it is barely a hum. She wants to close her eyes but Ellen watches the road instead.
In the end, it is all so cheap and easy and simple in a way Ellen never could have predicted.
He knocks on her door. He knocks on her door, and she opens it - she opens it with the same effortlessness that repeats itself when she opens her legs to him, later.
She doesn’t think this is what she wanted. But it works.
-
Ellen comes, and it feels a bit like a betrayal.
Tom comes, and he grunts an apology against the whorl of her ear, then down along her neck. His lips are wet and his tongue slicks skin on the words so sorry.
She doesn’t know who he means but it makes her feel sick all the same.
It makes her clench that much harder around him, and Tom offers one last desperate thrust.
This time he says her name.
(His hands hold her up, her knees buckle a little, his weight at her back and her own hands pressed flat against the faux wood dresser, West Virginia, motel room, muggy night air.
His chest sticks to her bare back, sweat and skin, and he’s got one hand flat against her lower abdomen and another clutching her left breast.
Ellen stares dazed into the mirror in front of her. Her cheeks are flushed pink and she can just see the top of Tom’s head as he presses his face into the matted tangle of hair at the nape of her neck.
She feels nothing.
She feels nothing except their combined wetness leaking between her legs.)
-
“I am handling this,” Ellen says.
She might be losing her grip on what that means, now.
But she says it all the same.
-
Ellen plays close to Patty with a quiet kind of desperation that should be noticeable to the woman.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.
She’s a liar.
Patty talks UNR and Ellen listens, takes notes, edits briefs.
She fucks Tom a couple more times. Not enough for it to be anything, but enough.
She likes the way she feels, after. There’s the almost crestfallen look on his face, like Ellen, naked and a messy bed are personal failures that belong to him alone.
She thinks what she feels then is triumph. There is that, and the ache right through her that takes a day or two to settle.
They sometimes make eye contact, and if Patty knows she doesn’t say a word.
-
Maybe that’s what Ellen’s been waiting for.
She lets him fuck her in her bed (this isn’t her bed her real bed is gone along with her real home and a lot of other real things she thought were here for her for good). He’s rougher than she expected, this time at least, but that’s alright.
She wraps her leg around his hip and he pushes in deeper.
She imagines the look on his face when Patty corners him with the words:
“I know.”
She cants her hips up and fights against a smile with his lips and mouth and teeth.
-
Patty never says those words, at least not to Tom.
It’s a disappointment. And not the only one.
Things fall apart.
Ellen takes pills so she won’t dream.
Frobisher shows up in Patty’s office.
Ellen can taste bile.
-
Sometimes she forgets. She isn’t the only one overcome by the word broken.
He doesn’t even call her. He texts her, just the name of a bar and the street it’s on - the word now ending the message, no please.
When Ellen gets there Tom is at the bar. She sits next to him.
“She lost the baby,” Tom says. His back is curved and his weight is balanced on his elbows against the wood of the bar. Ellen leans a little closer and Tom smells like scotch, the expensive kind.
“She lost the baby,” he repeats, like maybe he thinks she didn’t hear him, or maybe, and more probable, he’s saying it for himself.
Ellen thinks it’s a terrible way to phrase things. “She lost the baby.” It makes it sound as though his wife put the baby down somewhere and can’t remember where exactly that was - like a ring of keys or a wallet, like things that can be eventually found and recaptured with a fair bit of sleuthing.
“I’m sorry,” she tells Tom instead. If she was thinking linearly, she would think that this is the point when an affair would logically begin. The man lost the baby. Or the wife lost the baby. Whatever. Ellen orders a whiskey and water for herself and she doesn’t think in timelines. She doesn’t think that this should be the start as opposed to the middle and she doesn’t think about the word appropriate when she places her hand over his.
At first their fingers barely touch. Her palm hovers just over the back of his hand.
He links two fingers up with hers and curls their joined hands into a fist.
-
Patty offers time off to Tom but he says no and Patty expected that. Ellen expected that. Tom’s wife expected that.
He skulks around the office with a frightening smile, a bad parody of his usual expression. Coworkers offer condolences and he shrugs them off with a peculiar amount of self-consciousness. Sometimes his mouth will twist in a funny line as though warring between honesty and whatever he was been trying to wear in its stead.
There is still Kendrick and Maddox, Purcell, Frobisher, always Frobisher, and a whole host of people, a whole host of intentions and consequences. Ellen keeps manila folders pressed against her chest as she walks.
“God,” she says to Tom. She interrupts him. “I hate them all. I hate everybody.”
It is a moment of surprise, if only for the fact Ellen realizes she meant the words. She meant them more than she thought possible at this point.
Tom realizes it too and his eyes go first wide and sad. He looks at her the way people look at skeletons, at people that come back from the dead. Ellen has never seen these people, but she can imagine. She can commiserate.
“Jesus Christ. What the hell have we done to you?” he asks.
Just as fast he leans back in his chair and rubs at his eyes with balled fists. He waves a hand at her; “Nevermind,” he doesn’t say, but Ellen gets it.
She trails her left hand across his bared forearm when she leaves. His sleeves are rolled to his elbows and the tips of her fingers barely press against the skin as they pass.
She thinks that counts for something.
-
Later:
“I need a favor,” Ellen says.
Tom’s hands still at his belt buckle. Three buttons on his shirt are still undone.
“Shoot,” he says.
-
Ellen shuts the car door.
“Tom,” she says. She stops. She smells like Wes and she knows it. She doesn’t bother to hide it. Sometimes Tom smells like his wife, like that perfume with a heavy scent of roses, too feminine for her, but that’s not what this is about. Ownership. Romance. Same thing, same difference.
“I know,” Tom says.
He passes it over to her and looks at her carefully. She looks out the window with just as much care and strangers cross the street with an enviable sort of abandon.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?” she thinks he asked. She wasn’t listening.
“Thank you,” Ellen says. She opens the car door.
He got her the gun.
-
“Liars. All of them liars,” she thinks.
And then she shoots.
Bang.
Bang.
It’s cheap and it’s easy, simple, in a way she never would have expected.
-
fin.