i: why not take the shorter way home.

[tender]

WHO: Derrica + Holden
WHAT: Just bros being pals.
WHEN: Timing (backdated, covering a span, etc.)
WHERE: Drakonis
NOTES:

It isn't difficult to divine what happened: Naomi Nagata is a regular presence in the infirmary, and then she's not. Derrica understands what that means. She doesn't need Holden to tell her in so many words.

But the absence had lingered in those first moments of Derrica on his doorstep, drawing him out. It's still there, in the way Derrica had linked their arms on the ferry, but Derrica hasn't nudged him to do anything more than—

"Madame de Cedoux recommended something outdoorsy," she is explaining, as they walk along the market stalls. "But I'm not sure exactly..."

A pause, a little shrug. She glances over to Holden, expression a little embarrassed.

"The first thing I thought of was fishing poles, but I don't know if that's what she was envisioning."

Comments

[tender]

Running her fingers over the oil cloth cloaks on display, Derrica shrugs one shoulder in response.

"She said he's difficult to buy for," she answers, which Holden has likely divined by now. "And that it would be a help to get him away from his work from time to time."

Which doesn't necessarily translate to "outdoorsman." Derrica gets that. She plucks at Holden's sleeve to draw him a little closer.

"What do you think of this?" she asks, gesturing to the gray tunic. There's delicate, leafy embroidery around the collar. Derrica makes an indecisive face as she flips the sleeve over in her hand.

[acreage]

"Are you sure she's not using you to send him a message?"

Petrana, definitely a person who is not also a workaholic. He flashes her a smile as he follows her lead to the tunic in question. It's not hard to see why her eye had been drawn to it, but it's also not really what he'd call outdoorsy. He makes a dissenting sound, then reaches out to consider a pair of gloves, offer them in suggestion.

[tender]

"She might be," Derrica concedes, abandoning the tunic to take the gloves in hand. She turns them over, admiring the soft, downy lining before she says, "I should have asked Marcus what he had in mind for them to do outdoors so I could get something useful."

But she's bothered Marcus enough as it is these days, or so it feels like. Busying herself with tugging the gloves on and flexing her fingers, she holds up her hands for inspection. They're oversized on her, but—

"Should I just get him a fishing rod?" is a little despairing.

[acreage]

It does, actually, make sense that this is more Marcus's idea than Petrana's. It's also a weirdly jarring thought that he's never really seen the two of them together in real life; but he doesn't dwell.

He laughs, short-lived and not unkind, at her tone.

"If you did that, you might have to get fishing rods for all of them." Well, maybe Marcus already owns one, at least. "Come on, let's try another stall."

[tender]

As they move away from the table, Derrica links her elbow through Holden's. It's an uncharacteristically courtly move, absolutely gleaned from witnessing Wysteria employ it because once their arms are settled, she says, gently, "I wanted to ask you something. About what I'd heard in the clinic."

Which is glancingly connected to Naomi, the only actual aspect of this that would give Holden some reprieve.

But she is determined to ask the question, and to keep him from walking away from her in response, ergo: the linked arms.

[acreage]

Wow, this feels like a trap all of a sudden.

"About what?"

[tender]

"I heard you say you thought you were going to die. That you were worried about—"

Between them, she reaches up to tap his shoulder. Derrica knows what's beneath the fabric there: something that glowed lyrium blue but didn't feel like any kind of magic she'd ever known.

"Will you tell me if you're alright, really?"

[acreage]

That's — fair.

He's quiet for the space of a breath, then two, and then admits, "I know how it sounds, but I really am alright."

He's been bullshitting about the potential danger, sure, but not how he's actually been doing.

"The part that's strange is that I shouldn't be. I should've gotten sick by now, but," he shrugs, "I haven't. I'm not about to complain about that."

[tender]

What she'd like to do is press Holden on just what he intended to do if he did get sick, if he'd have told her or kept it to himself. But she's quiet for a few moments instead as they walk along the stalls.

"Are you worried about it?"

He must be worried. Derrica can't imagine he isn't, whether or not he admits it.

The bigger question is what she could do to help him. If it's such a serious illness, would it even be in her power to heal? Or Isaac's? Her hand tightens just a fraction at his bicep, but she keeps that question to herself.

[acreage]

Is he worried about it? He'd have to be stupid not to.

But what he says is, wry, "No more than usual."

He remembers a joke Wysteria had made once at a party long past, You must look on the bright side. Disappearing is hardly the worst thing that might happen to us while fighting a war. It'd been easy to laugh, even as a fresh arrival to Thedas, because it'd been as true in his own system as it is here.

"I couldn't tell you how my oncocidals worked any more than I can explain the lyrium." He's not...a biochemist. He's not sure he knows any, either. Cortazar, maybe, and that's not a thought he's going to have right now. "And they're not infallible."

They could stop being so effective. He could miss a dose; his hand terminal still chimes reminders to help him keep from forgetting amidst jobs and alien planets and system-ending crises. No solution is perfect.

"If I look at it that way, there's not much of a difference."

[tender]

Her hands tighten at his arm.

The urge to ask "how are you so calm?" comes and goes. Derrica doesn't really need to question that aspect of this conversation. She has known many people who are calm in the face of uncertainty and death. Walking side by side with it for however long, Holden has grown used to it.

It's not fair to Holden to put all her questions and anxieties onto him. Derrica could press him, but what more can be said? Neither of them know. Maybe it can't even be changed.

"Will you make me a promise?" she asks, instead, turning her face fully away from the selection of cleverly designed fishing nets to look up at Holden. "Please?"

[acreage]

Time, is the thing.

In the early days after Eros, it was different. The magnitude of what he'd barely survived, and what he'd paid for that, was still slowly setting in. He'd looked so hard for a reason, trying to find it in justice (revenge), in destroying the protomolecule, in the next thing, or the next, even in the protomolecule itself. There had to be a reason why he had survived to need this constant monitoring, the implant, and 100,000 Belters had not, why Miller died a hero and he was still here.

It wasn't until the Ring gates opened that he'd started to realize that there wasn't one.

It wasn't until Ilus that he was able to help the last remnants of Eros find peace, that a lot of people would've died if not for the idiosyncratic way an alien organism reacted with his drugs. Which is something to hang onto, at least.

He responds to her question with his full attention, turning to meet her eyes.

"What is it?"

let's put a bow on this buddy

[tender]

"That you tell me if something strange happens, or if you feel unwell."

It's a small favor to ask of anyone who isn't James Holden. Derrica knows this.

Maybe she wouldn't be able to keep the illness at bay, or heal it, or do anything other than simply be present with him while he dealt with it. But if she can give Holden that small comfort—

He's a good man. He shouldn't have to carry this all on his own.

🎀🎀🎀

[acreage]

There's a smile that pulls at his mouth as he considers her, and the answer comes, maybe, surprisingly easily.

"I can promise that."

No, doing so wouldn't come easily to him. But he can hope that he never has to, now, and if he does — she deserves that much honesty from him.