Probably Too Soon, but... It Works.
Some Kind of Fix
Word Count: 2,566
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Linden/Holder
Spoilers: up to 1x13, just to be safe.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I just break things.
Summary: He wants a fix. She's got somewhere to be. Neither of them expected this.
Author's Note: So the part at the end of this came to me and felt... perfect, even as I thought it was too soon. I couldn't remember Holder ever mentioning his sister's name on the show (I could be wrong about that), but I got creative instead, lol.
Some Kind of Clarity
"I never have this much company," Holder muttered after he heard another loud knock on his door. He put out his cigarette and left Linden in the bedroom, sitting on the bed while he went to the front door. He wasn't expecting anyone, though he thought it might be Linden's kid again. That was the only thing he could think of, since he didn't have friends to speak of. Maybe his old LT. Maybe he was coming by to check on him, like a good sponsor should.
He opened the door and frowned. "Damn, Sis, what you doing here?"
"Nice," she muttered, annoyed. She moved past him, letting herself in. He closed the door behind him with a shrug, turning to face her wrath. He wondered who would be worse, Linden in a mood or his sister. "That's the greeting I get after you blow off my son? You have got to be kidding me, Stevie."
Holder winced. "Lay off the 'Stevie' crap, okay? I got a reputation to worry about."
She shook her head, folding her arms over her chest. He knew that look. Great. This was going to be a fun conversation. Linden would be coming out of the bedroom any time now, and when she did, things were going to get a lot worse than they already were. His sister was pissed, like he'd known that she would be, and he didn't want to try and explain the deal with Linden's kid in front of her or where she might hear. She didn't know about what he'd done. He figured it was better to keep it that way.
"Look, I said I was sorry. I brought him the present. I didn't even think you wanted me there," Holder said defensively. He knew he'd screwed up big time with his sister, with his nephew. Holder wasn't an idiot. He didn't expect his sister to forgive him, hadn't expected her to show up here.
"I gave you a second chance, Stevie," she began. He shook his head when he heard the name. He never could get her to lay off that one. He'd been trying for years, and she was not going to give in. He had liked it, once, when she showed up during his detox, but he would have loved anything then. "You blew it off."
"I didn't blow it off," he protested. He shook his head. "A friend needed me. I stuck by her. It's more than I usually do. I ain't perfect, but I'm working on it, okay?"
She shook her head. "I should just write you off. I don't know why I keep trying, why I put up with this shit. Haven't you done enough to mess up my life? I don't need you screwing with my kids' lives, too. You stole from him. You stole something-I don't know why I bother."
"Holder?" Linden called as she came around the corner. She looked over at his sister. "Oh. I didn't know you had-"
He might have thought she was jealous if it was anyone other than her. No way that woman was jealous for his sake. Pissed, maybe, but not jealous. "Linden, this is my sister. Sis, this is Linden. She's the friend I told you about."
"Friend?"
Holder shrugged. "We met at work. This one was supposed to teach me how to be a good homicide cop. You can guess how that went, yeah? Anyway, she needed a place to crash until she gets her son sorted out, so she's staying with me. Feel sorry for her yet? Then again, she has moods from hell, so maybe I'm the one that should be pitied, right, girl?"
"I told you not to call me that," Linden muttered, annoyed. She held out a hand. "Cigarettes?"
"Thought you quit."
"I did, but you know how it is," she said, and he nodded. Yeah, he knew, all right, he thought as he passed her the pack and his lighter. She grabbed a hold of his shirt and pulled him down to her level. "You gonna be okay?"
"You worried about me? That's sweet, not like you, but sweet," he said with a smile. "No worries. She's not going to do anything to me that I don't deserve. Trust me on that one. I've had this coming for a long time."
Linden nodded. "I just prefer you in one piece."
He grinned at her. He couldn't help it. That was as much as admitting she cared about him. Not that he didn't believe that shut up, Holder translated like as you wish but this she'd actually said out loud, without him egging her on in some way. He hadn't figured on going into the whole dating-not-dating thing with his sister around, but he didn't care about that right then. He kissed her.
Linden responded, pulling him close and holding onto him tightly. Damn, had she really been jealous when his sister came in? That was something, huh? Never thought he'd have that, not from her. Then again, he never thought he'd have much of anything with her, so hell, this was all a miracle, wasn't it?
"Behave," he told her as he let her go, and she rolled her eyes as she went around him. "Leave me some from that pack, you think maybe you could do that?"
She shrugged. "Maybe."
"Brat."
"Shut up, Holder."
After Linden had gone out for a smoke that would probably cost him the whole pack, Holder went back to finish dealing with the wrath of his sister. It wasn't anything he didn't deserve. He knew that. It just wouldn't be easy to hear.
Still, better to get it over with sooner rather than later. Like ripping off a bandage. Better to do it all at once, get the sting over with and be done. Or quitting cold turkey. Now that had been a real bitch. He hadn't thought he'd live through that one.
It certainly hadn't kept him on the wagon. He'd just been more desperate for a fix.
He forced the memory out of his mind, fighting the twitch in his fingers.
He walked back over to find Sis watching the window. He was so used to calling her Sis that he could barely remember her actual name. It didn't fit her anyway. In his mind, she was always Sis, would always be Sis. Time was, once, he thought of calling her Mom, since he didn't have no one else, but he had always known she wasn't, and he had given her the nickname to keep it that way. Sis. Now it was more of her name than her name was. She probably hated that, though. Just like he hated being called Stevie.
"Nice friend."
"Don't hate on her. Your beef is with me, not Linden, and she ain't done nothing wrong. Not to you, anyways," he began. He should have introduced them properly, but he hadn't known what to call Linden other than a friend and a coworker because the fake relationship and sort of friends with benefits thing wasn't something his sister needed to hear about. "There's a guy in Sonoma who would probably have a few things to say about her that's not kind, and the father of her son thinks she's some kind of prize bitch, but you, Sis? You ain't got reason to hate her."
"If you blew my son off-blew your second chance off-for your latest screw, then I have a reason," his sister insisted, and he glared at her.
"Linden and I weren't even together then, and she's not just my latest screw," he shot back angrily, glad that Linden wasn't around to hear this conversation. He did wish she hadn't left with his cigarettes, though. "Leave her out of this. Yell at me. Say whatever it is you came to say. Kick me out of your life again if that's what you feel you have to do. Just leave her out of it."
Sis frowned. "Damn, Stevie, you in love with that woman? You've never talked like that about anyone before. Not even Carrie Newhouse, and you know you almost married her."
"And you hated her," he agreed, going over to the couch and reaching under it for the emergency pack of cigarettes that he kept there. He'd have to replace it later-why hadn't he remembered them when he and Linden were at the store? He shook his head and lit one up. Sis gave him a dirty look, and he shrugged. "My place. I can smoke if I want to."
"Right," Sis muttered. "You gonna admit to it or not? How do you really feel about her?"
"That's classified. Can't blow my cover," he told her, and his sister shook her head. "How was the party? What did I miss? Did he like the present I got him?"
"You should never have taken it from him in the first place," Sis began. Then her hard look softened. "I'm glad you got it back for him. It meant a lot to him."
"I know. It was shitty of me to do it, but-I wasn't thinking. All I thought of was the next fix. Hell, I still think about that most of the time. Next fix, next, next... I haven't done it, though. I swear I'm sober. I've been sober for months, and I won't go back to that. Hell, Linden would kick my ass if I did," he said, amused. He didn't want to think about her going back to Sonoma. He wanted her right here, and as long as she was around, she would kick his ass.
"He wanted you there."
"I'm sorry. I'll tell him that, too. Linden's kid skipped school, went missing, and she even thought he was dead at one point. Turns out he was just with his jackass of a dad, but she was going out of her mind, and I had to be there for her. I don't even know why. I just knew I had to see that through. No one ever needed me before, not like she did that day."
Sis frowned again. "You do, don't you? You love her."
"If I say yes, will you forgive me?"
Linden stayed outside through three cigarettes, trying to tell herself that she had quit. She didn't have any of the gum, and she didn't think that really wanted to do this, but Holder had been right. She'd quit for Rick, and he was off in Sonoma. She didn't exactly feel like sticking with quitting at the moment. She knew that was dumb, throwing it all away, but right now, she couldn't bring herself to care. Her mind was full of conflicting emotions, and she didn't know how to deal with them.
She'd been jealous. When she saw the other woman in Holder's front room, Linden had been jealous. It shouldn't have mattered because they were not really involved, and she wasn't supposed to want Holder, but she did.
She had been relieved when he said that woman was his sister, but that relief had turned to worry over the way the woman was looking at him, and Linden just couldn't figure out why she cared. She shouldn't care.
She would try to convince herself that it was just because Holder had a tendency to look and act rather pathetic, but she didn't think that was really what was going on. She shook her head. She didn't like this.
Finally unable to keep herself outside any longer-mostly to avoid the things she was thinking that she didn't want to be thinking-she went back inside. She stopped in front of the door to the apartment, trying to figure out if she needed to knock or not. It was technically her home at the moment, but that didn't mean she just walked in whenever she pleased. Holder's reaction to her announcement that she and Jack were staying with him was kind of... mixed, something she hadn't really thought about before she told Jack's father that.
She had invited herself to stay. She could just invite herself back inside.
She opened the door and walked in. Holder and his sister seemed on better terms than when she'd left, even smiling at each other. Linden forced a quick smile and started to duck into the back room, but he called out to her instead. "Yo, Linden. Come here for a sec."
She turned and looked at him suspiciously. "What, you want to count how many cigarettes I left in your pack?"
He shook his head. "Nah. Sis here was just leaving. I'm going over there next week."
"Oh."
"You're invited, too," Holder's sister said with an almost friendly smile. Holder grinned like an idiot for a second, and Linden was tempted to smack the the look off his face.
"Oh, crap, I need to get that card from my room. Forgot it wasn't in the bag," he said, rushing off and leaving Linden with his sister and all that awkwardness.
The other woman took a deep breath. "I should tell you not to let my brother take advantage of you. It's what he does. I don't help things. Never have. Can't seem to stay mad at him."
Linden shrugged. That was kind of Holder's charm, now wasn't it? "I think I'm taking advantage of him. He's letting me stay here, rent free, and I have a habit of chewing men up and spitting them out. He even knows that."
The sister was about to say something to that when Holder came back with the card. "There. Tell him I'm sorry it wasn't in there."
"Yeah, sure, Stevie," his sister agreed, moving toward the door. She gave Linden a final look and headed out.
Linden waited a moment and turned to Holder. He sighed and shook his head. "Damn, I love her, but it's never easy when she comes by. My fault, too."
She nodded, feeling his arms wrap around her. She leaned into him, closing her eyes for a moment. It had been a surprisingly long day, and she was tired. "This might sound weird, but can we just... go sleep now? Nothing else, just... sleep?"
"Linden wants to sleep. Now the world is ending," he teased, but he pushed her toward the bedroom. "I'm okay with that. Sleep is good."
She rolled her eyes, taking off her jeans and sweatshirt. She put on the shirt he'd lent her the day before and climbed into bed. He got in next to her-naked as usual-and closed his eyes like he was already asleep. She stared up at the ceiling for a while, trying not to think about how awkward this was, lying in bed without having sex. Maybe this wouldn't work after all.
Holder pulled her close to him, and she felt herself actually relax against him. That wasn't supposed to happen. She needed a reason to end this, didn't she? That was what she wanted, wasn't it?
"Fuck it, Linden. Marry me, not Sonoma."
Chapter Eight