Work Text:
At 0630 every morning, since the beginning of the fifth week after he'd moved into her apartment, Syril gently rousees Dedra from sleep and hands her a small, elegant cup of hot, strong caf. Sometimes he will say good morning to her, sometimes they'll exchange a few words after that - sometimes he will say nothing at all, and simply press a kiss to her cheek, or her forehead. Then he'll get up from his perch at her bedside and head to the refresher to put the finishing touches to his hair.
By the time she's finished drinking, sitting up in bed and watching the sunlight glinting off the morning traffic through her window as the radio gives the civilian update - Partagaz' nickname for the news programme - Syril will be stepping out of the refresher again, entirely perfect, looking fresh out of the packaging. He will have switched on the shower so that by the time she's out of bed and in the refresher herself, the water will have warmed up to an acceptable temperature. She has attempted to argue him out of doing this, on more than one occasion, citing the utility bill - those thirty to fifty seconds of cold water are still being billed, whether or not somebody is making use of them - but after he'd suggested that perhaps in that case they should shower together in order to reduce their water consumption by half with a look on his face that had made her chest get tight, she had relented. After all, they do pay that utility bill with two incomes now. And it is them paying the bill, rather than the Kinderblock Administrative Budget, with all of its hard limits and reclamation clauses. Perhaps thirty to fifty seconds of cold water is something she can afford to waste.
***
He's usually home by this time - and usually his not being would be cause for concern, and possibly a call to his office. But today is the day Syril had been told that the new floor-walker position at Fuel Purity Level Four would be announced, so his absence when Dedra enters the apartment at 1845 is most likely caused by one of two outcomes; he's either got it, or he hasn't.
He should have got it. None of the other four candidates have as complete a profile as Syril does - they haven't been there as long, or they're too old, or not as accurate in their data-entry. Certainly she'd be surprised to learn that any of them have the level of dedication to the role that Syril has. And his letter of application had been flawless - she knows this, because she proofread it.
He had groused about it, of course, just like he'd groused about her looking over his internal memo regarding the business with the Kovarn charging rods.
It's not meant to be seen by anybody but an employee of the Bureau of Standards, he'd said. It's sensitive information. I signed a waiver.
I am an ISB Supervisor, she'd replied, and he'd sullenly handed over the datapad.
Honestly, the exchange had been emblematic of Syril's only real issue, professionally - a paradoxically stubborn refusal to step out of line. To be seen to commit even the most self-explanatory infraction of nonsensical heirarchies. She's never voiced the opinion out loud, of course, but she is fairly certain that if he had impressed upon his former Chief Inspector Hyne, back at Pre-Mor, his entirely legal right to submit a Report of Concern to the Empire regarding Hyne's clear neglect of duty were he not to give Syril the go-ahead to continue his fully justified investigation into the murder of two employees, the entire Ferrix affair would have gone differently - for her as well as him. His memo regarding the charging rods had reflected it - passive, deferential, practically conceding to an imagined counter-argument from Oversight before they had even made it. She knows he has the capacity to be assertive - brave, even, no more fitting a word for it, for what he'd done that day on Rix Road - so it makes his pretended meekness all the more infuriating. When she'd handed the datapad back to him he'd wrinkled his nose, but hadn't been able to find anything factually inaccurate about the edits she'd made; he'd sent it the following day, and netted himself a commendation, and she had felt happy herself, just watching him smile about it. Strange, that somebody else's happiness could feel like hers.
So it should be, with this next promotion. If he's passed the aptitude test, which he will have done. If he's performed well at interview, which he should have done. He's certainly practiced enough - with her, in the evenings. She's an ISB Supervisor and a former Enforcement officer - so he should certainly be able to hold his own now against two floor-walkers and a member of the Oversight board. He'd fussed about practicing, as well - not wanting to burden her. But it had been a welcome distraction from how bogged down she's been with her own work at present. She'd enjoyed doing it, in fact - beyond simply building his confidence in responding acceptably to the expected questions without sounding like he's merely parroting facts and statistics. She'd been finding new angles to question him from, backing him into intellectual corners. Pressuring him to show his true colours - intelligent, observant, decisive. The ideal candidate for the role - although she can't understand quite why he's so set on it, lowly as it is. He cares more about a single input account from Varnesi than any of you probably do about the entire department, she wants to say to them. When she'd said it to him, he had gone quiet, held back tears.
The apartment door slides open as she's taking off her coat. His eyes meet hers, elated.
"I got it," he grins.
Of course he did.
***
Dedra's day off - they're only allotted, not enforced, but Heert, when he had still been her Attendant, had delicately suggested that consistently not taking them made it look like she wasn't used to having them. Made her look poor, in other words. Uncivilised. Not the sort of person usually selected by the Imperial Security Bureau.
They're less tedious now that she has Syril in her life. Now she goes to holo-screenings and eats lunch at cafes and visits parks and museums with him, instead of just completing chores and eating meals and watching the holo or reading her copy of A History of the Galactic Republic and its Many Failures and waiting for it to be an acceptable time to go to bed. They go to places together, now.
Today they have gone shopping; a whirlwind tour, led by an excited Syril, of fabric shops and clothing outlets and department stores, stopping at the food court of one particular location in order to eat parfait and look out over a group of artificial waterfalls with indoor-cultivated lilypads and exotic fish. He's been promoted to floor-walker, and he wants to celebrate by pre-emptively spending his increased income. He wants to look at things for her, as well. Something you could wear out dancing, he'd said, presumably envisioning a slew of invites to formal functions over the coming winter months. Perhaps, she thinks. Ascension Week is coming, after all. Perhaps there might be an opportunity to slip away from ISB Headquarters and discreetly attend one of Syril's team gatherings as his plus-one.
They look at shoes. Spike-heeled, impractical things with pointed toes in shiny black leather. They were supposed to be looking for a new pair of boots for Syril to wear at the Bureau - he will be walking all day now, after all - but he, observant as ever, had noticed her taking one too many glances at them from across the shop floor, and had persuaded her to try them on, much to the delight of the sales assistant. She couldn't actually buy them, of course. They find a suitable pair of boots for Syril, and move on.
Later, back at the apartment, they have changed out of the clothes they've been wearing all day, and dinner is on the way, and their purchases are arranged on the living room table in front of them. It's been a day of juvenile indulgences - the kind of extravagance she could not even have dreamed of, as a child. The robe she's wearing feels soft against her skin. He'd bought it for her not too long after he'd first moved in. It's nice to have a transitional piece, he'd said. She hadn't a clue what he'd meant, at the time.
He's not grown up with much himself, she knows. The novelty of their combined income is something they can both revel in, in private, where it won't make them look uncouth. She likes the robe - although she still doesn't feel entirely comfortable wearing it in the living area. But she is wearing it for a reason - they are trying on their new purchases in the living room to make sure that they still like them now that they're back here, in real life, under the lights of their apartment. As well as the boots, Syril has bought himself a new coat - dark brown, in a thick sturdy material that will be perfect for the scheduled cold weather. Dedra has a new blouse, white with black trim and an elaborate collar, and a black skirt that will go with the formal top she already has. She turns around to show him; and he marks the points at which the garments will need to be hemmed or taken in. That's what really makes a piece of clothing your own, he'd said to her once through a mouthful of pins, the tailoring. There are additional purchases, as well; some toiletries for them both, a bolt of cloth that Syril intends to make into a suit, a new ornament for the shelf. All of them are unwrapped and examined before being taken to their proper places. Which leaves only one box left - large, black and glossy, in the centre of the living room table. It had been obscured by all of the other purchases up until now - and she doesn't remember what's inside it.
Syril spots the confusion on her face.
"Oh, there's one left," he says, with a smile that's almost infuriating. "Do you want to open it?"
He's playing a game with her, but she doesn't know what it is.
She opens the box. Inside, underneath several layers of tissue, are the shoes she'd tried on earlier.
***
"Yes. I know. I said I know."
He's been on the com for almost an hour, now, and has grown increasingly agitated as the call has gone on. It had been confusing, the first time it had happened - Eedy Karn, on flimsi, had not appeared to be any more threatening than the average elderly middle-class woman. But the way Syril reacts to her over com-call seems to suggest that she holds some sort of power over him - some secret, some leverage. She's known family members to betray and attack one another, of course, but they were criminals. Eedy's connection to Harlo Karn is, despite the shared name, tangential at best. It doesn't make sense for her relationship toward her son to be so hostile.
Yet here they are - Syril practically curled into a ball on the couch, listening with a fixed, sullen expression as his mother goes on and on about seemingly nothing in particular without asking single question about Syril's own situation or even permitting his input on anything. He's seemingly unable or unwilling to end the conversation without some form of repercussion. Well, Dedra will be the judge of whether or not that repercussion will be meaningful enough to pay attention to - and if that's the case, then that attention will be paid by Enforcement, not by her, and certainly not by Syril.
She approaches him from behind the com-unit, so that he can see her, but Eedy can't. End the call, she mouths to him. This is going nowhere. Syril makes a face, but complies - or rather, tries to comply.
"I have to go now, Mother," he says, affecting an authoritative tone that doesn't quite land. "My partner -"
"Oh, your girlfriend?"
"I'm thirty six years old, Mother, I don't think it would be appropriate to call her my girlfri-"
"But you're still insisting that she exists," Eedy replies, waspish.
Enough of this.
"She exists," Dedra cuts in. "We have dinner plans. You're going to have to end the call."
There is a decidedly pregnant pause.
"Oh! I wasn't aware that you were in," Eedy says, her tone entirely different. "Please don't let me keep you. It's a shame that I can't see you -"
"Well, we're in a hurry," Syril interjects, hanging onto the lifeline of their imaginary dinner plans with all his might. "I'll -"
"We'll have to meet in person," Eedy purrs, and for the merest flicker of a second, Syril's expression conveys absolute terror. "I - ah, yeah. Sure," he says, recomposing himself, reaching for the end-call button. "Anyway -"
Eedy attempts to say something further, but Dedra wants this finished. "We'll find a suitable date," she says, conveying press the button right now with her expression. Syril complies.
***
Sometimes Dedra doesn't know what she needs. Sometimes the concept of having needs is so entirely foreign to her that she doesn't feel quite human - not by comparison to the other people she sees all around her, crying so openly, whining over nothing, touching each other so casually.
Sometimes she tests the waters deliberately - tells him about some incident or other from her childhood that she knows has made prior listeners recoil to various degrees. But sometimes she'll tell him an anecdote that she only realises isn't normal mid-way through the telling, when it's too late to pretend that it happened to somebody else. Or sometimes it's a story that somebody else is telling, whether on a talk show or the news or in the fiction of the holo-screenings that they go to - realising too late that she's not reacting properly. Every time it happens, she feels the same hideous vertigo - like the floor beneath her is gone. Her heart races and her hands shake.
She'd only ever felt it professionally before Syril had come into her life. The prospect of losing out on a promotion, or worse, losing her job entirely, having to return to that miserable little town on Chol with its refueling plant and its drab patch of moulded-concrete housing blocks and its poisoned lake and freezing rain surrounded on all sides by kilometre after kilometre of nothing, that made sense to her. But to feel it about a person - a person who can offer her nothing in the way of advancement, nor threaten her with any serious damage to her career - that is insanity. She can practically hear Partagaz advising her to consult a doctor regarding the matter. Yet she feels it still.
And Syril has never done anything other than listen.
She will tell him a story, whether over dinner, or by way of explanation for something or other that she's done which has turned out not to be normal, or by sheer accident, or in response to some external factor, or sometimes in the dead of night, bundled up under the covers with her back to him and her face half-buried in the pillow - and he will listen. He does not ask questions or probe her for more information. He does not scoff, as though the things that happened to her could not really be possible, or could not have happened to a person who'd later been assessed as trustworthy enough to work for the ISB - that there must have been some mistake, if that's the case. He does not come out with trite rubbish like that's so horrible or I'm so sorry. He just listens, quietly.
Sometimes he holds her hand.