so i’m reading caliban’s war and i can’t stop laughing at the saga of holden’s shitty beard:
He washed up in his tiny sink—no actual free-flowing water, but a system of moist towels and soaped pads—scratching unhappily at the scraggly beard he’d been growing as part of his disguise. He’d never tried to grow one before, and was disappointed to discover that his facial hair grew in patches of varying length and curl. Amos had grown a beard as well in an act of solidarity and now had a lush lion’s mane, which he was considering keeping because it looked so good.
“Well, good thing you haven’t groomed in a month,” Naomi said, tugging at a lock of his hair. “With that bush on your head and that awful beard, your own mothers wouldn’t recognize you.”
“So,” Amos interrupted. “If the lieutenant asks them about us, they’ll have a story to tell about the asshole engineer who got in their faces, and not the nervous guy with the patchy beard who kept trying to hide in the corner.”
The man in the picture had the stocky bones of an Earther, unkempt dark hair, and a peculiar brand of boyish good looks. Avasarala frowned at the image as she sipped her tea.
“What happened to his face?” she asked.
“The reporting officer suggested the beard was intended as a disguise.”
“Well, thank God he didn’t put on a pair of glasses, we might never have figured it out. What the fuck is James Holden doing on Ganymede?”
Holden and Naomi glanced at each other. Holden tugged at his patchy beard. “Is this actually helping at all? Be honest.”
“Holy shit,” the Martian said. “You are. You’re Holden.”
“It’s the beard,” Holden said.
Avasarala thumbed on the video feed again.
“At least you lost that fucking beard,” she said to no one.
“Ma’am,” Holden said, “this is my ship and my crew. Half of us aren’t even Earth citizens, and we don’t just take your commands.”
“All right. Ms. Nagata, if we’re going to keep this ship from turning into an expanding ball of hot gas, we need to make a press statement, and I’m not prepared to do that. Would you please assist me?”
“Thank you. And, Captain? You need a fucking shave.”
it’s just so incredibly on-brand of holden to think a beard would be a decent disguise and then absolutely suck at growing one and then spend the rest of the book getting dragged for his bad facial hair
also, amos growing a beard in solidarity ????? that’s cute, that’s really fucking cute, i love him your honor
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