Archive of Our Own

The first time Amos is asked if he and Naomi are together, he’s mostly wishing Holden would shut up.

That doesn’t change.

Amos is suited up outside their busted shuttle with his hands wrist deep in its antenna array when Holden starts talking. Not much point, but Naomi asked. So here he is. That's usually how these things go.

He looks up at Holden across the cold vacuum of space.

Naomi hadn't said anything about making friends.

“An item?” The word settles heavy between them.

It would have been a reasonable assumption, based on his actions in the tight space of the shuttle - if he had been someone else. If Naomi had been someone else. That doesn’t stop the vague sense of incredulity he feels as he starts on another bolt. Even he can hear the distaste in his voice.

Amos knows exactly what this is. Meaningless small talk to pass the time. An attempt to focus on something other than their slowly dwindling oxygen supply. Pointless.

He has trouble reading facial expressions but when he looks up again he thinks Holden might be taken aback.

Words don’t leave him easily. They feel clumsy in his mouth, unnatural on his tongue. Amos has always been better with action. That’s why he works with machines. They’re concrete. You can feel them. Pull them apart, see how they work and slot them back together again. Words are abstract. They can have multiple meanings, sometimes at the same time. They have context. Syntax. He has to think them through carefully; break them down to their simplest components to make sure his intent is understood.

He almost doesn't say anything else. He’d already made his views clear. They’re going space trash in a couple of hours. It’s a waste of air.

Except it’s a question about Naomi. And that means it matters.

Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised him. Maybe, if he was someone else, he would have seen it coming.

That doesn’t change the fact that he’s not used to having to explain himself more than once.

Naomi told me to. So I am.

He had already said all there was to say.

Holden starts talking again but Amos has heard all he needs to.

He doesn’t say he's an extension of Naomis will. That it’s her voice and his hands. A conscious outside of his body. There is no need.

Amos may not like words, but he knows how to convey meaning.

Less than twenty four hours later Amos is carefully curling his blood stained fingers through Naomis’ clean ones, listening to her say ‘it doesn’t matter’ and he is unsure. He has never been good at comfort. He doesn’t touch people easily, and he doesn’t like being touched in return. But this is Naomi. His hands are her hands. So he doesn’t worry about the slide of blood against her palm. He doesn’t worry that they have never done this before. That he might be stepping over an invisible line that will be very hard to get back. He doesn’t think about Shed’s headless corpse, how Alex is slumped in the chair across from them or the amount of air they have left. He thinks about modulating his strength. How tightly to grip to convey support without crushing. The sensation of her fingers interlocking in his.

Emotions are distractions. Amos has trouble identifying them in others and a worse time trying to identify them in himself. They are a vague buzz in the background, a realization after the fact.

That doesn't mean they don't exist. Just that he's learned to work around them.

He wonders who Naomi didn’t get to say goodbye to and pushes down the small spark in his stomach that might have been anger. Someone left. Willingness had no impact on the result. Someone caused pain. Repercussions were deserved. Repercussions he can’t give. So he settles on rubbing small circles into the flesh above her thumb and listening to the rhythmic, wheezing breaths of the unconscious man sharing their air.

He thinks of what Holden said for the first time since it happened and feels a sense of incredulousness seep into his blood once more.

Naomi is the only person that matters to him. Maybe the only person that has ever mattered. And for all the ways they understand each other, she is still completely alien to him. In the simplest terms he is a whole person, with her guidance. That's all he needs to know.

He isn’t sure when their interlocked fingers slipped apart. He can’t remember if it was him or her that pulled away first. All he is aware of when Naomi is being shaken awake beside him, saying ‘you came back’ with something that sounds like wonder in her voice is that his hand is now empty. And it looks like he’s going to have to carry Alex after all.

The second time someone asks him they’re back on Ceres.

The question comes from a belter who’s eyeing Naomi with purpose. He feels rather than sees Holden slide up beside him. When he lets his eyes track over he sees that the earthers hands are stuffed in his pockets and a worn beanie is covering his forehead. Amos looks at his slouched shoulders and has little sympathy. If he didn’t want recognition he shouldn’t have recorded the video.

“Don’t bother unless you like vague threats,” Holden mutters to the man that towers over them both, the slight slurring of his words making his vowels soft. He’d taken to drinking. Most of them had, to wash the memories of what had happened to them away. Amos would step in if it became an issue. Until then, he watched. Out of Naomi’s hair but never too far out of reach. Like always.

“Naomi makes her own decisions.” His eyes don’t leave the bar as he responds to the intent behind the question.

They’ve been on the belt two weeks and he’s already starting to feel itchy. Too many people. Too much noise. Too much recognition.

He extracts himself before either of them try and continue the conversation. He can hear the belter say “Naomi, huh?” before his voice is swallowed up by the crowd of bodies in the cantina.

Amos has never understood others need for possession. There was no reason to ask permission. Naomi is no one's but her own. To have claimed anything else would have been ridiculous.

He knows what Holden’s assumed. He’ll realize his mistake soon enough. And if he doesn't, well. That's not his problem.

The third time he doesn’t bother answering.

The war has escalated once again, the compartment they're in is rapidly losing pressurization, they still don’t know who’s responsible and none of that matters because Naomi is bleeding out. There’s a young girl with chocolate skin and wide brown eyes staring up at him asking if his girlfriend is going to be okay. She has a smear of blood running across her cheek like a scar. He wonders if it’s Naomis.

It could be his. Or the girls. Or one of the soldiers. It doesn’t matter either way. Once it’s out of the body blood is useless. That doesn’t stop him from noticing how different hers feels on his hands than Sheds.

Alex is separated from them by a wall of glass. His mouth is moving but no sound makes it to them. If Amos looked up he would see that the pilots normally tan complexion was ashen. He doesn’t. There is room for their interlocking hands. That is all. The rest of it might as well not exist.

Holden is crouched over both of them, pressing his palms into Naomis side to stop the bleeding and he’s muttering words in a voice that shakes, telling her he has to wake up. That she’s doing good. That she has to keep fighting.

Amos says nothing. There is nothing. Just the action of very carefully holding her hand, rubbing circles into the flesh of her thumb like she can feel them. Nothing else. The world is singled down to her hand and red on the floor.

The girl doesn’t ask again.

He feels small fingers pressed hard against the curve of his elbow and thinks Naomi wouldn’t like it if he shook them off.

The fourth time he doesn’t need to answer.

Naomi it does for him.

Amos is hunched in a makeshift medic room. It’s a tight fit. He’s not sure what it’s original purpose was. He doesn’t care.

He took the chair that has a view of both the cot and the door. His feet are firmly planted on the floor with his arms braced against his knees. This is his second day there.

The rest of the crew of the Rocinante filter in in shifts. Right now Holden is occupying the second space bolted to the wall. Something’s happening outside. It looks important. Unless the life support starts to go Amos doesn’t care.

His eyes sting. He can’t remember the last time he slept.

He doesn’t care about that either.

All that matters is making sure Naomi stays alive. And that means staying awake to hear the steady beeping of machines that surround her.

So of course he’s there when she opens her eyes for the first time since the bullet tore through her suit.

Of course he’s the first one to notice the small shift in the noise that has been surrounding them since he placed Naomi on the bed.

Of course he’s the first one to notice her hands clench, her eyelids flutter.

And then he’s watching her look around the room and he thinks maybe he’s smiling, but eventually her eyes find there way to him and she’s smiling back so it’s okay.

Holden’s jumping up, yelling for the new medic that Amos still hasn’t bothered to learn the name of, whooping into the silence and he’s still sitting exactly where he was, with his eyes locked on Naomis.

Holden is the one that crosses the room and clasps her shoulder. Tells her how glad they are to see her conscious. Fills the silence with what’s happened in the time she’s been out.

Amos stays where he is, hands planted on his knees, body angled toward both the bed and the door until the medic comes in and starts asking questions.

He’s looking, so he notices the painful swallow when she tries to answer. He doesn’t remember getting up but while Holden asks the medic questions he’s crossing the room to pour water into a small cup and carefully help her sit up so she can drink it without choking. He doesn’t need to say anything when he hands it to her. There is nothing to say.

“Your girlfriend is one lucky woman,” the medic says. Amos starts to corrects him, but then Naomi is clasping his hand over the worn sheets and he thinks is how easy it is for people to break down something so complex into its simplest components.

Holden starts talking again. As Amos grips back, focusing on the pressure, trying to make it neither too hard or too soft he finds there is nothing to say.