#noldenfic

[jamesholden]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

It's their first holiday all together, and Naomi watches as Jim enlists Filip to help with the cookies.

I wanted to get a whole hallmark-inspired fic up but work was heck and time was an illusion so i just wrote this little vignette instead. It’s a little Christmas treat for @pig-wings , and something i hope will get me back in the swing of things. I hope y’all enjoy it! Happy holidays!

[jamesholden]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

The journey to Ilus is hard on Naomi, body and soul. So when she asks for the smallest of favors, Holden is more than happy to oblige.

I got this idea while thinking about how Holden calls Naomi “sexy lady”. I still have a lot of feelings about them in 4x01 and Naomi’s treatments and how much they love each other, so I just wanted to do a little ditty about that.

Hope you like it! consider leaving me a little review with your thoughts!

[jamesholden]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Naomi picked at her sleeve as she sat on the plush hotel room bed in their suite on Luna. Jim and Amos were still talking, she could hear Jim’s soft rumble through the cracked door. She’d joined the conversation as long as she could, until her head swam and her stomach churned. She’d squeezed Jim’s arm before retreating to the bedroom. Everything had gone to hell, again. They would never get a break, would they?

The Free Navy now held the Ring and the gates beyond. They’d destroyed three of the Inners’s biggest ships. They’d done the impossible. And it made her sick. Didn’t he already take enough? Millions of lives. An uneasy peace. Her past. Her son. Fred. Alex. Alex. Naomi felt Alex’s loss like a punch to the gut. She kept expecting to hear him ribbing Amos, annoying Jim, asking her to settle something for them. Laughing, loving, caring.

But Alex was gone. As was her sense of safety, her peace of mind. And Marco had nearly taken so much more. Was still taking. But he hadn’t taken her home. He hadn’t taken the Rocinante, or Jim. Amos made it off Earth. He hadn’t taken those. It didn’t mean he wouldn't try. They’d all insulted him now, he was certain to try again. But they’d be ready this time. With anger of their own and billions more behind them.

Sighing, she looked up at the door. She knew they were worried about her, her boys. Jim, especially. She kept catching him watching her. He’d seen the extent of her injuries. When Bobbie brought her home, he had been the one who’d carried her to the medbay. Who carefully helped her out of her borrowed vacsuit, her boots, her disgusting clothes. Who redressed her in a gown and got her in the autodoc and tended to her radiation burns. Laid a blanket over her when she shivered. And when she was finally stable enough for him to relax, he stayed. Sat beside her until she finally woke up, leaving only for coffee or water (the latter for her) or to use the head. He’d slept there.

Naomi remembered bits and pieces of it. Bobbie and Monica had mentioned what she didn’t.

So, hi, it’s me. with my first real fic in..... over a year and a half.

It took me almost 8 months to write, so if it comes off a bit repetitive please forgive me. I really hope you like it, and if you feel so inclined, please drop me a lil review. I want to get more of my writing out if I can.

Huge old thanks to @pig-wings for putting up with late night excerpts and months of moaning about how to word the simplest of sentences, and for giving it a look-over before posting. U rock, icon twin.

thanks y’all, enjoy!

[jamesholden]

I wanted to put a little bit in the pegging fic of naomi teasing holden a little and so i threw this in the middle of what I have

He tugs her in impossibly tighter, sighs in a way that’s more content than exasperated. “Naomi. I really want you to fuck me with a strap-on as soon as possible. Please.”

His words send a shiver through her. “Thank you,” she whispers, kissing him once more. Hearing it made it real. Made it theirs, not hers. And with that behind them, she speaks another thought their conversation, his reminder, has inspired. “So... “

Jim’s brow furrows, but his smile doesn’t fade. “So...?

A wicked smile grows on Naomi’s face. “Did you have a type, James Holden?”

Confusion crosses his, but only for a moment before he’s smiling again, laughing. Loud, genuine, free. Happy. She can’t help but kiss him again. There’s so much for them to talk about. So much for her to learn. But she’s ready. Ready to share this with him. And she’s grateful he is, too.

SIGH one day i will finish

[jamesholden]

i already wrote a bit towards the end of the nolden pegging fic that i had to get down before i forgot so like if you’re interested in a SFW little excerpt......

“Maybe we should make this… a treat. Save it for special occasions.”

Holden hums into his pillow. “I agree. I don’t think I could survive doing this too often.”

Naomi laughs, leaning down to press a kiss to his shoulder as warmth fills her chest. “Besides, you’re loud. And we don’t want the boys to hear.”

“Oh no, my manhood,” he deadpans, voice still rough from use and exaggerating the hilarity of his tone. “Can’t risk Amos and Alex knowing that we don’t have vanilla sex in our cabin.”

“Amos would never let you live it down and you know it.”

“Let him mock. I’m not ashamed.”

[jamesholden]

NOLDEN 22 DO IT.

You know it REALLY troubles me that we transition from happy Mei to Naked Nolden Makeouts and that’s what inspired this little ditty. ENJOY.

22. “How to kill the mood 101.″

There’s only another week before they arrive at Tycho. Another week with their passengers. Another week with Naomi.

And then the Roci will be emptier than before, with his heart. But Holden tries not to think about that.

What he does think about is how much time Naomi seems to want to spend in their bed before she goes. How much time he wants to spend there too. Especially when she’s got him pinned to the wall, lips on his neck and hans scrambling to push his jumpsuit off his shoulders. She nips at his skin, drawing a laugh out of him.

“Is there a reason why you’re in such a hurry, XO,” he breathes, shrugging off the offending top half of his jumpsuit.  “Dinner isn’t for a few hours, we have nowhere to be.”

Naomi makes some sort of a growling, laughing sound in the crook of his neck. “I want you, is that a good enough reason, Captain?”

No better answer really exists, except to agree. “You raise a good point.” He grabs her wrists, turns them and pins her hands to the bulkhead above her head. “And I second it.”

Holden repeats her earlier actions, kissing down her jaw to her neck. Naomi’s breathing is harsh in his ears, and combined with his pulse in his ears, loud enough to drown out everything around him. Including the sound of the door opening. Not loud enough to drown out the surprised, high pitched squeal.

“Ew! Mr. Amos! They’re kissing in here!”

Jerking his face away from Naomi’s neck, Holden looks at the doorway to see a small face of one of the little girls they’d rescued—Zarina—peeking from around the edge. She eeps when their eyes meet, running away down the corridor with ecstatic giggling. Amos appears shortly after, slightly out of breath himself, looking not at all surprised at the position they’re in.

“Sorry, Cap,” is all he manages, sounding not at all sorry, before shutting the door and following her. Holden stares at the door for a long few moments, until Naomi starts shaking under his grip. He turns back to her, eyebrow raised. To find her laughing. He tries to fight his responding smile, but it’s a fool’s errand, and soon he’s laughing too.

“Jim… we’re kissing in here,” Naomi forces out before dissolving into more laughter.

“How to Kill the Mood 101: Interrupting Children,” he jokes, chuckling as he releases her hands and rests his forehead against hers. She drapes her arms over his shoulders, teases her short nails up and down the back of his neck. They stay that way for a while, breathing each other in until she tips her chin up to catch his lips in a kiss.

“I’m sure we’ll revive it somehow.”

Holden hums, brushes his nose against hers and kisses her again. For now, this is fine. He wants to stay in this moment forever. It could be one of their last. It’s perfect, interrupting child or no.

Send me a number and a character/ship.

[jamesholden]

to love, to do, to hope for

I got this idea like TWO DAYS AGO and banged it out today because I’m sure the episode won’t cover it and I wanna let my fic be at LEAST a half hour out of date so here it is! Basically I messaged @thetruecaptain and asked her what she would think of Naomi going into Holden’s cabin and finding that he left the XO badge.

SPOILERS FOR 3.09 AND BEYOND but it may be out of date in like a half hour.

ENJOY! And please leave a review on AO3 if you’re so inclined!

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.” ― Tom Bodett

Naomi hesitates outside the cabin door she once called her own. His. Theirs. She knows he isn’t in there. She’d found his goodbye message for the guys after securing them in the sick bay, while she was working to fix the comms.

It had been the first time she’d been able to look at his face for more than a painful, fleeting moment since he’d watched her walk away on Tycho. She’d looked back, given him a small smile that he returned before she’d let herself disappear into the crowd. His face had been all over the feeds since he brought Avasarala and Mao to Luna. But she couldn’t look at him. It had hurt too much. She’d been moving on, and shutting the pain away in a locked box, every thought of him and her old crew, had been the first step. It always is with her. She’d been afraid to even crack it open. Afraid to face how much she’d known she would miss them.

Watching him say goodbye to Amos and Alex, the only support he’d had through everything she’d been gone for… it blew the box wide open again. Amos and Alex are here. They’re alive and recovering. But it’s his absence that keeps her from finding any comfort in being home. The thing that’s missing. She misses him. She hadn’t let herself do so in months. Now months worth of missing him is hitting her at once. This is the next best thing. She takes a breath. Lets it out. And opens the door.

His cabin is nearly immaculate. Bed made in military crispness, strapped down for null-g. The only sign anyone lives there is the bulb of what must have been coffee that’s planted on his desk. She smiles despite herself. He’s always kept a clean cabin—when they hadn’t been throwing clothes around—and the sight of it, with a single sign of his insatiable thirst for coffee comforts her even as his absence weighs on her. She breathes and his familiar scent—and naturally, the scent of coffee—assures her. She’s home. Almost.

She steps in, letting the door close behind her. Shutting her in her own world the way she and he always used to. Together. He’d looked so tired in his message. Exhaustion he carries like he’s trying to hide it, that he’s probably been burying for months. She’s heard about the Roci’s legal troubles from more than just the news feeds. He’d looked sad, too. Regretful. It’s understandable, given what he’d gone off to do, but…

Naomi stands at the edge of his bed. A bunk she’d called theirs. She remembers the loneliness of her old bunk, after she’d told him what she’d done with the sample. Getting used to sleeping alone again. Adjusting to silences. To cold. And then she spent her last nights on the Roci with him, taking all of the things she’d missed and would miss while she could. On the Behemoth, she worked herself to near exhaustion, enough to sleep through the night without even thinking about him most nights.

Is that what he’d done? Spending as much time with the guys as he could in the day shift, finding things to do in the night shift that would keep him from bed or keep him asleep? Is that why he’d looked so tired?

She looks around, picturing him pacing, rummaging through his locker, shaving and washing his face in the head. Things she’d watched him do countless times from this very spot, lounging and teasing him or helping him talk through things. Or listening in on calls to his mother, Elise. Her gaze falls on the desk, where he’d go to work or make calls if she were still sleeping to avoid waking her. Something near the ceiling catches the light. Something she’d missed when she walked in. Naomi heels the controls on her boots and gently pushes herself up, catching the object in her hand. Another gentle push with her hand against the ceiling and she’s floating back down.

As soon as her boots click back on, anchoring her to the floor, she opens her hand to see what she’s found. Her heart stops when the realization hits her. The XO badge Captain McDonnell had saddled him with so long ago, back on the Cant. The badge she’d noticed him fiddling with when something weighs too heavily on his mind. When guilt is on his shoulders. When he feels responsible. She cups it in one hand, reaches out and brushes her fingertips against the cool metal with the other.

He’d left it. He’s carried it with him all this time, always in his pocket, always nearby at hand… and he’d left it. Her breath catches. Why? Had he left it for Alex or Amos as an ersatz Rocinante captain’s badge? A sign that he plans to return despite his message? Something for the Martians if they’d caught the Roci? Or… had he really thought he wasn’t coming back? Had he… left it as one of his only personal effects? To send to his mother? To send to her?

“Jim…” Naomi’s hand flies to cover her mouth, to stifle a sob. She’d given up everything to get back here. To them. To him. It had taken her days, fighting with Martians, nearly ending up like the slingshotter that had opened the gate. And he was long gone. May never come back. I never even got to say—

She takes a few long, deep breaths. Calms her heart. Her racing thoughts. Alex, in his pained daze, had smiled at her when he realized it was her. Muttered something about how “he knew you’d come back”. Alex couldn't have meant himself. He. Jim. Even when she thought she wouldn’t come back to the Roci, had no foreseeable plans to ever see them again outside of the feeds or in passing in some station… he held out hope she’d come back. Throughout her radio silence. Everything that happened to the Roci…

She’s here. She’s finally home. And he’s not. Even in null-g, the weight of that thought threatens to press her to the floor. All she has is this badge. This totem of responsibility for them. For his crew. For her crew. She closes her hand tight around the badge, edges digging into her palm.

“I came back, Jim. So you have to come back, too.”

He can’t hear her. Wherever he is. But if he could hold out hope for her as long as he had… she can easily do the same for him.

Until he cycles back through that airlock, she has a crew to take care of.

[jamesholden]

first aid

I said I would write a fic of Naomi helping Holden clean up after getting his face busted and so here it is. It’s kind of a reflection on where Naomi was and is at over what’s been happening and this beginning of a thaw from him and I missed finishing something about these two that’s short so here we go. it’s a mix between missing scene and changed context of a scene. I also included one of my favorite small Nolden interactions from the books heheheh. 

super special thanks to @thetruecaptain for reading through it and taking many excerpts and giving me insight i didn’t think of to develop some of the internalized bits. Also teaching me what grin actually means.

You can also find it on AO3, where you can leave a review if you so feel.

Thanks! Enjoy!

“Ow.”

Naomi’s heading back to Ops when she hears it. A pitiful groan and a heavy sigh coming from the med bay. Sounds she’s heard before from the same room. In the same voice. Her chest tightens.

A few weeks previously, Naomi wouldn’t hesitate to step into Holden’s least favorite room on the Roci to help erase his pain. After the days of his recovery from Eros, the terrifying hours of unconsciousness after the monster attack… her first instinct had always been to make sure he’s okay. But with this rift between them, hurt she can’t fix with a bandage or medication… there’s a hesitation. She’s a bit ashamed of it, of the small voice telling her not to help him. After everything that happened with the Kittur survivors, it has gotten quieter. But it’s still there. The walls he built between them made it too strong to completely erase.

Jim curses softly, a hiss barely audible over the hum of the Roci. The Pinus Contorta. Still loud enough to drown out that small voice. She takes a breath and steps into the med bay.

He doesn’t notice her. He’s sat in one of the chairs—the one he’s almost died in twice—with a mirror pulled right up to his face, studying the bloody mess of his nose.

When Jim had stepped onto Ops, rifle in hand and cold anger writ plain on his face, worry had battled with relief in Naomi’s mind. His voice had been rough, thick. Blood coated his chin, his lips, the tip of his nose. She’d been held in place by a Martian child as a shield but it had been Jim she was worried about. She’d heard him telling Amos what had happened as he helped Bobbie with Alex in the immediate aftermath. That he’d taken multiple punches to the face grappling with the Martian who had been in the other chair until they moved him to a bunk to get proper rest. Jim had waited until Alex had been tended to until taking care of his bloody, bruised mess of a face.

“You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

It isn’t until Jim pulls the mirror away from his face, staring at her, that she realizes she’d spoken. She swallows, waiting for him to clear his throat, turn away, ignore her. But he doesn’t. He just stares, brows drawing together in confusion. Naomi’s lips twitch and she shrugs.

“Saving people. You just can’t stop yourself.”

Jim blinks, relaxes back into the chair. All the air seems to leave him. All the tension. Naomi’s heart hammers in her chest. She has his attention. He isn’t shrugging her off. He isn’t ignoring her. He’s waiting. Listening. For the first time in weeks, hope unfurls in her heart.

Naomi had been hurt, but not surprised by his outburst in Ops, before the attempted mutiny. His quiet in the weeks since she’d told him had been almost worse than if he’d yelled at her. At least then she would have had an idea of what he had been feeling. From the beginning, he hadn’t done a single thing that threw what she’d done in her face at her, even when he told her to take the Razorback. It had to come to an end eventually. Trust for Jim has become a raw nerve. Nearly as much as the protomolecule had been.

Naomi had scorned Jim on Tycho, back when—unknowingly —he’d done the same thing she had. He’d hidden what Cortazar knew. He’d planned to kill him. His motivation for doing so has been weak. But he’d told her. He’d told her as soon as she knew. She’d projected her anxiety and fear and frustration at him for silencing her, for forcing her to hide the protomolecule, onto an omission he’d owned up to. He had no idea. And he’d promised not to do so again.

Naomi hadn’t trusted Jim with the same truth. She hadn’t trusted him and Alex and Amos to make the right decision with their sample. How could she? They had no idea what it was like to live on the end of the Inner’s gun, waiting for the hammer to fall on the Belters who just wanted to live and work. They’d never understand and they hadn’t even tried to. So she couldn’t trust that he’d been right. She couldn’t trust him. And she hid it.

Naomi had played him a simulation and let him believe that she’d done what they’d agreed on for weeks. She’d deceived him. No matter how justified her reasoning, no matter how strongly she knows she’d made the right decision… She'd deceived him to his face and hid the truth for weeks. That she didn’t tell him any part of what she’d done or why until she’d almost lost him makes it worse for her.

Jim had been so… angry. Determined. Righteous. So set on his course that nothing any of them had done would have set him off it. He’d just rolled over all of them more than once. So many times Naomi thought she could tell him. After Tycho, until he told off Fred and got them kicked off station. As they toured the devastation of Ganymede, until he’d let Amos beat that hacker. When she was planning to leave him to help Melissa, until he let that scientist die. She’d been steamrolled before. She’s been treated like her feelings, her beliefs don’t matter. Even though Jim hadn’t been that man, it sent her back to places she’d never wanted to see again. So she didn’t tell him. In case he was that man.

When she finally got to see the man she’d… When she finally saw the Jim she’d known, it was too late. She’d already done it. And when she’d almost lost him, to a fucking crushed leg and a fucking protomolecule monster—knowing that he almost died alone with the thing he feared most again—and he still hadn’t known… she told him.

That is what hurts him. That’s what exposed the nerve. That Jim doesn’t know if she ever would have told him the truth otherwise. That’s what really hurts her. That she doesn't know either.

Before Naomi can think about it, she’s crossing the room. The coppery scent of his blood and the blood of those Martian kids clogs her own nose. She still walks with a hesitation, slowly moving closer to him. She watches his face. The confusion slips, but he doesn’t move. He still waits. When she’s in front of him, she slips her hands under his jaw, tips his head up. His eyes widen, but he doesn’t pull away from her touch. Naomi’s heart beats faster. She avoids his eyes for the moment, taking in the damage the Martian had done to him.

Despite her pressing that nerve and him snapping at her, when they’d needed him, when she needed him… Jim still came. And when the ensign had let her go, she’d run to him. Stood behind him absorbing every threat he threw at them if they’d hurt Alex. But he hadn’t carried any of them out. He’d let Bobbie get through to them. Part of her wondered if he’d even loaded the rifle, with the alert sent out to Amos. He isn’t the ruthless man he’s played at after Eros. He isn’t a cold murderer. He isn’t manipulative, self-serving. He isn’t the man she was afraid he was becoming. The man that dark voice tried to convince her he is.

He’s still just Jim. He still saved them. Still saved her.

Naomi meets his eyes again. “Thank you.”

Jim gazes up at her. Slowly, he softens. He shoulders relax. Even his mouth—lips colored dark red by flaking blood—relaxes, opening as if he’s about to say something. He tilts his head in her hands, studies her face.

The corners of his lips quirk ever so slightly. Not quite a smile. But something still… tender. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Naomi’s heart stops. Her breath hitches. It’s… more than she expected. She hadn’t expected much at all, but… His words had been barely more than a whisper, but they’d been filled with so much emotion that they resonated in the quiet med bay and her own mind. That dark voice rallies against it. She smiles back at him, just a bit wider than he had.

He’s just saying that, the voice says, faded more than the whispers off Eros. That’s what they do, charm you back to them. Why are you giving him a chance to hurt you again?

Because I love him. Her tone is defiant. Confident. This is Jim and Jim isn’t him and I love him and I think he still loves me.

The voice shrinks back. And goes away. She can breathe now. She can focus.

“Let’s survey the damage then.”

The Martian Jim had wrestled with had done his best to reconfigure Jim’s face. He hadn’t come out nearly as bloody as Jim, but given that he’d lost the fight, Naomi can forgive it. She carefully turns Jim’s face this way and that, trying to ignore the burn of his eyes on her. His nose is swollen, the dark bruising and blood a macabre contrast to his pale skin.

“How many hits did he land?”

Jim sighs. “Two direct hits. He had good aim for someone punching over his shoulder while getting choked out.”

Aside from the “clogged-nose” quality of his voice, he sounds a little fuzzy, likely a mix of exhaustion and pain medication that she’s heard in his voice before. A pang hits her chest at the thought. Would he ever get to rest without some sort of injury involved? Not that an injury has ever actually stopped him before. Death couldn’t stop him. But she drowns that thought in his current, relatively minor injury.

Naomi hums, her thumbs moving up to press gently against the bridge of his nose. Jim hisses. “Sorry,” she whispers, but Jim shakes his head just enough to not dislodge her hands.

“It’s nothing I haven’t done myself,” he attempts to assure her, another small smile lighting his bloody face. “What’s the verdict?”

Naomi releases him, the med bay air cooling the warmth his skin left behind on her palms. “It’s definitely broken, which I think you’ve likely guessed.” She turns to the table beside his chair, tearing open a pack of cleaning wipes. “It’ll be crooked without some cosmetic surgery. But you were too pretty before anyway. It’ll give your face more character.”

Jim laughs, something he immediately regrets based on the hitch in his breathing and the soft “ouch” he utters under his breath. Naomi smiles. She takes a wipe out of the pack and turns back to him. His eyes are back on her face. She gestures up. “All right, Captain. Let’s get you cleaned up and somewhat presentable.”

Jim gets the hint and tips his head up. Naomi takes his jaw in her hand and starts cleaning around his mouth and chin. She’d rather give the painkillers a little more time to kick in before prodding at his nose again. She’s still careful, mindful of any other bruising or cuts hidden beneath the blood. Pouring every ounce of affection she’s had to hold back into this now familiar routine. She glances up at his face to find his eyes closed, his face completely relaxed.

Trusting her completely.

She resists the part of her that wants to lean in and kiss him, blood be damned. He might not be ready, and pushing it won’t get them anywhere. She’ll take what he’s ready to give, and give him everything he’ll take.

It takes two wipes to clean the lower half of Jim’s face. It’s likely it’ll take a good shower or a fresh shave to get all of it, but she’ll leave that to him. Jim flinches at the first touch to his nose. Naomi shushes him, brushes her thumb along his jawline. He sighs. Nods. She sets to work. She puts absolute care into wiping away the blood without pressing hard enough to hurt. It’s so red that for a moment she scrubs at a spot that’s already clean because she couldn’t tell the colors apart. She uses an extra wipe to dab the lines of both cheeks before pulling back to take a look at her work.

“You’re going to have some nasty bruises and discoloration for a few days,” she muses. He blinks his eyes open, and she gives him a smile and taps his jaw. “But for now, you’re fine. If anything changes...”

Naomi winces and trails off. Let me know. She isn’t sure he will. She isn’t sure he’ll take care of himself at all outside of injecting painkillers and drinking coffee, let alone as her to take care of him. She turns away, tossing the soiled wipes in the recycler and moving to wash his blood off her hands. She nearly jumps when she hears his voice.

“I’ll let you know.”

Naomi takes a breath and glances at him over her shoulder. She catches his eyes on her just as he’s averting his gaze, moving to stand. Caught, even if he doesn’t know it. “Do you… want me to help you to your cabin?” Our cabin.

Jim pauses, considering. But when he looks at her he looks apologetic. “No, thank you. I’m fine. I think Avasarala wants me in the galley for something anyway.”

The expression on his face, the genuineness in his “I’m fine” compared to the hostile, shutting out tone he’d used about his leg, keeps her heart from sinking. It’s still something. There’s still hope. That, and the mention of their VIP passenger raises bitterness in her instead. “Well, when her highness has finished with you, get some rest. Okay?”

She expects him to roll his eyes. To huff and tell her to be nice and leave. But he smiles.

“You got it. I’ll get some rack time in. You do the same.”

With that Jim leaves, his boots scuffing down the corridor to the ladder.

Naomi stares at the spot he’s vacated for a solid minute before actually moving to the sink. Yes, there’s hope. And she’s going to hang onto that for a while. It’s all she has left.

For now.