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Chris feels frozen solid. Hours have passed since his return to the ship, and during those hours he has gone from shock to a strange kind of melancholic relief, and then straight back to shock, but he still feels the cold – that burning cold. He’d never thought that snow could scorch.
The door chimes.
Chris buries his face in his hands, then tilts his head back. Takes a deep breath, steadies himself. Better get this over with.
“Come in.”
The doors slide apart to reveal Spock’s frame in the hallway outside. He steps in without a sound. Chris looks away.
”Your mission to Boreth was successful,” Spock says.
Chris nods, mostly to himself.
“I have to believe that it was.”
He lets out a sigh, shakier than he intended. Lifts his eyes. They dart across the room before he steadies himself and brings himself to look Spock in the eye. Spock’s face is blurry around the edges.
“You are in pain,” Spock says.
His voice is low and soft, and Chris can’t take it – not like this, not now.
“Yes,” he says, because there is no reason for him to forego honesty. “Yes, I am. But it’s something I have to deal with on my own, in time.”
He squares his shoulders.
“We have to stay sharp,” he adds briskly.
He begins to turn his back to Spock, preparing to whisk the man away, out of his quarters, despite already knowing the futility of his attempt. He has given into to Spock too many times in the past for Spock to let him off the hook now.
“Captain. Forgive my intrusion, but it’s been my experience that humans greatly benefit from the company of their loved ones during a time of personal crisis.”
Chris feels his jaw clench. He swallows hard. Unclenches it. Licks his lips, chapped from the cold of Boreth’s relentless atmosphere and the dry smoke from its fires. He can still taste it.
Take it away, he wants to whisper – wants to plead with Spock to – to save him? No.
Spock approaches him, the tips of his dark boots slipping into Chris’s vision. Chris squares his shoulders, looks up into Spock’s face. And it’s as if every trace of his authority slips away from him only to be swallowed by those dark eyes. He is helpless. One soul among trillions in an infinite universe expanding away from him.
“Captain.”
Spock lifts his hands slowly, as if approaching a head shy horse.
“Christopher.”
Chris closes his eyes hard as warm palms come to rest against his jaw. Spock’s fingertips map out his cheekbones, press gently into his skin.
Oh god.
“Officer, this is entirely inappropriate –”
“You do not have to bear this burden alone.”
Spock’s voice is deep and calm, like a pool of water. Chris is drowning in it, no fight left in his body. His chest is tight as his breath mingles with Spock’s.
“I am here for you,” Spock whispers. “Always.”
Soft lips graze Chris’s cheek just below the point where the pad of Spock’s thumb is resting. A tremor goes through him like a current to ground. He leans into the touch. Resigns the last of his control.
God knows he’s deserved one moment of peace in this world. What does it matter if he steals that moment here and now?
Spock’s lips meet his. Warm, and soft, and tender.
And just like that, they melt together. Chris runs his hands over Spock’s hips, wraps his arms around his back, and, when none of that is enough, he crosses the coarse neckline of Spock’s robe and looses himself in Spock’s hair, soft like rain against his fingers.
Spock’s mouth is hot on his, wet tongue slipping between his lips, moving with him. Chris suddenly feels as if he is being thawed from the inside and out. As Spock pulls back, with a shudder and an exhale, cold air blooms on Chris’s wet skin. Cool and damp after the fires and smoke. Breaths of life.
Spock’s thumb swipes at something on his face. Chris blinks, realises now that he is crying, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. He lets out a sob. Lets himself fall into Spock once more. Spock wraps his arms around him and cradles him against his chest. An embrace so tight that, for a second, Chris feels like Spock would save him from all that is to come through sheer strength alone. But he cannot, and he should not, and not even this, here –
Spock shatters his line of thought as he buries his face in Chris’s hair. And Chris cries, and cries, howling out his fear and sadness, until he is finally empty.
Time stops as they stand there, silently in each other’s arms, Chris with his head on Spock’s chest, Spock’s heartbeat in his ear.
Steady and strong.
A promise.
~