Quietus

He manages to take a deep breath just before he plunges into the water, but the frigid shock of what feels like a trillion old-fashioned, hypodermic needles scoring his skin forces it from his lungs only an instant after he is submerged.

Jim grins into the kiss, and pulls back to smother a chuckle against his lover's naked shoulder.

"I told you not to make me laugh," he chides, his hand sliding from Spock's face to press between their bodies at his bandaged ribs.

"I was unaware my comment would –"

"Liar."

At once, he is thrashing, every part of him straining for the surface, for air, for an end to the chilled agony seeping into his bones. But there is nothing. There is no one, and help is distant dream, hope an echoing uncertainty dissolving like hot breath into the night air.

Spock's lips twitch. He reaches across the scant few inches that separate him from his captain and tweaks the skin just above Jim's hip. Jim jumps and chokes on a laugh, slapping the Vulcan's hand away as he scrambles to the edge of the bed.

His flailing hands make contact with the unyielding wall of ice that cuts him off from the surface. He pounds at it ineffectually with sluggish fists.

Spock is quick to capture his wily human with an arm around his waist. Effortlessly, he pulls Jim until his back is flush to Spock's chest.

His lungs burn even as the rest of him freezes.

He rests his lips on the crown of Jim's head in a ghost of a kiss.

"Resistance is futile."

Slowly, he begins to sink. The fractured, pearlescent glow emanating from the ice weakens as he floats down, down, down, farther into the vast reaches of blue-tinged oblivion.

Jim shakes with silent laughter, and bucks his hips in a bid to throw Spock off of him, but the Vulcan simply throws one leg over Jim's to pin him in place while Spock ruthlessly tickles his lover's sides.

Breathless with laughter, Jim calls, "Okay. Fine. Uncle! Uncle!"

It does not hurt anymore.

Spock rolls his lover onto his back and leans over him, his eyebrow quirking in amusement.

The black of space stretches around and beyond him and into eternity, flawless in its inky cling. He wonders where all the stars went.

"As we are currently 2,857 light years from Earth, I fail to comprehend how your uncle could possibly lend you any form of assistance."

Exhaustion grips him tighter and he closes his eyes, knowing with happy, regretful certainty that this night he will not dream.

"You think you're so funny –"

He mouths a single name to the watery depths.

Spock silences his t'hy'la with a kiss.