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Spock is reading quietly on the couch when Bones wanders in with his own PADD. Without speaking, he lays down on the coach and puts his head in Spock's lap; Spock immediately makes room for him on reflex and carries on reading. A few moments pass as Bones tries to adjust the PADD so he can read more comfortably. Spock looks down on him.
"You should sit up while you read, Leonard. It is illogical to be in such a position when reading.” Bones just shoots him an exasperated look.
“Look, you, how many years you gonna tell me this? I’m comfortable here, alrigh’?” Spock tilts his head.
“That is doubtful, ashayam, as you always complain of getting a ‘crick in yer neck’ after laying in this position. Besides,” Spock continues, a small smirk on his face, “I have it on good authority that my legs are ‘bonier than a turkey after Thanksgiving’.”
Bone’s eyes crinkle at the edges as he looks up past his PADD at Spock.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, dingus. The things I put up with for love.”
He huffed out a mock-sigh, causing Spock’s grey-peppered hairs to float around lazily. The midday rays of Vulcan’s sun were streaming through the window, casting a warm golden haze around Spock’s head. For a moment, Bones is transfixed – he reaches out a weathered hand to brush against the strands. Halfway there Spock’s own hand intercepts him.
A bemused eyebrow arches as the long fingers tangle in his. Bones barks out a short laugh before his back twinged again. Grumbling, he shifted a bit.
“See? Crick’s entirely the fault o’ my age, though I’m not denying you have toothpick legs.”
“You are not old.”
Bones quirks his head at the entirely illogical statement; Spock may have relaxed (well, for a Vulcan anyway) a bit over the years, but even for him, to deny that Bones was getting on in his years was hitting the ball way out of the park. Blue eyes met brown as Spock squeezed his hand gently.
Bones just furrowed his brow. “I’m 102, love. Maybe that’s spring chicken age for a Vulcan, but for a human, I’m peeking at the Golden Gates, here.”
He could see Spock nearly open his mouth to argue the idiom of ‘spring chicken’, but he just stayed silent. Now Bones was slightly worried.
“Ashayam? Spock? What’s wrong?” He asked.
For a long moment, Spock just looked back at him, before his eyes drifted to their entwined hands – Bones’ tanned and thick-knuckled, now wrinkled and with the beginning of liver spots, dark hairs dusting the back. Then Spock’s, which, although only a few years younger, still looked in stark contrast to the other – firm skin stretches across lyrist fingers, a gentle green flush to the veins and arteries. Even here, the two were night and day, old and young, passion and serenity. Looking at his husband, Bones brought their joined hands to his forehead first, then to his lips, where he placed a gentle kiss on Spock’s thumb joint.
“You will never be old to me, Leonard. Even during the events following Gamma Hydra II, your body aged but…” Spock almost seemed to hesitate, “You never grew old, not in spirit, not in mind. You are…a constant in my universe. I do not think I could bear to lose you.”
Bones shivered at the words, almost the same words he’d once spoken to his husband as his katra rested in his brain. Those had not been good times, for either involved, and he could not honestly say they were happy memories, even though it was the closest they had ever been together.
Bones could do nothing but sigh. It’s not like he hadn’t thought about their situation – there was no way, barring a serious accident, that he would outlive Spock. In some ways, he had the easy part. When the time came, he would just have to let go; Spock would be the one suffering from his absence.
He stroked his thumb across their joined hands absently.
“It’s just a bit of backache, Spock. I’m nowhere near popping off.” He tried to assure him, despite his own morbid jest earlier, despite the fact that Spock would vehemently deny needing any kind of assurance, despite the illogicality of this whole situation.
Spock’s own thumb ghosted back over his knuckle.
“You are…very dear to me, husband.” Spock said, and yes, his face was blank, but such a warmth seemed to radiate from his eyes, his hands, his mind, becoming a furnace that put the Vulcan sun to shame with its affection. Bones could do nothing but grin back at him.
“I love you too, dear.” His tone turned teasing. “And I really AM comfortable here, if you’d just move your needle of a knee a smidge.” Spock obliged and made no further comment.
That day they spent on the couch, reading apart, but together, connected by their tangled fingers and their tangled souls.