The BLTS Archive - Q/Poem
by Varoneeka (Varoneeka@hotmail.com )

---

This is a PWP that wouldn't behave, and is now just another P/Q
first-time story.  Thanks to my beta readers, Ruth, Jeanita, and
Devika, and a kneel in gratitude to my Editrix.  Without you I am
nothing.  A hug for Vast See and Robin, and a big *thank you* and
*more please* to our new P/Q story writers.

This story is slash -- SLASH, do you hear me?  If that's not your bag,
don't read it!

Paramount knows nothing of my existence, and we both like it better
that way.

---

*The need to create beauty.
Liquid velvet from my fingertips
To make me that creator.
The endless chord of myself as music,
Stripped of all but the reverberation
Of forever.*


The would-be poet scowled.  That didn't really look very good, and it
was neither retro enough to be an homage nor original enough to get by
on its own.  At least he wasn't trying to make anything rhyme this
time.

He sipped his tea and thought a long while, enjoying that part of it,
at any rate.  His love of language was usually satisfied by that
alone, by simply thinking about poetry and enjoying the work of others
-- far superior to anything he could ever create.

But every now and then he felt the urge, and had learned it was better
to exorcise it than suppress it.  Just to make sure his amateur
scribblings never came back to haunt him, he always wrote his poems on
replicated paper and stored them in a locked drawer -- along with his
old-fashioned ink pen, purchased on Earth many years ago.  He sipped
his tea again, savoring that dry near-bitterness, and scribbled some
more:


*The focused knowledge of pleasure,
Again in my ears and hands.
I have returned to knowledge and found
Nothing.
But we make all that is nothing
And light.*


*Good Lord, Jean-Luc, that's terrible,* the poet groaned to himself,
silent even here in his quarters.  It didn't even sound like him.

*No, you like to think Shakespeare sounds like you. Hubris.*

The captain winced at his own thoughts.  Why was this always so
difficult?  And why did he feel the need to complete this drivel?  He
sighed and scratched out what he hoped was the last of it:


*The shape of nothing beyond us.
Confident in eternity, I smiled.
And nothing answered, joyously.*


*Merde!  That's dreadful!  What do I know of eternity, anyway?*

The thought of someone in his acquaintance who knew all about eternity
flashed through his mind, as it had before when he was playing at
Poet.  And, as he always did at such moments, he squelched the thought
almost with panic.  The very last thing he wanted to think about when
he was in one of these pretentious moods was...*that.*

He drained his tea and looked over the "poem."  He ended up scowling
more than was normal even at this stage.  What the hell did this thing
mean, anyway?  And why would "nothing" answer "joyously?"  The poem
seemed to suggest he was feeling tormented by "nothing?"

*Troi would have fun with this, no doubt,* he thought, smiling and
thinking about getting more tea.  He needed to sleep, though.  He was
already dressed for bed, and it was past --

*Past my bedtime,* Picard sighed.  He needed at least six hours' sleep
to be himself tomorrow, and soon that wouldn't be possible.  The
responsibilities of his life bore down on him hard for a moment, and
he wanted very much to have more tea and make something more of the
night -- perhaps even some more bad poetry.

But he had a meeting tomorrow with his senior staff, and he needed to
say something intelligent when Dr. Crusher talked about the work she
was doing in her newly refit laboratory.  It certainly wasn't his
crew's fault that he didn't feel like sleeping.

Of course, there was a way to get, if not sleepy, then at least tired.
Masturbating would probably take away this silly need to write as
well.


*The need to create beauty.
Liquid velvet from my fingertips
To make me that creator.*


Why was that *so bad*?  The emotion which spawned it felt significant,
so why was the product so ridiculous?

Because he wanted to create something beautiful, something tangibly
lovely, and couldn't.  This was worse  than when he tried painting.
Besides, painting didn't *eat* at him like this.


*The endless chord of myself as music,
Stripped of all but the reverberation
Of forever.*


That's it.  He should play his flute.  He wasn't half-bad at that.  He
nodded and looked over at his flute case.

And didn't get up.


*The need to create beauty.
Liquid velvet from my fingertips*


Velvet?  Liquid velvet?  What was that supposed to be?

He closed his eyes to draw the sensation out once again, the
half-memory of something which had created the image.  Certainly, he
loved velvet, though it was one of those fabrics he never wore.  He
didn't even think he owned anything made of it.  But it was a
wonderful sensation:  that teasing softness that felt so lush.  And
yes, there was a liquid aspect to it.

Perhaps it was redundant to say "liquid" with "velvet."  But he didn't
like the idea of dry velvet.  It was more...sexual when wet.

Picard growled very slightly to himself and again felt completely
ridiculous.  This wasn't a sexual poem.  "Liquid velvet" could flow
where dry fabric could not.  He wanted to be a fountain, creating
effortlessly...no, purely...with purity.


*Pure liquid velvet from my fingertips?*


No.  Picard shook his head and wanted to growl again.  Why did he do
this?  He wasn't a writer!  Why was he here at his desk when he should
be in bed?

He almost made himself walk over to his drawer where he kept these
attempts at poetry to make the penance of reading some of his past
failures.  There was a perfectly dreadful sonnet in there about
loneliness which should cure him of his current fixation in record
time.


*The focused knowledge of pleasure,
Again in my ears and hands.*


Hmph.  Was that prosaic or what?  Why ears and hands?  Well, he knew
why.  He could feel that it was right.  He could also feel that it
made for poor reading.  "Pleasure" was also correct, it was just
trite.

"Enough, Jean-Luc," he finally grunted, shoving the thing across the
desk and laying his head on his arms just for a moment.  It was well
past time to be in bed now.  Poetry was a vice with no dignity.

"Actually, I like the part about your being an endless chord of
music," a familiar voice drawled.

Picard shot up in his chair, staring indignantly at the
brown-haired-and-eyed creature who held his poem in one hand as he sat
with his legs crossed and his expression that of scholastic
consideration.

"Q!"

"This business about nothing, however, seems a little confused," the
entity continued, and Picard realized that the outline of Q's uniform
was very slightly fuzzed, as though the material were...Oh, God.

"Put that down and get out of my quarters!"

"Must you always attack me whenever you see me?"

While Picard tried to come up with something glacial in response, Q's
eyes dropped to the paper again, and the captain felt heat wash up
from his stomach.

"It's a terrible verse," he growled, a defense mechanism, old as his
first school days.

Q shrugged, eyes still on the paper.  "Yes, quite frankly, it is, but
I admit I find it fascinating."

Jean-Luc closed his lips over his automatic retort.  Q had sounded
unself-consciously sincere.

"What do you mean?" he managed finally, though suspicion made the
words sound like an insult anyway.

Finally, Q looked up.  "Well, this poem, like many others you've
written, is an expression of a deep and evidently frustrated desire to
create beauty."

"Others I've written?"

"Come, come, Jean-Luc.  Don't make me pull out the drawer and show you
what I mean.  I'm sure you remember those...interesting bits of art."

"I'm well aware of my limitations as a poet, Q."  The man placed his
hands flat on his desk and resisted the urge to clear his throat.  "Do
you care at all that you've rudely intruded upon a deeply private
moment?"

Q blinked vaguely and then snapped his fingers so crisply Picard
started slightly.

A small translucent ball flashed onto his desk.  Jean-Luc frowned at
it.

Q shrugged.  "Now we're even."

"Even?"

"It's one of my first attempts at 'Q-poetry.'  Go ahead and take a
look, but please be careful.  It's almost 5 billion years old."

Picard wanted to make a remark, and then throw Q off his ship, but he
couldn't help glancing down at the sphere, and then his attention was
trapped.  His hands went to its perfectly smooth sides, and he lifted
it, noting that the pattern inside it changed slightly in the light.
Staring into its center with care, he was able to make out a blend of
colors, like a twisted prism that spawned an inversion of itself as he
tilted the sphere.  At first, he was going to say something about its
beauty, but as he continued to stare into the depths of it, he
realized the simple pattern of alteration upon which it was based, and
suddenly the bauble felt like a child's toy.

His eyes snapped up to meet Q's, and the entity smiled with a slightly
self-conscious air.  "Like I said:  my first."

"It's still better than my scribblings," Picard said automatically.

"Well, the analogy isn't that apt."  Q made a slight moue with his
lips, thinking, his eyes again going to the sheet of paper.

"Meaning?"

Q waved the sheet and looked at him again.  "This isn't you, Jean-Luc.
You're not good with rhyme and verse."

"I know that."

Q shook his head.  "No, you *don't* know.  You're a poet, and you do
create something of beauty.  You've created the most beautiful thing
I've ever seen, actually, but it's not *this* sort of poem."

Picard's mind clicked into high over-drive.  *Something beautiful
enough to catch Q's eye?  To warrant that sort of compliment, even if
he's not serious?  Solving the anomaly?  No, primitive child's play
for a Q.  My participation in the creation of the Federation?
Unlikely.  Some creation of molecules I made by accident while
crossing a room?  That might be it, or something like it.*

"Sometimes the act of appreciation requires attempts at creation, Q,"
Picard said calmly, almost standing up to get some more tea before he
remembered that he was in his pajamas.

"*Yawn,* Jean-Luc.  You do this --"  Q shook the paper again --
"because you're absolutely driven to do it, not because you have some
scheme in mind for better love of the Bard."

Picard sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.  "So the Q
understand the need for Humans to write, to create art?"

Q sighed in irritation.  "Don't do that.  We're not talking about
Humans and Qs.  This is a personal conversation."

Picard made his own thoughtful expression, then answered seriously,
"Q, if this conversation is completely personal, if you're here for no
other reason than to tell me things you think are true about my
personality, then I would very much like you to put down my attempt at
verse and leave."

Q smiled, eyes slightly hurt but glinting.  "You want me to leave
before I've told you how you've created the most beautiful thing in
the universe?"

"I'm not interested in accidents, the product of which only a Q can
recognize."

Q looked momentarily thrown.  "Accidents?"  Then he laughed.  "Oh, I
get it.  No no no no, Jean-Luc.  This is something you most definitely
meant to create."

And then the man felt it, that far-too-familiar snap in his mind that
signaled once again that Q had caught him up, trapped him with a lure
he couldn't resist, such as saving his own heart from a Nausicaan
blade, or rescuing Humanity from an anomaly of his own creation.
True, the stakes were not so high, now, but he knew Q's bit of
information would plague him forever if he didn't hear the rest of it.

And he was still, he realized, in that mood which had driven him to
write that puerile mess in the first place.  He still felt that
overwhelming need to create something lovely, something much, much
better than "liquid velvet from his fingertips."

He sighed, and Q smiled tightly in triumph.  Picard wondered what sort
of maze or other test he'd have to go through now to win this little
prize Q was offering.  Would he end up looking foolish again?  Would
he have to leave the ship?  Go back in time?  Wrestle a targ?  If the
last were right, he hoped Q would wait while he put his uniform back
on.

"Yes, Q," he said with unself-conscious dignity.  "I would like to
know."

"You," Q said.

Picard frowned.  "Me?"

Q nodded, placing the sheet of paper carefully on the desk, then
wrapped his hands around his knee as he watched him with equal
delicacy.  The light skimmed over the length of his thigh, and Picard
lost any doubt that Q had made his uniform of velvet.  At least it
wasn't wet.

"I don't understand."

Q sighed.  "You, Jean-Luc.  You are the most beautiful thing I've ever
seen."

Picard considered the possibility that Q was serious for about three
seconds.

"What are you up to, Q?"

Q smiled smugly and sighed almost with pleasure.  "Yes," he murmured,
as though to himself.  "This is one place where I've got you beat."

"Got me beat?  In gall?"

"In bravery, Jean-Luc.  Yes yes yes, you can run rings around me when
it comes to facing death and feeling compassion, but when it comes to
this, to recognizing our mutual attraction no matter how inappropriate
it is, well, I've always been the victor, don't you agree?"

Picard felt the trap close around him, then produced his own tight
smile.  "Objection, Your Honor.  That's not a yes or no question."

Q's eyes actually sparkled this time.  "Ah, another instance of my
superior bravery."

"What?  Putting yourself in judge's robes and taunting me for not
having yet solved the riddle of the temporal anomaly you'd made for me
yourself?"

Q raised a hand, wagging his finger in time with his words. "I told
you I'd answer *any* ten questions as long as they could be answered
by yes...or no.  Those questions could have been about anything."

"You knew I was only going to ask about the anomaly."

"I certainly didn't.  You might have gotten what you'd needed in the
first few questions, if you had only played the game better, and then
where would I have been?  You could have asked, 'Q, apart from the
Continuum's meddling, do you keep coming back to my ship because
you're hoping you can jump my luscious bones?' and then I would have
had to answer 'Yes,' right in front of a court full of malformed and
-- I gotta tell you -- homophobic rabble.  Now, can you honestly say
you'd do the same for me?"

"Q, I told you before I never want to go back into that court."

"How about in front of your crew, then?"

Picard flushed with anger.  "Leave my crew out of this!"

Q didn't even blink.  "Well, how about here and now, then?  Just the
two of us?"  Q's voice dropped.  "Or are you chicken?"

"This is all ridiculous, Q."

The entity looked genuinely and severely disappointed.  "So that's it,
then?  Not going to talk about it today?"  Q raised his hand.  "Well,
I'll check in with you next year. Perhaps by then you'll finally be
brave or lonely enough to admit it."

"There's nothing to admit!"

Q stood in one fluid motion until he was leaning over the desk, hands
flat, face inches away from Picard's.  When he spoke, his eyes
promising retribution, the entity's warm breath reached his skin:
"Now, now, now, Mon Capitaine.  Evasions and silence I'll stand for,
but no telling lies."

The captain didn't flinch.  "Q, you said yourself that any...thing
between us would be inappropriate."

Q stood up and crossed his arms.  "True.  When I told the Continuum
about it, they were --"

"You told the Continuum?  What did you tell them?"

Q looked puzzled.  "Why, that I'd fallen in love with a mortal, of
course."  He paused while Jean-Luc blinked in  shock.  "I have to tell
you, they were none too pleased with the idea of having a Human join
us, after the debacle I made with Riker."

"Join...the Continuum.  What are you talking about?"

Q wilted through a martyr's sigh, then recovered with a raised
eyebrow.  "When you become a Q, Jean-Luc, you will have to join the
Continuum.  We can't just have Qs running around loose."

"I'm not going to become a Q!"

"Oh, yes, you are.  Do you honestly think that just because you were
born as a mortal I'm going to let you go?  I should have thought our
trip to Starbase Earhart showed you I have no intention of allowing
you to die."

That was something Picard had indeed suspected, so his indignation
lacked just a slight element of spontaneity as he shot to his feet.
"You will do nothing to my life without my permission, and I will
never give permission for you to make me a Q!"

"You completely changed my life without my permission," Q noted dryly,
his gaze moving over Picard's body with undisguised hunger.  "I
certainly had no intentions of losing my heart to some Human stuffed
shirt who bitches at me over every little thing and quotes poetry like
a minor deity, for all he can't write it worth a damn."

Picard ignored the new flush of heat from the movement of Q's eyes.
He'd had the entity look at him like that before -- although he hadn't
been certain what it meant -- and ignored it successfully.  This time
was no different, whatever game Q was playing.  "Whatever your
sentiments, real or feigned, they do not give you the right --"

"This isn't a question of rights, it's a question of survival.  Now
that I've found you, having to do without you is not possible.  If I
couldn't see you anymore, I'd wind up like Quinn."

"Quinn?"

"A Q who committed suicide because the universe was unbearably boring
to him.  If he'd found what I've found in you, he'd never have done
it."  An expression of savage satisfaction and fierce pride shaped Q's
features as he continued:  "The Continuum knew that, even when they
ordered me to go to deal with Amanda anyway.  I could feel their envy
of me, even while they called me a pervert who'd come to no good in
the end."

Picard couldn't stop the question:  "You told the Continuum you were
in love with me before you came to get Amanda Rogers?"

"Yes.  It was dealing with Vash that finally made me admit my feelings
to myself, and in the Continuum, you can't keep secrets like that for
too long.  And so there it was:  everyone knew that I love you, and
that they'll have to get used to having you around in a millennia or
so."

Picard blinked and felt suddenly cold and weary.  Was his anger
getting lost in shock?  "A millennia or so?"

"Well, first I'm going to wait for you to finish out your natural
life, of course.  Good thing for me you only get better looking as you
get older."  Q leered as he turned, ending up staring at Picard over
his shoulder, then looked around as he began to pace.  "Since I'm
going to be hanging around keeping an eye on you, you'll live a very
long time, and probably do all manner of things to help Humanity and
the Klingons and the who-knows-who.  Then you'll seem to die as far as
mortals are concerned, and then we'll go through your transition
period -- can't make you a Q in a minute, after all.  Even you
couldn't handle instant godhood.  I figure we'll tool around the
galaxy for a thousand years, maybe two.  I'll want you to meet my
sister and our...little addition.  And I have about a billion nebulae
and protostars and other cosmic phenomena to show you, but then after
that you'll need to meet my fellow Q en masse."  He stopped pacing and
turned to smile at him approvingly.  "Don't worry.  I'm sure you're
more than up to it."

"Q, you...you can't be serious."

The dark brown eyes again reflected deep disappointment. "Of course
I'm serious.  I told you before we were going to spend eternity
together.  Besides, it's almost all I think about anymore.  Doesn't it
sound even remotely appealing?

"If I tell you I don't want any of it, would you really force it on
me?"

Q reacted to the deadly seriousness of Picard's question by standing
absolutely still.  "Would you really tell me that if you knew I really
can't face the idea of existence without you?  Would you make me
follow you, yea, even unto the valley of the shadow of death?"

Picard knew Q wasn't serious, but that didn't stop the idea of what he
was saying from ruining Picard's equilibrium.  He knew, later, when Q
flashed out after some enigmatic foolishness, that he would think over
those words again and again, but for now he shoved them aside.  Now,
all he could think of was getting Q out of here before he did
something dangerous.  "Q, are you familiar with the concept of
harassment?"

Q's full lips managed a thin smile.  "It's only harassment if you
don't want me back."

"Q..."

But Q refused to take Picard's warning tone as a statement. "What?"

"Listen to me very carefully, Q.  Whatever self-delusions you've come
to, I don't --"

"I warned you I wouldn't stand for lies, Picard," Q hissed, and then,
without even a snap of Q's fingers, the entity was gone.

*And stay out!* Picard snarled at the blank spot where Q had been.
His heart raced in fury for several moments as he stood there, waiting
to see if Q would pop back in.  But then in time he realized he had
been truly left alone -- perhaps at least for another year -- and
calmed himself.  He shoved his horrible poem into its drawer, placed
his teacup in the replicator for disposal, and got into bed, from
which he stared at the ceiling until only three hours before his
senior staff meeting, when he was finally able to get to sleep.

---

He never did make it to that meeting, however, as the Romulans chose
that night to make an unexplained excursion across the Neutral Zone.
The Enterprise-E was sent to intercept, and within hours Picard and
his crew found themselves in a position to avoid or begin an all-out
Federation-Romulan war.  When Picard refused either to lower his
shields or to fire, however, and when the USS Woolf managed to show up
at just the right moment, disaster was averted, and three exhausting
days later, the Enterprise was able to continue its mission to map
Sector 189 by 934.  The captain ordered extra rest time for everyone
as they made their way back to the sector at warp two, spending all
his time himself finishing his detailed reports to Starfleet Command.

And to his complete and total disgust, Jean-Luc could not put Q from
his thoughts the entire time.

Indeed, he was beginning to wonder how he'd managed to put Q from his
thoughts before, how he'd kept going as though his entire life hadn't
been completely changed ten years ago, in the area of space near
Farpoint Station.

Of course, he had so much more to think about, now.  After a decade of
innuendo and sly looks, Q had simply announced his feelings in no
uncertain terms -- though the creature could easily be lying, of
course.

Except...why would he lie?

Picard had long suspected that Q made a habit of honesty  (unless he
were covering for the Continuum, and even then  his lies were easily
pierced) because lying or using his  powers to manipulate others
"ruined" things for him.

---

Picard had thought more than once during the past week about a
conversation he'd once had with Riker.  Amanda Rogers had just left
the ship, and they were drinking coffee while looking at battle drill
evaluations, and Riker had started talking about how difficult it was
for him to accept what Amanda had done to him.  Picard had known that
his first officer and friend was seeking his advice for dealing with
Qs, and listened carefully to Will's description of the fledgling Q's
abduction of him into her romantic scenario.  He couldn't help smiling
at Riker's description of his beaver hat and high-collar,
nineteenth-century tails, and had nodded in recognition at the
relation of acute disorientation as he found himself in a sort of
idealized "nowhere" with a gazebo and a Q's demand to perform.

But then Will's expression had grown haunted, and he described the
sensation of suddenly loving Amanda more than life itself, of wanting
to do anything to please her, and  feeling desperate for the touch of
her.  In those few moments, before she'd sent him back to Ten-Forward,
he'd had absolutely no sensation of being coerced, or of feeling
anything for her but love -- the sort of pure love he'd give almost
anything to find in real life.

"But it was real," Will explained, his pained eyes fixated on his
empty coffee cup.  "And when it was gone, I felt...as though I had
been...mugged.  As though she had taken something I had made, not
something she had made me feel.  And when I saw her again, it wasn't
strong, but I felt the urge to ask her to return to me what I had
lost."

And though he'd spent another hour with Will, talking of nothing but
the man's feelings, trying to help him come to terms not simply with
the experience, but with his discomfort at how he felt about his own
experience, Picard had been thinking quietly to himself that Q had
never treated him like that, had never forced him, even though he had
the power to do it so successfully that Picard would never know.

What's more, Picard suspected that Q could make *himself* forget about
the use of his powers.  He was willing to bet Q could have snapped his
fingers and made Picard anything he liked, and then snapped again and
made himself believe Picard had chosen it all on his own.

*When you're practically omnipotent,* he'd thought many times, *what's
the difference between using your powers to deceive yourself or lying
to deceive others?*  No, he believed Q lived in the world of
half-truths and evasions because there he had a comfort zone between
the vulnerability of truth and the pointlessness of deception.

But now, in stating his feelings so openly, so baldly...yes, perhaps
even bravely...Q had left that comfortable gray world behind.

Which meant that now he was either lying for no reason at all, or that
he did, indeed, love him.

*And so,* the inevitable thought pressed on, *if he does love me, do I
love him back?  Why should I love him?  Granted, he is attractive...*

"Good Lord," he'd actually murmured when this thought first occurred,
the first time he actually allowed himself to recognize that simple
truth.  He'd been in his ready room, sipping tea, waiting to see if
the USS Woolf would arrive in time.  The thought had so distracted him
with horror and with warmth that he'd almost failed to respond when
Riker hailed him from the bridge.

He'd thought it several times since then, now.  The complete notion
was, on the surface and then even below it, abhorrent.  Q was
dangerous, and Picard had never been more aware of the importance of
his position than he was now.  Now that the war with the Dominion was
over, the Romulans and other forces which had helped the Federation
defeat the seemingly invincible Jem'Hadar soldiers were considering
the benefits of a continued military exchange.  The Flagship's
presence had been crucial in several altercations, and the symbolism
of the Enterprise name had never been heavier on Picard's shoulders.

And now, what?  In the middle of all this he was thinking of getting
involved romantically, *sexually,* with Q.  He shouldn't, but the part
of himself he was used to having react to such admonitions wasn't
reacting

He'd thought about the entity's tall body and expressive face, about
his large hands and dark hair, and been amazed at the reactions these
thoughts caused.  He hadn't been attracted to men before, though he'd
been willing to be, when he was younger.  Women were too much of a
delight, however, not to grab his attention completely, and he hadn't
looked back since...until now.

But Picard wasn't even sure this reevaluation of his sexuality was
necessary.  Q wasn't a "man."  His body was just a form in which his
personality resided, and that, not his eyes nor his hands, was what
drew Picard to him.  His energy, his intelligence, and his flashes of
incredible vulnerability.

When Picard wanted to torment himself with his new understanding of
his attraction for Q, the image he dwelt upon was not that of Q naked
on his bridge, falling to the deck as the Continuum literally cast him
out.  It was the time before that, when Picard had humbled himself and
asked for Q's help, and Q had snapped his fingers, returned the ship
to where it had been, and then smiled at Picard so...affectionately,
so approvingly, with such a lack of guile, like a child who received a
hug when he was expecting a slap.

And then there was the time they spent together at Starbase Earhart.
Once he'd relaxed, being with Q was so easy, so genial.  Since
becoming the "great" Captain Picard -- thinking only to himself, he
could acknowledge his reputation without any modesty topos -- he'd had
fewer and fewer people he could think of as a friend, around whom he
felt neither awe nor being in awe.  He'd also known he had nothing to
hide from Q -- that the creature knew all about him, would be shocked
by nothing he said or did or thought.

Yes, that was a reason to be attracted to Q.  Q knew him completely,
and wanted him (if he were telling the truth, which he probably was).
The sheer flattery of it alone was enough to turn his head.

Flattery...Q had said he was the most beautiful thing, but he couldn't
have meant it literally.  Still able to think without false modesty,
Picard acknowledged that he was attractive, for an elderly man with no
hair.  But he was not beautiful.  So Q had doubtlessly meant something
else, some sort of different definition of "beautiful," and the man
wanted to know what that definition was.

*So I'm as vain as the next man,* he told himself flatly.  *That's
hardly a surprise.*

But even without further talk from Q, he was flattered simply by the
range of choice the entity had.  Even if Q's feelings were shallow and
fleeting, he had fixated on Picard noticeably over the past ten years,
and there were all sorts of things clamoring for Q's attention, all
over the universe.  Q had taken an interest in him, and through him,
in Humanity.

And much more selfishly, Picard was attracted to Q's deadly wit, his
insight, his mercurial nature, and to the sheer challenge that the
entity represented.  Q was fascinating and dangerous, unpredictable
and yet...strangely  kind.  Picard had learned so much from Q, had
become a better captain because of Q, had even been helped to a better
friendship with his senior officers because of Q.

But love?   Attraction, fine, yes.  But could he love Q?  That
required trust, which he could feel for Q when the entity put his "I'm
serious" expressions on.  But it also required a genuine emotional
depth Picard wasn't certain he had.

Oh, Jean-Luc knew he could love, deeply, but the sort of "forever, for
real" quality of love Q seemed to be demanding -- was that even
Humanly attainable?  Could he love that completely for eternity?

And how about Q?  Q must have loved others before him, millions of
others, for all he knew.  Where were they?  Surely they should still
be around if Q were capable of loving someone for eternity himself?

Unless...it was possible Q had meant *that* when he'd said Picard was
the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.  Was it even remotely
possible that Q found Picard unique after having existed for...how
long had he said?  Five billion years?

No, it wasn't possible.  It was ridiculous.  This was a test, trap, a
humiliation waiting to happen.  With a set line for a mouth and dark
circles under his eyes, Picard finished his final report to Command
and staggered to his quarters to sleep for twenty-one hours.  Then he
showered, ate a large breakfast with Beverly -- who ran a scan over
him when she thought he wasn't paying attention -- before he returned
to the bridge and business as usual, and waited, in vain, for Q to
show up again.

---

Four weeks later, the mapping mission about half-over, Picard came
back to his empty quarters and felt that...urge.

He resisted manfully, practicing his flute, reading over a letter from
Marie about the state of the vineyards, grabbing a book he'd been
looking forward to reading from his shelves.  But even the shlocky fun
of *Honor Among Enemies* could not sufficiently distract him, and
soon, armed with a glass of brandy, he found himself at his desk,
staring at a blank sheet of replicated paper.

But what he wrote wasn't really a poem.

*Irony.*  That came first.

*Motion.   To know Eternity.

To live,  So long,  And still be  So alive.*


He wanted to set the pen down, but it went on as though without him.


*Ill-mannered, Presumptuous. Oblique, Sumptuous.

A challenge, Provocative, And always quite Vocative.*


Picard burst out laughing.

"Oh, I like this one, Jean-Luc," a voice murmured, the breath of it
tickling his ear.

He swiveled back and away, meeting Q's darkly sparkling gaze, and felt
the rush of warmth as he had felt before, only a hundred times
stronger.

"I thought...perhaps...another year..." he said, cursing his wan
response even as he made it.

Q shrugged and moved to sit on his desk.  Picard noticed again that
his uniform had the fuzzy-sleek shine of fine velvet.  "You've thought
more about me the past few weeks than you have in many a year I've
waited to come back to you."

"You just read my mind all the time, then?" Picard scowled.

"No, but I can't help knowing when you think of me, or when anyone
around you mentions my name."

"And how often do you watch me?"

"Often, especially when you're doing something interesting, which is
often indeed.  Want to know what I consider the highlights?"

Picard opened his mouth to say "No" and nodded.

Q smiled, leaning on one arm so his captain's uniform stretch its
material along one side of his torso, something which caught Picard's
attention more than he wanted it to.  He realized he was entertaining
a fantasy of sliding his hands along Q's sides, and wanted to run
away.

"Your little show of courtroom justice with Ardra is definitely near
the top of the list," Q began.  "You should have seen how much you
looked like me when you were doing that.  Well, I'll show you one day,
I suppose.  I also loved it when she sent you to the surface in your
little PJs. Oh, you're so adorable, Jean-Luc."

"Q --"

"And then, let's see.  I loved watching you get your starship back
from those trilithium-stealing hoods, and I loved it when those
Vulcan-types thought you were God, and I loved watching you pretend to
be a Romulan, especially when Data's hovering kept you from sleeping."
Q laughed.  "And of course I've gotten a perverse kick out of watching
you deal with Lwaxana Troi."  Q's voice dropped again, and Picard
wondered if somehow Q had trained his body to respond to that drop.
"Of course, my favorite parts have always involved watching you touch
yourself."

When he actually heard the words and not just their tone, Picard felt
awash in horrified shame that somehow didn't keep his cock from
stirring.  Thank goodness he was still in uniform.

Anger at both of them growled in his throat as he responded, "Have you
no understanding of even the concept of privacy, Q?"

"You knew there was a good chance I was watching," Q replied easily,
though his eyes were glittering with something like menace, something
that made Picard's erection start to become earnest.  "You've even
teased yourself with the notion upon occasion to get off."

Picard almost swallowed his tongue.  He'd never been so aroused and
infuriated at the same time.

*What's wrong with me?*

Q opened his mouth to speak, then shut it with a snap and evidently
came to a decision.

*There's nothing wrong with you, Jean-Luc.  In fact, you're so perfect
I sometimes want to gag.*

Picard gasped, unable to suppress it.  Q's thoughts in his mind
weren't simply noise, weren't simply understanding, weren't simply
accompanied by emotional weight.  They were golden, just this side of
painfully bright, and they warmed him as though he had been taken into
an embrace of complete acceptance and understanding.

"I can't do this," he said aloud even as his nerves radiated pleasure.
"It's wrong for you to have watched me like that.  I cannot condone
it."

Q considered this, then absently ran one hand down his own body in a
manner that made the man's heart pound.

"All right, then," the entity said.  "But I refuse to go back and undo
time.  How about I just offer to make us even again?"

And then Q flashed out, leaving an extremely puzzled starship captain
behind, sitting in his desk chair and looking down at the quasi-poem
in front of him.

A noise came from his bedroom, and Picard moved quickly to the
doorway...only to freeze at the display before him.

Q, naked and glistening slightly with sweat, was draped across his
bed.  The entity's eyes were closed, his head thrown back against the
pillow, and his legs were spread with a vulnerability that closed a
fist around Picard's wildly beating heart.  As for what Q's hands were
doing...that he could hardly take in, barely acknowledge, before
Picard had the most intense erection of his life.

Q was lightly stroking his erect cock with one hand, while the other
cupped his darkly furred sac, undulating the flesh there in rhythm
with those light strokes.  Even as Picard watched, the rhythm and
force increased, and Q began to writhe and moan under the movements of
his own hands.  Picard realized he'd stepped closer, and when he made
a slight noise, Q froze for a second, then groaned loudly and
continued, and the man was indeed reminded fiercely of times he had
teased himself with the intensely erotic thought that Q was watching
him.

And then Picard stopped thinking about everything, and just stared,
freed by Q's closed eyes, in fixation at the entity's dusky, swollen,
straight and thickly veined cock.  The glans were large, with deep
ridges along the sides, though the shaft was thick as well.  Picard
felt a twinge, thinking of what men did with each other, and how much
Q would stretch him if he let Q...oooh...let him...ohhhh, oh he was
moaning aloud now, in synch with Q merely from watching him...if he
let Q put himself inside his body.  Jean-Luc had always loved it when
women penetrated him with their fingers.  What would it be like to
have *that* inside him?

"Oh!" Q shouted.  "Oh!  I *heard* that!"  Q's body arched up off the
bed as his hands blurred over his cock and then he was coming,
dramatically, with a howl and a thick spurt of white cum from the tip
of his penis out and over his chest, and suddenly Picard wanted to lie
atop him, naked, rubbing their bodies together, until Q came again all
over him, and his own sperm mixed with his lover's, and they stuck
together and kissed and --

*Get a hold of yourself, Jean-Luc!* he ordered himself, trying to be
angry, trying not to come in his uniform as he watched Q writhe in
aftershocks, and then, gasping, ooze back against the bed as his cock
softened in his hands.  In the end, the man had a rather wet stain in
his crotch, but had held off the actual orgasm, while Q lay there
contentedly and seemed to be drifting off to sleep.

Then the dark eyes snapped open, and Q smiled as though Picard were a
mouse and he a hawk.  *Tell me to do anything to myself, Jean-Luc, and
I will.*

Picard closed his eyes as the shudder broke through him and more
moisture seeped from the head of his penis.  It was impossible to be
this aroused, and he no longer wanted Q to do anything to *himself.*

He heard Q move a second before he got his eyes open, then was backing
away as Q glided off the bed and stood up, all fluid motion and
focused intent.  The wall stopped Picard from further retreat, and
then Q was before him, smiling.

"You seem to be having a little trouble there, Jean-Luc," he noted
with wry concern.  "Mind if I help you with that?"

Picard wanted to close his eyes and just let Q do whatever he wanted,
but he also knew, and this touched something so deeply inside him it
felt like the beginning of forever, that Q wouldn't do anything unless
he said it was all right.  Q had watched him, would always watch him,
but he wouldn't touch, just like he would mislead but not lie,
embarrass but never wound, argue but never truly grow enraged...

Picard's eyes focused on that incredible mouth, and he found his
fingers had risen to those full lips, tracing them as softly as a moth
might brush the tip of a flame, and thought of that mouth surrounding
him, taking him in deep.

Q smiled, those lips moving against his fingertips, and then dropped
in a liquid glide to a crouch, his eyes remaining on Jean-Luc's,
waiting for permission.

"My life," Picard managed to whisper, his hands tight fists at his
sides.  "You said you'd let me live out my natural life."

"Yes," Q whispered back.

"You won't interfere with my command?"

"No more than I have in the past.  And I'm willing to negotiate over
every little point you need to be comfortable -- though I warn you,
allow me to love you and I'll never let you to push me away again.
Now do I need to wait for you some more or can I *finally* suck on
your cock?"

And it was more than he could take:  Q naked and on his knees, saying
that to him.  Picard groaned and shivered and knew that Q would only
have to touch the material over his erection and he'd come.  After
that, sanity might return.  He might do the very thing Q said he
wouldn't tolerate.  He might try to push Q away, he might lose his
nerve, give in to his almost overwhelming fear.

"Jean-Luc?"  Q's tone had changed:  no more menace, only concern, and
the man lowered his eyelids over hot tears.  He reached out blindly,
and felt Q take his hands.  Tugging, opening his eyes, he brought Q up
to stand in front of him, then stretched up, wrapping his arms around
Q's shoulders to hold that warm body close.  Q pressed into him,
folding his long arms around his waist and back, bending his head over
Jean-Luc's to let the man tuck his head into the crook of his neck.
It was into this space that he finally spoke:

"You're asking me to give up everything for you:  my sense of who I
am, my mortality, my Humanity."

"The alternative is for me to give up everything for you.  Isn't
immortality easier to face than death?"

The words were dragged from him.  "Ask Quinn."

Q shuddered, and Picard felt the stab of guilt throughout his body.
He wanted to cut out his tongue before he said something which would
drive Q from his arms, and yet...he couldn't just accept the future Q
had mapped out for him.

*Of course you won't just accept it,* Q's bright thoughts lit up his
mind, and he huddled close to them, warming himself.  *I said we'd
negotiate...we'll work it out, and we have forever to do it.  And,
perhaps I should have said this sooner, but it's not possible to make
someone a Q against their will, you know.*

Picard leaned away slightly, needing to look into Q's eyes.  "You did
that with Riker."

Q "tsked" faintly and brought up a finger to tap his nose, then caress
his cheek.  "We gave him the power of the Q and he declined, if you'll
recall.  If we'd tried to force him to keep those powers, he could
have used them to destroy them, since they weren't really a part of
himself."

Picard tried to think that through -- no mean feat when his erection
was going to tear through his uniform any second.  He felt Q shake
him, just slightly.

"Jean-Luc, I could do nothing to you you didn't want, don't you
understand?"

"I can't make you promises I don't intend to keep."

Q sighed, then leaned down to let his lips hover over Jean-Luc's, even
now seeking permission.  Picard gave it, opening his own lips slightly
and tilting his head back.  Q moved that final centimeter, and Picard
was suffused with delicate heat even as he registered the sweetness of
Q's lips.  Jean-Luc moaned and returned the pressure, allowing his
tongue to caress Q's lips, which opened as well, and then he moved
inside, exploring, twining his tongue against Q's as the pressure from
Q's arms increased.  He felt completed, centered, and strangely at
peace, at last enjoying what he had needed for so long that that need
had become a part of his identity.

*Promise me only that you'll try, Jean-Luc,* Q asked him, and the
simple request felt as binding as a contract, as formal as his oath of
command, as perfect as the poem he was never able to write.  *Promise
me that, and I'll promise it as well.*

Picard leaned back enough to break the kiss, gently, and looked up
again into Q's eyes, meaning to make that promise.  Instead, he was
transfixed into silence, staring back helplessly.

Never before had Q looked at him with love, and that expressive face
conveyed a depth of emotion to satisfy his most terrified longings.
For the first time, it occurred to him that if he ever got used to
that expression, ever allowed himself to believe in it completely, he
could never live without it again.  Here, in Q's expression, Jean-Luc
had finally found that beauty he had wanted to create, and he couldn't
help imagining the variations he might work:  that expression of pure
love mixed with passion as Q came, that expression mixed with mischief
as he teased him, that expression joined with happiness as he realized
how deeply Jean-Luc loved him back.

And so he went for it, because both of them knew he'd be lying if he
didn't:  "I think I'm falling in love with you, Q, and it terrifies
me."

And Q's expression did change, adding in both sympathy and a tentative
joy.  When he spoke, his voice was husky with feeling.

"I'm frightened too, Mon Capitaine.  It's...exhilarating."

Jean-Luc couldn't help chuckling.  "It is, actually."

And now Q was smiling without reserve, though Picard could only admire
it for a second before he was being kissed again, being fed that sweet
warmth he sought to return in kind.

But he became aware that Q was shivering, and when he pulled back
again in concern, he saw strain in Q's dark eyes.

"What is it?"

"I need that promise, Jean-Luc," Q rasped, as though his voice
couldn't properly engage through the tension in his body.  "And
then...I need..."  His eyes dropped to Picard's body, and suddenly the
man was ashamed of how long he had made Q stand there, naked, while he
literally hid behind his uniform.

"I promise," he said quickly, feeling the words come out of his very
center, reaching for the fastening at his neck.  "We'll do what it
takes to make things work out."

"Yes," Q whispered, eyes locked on the sight of Jean-Luc's strong
hands removing his uniform.  The man tried to hurry, but soon Q's
hands impatiently replaced his, helping him off with his boots, his
tank, his underwear.  He reached for Q, and was gently held off.  The
entity wanted him to stand still while he looked him over, and Picard
managed it somehow, hands clasped at his sides.

"I'm not the work of art," Q murmured, his eyes seeking every inch of
the Human's skin before finally, inevitably, dropping to gaze on the
erection Jean-Luc had had, it seemed now, for eternity.  "You are.
You have no idea how many times I've looked at your cock and would
have given almost anything to touch it."

"You're a Q," Jean-Luc found himself saying with a smile, even as his
own eyes couldn't resist going to Q's renewed hardness.  "Can't you
just count the times up?"

Q looked into his face, and that expression of love was back, though
it was hungry now, and pleading.  Jean-Luc reached out carefully,
taking Q's right hand in his left, and brought it to his lips for a
gentle kiss before he lowered it, tugging slightly before letting go.

"Go ahead, Q," Picard whispered.  "I want you to."

Q looked down again, and his hand, hovering between them, shook as he
allowed it to glide towards Picard's faintly pulsing cock.  He seemed
to be teasing himself, touching his fingertips to the soft skin, then
finally drawing the shaft into his hand.  Picard moaned at his warmth
and gentleness, and Q's expression was now almost of wonder. His other
hand came slowly to the man's chest, fingertips coming to rest on one
pale pink nipple, softly stroking with both hands now, moaning himself
in response to the sounds coming from Jean-Luc's lips.

Picard stood it as long as he could, then simply moved forward until
they were pressed against each other, arms around each other.  Q's
cock stabbed into his lover's belly as his own moved against Q's
thigh, and the man simply thrust his hips against that slick skin,
knowing how little it would take to come.

But then Q moved, twisting them around skillfully until they were
falling onto the bed, controlling the fall until his back was against
the mattress and Q's body covered him like a cloak.  He twined his
arms around Q's neck, reached up to kiss him, and their erections
touched.  Jean-Luc arched with a hoarse scream, and came, hard,
splashing them both with several hot spurts, sealing the connection
between them.  Q groaned and moved frantically, writhing atop
Jean-Luc's body, using the semen as lubricant to glide his cock
against Picard's hip, into his groin, against his slowly softening
penis while the man lay in a daze, dimly aware that though his orgasm
should have been hard enough to bring contentment, sanity was going to
have no hope of returning as long as Q wanted more from him.

"Good," he groaned, hoping Q understood him.

"Perfect," Q groaned back.  How many time had he wanted to do this?
His Q powers had indeed given him a number, but that didn't mean
anything.  As high as the number was, it couldn't express the
constancy of the thought, the depth of the need he was finally being
allowed to slake.  Jean-Luc's body beneath his was so strong, and the
power the man showed every time he moved was careening through Q with
every thrust of their hips.

Just as good, Jean-Luc's mind kept flashing him with involuntary
images, possibilities of their bodies together, a gallery of new
desires Q intended to fulfill thoroughly, many times over.  And as the
images kept coming, the entity knew they'd need at least a thousand
years of simple fucking before they thought of moving to any sort of
"higher" level.

"Yes!" Q screamed as the friction became just what he needed just as
an image of Jean-Luc -- legs raised, head thrown back -- flashed
through him, and his release joined with his lover's, spirits mingling
between their bodies as he thrashed through the climax that just went
on and on.

Human orgasms were actually rather simple sensations, a rush of
chemical heat that focused the mind completely on pleasure, a
reduction of the nerves to pure sensitivity, much less complex or
intense than, say, raking one's consciousness through a pulsar.

But the first time Q had touched Jean-Luc, in Shuttlecraft Six,
leaning over him to whisper in his ear, the entity had learned that
far beyond physical sensation, beyond the emotional attachments he'd
had for mortals or other Qs, there was a realm of spiritual delirium
that this man, somehow, even beyond Q's understanding, made possible.
And when, after years of being taunted by the promise that radiated
from Picard's being, Q had surrendered to his obsession, loving the
man openly (at least, to himself), he had done so willingly, without
regrets, even as he chafed at the wait he knew he would have to endure
before he could earn the captain's trust enough...

*Enough for *this,** Q thought, seeking the harnessed energy of the
man's mind, becoming aware that he had collapsed against Picard's body
as the man lay on the bed, his torso slick with their combined cum.

Jean-Luc had a little trouble breathing under the weight of Q's body,
but that fact oddly comforted him.  It was good to know Q was so
solid, even if that solidness itself were an illusion.  It was even
better to feel how completely spent Q was, to feel how slowly his
muscles gathered for a return to coordinated movement.  When Q shifted
some of his weight, Picard almost protested, but then his head had
raised up to bring his dark brown eyes into his line of sight, and
Jean-Luc didn't want to protest anything.  Not that incredibly intense
stare, not the way Q's body began to tremble as his heart pounded hard
enough for Picard to feel through his sternum, not the slow, reverent
caress of Q's hand against the side of his face.

Did Q know he had never felt this way about anyone before?  Picard
tried to allow his face to show everything he was feeling, and
wondered if Q understood.  It occurred to him that if Q had meant what
he said...and then he was distracted by the heat moving over his own
face.

"You're blushing," Q breathed.  "What is it?"

Picard hesitated, then spread his legs and very slightly arched his
back.  It was amazingly easy to ask it:  "Be inside me, please, Q."

"With pleasure," Q growled, though Picard got the impression he'd
meant to sound jaunty.  Jean-Luc was beginning to realize that Q could
be quite corporeal in the proper circumstances.  "But first tell me
what you were going to ask for before you got shy."

The man felt himself squirm.  "Am I to have not even the privacy of my
own thoughts with you, Q?"

Q moved up, kissing his lips, his eyelids, his nose, his cheeks, along
the line of his chin.  Soon Picard was trembling as well.  Even simple
kisses were different when Q made them.  He was beginning to feel
distinctly adored, and he was beginning to want nothing more than
whatever Q wanted to give him.

"Not when it comes to something you want from me," Q said, and instead
of feeling violated, Picard felt impossibly spoiled by this promise to
indulge him so completely.  The entity smiled now in delight as
Picard's erection began to stir against his belly.  "You can tell me
anything, don't you realize that?  It is impossible for you to show me
something of yourself that I won't love."

Picard leaned up and captured Q's mouth with his own.  He put every
bit of skill he had into the kiss, seeking to make Q feel as good as Q
was making him feel, wishing he could put his own needs from himself
and do nothing but concentrate on Q.

*Jean-Luc,* shone the gold of Q in his mind, *let me tell you how you
are beautiful.*

Anger stiffened his body, cold and sharp and everything else he didn't
want to feel.  But his outrage was justified.  *You took that from
me!*

Q raised his head, blinking.  "No, I promise you, Jean-Luc.  I
just...I knew it had to be something you'd find even more embarrassing
than asking me to take you, and, knowing you..."  Q smoothed a caress
over the man's hip. "...it had to be something your modesty wouldn't
allow.  Besides," he smiled now as his lover's body slowly relaxed, "I
want to tell you about your beauty, over and over again, reciting the
poem you are until you believe it yourself."

Picard sighed and shook his head.  "I knew being loved by you would be
operatic."

"Get used to it," Q growled, raising himself up with a critical scowl
and settling himself between the man's spread legs.  As the entity
shook his head and "tsked" faintly, Picard felt somewhat
self-conscious, a feeling which grew exponentially as Q murmured that
the light in the room wasn't deserving to shine on Jean-Luc's body as
he lay there, aroused and waiting for Q to be inside him.  With a
snap, he softened the illumination and tinged it golden.  "I've taken
us out of time as well," Q said happily.  "This is no time for
distractions."

While debating whether he wanted to object to Q's temporal tinkering,
Picard also noticed that Q had cleaned them both up, and when Q put
his hands on Picard's chest, Jean-Luc noticed that those hands were
covered in warm, lightly scented oil.  The sensation was wildly
erotic, and Jean-Luc forgot all about time and colored lighting.  The
entire universe seemed to be made only of Q, of the future with Q that
had been offered him.  Could eternity be less than wonderful if it
were filled with sensations like these?

"As I understand the limited Human concept of poetry," Q began,
tracing the lean muscles of Picard's chest while the man couldn't help
focusing completely on every word, "verse is an expression of
sentiment or reflection which derives its form from a combination of
both topical conventions and the requirements of that sentiment of
reflection."  He moved his hands, spreading oil around his pectoral
muscles, then over the nipples, as Picard listened to himself now moan
and hiss.  "A poem is considered successful if its form conveys its
content with some recognizable economy of words, derived from the
suitability of some combination of diction, shape, meter, rhyme, or
other sound effect."  He pinched the pink nipples under his fingers
sharply, and Picard shouted in ice-sharp pleasure, making Q shiver in
response.  As completely as Jean-Luc was focusing on Q, he knew his
lover was focusing on him just as greatly.

"Now, you, Mon Capitaine," Q continued, "are a poem beyond even your
beloved Shakespeare's constructing." Picard was dimly aware of an
impulse to protest, but Q was trailing deft fingertips down to his
stomach, targeting hot spots with ease, and as the captain looked down
at himself, the oil on both his skin and Q's hands glittered in the
golden light.  He also saw that Q was hard again, and as Q seemed to
see him noticing that, the entity's voice grew thick and heavy.  "Your
form is perfection in its economy of expression of your content."  He
twirled a pattern over the man's narrow hips as Jean-Luc thrust
involuntarily.  "Are you listening to me?"

"Hanging...on...every word."

"Good, there will be a quiz later."

Picard chuckled, then hissed and arched his back as Q moved down to
his inner thighs, teasing his legs farther apart.  It seemed he could
feel Q's gaze on his cock as it pointed straight up between them.

"Your content, of course, is perfection itself," Q continued,
"intelligent and intuitive in the manner of true Human evolution,
brave with enough genuine fear to make that bravery count as courage,
not ignorance."  Picard felt gentle hands raise up his legs, pushing
them back against his chest while Q placed his own bent legs under his
thighs.  Jean-Luc was confused for a moment, then couldn't suppress a
shiver as he realized just how Q was positioning him.  With a moan he
wrapped his legs over Q's shoulders even as the entity was bending
down to drag quick licks along his straining shaft, continuing to bask
him with words between the darting movements of his tongue:

"Your compassion and sensibility of others' needs and perspectives is
so great that it should make you confused and indecisive, but you're
so strong that your ethics allow you to treat others only as you would
treat yourself, subjecting others to the same cold realism and ethical
hierarchy with which you guide your own life."

"God, that feels..."  Picard was moving in jerky response to each
touch of Q's tongue on his cock or against his testicles, and his
chest heaved with each gasp of pleasure, yet it was hard to say which
was arousing him more:  Q's tongue, or the words he was making with
it.  "Is that...really how you see me?"

"I'm just getting started," Q leered, slipping well-oiled fingers
between the hard muscles of the man's buttocks, sliding against the
cleft, deeper inside, brushing the tight opening.  Picard felt a
moment's hesitation, then trusted Q to keep him from pain.  Besides,
even if it did hurt, he wanted it.  Badly.

And still the words were flowing over him:  "You are beautiful in your
sentiments themselves, Jean-Luc.  You love without petty jealousies,
without resentment for the power that love has over you.  You admire
without envy, laugh without a need to be superior, feel charity
without a demand to be lionized, command without a need to dominate."
Q pressed a finger inside, gently but insistently, and directly
targeted the small gland inside.  Picard screamed again, loudly, and
tightened his legs' embrace.  Q used that pressure to bend down and
kiss the wet tip of his penis.  *You taste delicious,* bright thoughts
told him in their dance.  *It's all I can do not to slurp you up like
a sweet, hot confection.*

Picard groaned and knew his cock was leaking out more precum, as
though his body were urging Q on.  That soft tongue lapped him again,
and he screamed again, wanting more then he had ever wanted.

"Do what...ever you want," he managed to gasp out, desperate to be
sucked or fucked or kissed.

But Q wasn't done talking, and his voice had formed a monotone that
held him captive, even as he felt Q's finger work gently against the
ring of muscle as his tongue continued to lap each thick teardrop from
his slit.  "Even your flaws are beautiful.  If you didn't have them, I
don't think people would be able to accept you.  Your emotional
discipline sometimes forces people away from you, pushing them behind
a fence over which they may glimpse your loneliness but not soothe it.
You careen from arrogance to an overabundance of modesty.  You are far
too hard on yourself, which means you're sometimes too hard on others,
especially people you care about."

"I'm s--"

"Shhhh, shhhh.  This is an appraisal, not criticism, and it's only
your faults which allow you to be an adventurer and a diplomat, an
invaluable friend and a great captain, a military whip who can also
see the larger meanings behind small disputes, a fair judge, an
impassioned advocate, a man who appreciates the good things in life
without once allowing them to seduce you.  A near-saint with a
delightful sense of humor.  A poet whose poem is himself."  He was
sliding a second finger inside him now, lubricating and stretching.

"Hurry," Picard moaned, his half-closed eyes imploring, and then,
hoping his urgency colored his own thoughts:  *Hurry.*

The pressure in his ass increased even as Q slid his mouth down him
without warning.

*The economy of your form completes the poem you make.*

"Oh!" Picard shouted, writhing, seeking more from all directions.  It
was all so good, he couldn't take it all in.  "I can't --"

*Yes, you can.  Trust me.*

*It's too much.*

*It's just you, Jean-Luc.*  The third finger went in now, stretching
further, making the man ready for him, as he sucked hard with his
mouth.  *The powerful dance of your walk, the music of your speech,
the way your body is drawn only with straight lines and smooth curves,
the dark pronouncement of your curved brows, the balance of your
strong nose --*

*My big nose, you mean.*  Picard couldn't help the thought, and its
power surprised him.  He felt himself begin to steady, and wanted to
say something else about his age, his uncompromisingly bald head, his
--

Q snaked up his free hand and tweaked a nipple, hard. Picard quivered
uncontrollably a long, long moment, falling back from any control he'd
sought.  *If it were any smaller your face wouldn't work anymore.
You're so compact, like a giant who's been squeezed into manageable
size, and everything reflects what you feel.  Your eyes change color,
your voice and hands and face and posture change with each controlled
thought, so that people have to stare to catch it all.  I used to
think Riker looked foolish, the way he would gaze at you on the
bridge, but then I realized it's the only way he knows what's going on
with you.  You demand a captive audience.*

The overload was becoming bewildering.  He needed to be grounded, to
have something so absolute it would anchor him even as Q's
irresistible praise flung him about.  *Please, Q.  Please.  Inside me
now.  I want to feel you inside my body.  I want to be someone you've
made love to.*

Q continued to stretch him, and though Jean-Luc knew he was ensuring
that there would be no pain, he growled in frustration, his control
slipping from him to leave him raw and free.  "Not 'someone,'
Jean-Luc.  My last.  I've had so many lovers, and knew I'd leave them
all, but you're the last, best and first true lover I've ever had or
ever will have."

For this moment, Jean-Luc believed Q completely.  Perhaps he would
believe Q completely from now on.  He felt the gathering of his
terrifying love while his need to feel Q inside him increased a
hundred-fold.  It was so right to have something he'd never done
before, something that would be Q's alone.  "Then *hurry up!*" Picard
grated out, moving against those long fingers insistently, his whole
body wanting it hard and *real.*

"So beautiful," Q sighed, slipping his fingers out and coating his
erection with hot, thick oil before placing the head of his penis at
Picard's opening.  With one hand he stroked the stiff, wet cock his
mouth felt empty without, and with the other he guided himself inside.
Neither of them could breathe, or think of anything but the feel of Q
gently rocking deeper and deeper inside.

"God!" Picard's fear shouted.  "You're...you feel...I can't...please,
make me take it.  Make me take it all."

Q quaked and sank deep inside, the rest of his body almost collapsing.
Together, they shouted for the other, and only when Picard began to
gasp and moan in rhythm did Q realize he was thrusting in and out.  He
stared into Jean-Luc's eyes, seeking everything he didn't have, and
was locked into the open, unflinching gaze.

"Don't cry," Jean-Luc whispered in concern.

*Am I crying?* Q asked as the tears welled and spilled from his brown
eyes.  *I can't tell.  I can't feel anything but your body around me.*

Picard shuddered and moaned and moved against the pressure in his
body.  Yet as thoroughly as Q was fucking him, Jean-Luc knew Q was
holding on to the last of his own control.

"Tell me you believe you're beautiful," Q grated out.  "Tell me I've
done that much for you."

Heat in his eyes told Picard he was crying as well.  He was glad.  He
wanted to match Q in everything, give back all he received.  *If you
say I'm beautiful, Q, then I am.*  His hand trembled now as it reached
up and touched the entity's face, trailed along his neck, caressed his
shoulder.  *As beautiful even as you.*  He chuckled as Q moaned, and
yet he knew what he had said was the truth.  Q had become
astonishingly beautiful to him, the most beautiful thing in the
universe.  And because of that, Picard knew he could finally believe
what Q said.  Since Q loved him, he could be beautiful, and that
belief rode him into a wave of giddy joy that should have embarrassed
him, except that Q was there with him, experiencing it with him, and
he wanted only to make it better, to make it perfect, and to share it
completely with his mate.

*Jean-Luc,* Q glowed inside him as he thrust, deeply, smoothly, with
perfect gentleness at first, but with slightly increasing force,
responding as their thoughts began to twine around each other.  Soon
they were slamming together, shouting and thinking encouragements,
eyes shut tight against the bliss of it, wanting desperately to come,
hoping it could last just a little bit longer, on and on, getting
better and hotter, burning them, dancing between them, making
everything too bright to withstand.

It was impossible to say which of them came first.  They screamed
through the ecstasy together, Picard emptying himself into Q's hand
while Q filled his body with hot cum, and when it got too good for
them to endure, Picard knew he could slip into the bright heat without
resistance, that Q would follow him, not letting oblivion part them
even for a moment.  And later, as they slid together into a proper
sleep, their thoughts entwined further still to construct the endless
dreams of future poetry.

---

The End