Burden and abandon

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It was a date night like any other. Safe, comfortable, routine. They had finished a lovely meal Q had fetched from across time and space, and they were lying idly in Picard’s bed in a moment of serene quiet. Soon, one of them would touch the other, and another touch would follow, and they’d wordlessly melt into each other.

Only there was something else on Picard’s mind tonight.

“You could make me do anything you wanted, couldn’t you? Make me feel anything you wanted me to.”

The sudden question made Q spring up and look down at Picard with alarm. “I don’t mean to say that you have. I would never doubt you,” Picard hurried to add.

It did nothing to make Q look less suspicious.

“I could, although I would have very little reason to. You already do everything I could ever ask you to do, and I should hope you feel everything you say you do.”

Picard pressed a quick kiss of reassurance on his cheek. “Of course I do.” He paused, then looked at Q flirtatiously. “Still, have you ever thought about it?”

Q completely missed the overt flirt and looked at him with hurt.

“Of course I haven’t, and I rather hope you know that, too.”

“I have,” Picard said and watched Q’s eyes grow wide.

“You… You have… thought about it?” Q stammered, astonished.

“Yes,” Picard smirked, and when Q looked away, flustered and at a loss for words and possibly thinking Picard was out of his mind, added: “About being helplessly at your mercy. About being used for your pleasure. About witnessing myself do acts authored by you through my own eyes.”

Q crossed his arms as a hint of temptation passed his face.

“Why can’t we just settle for a pair of handcuffs and a ball gag,” Q muttered in a small voice. “Like a normal couple.”

“Because we’re not a normal couple,” Picard said, and brushed his fingers against the tense jaw. Q’s gaze started wandering, then snapped back to Picard’s.

“What if I go too far?”

“You will know instantly if I feel you’re about to, won’t you?”

“Yes, but…”

Q’s discomfort was apparent. Picard could tell when it was time to back down, and that time was now. Perhaps he should never have brought the whole thing up.

“Fine,” Q said just as Picard was about to open his mouth.

“We don’t have to—we won’t do this unless you’re absolutely sure.”

“I am,” Q sighed. “I want to.”

Picard pulled him closer. “You don’t sound like you do, frankly. Some other night, hmm?”

Q closed his eyes. “No.” When he opened his eyes again, he relaxed into an impish smile and a flirty velvet of a voice. “I’m warming to the idea.”

Picard felt something touch his mind. It was a surprisingly physical sensation.

“Now?” Q asked.

Hell, why wait. This wasn’t a whim on Picard’s part. He’d been fantasizing about this for weeks.

“Yes. Now.”

Something was caressing him; where, Picard couldn’t tell. It was and wasn’t a part of his body.

“Are you absolutely sure about this?” Q whispered.

“Yes,” Picard whispered back. The caress became a grip.

“Now,” Q warned, and the grip became a tearing sensation. Strange, being ripped apart yet not feeling any pain, Picard thought. Then, there was a firm but gentle touch of an invisible palm of a familiar hand—Q’s hand, Picard knew—on the phantom part of his body—his mind, Picard deduced—and a push.

Picard saw through his own eyes, but he no longer controlled where his gaze traveled. He controlled nothing but his thoughts.

Q, he tried thinking, and the new cameraman aimed his gaze at Q’s face, smiling softly in response to the sentiment.

“Still willing?” Q asked. He stood up and dropped Picard to his knees in front of him. Yes, he thought, he was.

He watched and felt his hands reach for Q’s fly and pull it open, pull his pants down, caress and stroke his cock until it was hard, then his body coming to a halt for the one last enthusiastic affirmation before taking Q deep into his mouth. Deep. Out. Deeper. Q stood still as Picard swallowed him deeper than he’d ever been able to before, his body disregarding the discomfort and shutting out its gag reflex.

Sterile.

Picard wanted to look him in the eye. He knew Q knew he wanted to. And while that lack of control was what Picard had wanted—

“I’m sorry, Jean-Luc.” Q’s face was still firmly out of Picard’s locked field of vision, but there was an unmistakable strain in Q’s voice. “You’re absolutely right about my nerves, no need to finish that thought. You have to admit this was a terrible idea.”

Q pulled his cock out of Picard’s mouth and shoved it back into his pants. At the same time, Picard felt Q’s presence trying to withdraw, but he pulled it right back.

“Oh, please, this is hardly pleasurable for either of us. No, of course it’s not your fault, you know very well that I know you only had that thought because you wanted to provoke me.”

Q finally reeled Picard’s gaze up to meet his eye, and the stab of sadness Picard felt reflected on Q’s face.

He should have started slower. He doesn’t enjoy this. For his own sake, I shouldn’t have let him do this. I want to keep going. I want this to be good for him.

He should have started slower. The thought involuntarily repeated in Picard’s mind.

“I suppose,” Q said and had Picard follow him to the bed. “Slower, then.”

Picard watched as his body climbed on top of Q’s. But it was stiff. Unnatural. Too careful, too timid.

“Oh, you try enjoying sex while controlling both parties at the same time! …That’s not how it works, Jean-Luc! It needs to be pleasurable for you too. Are you forgetting that I feel everything you feel, too?”

He misunderstood the assignment.

Picard’s eyes forcefully dropped away from Q’s face again. He wanted to console Q, but there was nothing he could do, not when he couldn’t even speak. Hardly communicate with him.

He could be deeper, Picard thought in passing. Then, knowing Q could read every thought that occurred to Picard, he decided to hold on to this one. He could be deeper. He could make me feel what he wants me to feel. He could make me feel how he feels, not the other way around. And my mind and body would make this pleasurable for him, and in turn for myself.

Picard wanted to see Q’s reaction. Finally, he heard a defeated exhale.

“Ridiculous. Ridiculous and convoluted. You’re the most needlessly thorough kinkster this side of the galaxy! A humble piece of rope and a few well-placed knots could give you the same excitement for far less hassle, you know.”

Still, Q’s incorporeal hand was already touching what must have been, for lack of a better word, Picard’s very soul. So he does want it. Or he wouldn’t be touching me like this. Q pushed Picard’s soul back out of his thinking mind, leaving Picard’s thoughts wordless and abstract. He simply observed and felt. Thinking was now out of his grasp.

“I will still know if you really want to stop. But I will control everything else,” Q said, and for a moment it was like Picard was watching everything through a broken telescope. Then, as if pulled back to the surface after sinking to the bottom of a deep ocean, he felt connected with the thoughts rushing through his uncontrollable mind. A mind that went blank, silent.

The only thing he knew he was still in control of was a small, happily flickering light in the deepest corner of his self.

“And still you want to go through with it,” Q sighed, then relaxed. His mouth curled up. “You want to please me.”

I want to please him. The thought didn’t come from Picard’s own mind, although it could as well have. No, it was poured into him, from somewhere. From outside.

“Yes,” Picard heard himself say. “I do.”

And when he slowly slipped out of his clothes, he didn’t feel his own excitement, but Q’s excitement over seeing his lover naked in front of him, hard and ready and single-minded. The light inside his mind burned bright and eager.

He was putting on a show! He was flaunting his body in front of Q, and it would have been embarrassing had he had the capacity for thinking such things.

Instead, the fact that he’d never done anything like this before excited him. Seeing Q’s eyes wide and full of awe and adoration, too. In a truly counterintuitive way, there was profound freedom burning in his core, too. He would never do this of his own volition, would never think of it, even. And Q wouldn’t ask. Would Picard even do it if Q did?

But that train of thought simply wasn’t there. The only thoughts Picard observed were the process of discovering what Q wanted and responded to, and the smug satisfaction over Q’s overflowing arousal. Picard’s hand slid down his own body and up his erection, but the pleasure of his own skin on skin was secondary to the ecstasy he felt via Q. He moved his free hand over Q’s body and helped him out of his uniform.

“More,” Q sighed, and a rush of ideas poured in and filled Picard’s head once again. His innermost emotions shifted as his subjugated mind shuffled through the acts and settled on one that colored the curious little light inside with a hint of nervousness.

Picard spoke something that made Q gasp and close his eyes, utter a please before sinking into a kiss.

The small, anxious light in Picard’s soul flickered stubbornly out of sync with the steady pulse of his enthusiasm and curiosity and abandon. He didn’t mind. It was the accent, the imperfection that kept things interesting.

And he’d never kissed Q quite like this before. He closed his eyes.

A stifled sob against his mouth after a while alerted Picard. A panicked flash washed out every other emotion for a second, and that second was enough for Q to pull violently out of his mind entirely.

“Q!” Picard called the moment he was back in control, before he could even realize what had happened. His eyes shot open, and he found Q under him, crying, tears streaming down the sides of his head.

“I can’t,” Q sobbed. “I don’t want to do this to you.”

Picard felt terrible. Q looked miserable and weary under him. How long had he been suppressing these feelings from reaching Picard’s mind?

“I’m sorry,” Picard said as softly as he could and pulled crying Q into his arms. “I’m okay. Everything’s okay. We don’t need to try this again. Not like this.”

Q nodded against his chest and took his time to calm down. Picard could have sworn he felt Q’s relief. He would ask about it some other time; now was not the time to risk upsetting Q again.

“I can strip for you again. Show off, strut a bit,” Picard said, and the offer tasted awkward despite knowing how much Q had enjoyed it. That is, until two hopeful eyes met his, and any selfish anxiety Picard had had melted away.

“You would do that for me?”

“Of course I would.” It took a bit of courage to say it now that the freedom of his temporary lack of agency was gone. “Q, I want you to know that this… this experiment, if you will,” Picard started and looked at Q with warmth, “taught me something. And I hope that perhaps… perhaps you feel more comfortable asking if there’s something you’d like me to do.”

Q looked at him quietly, and for a moment Picard was worried he’d gone and soured his mood again. Then, Q smiled.

“There are some things, in fact…”

“Good,” Picard said and moved down to push his head into the crook of Q’s neck. “Start listing. The night is still young.”

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