Entactogenic

Category index

The university was quiet at this hour. It was getting late, but Picard had made a promise to help a friend of so many years, and since his own research in astrophysics kept him busy, he had no choice but to schedule a late visit.

He arrived at Q’s door at the end of a long corridor. It opened almost instantly.

“Jean-Luc, come in!” Q greeted him, beaming ear to ear. “It’s a big day.”

“So I’ve heard. Every day, multiple times, for the past week,” Picard said and tried to act annoyed despite Q’s contagious joy. He gave up and smiled, then took a seat on the floor, where Q had laid out two big pillows and an assortment of soft blankets and smaller pillows.

Q’s office always looked more like a living room than a workplace, especially so tonight. After all the groundbreaking research Q had had a hand in, the department heads were willing to give him some leeway.

Q hurried to light some candles and returned with a beaker full of tea for Picard.

A lot of leeway.

“I read your paper. Admittedly, not my area of expertise, but the implications were intriguing nonetheless.”

“You follow the field so closely you’re probably more up-to-date than a good number of my colleagues,” Picard said and took the beaker. “If you ever grow tired of mixing your potions, our department would love to have you.”

“I know,” Q said smugly, and sat on the floor opposite Picard, holding a small ampule, dainty as a piece of elegant jewelry, with vivid fuchsia liquid sparkling inside. He observed the vial and said, “I’m afraid my potions are too dear to me to even consider a career switch. Even if it’s you asking.”

The silence between them was comfortable as usual, but the clock was ticking. It would be a long night, and they both had work to do the next day.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Picard said. Q nodded.

“Now, remember the rules. Unless I’m a physical threat to myself or others, or about to do some serious property damage, you don’t stop me, whatever happens. If you do, I will need to synthesize this substance again, and it will take weeks to get everything ready. And document every, and I do mean every detail. Are we in agreement?”

Picard hesitated. He had sat Q before a few times, made sure he was safe and taken notes, but it had never been this rigorous before. “Whatever happens? What should I expect?”

“Oh, nothing dramatic.” Q waved his hand. “I don’t expect to become aggressive or anything.”

Q looked at Picard. Picard tried to mask his uncertainty, but after so many years of friendship and occasionally working together, the slightest crack was enough to expose him and crease Q’s brow.

“I just wonder if it’s safe to continue like this, without a green light and resources from your department. Experimenting on yourself…” Picard rushed to say in an attempt to amend the situation.

“This compound has the potential to help so many people. I can’t quit now. Not even if those narrow-minded bores at the top don’t believe in me.” Q’s loathing made room for sudden insecurity. “But you believe, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Picard said from the bottom of his heart. Q was the brightest chemist Picard had ever met, and this cure was something he had been theorizing about for years now.

Still, they were both aware how big a hurdle it was to overcome the lack of both research staff and easy access to the necessary ingredients—none of which could be replicated.

And Q hadn’t answered his question about what to expect.

“Fine,” Picard sighed. “If you get naked and prance around the halls, all I have to do is follow you and get every detail down.”

“Exactly. I knew I could trust you,” Q smirked. He reached for a PADD on the office chair next to him and punched in the formula and the exact dose. “Oral administration. Time… Well, it’s better if you take care of the rest. Oh, and use that tricorder to take readings every five minutes or so. More often, if need be.”

Picard took the PADD and the medical tricorder and watched Q break open the ampule.

“Here goes,” he said, glanced at Picard for mutual reassurance, then emptied the small amount of liquid into his mouth.

Picard added the timestamp and started the stopwatch, then looked back at Q.

“Sweet, slightly bitter. Reminds me of… pineapple, perhaps? Write this down.”

“Tell me immediately if at any point you think we might need a medic,” Picard said softly while typing. Q nodded. They both knew this had been the rule from the start. But Picard knew this time was different. Q was so sure—there was a real risk he might take this too far.

Minutes passed. “Nothing yet?”

“Nothing yet.”

“Good,” Picard said, relieved there didn’t seem to be

 any immediate adverse reactions, at least.

The ten-minute mark passed.

“I think there’s something,” Q muttered.

“Oh?” Picard input the time. “What is it?”

Q chuckled. “I have a massive hard-on.”

Picard let out an amused huff and typed the description verbatim. He glanced at Q. His face looked slightly flushed. No visible perspiration. Picard pointed the tricorder at Q. Somewhat elevated heart rate, but everything was well within normal parameters.

“I may have a slight predicament,” Q said as Picard kept monitoring the tricorder readings. Picard’s eyes shot up at Q.

“Are you feeling all right? Is it a new reaction?”

“No, the old one.” Q looked at him and grinned. “When I said massive—I need to take care of it, you see.”

Picard snorted. “In your instructions, you forgot to account for toilet breaks.”

“Who said I’d be going anywhere?”

Picard almost dropped the instrument in his hand. Q serenely stared at the candlelit shadows dancing across the ceiling.

“You mean… here? Now? With me taking notes?”

“Oh, come on, don’t get all shy now. It’s not like there are too many secrets between us two left at this point, anyway.”

When Picard didn’t bother responding, Q’s eyes flicked to Picard’s. “I’m serious.” He brought his hand to the top button of his pants.

Picard froze for a few solid seconds. His mind went blank, and he found his jaw had dropped somewhere along the way. It took a moment to get words out of his mouth again.

“You’re intoxicated,” Picard reminded him.

Q rolled his eyes. “You’ve seen me naked many a time before. And I walked in on you that one time. Really, what is there to be ashamed of?”

Picard remembered why he was here and fumbled to add “lowered sexual inhibition” to his notes. Picard hoped Q was too high to notice, let alone draw any conclusions from his agitation, accurate or not.

Thankfully, Q lost interest in his plan and fell on his back before getting off his pants. Crisis averted, Picard thought and closed his eyes, hoping the rest of the night would be as uneventful as his previous times sitting for Q during his experiments.

“Did it pass?” Picard hazarded.

“No.”

Ah.

“Then…” In hindsight, it was a mistake to query any further.

“See for yourself. I don’t mind,” Q said and idly pointed at his crotch. Picard gave a cursory and wholly unnecessary glance to confirm this, if only to humor Q, then struggled to describe Q’s condition matter-of-factly for the notes while Q sat up and dragged his pillow closer to Picard’s.

“My priorities have shifted.”

His face was closer than necessary, but that’s just how Q acted sometimes.

“Good. I’m still including all of this, like you asked,” Picard replied with a lone, unamused chuckle.

Then, Q’s fingers were suddenly on his cheek, lips very close to his. His forehead could as well have been touching Picard’s—he was radiating warmth and his hair was soft against Picard’s scalp.

“How about it?” A hand rested on Picard’s thigh, he noticed.

“About what,” Picard said without a question, voice suddenly lost and blood rushing downwards.

“I know how you look at me.”

“You’re intoxicated,” Picard repeated, and forced himself to look Q in the eye. “I won’t let you do this—” Picard wasn’t sure how far Q exactly intended to go “—under the influence.”

“But you do want it,” Q enthused.

An aching tangle Picard hadn’t realized he had been carrying deep in his chest for a long time came loose. There, Q finally knew. He closed his eyes. “I do. But you don’t—not if it weren’t for the drug.”

He felt a soft brush against his lips, then the air between them cooling down. When he opened his eyes, Q had retreated.

“I’ve considered it,” Q simply said, and something started twisting Picard’s insides again, “a few times.”

“Attempts at emotional manipulation and seduction,” Picard said and looked at the PADD without actually typing anything down. He wasn’t sure what he should write. His cheeks were burning, and he felt exposed and disarmed.

“I tried to ask you out once—on an honest to god date. I only hesitated before because I wasn’t sure what I felt. I’ve been with a handful of men in my life, but it was always lackluster, and it never felt like this. But maybe it’s supposed to feel like this.” To Picard, it felt like a lazy attempt at reframing their past interactions. A drug-besotted effort to give Picard a moral justification to satisfy Q’s fleeting craving.

But Picard was too raw to lose his temper and end the experiment, and Q was too dear to him to ruin the friendship they had. He leaned closer and placed his trembling fingers on Q’s face, and the pad of his thumb firmly on Q’s soft lips. He let it linger there, slowly caressing the flesh while Q observed and analyzed every emotion plain on his face, before speaking again.

“You can tell me tomorrow if you still feel that way.”

Q let out a frustrated groan and pushed Picard’s hand away.

“For heaven’s sake, Jean-Luc, must you always be like this? Fine, the substance is lowering my inhibitions, but the urge that was previously inhibited is no less real, trust me.”

“Q, your compound may well be a miracle cure, but it’s also a potent aphrodisiac.” An involuntary glance made it very clear to Picard that Q was still hard as rock. “It’s entirely possible you would go after a stranger in this state,” he muttered, his measured tone stumbling on the idea of being just the nearest warm body. His unrequited attraction had never bothered him until now that Q was dangling the prospect of reciprocity close enough to taste.

Clearly having decided it was useless to try debating Picard into bed, Q suddenly pounced, crashing against Picard and kissing him forcefully. Well, there went his willpower out the window. Ultimately, Q’s prying tongue was the winning argument.

His mouth was needy, and he tasted like pineapple.

Picard grabbed Q’s shoulders and let Q pin him into the pile of pillows and blankets. The dreamlike atmosphere, the flickering candles, the kisses all worked in unison to erode Picard’s time perception. Q’s formula he’d tasted on his tongue could have played its part, too, Picard had later come to realize and wondered how Q must have felt in that moment if only trace amounts could induce such trance-like bliss. And he did have some idea; Q wailed at the lightest of touches to the point Picard worried his caresses against the bare flesh hurt him. But when he tried to let go, Q wouldn’t let him, so Picard had no choice but to accept Q’s cries as cries of pleasure, not pain.

At some point, the memories became too much of a blur to put into words. Not in a way that leaves you with regret over a loss. More in a way that leaves you with nothing but the bare feeling, the essence, that stays with you forever. Picard faintly remembered Q’s skin sweating over and under and around him, his mouth taking Q in and vice versa, fingers and limbs becoming an incomprehensible tangle Picard didn’t care to ever untangle.

And it could have been over in minutes, or it could have lasted hours. Picard had no earthly idea and it didn’t matter, either; but a quick look at the candles suggested they had been at it for a very long time.

Picard was tired. It only made sense. He hadn’t planned on staying the night, but he had little choice at this point. If only Q would allow it. Picard saw little reason for him not to; he knew Q slept in his office regularly. As for cleaning themselves… The safety shower would have to do.

Q made a sound and pulled Picard closer.

“The experiment was a failure after all,” Q sighed. “And it’s all my fault for not letting you take notes.”

The waning euphoria threatened to leave Picard uncertain and tense in Q’s arms.

“We need to talk. Tomorrow.”

“We could talk now, if you’d like,” Q offered, having caught the fragment of concern in Picard’s voice.

“Not now. Not while you’re still…”

“I’m not. And I still feel the same way.”

A weight lifted.

“We still need to talk.”

“Just not now,” Q agreed and smiled. “Good night, Jean-Luc.”

Tomorrow would be hell. Tonight had been worth it. Picard smiled at the thought.

“Good night, Q.”

& on AO3 | Category index