#and so much that is stilted and baffling and repressive

[rawliverandgoronspice]

oh wow, shocking twist and new development, but now I'm starting to see a lot more industry people than before conceding that totk had serious high level flaws and express frustration at the design philosophy developed around that title

this wasn't the case even six months ago, so that's something

[celestialholz]

Tony Bennett - Close Enough for Love (Audio)

... So I’ve seen y’all recently, with your lovely Qcard song suggestions, all of which are very valid and I adore you for them, but if you’ll allow to wade in, mes captaines, I’ll raise you: space jazz, on their anniversary, with a twist chucked in because it’s me. This was a date idea at one point for the side blog (come say hi to some galactic idiots over at @ask-q-and-picard, if you’re up for such things ^_^), but this narrative was far too sprawling, so here we are! Welcome to around a thousand words of softness, a sprinkling of angst, a side order of introspection, and a god who can’t dance to save his own immortal essence.

(This isn’t a songfic as such guys, but you’ll get the most from it if you have a listen to the above whilst reading, thematically as well as lyrically. Let Tony Bennett melt your soul with his deeply appropriate words and delightful voice. <3)

* Also, as promised, ma’am - @q-card, have fun with this cosmic romance!

“Left foot first, Q.”

“Dammit, Jean-Luc, I don’t -” His footsteps are automatically corrected, the movement vexingly smooth, and he barely represses a snarl at his lover’s grin.

“You’re omniscient, my dear - how can you be so awful at waltzing?” He queries, voice a teasing lilt.

Q sniffs haughtily, offended.

“You know how to have fun,” he points out dryly. “Hardly makes you a natural at it. I’m not used to coordinated movements, man - I just sort of... saunter, and everyone’s just naturally impressed.”

“That’s why I’m trying to lead you,” Picard exclaims patiently, tightening his grip as he encourages the god backwards, deliberately slowing their pace. “You’re improving, if it means anything.”

“How the hell did you -” He sucks in an unnecessary breath as he’s swept against that broad chest, sprinkle of salt and pepper hair so maddeningly concealed by a jet-black tuxedo. “Where the hell did you learn how to do this, anyway?”

“I’m French,” he says, as though that explains everything, or indeed anything at all. Q blinks, baffled.

“The waltz is Austrian, you entire -”

 “European, then - it’s popular everywhere. Now, stop talking, will you?” Picard levels him with a stern exasperation. “It really doesn’t matter how poor your steps, Q - it’s all about the ambience.”

His deity grudgingly obliges, directing a glare to the old-school record player that rests off to their right; he snaps softly to restart the jazz track, attempting to absorb the steps as comprehensively as the words sink into falsely human skin, penetrate the entity thrumming in contentment beneath.

“You and I, an unmatched pair, took the time to touch, to share. Worlds apart the night we met, we braved the odds and won the bet...”

Gods, how long had he spent assuming this completely unattainable, this easy contact, the gentle heat now strewn through their acquaintance? Mere shards of cosmic time, but evocative of forever to a lonely, uninspired deity; a multitude of ultimately meaningless instances he’d tried so very hard to infuse with grander purpose, to express in a thousand universal languages that his beloved couldn’t hope to understand precisely what he couldn’t say…

His precious human had gotten there eventually, and as damned as he’d be to admit it aloud, it’s all the sweeter and warmer for the wait. He’d been expecting it to dull over the years, this calm sharing of his life, led in tender movements across the cosmic landscape; his captain is the introvert to his eccentricity, the tempered observer to his mischief-making, the mortal to his eternal: always quiet, always stalwart. Their ethics fail to align even now, and yet that silent yearning for adventure, to be more than they ought to be, continues to lead them as easily as Picard in their silly dance.

... It isn’t supposed to be so enchanting. His siblings think him quite mad, and perhaps he is, but he’d sooner tear the universe asunder than lack this wondrous connection.

 “How old-fashioned, pure romance; shared a kiss, we shared a dance...”

They’re slowing down, he acknowledges vaguely, as though Jean-Luc Picard doesn’t lack enough haste as it is; he takes a brief moment to awkwardly rest his chin upon his lover’s scalp before they’re gently pulled apart by kinetic flow, and the human smiles up at him tenderly.

“See, you’re not so bad when you aren’t overthinking it.”

“Shame we can’t all be idiots,” he bites back harmlessly, smirking. Picard draws them apart just enough to roll his eyes at the tease.

 “Oh do get off your high horse, mon dieu. At least I understand basic movements.”

Q laughs softly, steps lighter for the repetition through an advanced mind; he shifts snappily, avoids crushing a toe or two. It’s hardly conducive to the mood, after all, having to fix broken bones mid-routine, though it’s perhaps a more appropriate metaphor for their overall relationship than their now smoother performance.

The piece soldiers on blithely, suitably suave as a scene-setter.

“Not just lovers, more than friends - who knows where one starts and one ends? Tracing lights through sleepless nights that I’ll remember always, always…”

Q clasps their joined hand more firmly, so beautifully unified; their relationship has been the merest moment of his existence, yet it’s been more fulfilling than every fragment of the millions of years that have preceded it. He’s whole, finally, yet it’s all so very fleeting – all he’ll be left with within the blink of an eye is a frosted emptiness, colder than the space they occupy, and it’s enough to freeze him prematurely solid.

“Long goodbyes and tearful looks hold up well in poems and in books, but you and I have life to hold the greatest story never told…”

Live in the moment, you complete fool, he scolds himself silently, swaying elegantly now against his captain, hoping his sudden melancholy isn’t as visible as he fears it may be at Picard’s quizzical glance upwards.

“I can’t help but feel that anyone waltzing their way across the Magallenic Stream ought not to be so pensive,” comes the tranquil observation, grey eyes sporting a dash of worry, and the god allows a lightly bitter smile to coat human lips for a moment; a twenty light year-long dancefloor impossibly forms their stage, a flattened covering to the stellar river that connects the Milky Way to the vastness beyond stands as his grandiose anniversary gift, when all he longs to do is present him the universe on a silver platter.

“I hasten to remind you, mon capitaine, that you were quite content to do this in your quarters,” he points out in exasperation. “A tragedy, truly.”

A forehead meets his neck, their dance once more stilted to a simplified, vaguely rhythmic sway, and a gentle curl of a chuckle rises up in a vibration.

“Yes, well,” he mutters, “I’m rather unimaginative, as you’ve so enjoyed exclaiming for the past decade.”

A decade is nothing, less than, even. Why, then, does it feel like everything? He swallows ice, ripple running through his lover.

“It’s been a good decade,” he murmurs faintly. “Really quite an exceptional one, actually. The best, undoubtedly.”

Even fully versed in the linguistics of Picardian romance, he’s still evading the eloquent depth that comes so naturally to him.

The future’s for another day, not for tonight, he reminds himself sternly. We don’t ruin tonight, Q.

“The most wondrous,” Picard concedes warmly, “though I feel I’m at risk of seeming distinctly ungrateful. I’ve yet to give you a gift.”

Q can’t help a bark of disbelieving laughter – an absurd notion, honestly.

“Not sure what else you’re referring to the past ten years as,” he breathes, to a soft sigh.

“A gift to myself as much as to you,” he replies truthfully, and stars, he knows his Jean-Luc is a man of words, but must they always burn so delightfully? “No, I was thinking something far more… permanent.”

He doesn’t need to breathe, however biologically accurate his masquerade, though the absolute lack of oxygen that permeates open space suddenly seems a notable problem.

“… What?” It’s barely a blurted whisper, strangled by the purest hope and the deepest despair, because he can’t mean -

“You heard me,” Picard replies tenderly, and they’ve stopped dancing entirely now, though the embrace is no less fierce, the stare no less richly sincere. “I’ve been thinking on it, and… well, I’ve never been especially keen on the idea of ceasing to exist in the first place, and though forever is utterly incomprehensible to me currently, I believe it might not be so nightmarish –”

He doesn’t get any further for a good while; the breathlessness is spontaneously a problem shared and halved at the same time as they kiss, only the innate capacities of godhood keeping one of them alive.

“If you’ll have me, of course,” the captain adds eventually, the moment he’s freed, lips brushed rouge and eyes hazed, and by the galaxies if it isn’t the most precious thing a deity could ever hope to see; Q bursts into giddy laughter, runs a soft thumb down a smooth cheek, barely deigns to believe his own superlative good fortune.

“You really are stupid, aren’t you?” He answers, beaming, and he couldn’t mean anything less if it was bidden so by his own omnipotence. 

“Well, if we’re speaking comparatively -”

“Hush, you wondrous being,” Q whispers, lips upon his cheek, and he’s never feel so desperately enamoured by anything, anyone. “Ambience, darling - jazz is restarting.”

“Ah. Of course.” Picard grins, and a god spontaneously decides that he’s going to spend the next ten decades weaving sonnets dedicated solely to this evening across the literature of space-time as they retake their stances, and he snaps fingers through a distinct visual blur.

... He isn’t going to cry. He’s a damned Q, however frighteningly unimportant that seems in the arms of the mortal he adores.

“Not perfect yet, but close enough for love...”

Omniscience will give an entity the knowledge of there being no such concept as karma, so perhaps it’s irony instead that has his learned skill fly instantly from his brilliant mind as he stumbles over thin air, before almost immediately straightening, tux magically unruffled, beloved human so dreadfully amused.

“Shut up, okay? I’m emotionally compromised, and frankly allowed to be. It’s my anniversary.”

Picard chuckles in utter warmth, and concedes the point - perfection has no place here, or wherever they will ever happen to be.