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celestialholz · 5 years

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A Good Day To Die

Hello, dear Qcard squad - happy slightly belated Tapestry Day! <3 I’m SO SORRY this is a little late, though for once it’s absolutely not my fault! I’m visiting some family up in northern England, and there’s been a hell of a storm that’s outed several power lines locally - they’ve only just reconnected this morning, so I’m finally able to pop this up as my laptop now has some charge! I shall be reblogging all your lovely contributions with commentary tags today too. <3

Let me tell you a quick story before the actual one though, friends, of a girl on a Saturday afternoon playthrough of TNG for the first time, about six years ago now; already a huge fan obviously because we’re in series six, already very much in love with Q and the indomitable captain, but I’d wondered here and there: why was Jean-Luc so special? Sure, he was clever and wonderfully diplomatic, even a bit nuanced, and a nice change of pace from Kirk, who I also loved - but where did this spark come from? Why was he a rebel sometimes, when he seemed to play so much by the book most of the time?

... And then we get to this. A fascinating premise right from the word go of an immediately deceased/critically injured Picard, going into the fascination of a void space, a god cloaked in white with his usual wondrous enigma, and what’s always been to me the single finest piece of character exploration in the whole of the Trek canon. It’s intelligent, deeply amusing, philosophical, psychological, fascinating... we watch this man fall apart and rebuild and learn his lessons, and all the while we have this gorgeous chemistry, this blatant and beautiful homosexual coding, between our two stars, with Q’s ambiguous motives and goddamn, I was enchanted.

... Honestly, it’s my favourite fucking TV hour of all time, and it’s my pleasure to finally celebrate its anniversary properly. My great thanks to @q-card for taking my idea and running wild with it, you marvellous being you. <333

I’d planned to make something much grander and mad for this accordingly, but... well, you know how it is. Very long week, depression... eurgh. So instead, please accept something a fair bit shorter but no less lovely: a parable of ancient Egyptian culture, a delicious dose of angst and love, and the promise of forever from a man who really can’t understand the meaning of the word, but wants nothing more than to offer it anyway. Set during STP, and I for one think this would be a lovely way to end it all...

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It’s fitting, Jean-Luc, he thinks serenely as he disengages the autopilot with a pang of adrenaline, a silent resignation, stoicism etched into his weathered features. Everything has its time, dear man, and you’ve had more than most.

There’s no real other method of death he’d have been content with, if he’s being honest with himself. It’s explosions, fireworks, heat, when he’s too old for any of it physically, when he’s exhausted mentally, but can still lay claim to the most youthful and adventurous spirits, the very soul of a captain; it’s plunging into a supernova at sub-warp to take out the rejuvenated Borg fleet in the resultant fire, beings he abhors so profoundly, is still so very haunted by all these years later, still has nightmares of his time amongst their number.

The protests of his newfound crew echo through his mind, the panic of five minutes prior naturally fresh; a simple plan, ultimately, forged days after he’d discovered their real enemy. Emergency transport, patterns already established, ready for the simple verbal command of a destination within reach; his friends enveloped, incapable of escape without the certainty of scattering to atoms, horror absolute.

“Admiral, you can’t be fucking serious - ”

“This cannot be how our quest ends! I will never forgive you!”

“... No, no, I know that look - JL, you can’t , you bastard - !”

“They took you once, Captain; we’ve won, dammit! There is no need to prove it further!”

He shivers with their regrets, jaw setting in defiance of his actions - it isn’t about proving anything, and he’d imagined Seven of all people would know that good and well. It’s about setting the universe to rights, ensuring continued prosperity from a species who deserve simply to be left in peace, who had been through more than enough to last them multiple lifetimes... to perhaps finally repaying a fraction of the debt he owed to the dead, the assimilated, of Wolf 359. It will never absolve him; nothing ever could.

But he can ensure it never has to happen again - not to him, not to another living soul in this quadrant. This is their last stand, and he will eradicate them. He isn’t a threat, of course - why would he be, in his tiny vessel?

Resistance is not, and never has been, futile, he acknowledges coldly, teeth beared in disgust. You wanted me to lead you, didn’t you? Allow me to make it so.

“Warning: recommend immediate retreat. Heat shields at thirty-one percent integrity; collision course with Elphoric Supernova in three minutes, thirty seconds.”

“Computer,” he announces frostily, “cease warnings.”

“With respect, my dearest admiral, perhaps you’d do well to pay attention.”

His mechanical heart skips several beats in the same moment, frenzy racing up his spine in anger, anticipation, anguish -

He hasn’t seen the speaker in four years, but he’ll turn up for the last three and a half minutes?

The flash claims his vision, the signature ping resounds, and the air falls immediately silent as he stares at eyes that read eternity and burn solely for him.

“Would you mind explaining what the hell you’re doing?”

He takes a full ten seconds of his remaining few minutes to simply absorb his husband’s presence, the faint lines that crease his forehead, the unspoken despair and the silent love and the carvings of exhaustion, and it’s as though something snaps once more back into place in his soul; as though he’s finally returned home after a solid millennia of travelling, embraced instantly by recalled warmth and comfort and precious, precious familiarity.

... Perhaps he ought to be less furious.

“... War’s over then, I take it?” His voice cracks through the stagnant bridge, and for the briefest of moments, he forgets entirely that he’s voluntarily crashing to his own destruction.

Q’s gaze flickers, stricken, and he regards his spouse with disbelief, crouching before him.

“Hardly the moment.” He curls fingers around shaking ones, squeezes tightly. “Honestly, I leave you alone for five minutes -”

“Four years,” Picard intones, hollow, charcoal eyes ablaze. “Four, dammit.”

Q winces, digs finely manicured nails gently into aged skin with sorrow. “Bit difficult to keep track when the universe is falling apart, though I thought my dearly espoused was rather above the ultimate display of tragic hubris.”

“This isn’t arrogance,” Picard snaps in response, suddenly furious.

The god raises a brow, turns from him for a moment to consult the cosmos; he analyses the situation quietly, eyes falling shut before they wrench open in horror.

“... Oh,” he realises aloud, returning a pitying gaze to his husband. “Well, I was planning to take you for dinner, celebrate our reunion, but... it had to the Borg, of course. It was going to be magnificent, you know. All candles, oysters, Risan teal whiskey - imagine you’ve grown a little weary of the family vintage by now -”

Picard’s internal chronometer, borne of years of starship clockwork efficiency, ticks over to ninety seconds, and he’s kissing him with desperation, with the misery of parting, the anxiety of war, the coldness of a universe where no one else can ever quite understand -

It’s brief because it has to be, given the circumstances, but it’s no less intense for it, shot through on both sides with passion and need and loss and reestablished harmony; they break eventually, slipping back to rest foreheads together, and Q is breathless with pain as he whispers.

“My universe has already shattered once, Jean-Luc.”

Picard blinks against the tears that threaten, the anguish that engulfs him at the very thought.

“It’s the Borg, Q,” he explains simply, voice woven with apology.

“... And it doesn’t count for anything that I could click them to dust, I imagine, stop them threatening anyone ever again?”

He smiles warmly, bitterness rich - not at an entity who has been trying to save his people, he could never be angry at that. He’s trying to do the same, isn’t he? Always has.

No, life is merely unfair, and it has to end eventually.

“‘Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it,’” he quotes gently, and a rasp of a sob trips from Q’s tongue.

“Stupid, noble, self-sacrificing idiot,” he breathes, thumb running over the wedding ring unconsciously. “The shen ring, Jean-Luc; you’ve always admired the ancients. The symbol of eternal protection.”

A single tear slips down his cheek, a stammered exhale follows, and he locks eyes to his in true dread. “Please, darling - tell me we can still go for dinner.”

Everything in creation drowns in silence, even as the console roars at him that he’s thirty seconds from death; nothing matters but his words, his long-spoken promise - that his husband absolutely comprehends them.

“I’d be offended we didn’t, frankly,” he whispers. “Haven’t seen you in years, we’re rather overdue a catch-up.”

He kisses his brow tenderly, physically feels the permanence of the relief that bursts through the god; he has to make sure, nevertheless.

“Perhaps tomorrow, we could watch the meteor shower on Tansid VI.” He softly pulls Q’s thumb back to the wedding ring, to the tangibility of what it offers, the vow it proclaims, and runs his own preciously across it. “Croissants. Champagne. Different region, different grapes - I’m not quite bored of that one yet.”

“And the day after?” Q’s voice cracks, brittle as sand.

“Oh, moons of Tanothry Prime, I imagine. Driver’s choice. Though I’d quite enjoy a trip to the Magellanic Clouds, perhaps in a few centuries.”

Another sob, profound this time, raises, stuttered, from his immortal spouse.

“I reserve the right to make it hurt less.”

“Oh, please do, my love. My Thoth.”

Q stifles a laugh, so wondrously enamoured. “The Egyptian god of the dead, of magic and wisdom.”

“‘As for Thoth, he crosses the sky in my presence; I pass safely.’“

“Yes, you do,” the deity vows, adoration warming the severity of his features. “Nothing will ever have to hurt you again, darling.”

It’s a strange experience, dying without fear. He’d been so certain, so determined, but so very afraid.

“Ten seconds to impact,” the computer chimes, emotionless.

“I have a dog,” Picard tells his husband, eyes falling closed. “You wouldn’t much like his name.”

Q smiles tightly, clings to him.

“I do hope it isn’t mine,” he replies dryly, and the human chuckles as the ship ignites around them.

“Oh, it’s so much worse.” He beams tenderly at him, braces for impact. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Yeah,” Q breathes, caressing his ring, and together they burn.

#qcard #Jean-Luc Picard #Q #writing #tng #star trek picard #tapestry day #happy anniversary guys! <3

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