Written for Porn Battle 8, but this is the least explicit of all the fics I did for Porn Battles, so I can legitimately give it an M rating rather than something higher. Prompt: "Picard/Q, mortal". I'm guessing this is yet another one of my post-Deja Q AU's where Q never got his powers back, but all I know is that Q is human now in this fic. Don't have any idea how this relationship started or where it's going; maybe someday I'll figure it out and write it. I think this is actually my favorite of my Porn Battle fics.

This is wrong, Picard thinks, I shouldn't be doing this, I have far too much power over him now. It's not against Starfleet regulations for a captain to sleep with a civilian aboard his ship, even one employed by Starfleet as a science advisor, but Picard knows how far Q has fallen, how helpless and alone he is now and how desperate he is to stay aboard the Enterprise, to keep some anchor of stability in his life after all he's lost. If he wanted to, he could coerce Q into almost anything. The fact that he's not coercing Q right now, that the former entity pushed for this for weeks before Picard gave in, and even now he's all but begging, shouldn't matter. Ethically he should not be doing this.

But then, Q laughed at him the last time he brought that up, and said, "I'm not a helpless, innocent naïf, Picard. I'm older than your species. Kindly give me some credit in imagining I could stand up for myself?"

Picard isn't sure that's true. Not innocent, he'll admit to that, and not so naïve about what it means to be human any longer, but he's really not sure Q isn't helpless. Q is clinging to him like a drowning man holds to a lifeline, kissing him like Picard is an oxygen mask and he's on a ship with failing life support, and Picard is conscious of how very easy it would be to destroy this man. A few well-chosen words to Starfleet. An order removing him from the Enterprise, or simply withdrawing his emotional support. Since becoming mortal, Q has tried his best to adapt, to put on a front of being in control and unafraid as he would have been with his powers. But Picard knows better.

"Make me forget who I am," Q whispers to him, hoarsely, his arms pulling Picard to him as if Picard is a talisman, the only shield he has against the horrors of mortality. "Make me forget I was ever anything other than this."

And he can't say no to that. An ethics committee might tell him that he's wrong to sleep with an unstable, depressed displaced exile, unused to pain or fear or any harm at all, who's so desperate and alone he'll do anything for him for a kiss or a word of praise. But Q says he needs Jean-Luc, and the way he kisses, the way he touches, the way he sucks Picard's cock or pulls Picard down against himself all say he's telling the truth. Q does not behave like a man coerced but like a man possessed, as if he can't get enough of touching Picard's body or feeling Picard touching his.

When Q is under him, whimpering and moaning and his body bucking against Picard as Picard fucks his ass and strokes his cock, the sheer degree to which the power dynamics have changed, the level of dominance and control he has over Q, arouses him and disturbs him at the same time, and he slows and murmurs. "Are you sure I'm not hurting you?" he says, and "If you want me to do anything differently, anything at all, please, let me know."

"You know what I would like you to do differently?" Q gasps. "Stop treating me like I'm made of glass and fuck me, Jean-Luc."

He can't very well say no to that either.

Afterward, in the middle of the night when he's drifted in and out of sleep more than once, he feels more than hears Q crying, face muffled into the pillow, shoulders shaking just a little bit. He doesn't say anything, doesn't do anything that reveals that he's awake - he knows how humiliated Q would be to know anyone, even Picard, had seen him being that weak. This isn't the first time it's happened, and he's learned how to deal with it now - he turns over as if in his sleep, cuddling against Q's back, murmuring sleepy nonsense syllables into Q's ear and tangling his fingers in Q's hair as if he was stretching out in his sleep and just happened to encounter Q's head in his way. The comfort Q can't actually ask for and Picard can't admit to consciously giving quiets Q's muffled sobs, and eventually he curls up and goes still, his breathing deep and regular with sleep.

He hasn't told any of his senior staff about this. Troi knows, he thinks, but she keeps confidences unless ship's business requires otherwise. He has no idea how he will tell them, honestly, though sooner or later he probably has to. But Beverly's expecting him for breakfast, and Q's asleep, so he gets up as quietly as he can, dresses and leaves, his captain face firmly on so no one on the night shift will even think to ask what he's doing leaving Q's quarters in the dead of night.

It's not affecting ship's business, or how either of them relate to each other or anyone else during the day. Q's the same abrasive, obnoxious genius full of dangerous knowledge and sarcastic, misanthropic commentary as he ever was, during the day. It's only at night Picard sees anything else, only during sex and whatever openness Q feels in the afterglow that he glimpses how shattered Q still is from all he's lost. Q won't open up to anyone else or admit any weakness... occasionally to Data, but he seeks unbiased knowledge from Data, not comfort. This is the only outlet he seems to have for his pain.

Q needs him. Picard carefully does not think about why, exactly, he responds so strongly to that.