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Most of the time, Jean-Luc Picard had control over his reactions. He was diplomatic, he knew how to handle complicated situations, he knew how to respond (with experience) to provocation and hostility. He dealt with anyone who tried to break his stern figure without a blink, humans or not. No one could succeed to have an irrational reaction out of him this easily. No one.
Except one.
Q was the exception, and not in a good way. He would make Picard have reactions he didn't want to have. Gets to his nerves like nobody else.
The captain of the Enterprise really despised that. The way the entity could make him lose his cool, remind him of his younger self, somewhat see behind his serious self. It made him lose his mind. The spite, the unreasonable reactions and the anger he would take out of him like no one else was so infuriating.
But the worse was the way Q understood him so much, that they were more alike than Picard would ever admit they were. It was what pushed the most irrational anger out of him.
Well, that wasn't all the reasons why he disliked him of course. There was also the fact that he had put his crew in danger many times, was self-centered, megalomaniac and was always with his trials and stupid games. But that was the reason he was somehow special to the Frenchman, why this kind of hatred was so different from the one he had for others.
And maybe that's why Picard was more keen than he wanted to to listen when an ensign decided that he needed his advice.
It was a few days after an apparition of Q while they were facing cultural misunderstandings with a species they wanted to start contact with. And while Q did not worsen the situation per se, he certainly did not help. He passed the whole event mocking the crew, the species "inferior" to him and, mostly, Picard.
However, this time, he didn't seem to have somewhat of an excuse to have come bothering them. Which Picard could have investigated about, but he decided there was no reason to, the entity rarely had good excuses to come so this wasn't so out of the ordinary.
The entire encounter was as exasperating as the ones before, but this time was different, because this time, a new ensign was there, an ensign who found the need to help Picard with it.
And so he came to the quarters of his captain off-shift.
"What can I do for you?" Had asked Jean-Luc, a recomforting cup of hot Earl Grey well-earned after a long and tiring shift in his hands.
"Permission to speak candidly, sir?"
"Go ahead."
"I do not wish to appear as impertinent or nosy, sir, but it occurred to me that you had a problem that maybe I could be of some sort of help." Said the ensign, a bit nervous about how he was going to talk with his captain.
Picard was doubtful, but curious to hear him.
"I'm listening."
"I was bullied in primary and high school, sir, and so I had to find some ways of defending myself."
Picard was now very confused as to why he was telling him this, but he nodded.
"With this experience, sir, I would advise you to flirt with the entity named Q." Finally blurted out the ensign.
Despite not having begun to drink his tea, Jean-Luc nearly choked.
"I'm sorry?!"
The ensign seemed to understand that he may not have formulated what he was trying to say like he would have wanted, and he smiled awkwardly.
"I mean," He retried to say. "Q seemed to try actively to annoy you, captain, and from what I know, when someone tries to annoy you because they don't like you or similar reasons, they don't expect you to flirt or think they actually flirt with you, so they eventually stop, fearing that you are serious."
Picard looked at him with widened eyes, taken aback, but the ensign continued:
"Especially with Q, since he sometimes fakes flirting with you to make you uncomfortable and annoy you, and the kind of person who does it like that generally doesn't expect it to backfire, and it works when it does."
Without letting his captain says anything, the ensign smiled and finished:
"I hope this could maybe help you, sir."
"I... thank you for your concern, ensign, but I don't think this is adequate for this case. We're talking about an alien entity, your experience with school bullying may not be relevant." Said politely Picard.
Not at all offended, the ensign grinned and said in what sounded like a giggle:
"As you say, sir. But in certain ways, I don't think aliens are that different from humans. I wish you to find the solution to your problem anyway, sir."
"Thank you, ensign, dismissed." Said Picard mindlessly, as the young man left.
He didn't mean to, but what the ensign said ran free in Jean-Luc's head as he headed to sleep.
He thought about it. Could it be that the ensign was right? It was definitely a weird way to handle that kind of problem. But still...
Perturbed, he fell asleep.
After this event, he didn't really think about it again. It's not like he had time for that anyway, he was the captain of a federation ship, he couldn't spend time on that kind of matter. Q wasn't even here.
Until he was.
Only one week after their last encounter, Q came into Picard's quarters while he was doing some paperwork we would rather not do.
"Mon Capitaine, how great it is to see you again." He slurred with some hints of sarcasm.
"What is it you want, Q?" Asked Picard, annoyed.
"Why, Jean-Luc, can't a man visit his friend without ulterior motives?"
"You're not a man, nor I'm your friend."
"You wound me, mon Capitaine." Responded Q dramatically.
The human was about to roll his eyes and start to snap, but then he remembered what the ensign said.
Could it be that it could actually work? After all, even if Q was faking flirting to bother him, he surely very much disliked "primitive and savage" humans, and so he would be disgusted by it to backfire.
It was late, Picard was tired of doing paperwork and Q was really on his nerves, and so all of that pushed him to do something silly, and he ended up doing what this young ensign advised him to do.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to." He said with a grin, like it was a private joke between them.
To Picard's satisfaction, Q seemed taken aback by this reaction, but it was obviously not enough, as he regained his arrogant figure and tried to irritate him again.
"All is pardoned with a kiss."
He obviously didn't mean it and said it only to take a familiar reaction of annoyance out of the Frenchman, but the said Frenchman pretended to have taken it literally.
"If you insist."
He got up from his chair and walked slowly in the entity's direction. Q froze and lost his arrogant face for something Picard interpreted as a sort of surprise with a bit of fear, which encouraged him to go on.
Now a few inches from each other, Q tried to say:
"Wha-"
Only to be interrupted by the human lips on his own.
Picard didn't really mean to go this far, he had planned to go closer to Q until he freaked out, but it sort of happened, the alien not moving a muscle and Jean-Luc maybe too much invested in this role.
The kiss was weird, Picard couldn't think of a better fitting adjective.
The only problem being he couldn't know if it was in the bad or good way. Perhaps both.
It was so comfortable and awkward at the same time. It certainly wasn't as horrible as the captain thought it would have been. It was almost... nice. And soft. But still very strange.
It also brought on some questions, Picard figured when he felt the sensation in his stomach that he often had when Q was near him, only stronger. A sensation he identified as what defined his anger against the alien, an irrationality he felt only with Q, but now... now he wasn't so sure.
He waited for Q to break the contact with the reaction he was originally looking for, but he remained still. Eventually, he even started to melt through the kiss.
That wasn't going as expected at all, but even Jean-Luc didn't care at the time, he moved closer without thinking about the consequences. A thing so rare with him.
They finally stopped when Picard's body began to scream a lack of air.
They looked at each other for a time, not a word spoken (which was extremely uncommon for the Q).
"What was that?" Asked Q breathlessly, even if Picard was sure he didn't need to breathe, with glassy eyes open wide.
"A kiss."
He looked at him with a face that clearly said, "Yes, I am fully aware" and the human laughed, for once he was being the smart ass of the two.
"Do it again." Inquired the entity.
And he obeyed, the reasons that had originally made him do this and his hatred gone and forgotten for now.
"You look better than when we met before, sir, did something good happen?" Asked the young ensign who had given Picard the infamous advice when he passed him by in the engineering room.
Data and Geordi La Forge gave him a curious look.
"Wait-... have you tried my method?!" He continued without giving the captain space to talk, excited.
"I might have tried." Picard responded, uncomfortable.
"Oh wow! Did it work?"
Picard thought about it. Seeing Q hadn't stopped at all to visit him and his crew, it didn't work in the slightest. But he also remembered the embraces, kisses, sweet words, and all the annoyance that maybe haven't stopped, but began to soften.
"Not really." He chose to answer, eager to escape the questioning looks his officers were giving him.
"Oh, what a shame, I'm sorry for you, sir." The ensign said, visibly empathic.
"Did it work well for you?" Asked the captain, now curious how it had worked out for the younger man.
The said younger man, who was now becoming embarrassed.
"Well... I haven't exactly... tested it..."
Picard gave him a surprised look.
"I thought you were speaking from experience."
"Well... yeah, I did get bullied, but haven't had the chance to use this method. This is more of a thing I thought afterward as a way I could've reacted and in case this would happen again..."
As he walked back to his Ready Room, he promised himself to never listen to advice from ensigns again.
Or perhaps it was good that he did.