Hi! I’m super sorry to send an ask, but I realised that for kickstarter you need a credit card. And I was wondering if it was somehow possible to pay over paypal? I would really like a copy. I love haunted houses and your art
hey! no worries at all, sending asks is always fine! unfortunately i think that kickstarter only takes credit/debit cards — i wish i could offer other options, but i'm limited to what the website accepts. if you want a pdf version of the book, though, i think you can use paypal on itch.io, where i have the pdf for sale!
This is my gift to @teeth-go-clink for the 2022 Qcard Fandom Holiday Exchange. I hope you enjoy it. Happy new year!
Prompt: Anything about them being physically and innocently affectionate with each other, hugging, cuddling, holding hands, feeling safe and okay and accepted and loved with each other. Quiet and domestic comfort.
Personal Log Stardate 57087.94
[After the events detailing the battle between the U.S.S. Enterprise and the Scimitar, I and my crew were granted extenuated shore leave by Starfleet to return to Earth to recuperate and make repairs. I had decided to make a visit to Château Picard in La Barre to check in on the family estate and its vineyards.
Shortly, thereafter, I was joined by my partner of nearly ten years - the entity known as Q. I have slowly been introducing him to the finer points of humanity which seem to charm and amuse him in turn.
Truly, I find his companionship here - with me now, that is - quite invaluable.]
-
Q awoke late into the morning, rubbing his eyes and brushing his hands back through messy locks of hair as he descended the stairs to the ground level of Château Picard.
Somehow, his captain had talked him into trying the human experience of “sleeping.” Again. Though Picard claimed it was so Q could more deeply appreciate the nature of humanity, the entity suspected it was because Picard thought he could catch a break from giving his opinion on Q’s late night ponderings of the universe.
While he did not appreciate it during his stint of actually being a human all those years ago, now that he didn’t need it he supposed he could see a little value in taking occasional repose from the constant processes of sense and thought. Especially if it meant drifting off in Jean-Luc’s arms each night.
Unfortunately, Q still found nothing pleasant about waking up very early.
Picard, however, still kept to his internal clock and was often awake and working in the vineyards before the sun had even risen. As such, he had completed his morning chores and met Q downstairs as he came inside through the kitchen door.
“Bonjour, mon chéri!”
Picard wiped away the sweat from his forehead and the dirt from his hands before coming over to give Q a peck on the cheek.
“Good- ahhhh… good morning,” Q yawned.
Picard chuckled as he bustled and clattered about the little kitchen.
Picard turned to Q. “I’d thought I would make us some crêpes for breakfast this morning.”
“Oh?”
Q gave the captain a dubious look. The entity had come to realize that though Picard was raised on traditional values that he - like most humans of his time - was not very well versed in the art of cooking. Too dependent on replicators. That, and Maurice Picard always did see cooking to be the “work of women.”
Therefore, it was understandable that Q was just a bit hesitant to accept this offer. Picard may be a flagship captain and a vintner, but a chef he was not.
“Yes. Like Maman used to make. She taught me, you know.”
Q didn’t know. While he had heard much about Maurice Picard and how a father had shaped a son, he had heard little about the mother. He did, however, understand that Jean-Luc held a deep and abiding love for her.
She was important to his captain. That made her important to Q.
“Oh?”
“She said to me, ‘Jean-Luc, though we are citizens of the Federation we are also French. And every French person - regardless of gender or sex - should be able to make une crêpe décente.’
I was six years old at the time. Barely big enough to reach the top of the cookstove.”
Picard grinned as he immersed himself in the memory.
He’s so beautiful when he smiles. Thought Q. Radiant. Something the entity had only ever previously associated with things like stars.
“I was only supposed to mix up the ingredients, but I thought I could be of more help and ended up burning my hand. It got me out of piano lessons for two weeks though, so I suppose that was something.”
Q inhaled. “Alright. Show me how this goes.”
Picard smiled again and went to gather the ingredients.
Q watched as Picard cracked an egg against the edge of the table, and dripped its runny contents into a small bowl. As he poured oil and spooned out a small portion of salt, Q moved to take the broken shell that the man had set aside.
The entity enclosed the pieces in his upturned palm with a delicate crunch. The sound caused Picard to turn towards Q just as he opened his hand back up to release a flurry of brown feathers and raucous coos.
Both watched the swift departure of a turtle dove taking flight through the open kitchen window. The pieces of eggshell were nowhere to be found.
Picard just raised an eyebrow in consternation.
“That was supposed to be a chicken’s egg, Q.”
Q just gave him a smile that Picard found over time to be in a way both annoying and endearing. Definitely distracting. Picard thought, as his eyes lingered at Q’s mouth; watching the front teeth of an overbite appear from that smile that widened the longer Jean-Luc stared at it.
Picard blushed and cleared his throat a little in embarrassment.
He focused intently back on the bowl as if it held all the answers in the universe. Instead of the annoyance standing next to me. He thought with fond exasperation.
A jar of honey was opened and into it was dipped une cuillère à miel. Q watched in curiosity as the viscous substance was drizzled from this strange wooden object into the bowl. It seemed messy.
And it was, as some of the honey managed to spill itself over Picard’s hand as he put the dipper down.
The captain absently licked at it, humming in content at the taste. Q, feeling his captain’s contentness, hummed along with him causing the man to look up at him in amusement.
Picard raised his fingers up to Q’s lips, as they parted minutely and the pink tip of his tongue peeked out. Through the sticky sweetness, Q could taste the flowering blooms of rosemary, lilies, and bearded irises from suckled nectar and rough kernels of golden pollen collected on the hind legs of les abeilles as they danced and bumbled their way through the French countryside.
A pleased sound rumbled from Q.
Picard chuckled.
“Mon nounours,” the captain murmured.
Q playfully growled at him, and as Picard turned back to the bowl he was grabbed from behind and captured in a bear hug.
Picard laughed again, gently pulling Q’s arms down until they encircled his waist.
“Here.”
Picard grabbed a whisk and handed Q a pitcher with a bag sitting inside.
Q leaned over Picard’s shoulder and poured the milk into the bowl as Picard whisked the ingredients around and around. Next Q reached across to add flour. Getting as much of it on the table and their clothes as he did into the bowl.
Picard coughed at him as some of the flour spread up to their faces in a small dusting of powder.
Q poked him in the side in retaliation.
“Ticklish?” Q asked knowingly with a devilish grin forming on his face, as Picard flinched from his finger.
“Don’t you even dare!”
Picard gave Q one of his most stern, no-nonsense looks that he reserved just for the entity.
Ah, memories. Thought Q, settling back with a smug smirk.
Picard slid himself and the bowl slightly away from Q, and began to slowly add water to the mixture he was whisking into a batter.
Q pouted at being ignored until he was commanded to go prepare a pan.
He pulled the copper cooking instrument down from its hook on the kitchen wall, and went over to the cookstove to open its dampers and grates.
Picard had already stocked the wood grate that morning, so Q lit a match and ignited it through the ash door.
Q set the copper pan on the cooktop, and watched the flames catch through one of the open burner plates.
One would think that very few things could entrance an omniscient, omnipotent being that was billions of years old. But Q was entranced.
As he looked down into the flames, the burning heat that blew warm air and smoke up the stove pipe reminded him of another type of burning heat. One much farther away than this passé kitchen on a hillside in La Barre.
Stars. Brilliant balls of superheated plasma. While technically not on fire, they burned with heat just the same.
Looking into the eyes of a Q, one could see the whole universe. Mortals - those who were blessed (or cursed) with such a chance - often perceived this as a sea of stars, similar to how their ancestors would perceive the skies in deeper and deeper layers as their technology advanced.
Q though - Q, as a species, could tell one another apart by looking into their eyes.
How else would a race of omniscient, omnipotent entities that could adapt any form at will truly tell each other apart?
It was the arrangement of the stars. The so-called position or angle that a Q perceived the universe for the very first time. A map pinpointing the exact time and location of their creation. Each slightly different.
“Q.”
Q remembered one night when he and Jean-Luc sat on a hill above the vineyards of La Barre and watched the stars.
He remembered turning to look at Jean-Luc, and seeing the light of those stars reflected in Jean-Luc’s eyes.
He remembered thinking - home.
“Q!”
Lost in thought, Q was not paying attention to the fact that the fire had now thoroughly heated the pan he was about to grab by its metal handle.
“YE - OUCH!”
Q furiously flapped his hand in the air, as Picard dragged Q away from the cooktop.
The entity tried to stick his finger in his mouth to soothe the burn, but Picard grabbed his wrist and put his hand under the cool water now flowing from the kitchen sink.
“Q, you must be more careful! Why did you allow yourself to get hurt?”
“I’m sorry, Jean-Luc. I really wasn’t even thinking about it.”
Picard gently rubbed his other hand up and down Q’s arm, calming the entity and distracting him from the pain. After a while, he removed Q’s hand from the water and examined his finger.
“Just a small, first-degree burn. It will be fine,” said Picard before bringing Q’s finger up to his lips.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m kissing it better.” Behind the finger, Picard smiled at Q.
“I regret to inform you, Mon Capitaine. But other than a small quantity of painkiller, human saliva does not produce any healing effects.”
Picard laughed, as Q gave him a befuddled look.
“I know that, Q. It’s a human gesture. To comfort someone when they are in pain.
You kiss where the hurt is to make them feel better. My Maman did this for me as well when I burned my hand.”
Q had to admit to himself that he was feeling a bit better.
“Well, then. Continue.”
After Picard had wrapped Q’s finger, he finished up with the crêpes. Pouring thin layers of batter into the now-buttered pan until they bubbled and browned, before flipping them over and frying an egg, grated Comté, and a few slices of jambon on top of each.
He folded the sides of the crêpes around the yolk, brushing them lightly with melted butter.
Q poured out two tall glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice.
They sat together at the little kitchen table - Q and his captain.
The entity cut off a piece of his crêpe, dipping it into the bright, sunny yolk and bringing it up to his mouth.
Q closed his eyes and quietly moaned in delight.
“Your mother must have been an amazing woman.”
Softly, he heard, “I wish you could have known her.”
When Q opened his eyes, he smiled. He didn’t know, but he understood.
