FICLET: Art for Art's SAke
Title: Art for Art's Sake
Pairing/Characters: Q/Jean-Luc Picard
Rating: PG
Warnings: None needed
Summary: Q enjoys a burst of creative inspiration.
Word Count: 490
Notes: For fictionalknight . Mood: giddy. Prompt: rewarded.
Q shifts another star a few dozen lightyears, contemplates the results. Not quite. He turns to a different star, careful to avoid systems with life--not that he cares, personally, but it would defeat the purpose if he snuffed out a few civilizations during the creative process. This one, this bright silver one--yes. That would go perfectly right...here.
He checks again, like a human painter stepping back from his work and eyeing it from a different angle. Close. Deftly, delicately, he shuffles stars like beads, like gems, a mosaic of light. At the end, two perfect stars of a deep gold with the slightest touch of green. He moves them back and forth a few light-minutes, fretting over the exact placement, until finally he is satisfied.
There.
He shifts his point of view to the planet he has chosen, far off on the outer rim of a distant galaxy. Briefly, his spirit moves across the primordial waters, where life is starting to flourish, and looks up at the night sky.
There, painted in stars, is a visage that will look down on this lucky planet for all its existence, watching over it: the quizzical eyebrows, the stern jaw that contrasts so delightfully with the wry mouth, the hazel eyes full of light.
Some day, Q thinks, I shall return and tell the beings that evolve here that his name is Jean-Luc.
Then he goes back to his shell on that ship, where the object of his artistic endeavor is just millimeters away from him, pulling back from the completed kiss, his austere cheekbones just a bit flushed.
"Our first kiss!" Q beams. Jean-Luc makes a harrumphing noise that manages to be both exasperating and endearing at the same time, but he doesn't tell Q that he didn't like it. From his stubborn, stubborn captain this is practically a confession of undying love, and Q decides to take it as such. "I shall have to do something to celebrate," Q announces, throwing his hands out grandly to cover the fact that he wants to dance, or burst into flames--he's not sure which Jean-Luc would find more alarming, so he decides to do neither. "Wait," he adds, tilting his head to the side. "I already have."
Jean-Luc rolls his eyes. "If you're done with the celebration, I am...not against repeating the experience," he notes.
As Q closes in for another dizzying kiss--he can't seem to predict his captain's actions, and this both thrills and deeply unnerves him--he decides it's better never to tell Jean-Luc of his starry-eyed (Ha! Q savors the pun for a moment) creative indulgence. Jean-Luc would probably demand he put all the stars back where he found them, how very tedious. No, this work of art will have to remain unshared. But that's all right, Q muses between delightfully irresistible, startlingly random shudders.
After all, art is its own reward.
Pairing/Characters: Q/Jean-Luc Picard
Rating: PG
Warnings: None needed
Summary: Q enjoys a burst of creative inspiration.
Word Count: 490
Notes: For fictionalknight . Mood: giddy. Prompt: rewarded.
Q shifts another star a few dozen lightyears, contemplates the results. Not quite. He turns to a different star, careful to avoid systems with life--not that he cares, personally, but it would defeat the purpose if he snuffed out a few civilizations during the creative process. This one, this bright silver one--yes. That would go perfectly right...here.
He checks again, like a human painter stepping back from his work and eyeing it from a different angle. Close. Deftly, delicately, he shuffles stars like beads, like gems, a mosaic of light. At the end, two perfect stars of a deep gold with the slightest touch of green. He moves them back and forth a few light-minutes, fretting over the exact placement, until finally he is satisfied.
There.
He shifts his point of view to the planet he has chosen, far off on the outer rim of a distant galaxy. Briefly, his spirit moves across the primordial waters, where life is starting to flourish, and looks up at the night sky.
There, painted in stars, is a visage that will look down on this lucky planet for all its existence, watching over it: the quizzical eyebrows, the stern jaw that contrasts so delightfully with the wry mouth, the hazel eyes full of light.
Some day, Q thinks, I shall return and tell the beings that evolve here that his name is Jean-Luc.
Then he goes back to his shell on that ship, where the object of his artistic endeavor is just millimeters away from him, pulling back from the completed kiss, his austere cheekbones just a bit flushed.
"Our first kiss!" Q beams. Jean-Luc makes a harrumphing noise that manages to be both exasperating and endearing at the same time, but he doesn't tell Q that he didn't like it. From his stubborn, stubborn captain this is practically a confession of undying love, and Q decides to take it as such. "I shall have to do something to celebrate," Q announces, throwing his hands out grandly to cover the fact that he wants to dance, or burst into flames--he's not sure which Jean-Luc would find more alarming, so he decides to do neither. "Wait," he adds, tilting his head to the side. "I already have."
Jean-Luc rolls his eyes. "If you're done with the celebration, I am...not against repeating the experience," he notes.
As Q closes in for another dizzying kiss--he can't seem to predict his captain's actions, and this both thrills and deeply unnerves him--he decides it's better never to tell Jean-Luc of his starry-eyed (Ha! Q savors the pun for a moment) creative indulgence. Jean-Luc would probably demand he put all the stars back where he found them, how very tedious. No, this work of art will have to remain unshared. But that's all right, Q muses between delightfully irresistible, startlingly random shudders.
After all, art is its own reward.