Folie a Q

Three

Things continue in that vein for a while. Scott does his job as best he can while Mitch winds him up over anything and everything he can think of, and they settle their arguments between the sheets of Scott's bed in a satisfactorily brutal way on a nightly basis.

Mitch has to admit he's no longer bored now that he has Scott's attention. He misses his powers, and he's still frustrated with the mortally slow pace of discovery, but the cocktail of neurochemicals released in his human brain by the ministrations of Scott's cock is almost worth it.

Almost.

As time passes, Scott starts to drop snippets of information in conversation; details of scientific studies or diplomatic missions that are novel or intriguing. It's blatantly obvious that these are morsels being offered as bait, as opportunities to 'contribute', but even so, Mitch finds himself becoming involved -- consulting or even accompanying away missions in cases where knowledge of the planet from his Q days is deemed useful. He's aware that his motivations are under constant scrutiny, that he's carefully monitored, but it's vastly preferable to being confined to the Fragaria.

Well. It was. Right up until the moment he finds himself, Lieutenant Sallee, and three other members of their landing party, whose names he's neglected to remember, trapped in a room with a Timorian shock weevil the size of a fucking Earth bear. It's really not what Mitch was expecting when they beamed down to help negotiate a trade agreement.

If Mitch wasn't currently a squishy, fragile human, he'd probably be rating this development as a delightfully curious distraction, given that he's never seen one of these beasts outside the Delta Quadrant before. Instead, he's trying desperately to recall anything that might help their current predicament, beyond the fact that these creatures are viciously aggressive and virtually impossible to kill, because that much is patently obvious. In the few minutes since it appeared, it's managed to eviscerate the Deputy Minister of Agriculture -- possibly fatally -- and trample zher assistant, despite the large not-entirely-ceremonial swords both were carrying. Mitch has spent enough time aboard the Fragaria to know that this is going to trigger a diplomat shit-storm of epic proportions, but it's the fact that the creature seems to be impervious to phaser fire and is somehow messing with communications that's occupying his thoughts right now.

Imminent doom is even more disconcerting than a mortal's inevitable march-of-time-related doom, it turns out.

"Holy shit," Sallee whispers, eyes tracking the weevil as it stalks slowly around the perimeter of the room, a deep, almost subsonic, growl emanating from its chest. His exclamation is barely audible, but the creatures attention snaps towards Sallee instantly and it charges.

Mitch reacts without thinking - not in a way he's really conscious of anyhow. He lunges in front the Lieutenant, grabs one of the ceremonial swords off the ground, and thrusts it hard into the creature's eye socket, the force of its charge driving the blade deep into its skull. It's only then, as his entire body spasms with a blinding jolt of pain, that he remembers why they're called shock weevils.

He wakes up in the Fragaria's sickbay, to an anxious Lieutenant Sallee hovering behind a far more collected Doctor Olusola. Apparently the force of the shock, amplified by their initial phaser fire, was enough to fling him clean across the room, knock him out for a good hour and put a small (and possibly merciful) dent in his memory.

Olusola asks him a number of particularly banal questions and then discharges him to quarters with instructions to rest. And for once, Mitch is perfectly content to follow orders. Luckily, Olusola didn't actually specify whose quarters.

***

Mitch is resting comfortably in the Captain's bed for a full three hours before Scott himself arrives. Mitch understands, Scott has to ensure diplomatic relations are salvaged and the ship gets safely away. But he's relieved when Scott finally turns up all the same.