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Chapter Text

He’s thinking, strangely, of the torture chamber. It’s always been where he best fit in.

And it’s always been a strange thought, that people seemed to view torture as this slow draining of life, this slow erosion of will… In a torture chamber, there isn’t such a thing as life.

In a torture chamber, life is confiscated at the door. 

People go missing in there. Only power is real. It’s nice, tidy… People are heaps of flesh and buttons, and one simply required familiarity in the science of which button to press. Interrogators are dissociated nets of action and reaction; severed from memory and identity and opinion, numbed by the mechanics of suggestion and pain. If one did a bad job severing oneself, one was… simply a bad interrogator.

He’s thinking, strangely enough, of bodies- of how much they are indeed capable of functioning in such a severed state; stitched together with sinew and animated not by purpose, but habit.

He’s thinking, but also… he’s not really thinking at all. 

They’re all true.

It’s over. He’s done with thinking, he’s done his part. He’s confiscated his life on a different planet in a different star system, several hours ago. He is now a walking corpse, empty and grotesque- and hilariously, there isn’t even a torture chamber left for him to walk into.

And there’s something satisfyingly… literal about it all. He hasn’t had many opportunities in life to be literal.

It’s almost a relief.

The wire wasn’t the only device the Obsidian Order stitched into its assets.

There were so many. Most of them lodged in vital areas, too, designed either to sustain their owners through incredible duress, or terminate their lives immediately (the only thing worse than failing one’s mission, after all, was failing one’s mission caught behind enemy lines). Really, he’s an overstuffed assortment of killing devices- and decades of experience meant knowing exactly how to push any button he pleased.

Were Garak less of a coward, he might have triggered the immediate release of 2 ccs of kolcitrite into his brain while he was still on Cardassian soil. As deaths went, it would have been rather elegant- swift, painless, virtually undetectable. His life would have ended in the same place it began. No one else would ever learn of his shame.

But Garak is nothing if not an excellent liar. And as much as he truly believes he would rather take a quick death on Cardassia than spend his final hours crammed among Bajorans and Klingons in a sixteen-hour transport, crawling back to his old, familiar, pathetic little cage…

Well, here he is.

A torturer seeks a torture chamber to crawl back to, after all… never mind who’s doing the torturing.

The last news Garak heard of anyone from his life in exile was the announcement that Grand Nagus Rom was sending aid to Cardassia- before that, four months prior, when he’d learnt belatedly of Captain Sisko’s disappearance. He was far too busy surviving his tenuous, exhilarating, bloodcurdlingly depressing reunion with his homeland to seek out updates on any of the others. What did it matter? 

What did any of it matter?

Odo was back among his people; the lucky bastard. Kira was… alive, as was Quark (last he’d heard, anyhow). Talk among the passengers surrounding him suggests the station is now run largely by Bajorans, including a new Chief of Security, and Chief Engineer- Garak dimly wonders what else. So far, nobody has mentioned the doctor. 

(“It’s Doctor Bashir, isn’t it? Of course it is.” Once, he’d relied on their friendship to get through the week without going insane.

These days, Garak goes weeks without thinking of him at all.) 

“You’ve been such a good friend,” he’d said ten months ago, when they’d last spoken- though, despite their estrangement, Bashir really was the closest he had to family, now that Mila was dead.

(Once, in a moment of weakness while filling out that section in a ration form, Garak had almost written as much. He can admit this, now.) 

“I’m going to miss our lunches together.” 

As it happened, he hadn’t exactly missed them… There wasn’t the time to miss them. But, in the cold of exile, Garak had depended on them more than he’d ever care to acknowledge.

(Patriotism and spite were powerful motivators, yes- but in darker hours when convincing oneself to go on felt like a pointless endeavour, a lunch and a holonovel went a long way.)

“I’m sure we’ll see each other again,” the doctor had replied. 

The eternal optimist.

What Garak hadn’t told him that day was he’d fully intended for it to be the last conversation they ever had- the last conversation he’d ever have, with anyone. 

All those years. Years, spent struggling to serve Cardassia, save Cardassia- plotting and scheming for her, obsessing and bleeding for her- and there he’d found himself, standing among the rubble with Mila’s corpse behind his eyes and a death toll climbing towards a billion over his head; his Cardassia gone forever.

He’d done his part. He’d freed her. But… it was too late, wasn’t it? Now, she was damaged beyond repair, and… without even the sweet promise of seeing her old self again, how was Garak supposed to go on? Why should he even want to?

He hadn’t meant to.

No, he’d turned to Bashir, halting his rant abruptly- done his best impression of the jovial, charming tailor the doctor had dined with once a week. 

Given him one last pleasant memory of Garak to hold on to. 

(Given himself one last chance to resemble a person someone actually liked.)

“I’d like to think so,” he’d said. “But… one can never say. We live in uncertain times.”

That final part, at least, ended up being true. No disruptor had lingered in his strangely slippery hands long enough. Poison was the wrong sort of melodramatic, and something of a chore to access… And electrocution might’ve held an appealing degree of irony, perhaps- but it seemed a lot of work. Blades were only as effective as the arms that wielded them, and that night, Garak’s arms were weak. Even letting himself fall from the very top of the Dominion Control Centre seemed an effort- and really, the thought of being found dead in a pool of his own blood was trite.

If Elim Garak was going to find a way to die, it had to be something worth the ticket, didn’t it? What good was a performer who couldn’t even make a memorable exit? 

He’d made it through that night, at least. And who would’ve thought he’d make it through that night- make it through nights so much worse than that night, make it through ten more months of nights- clearing and burying, running and hiding, fighting and rebuilding and dying a little more each night, dying- only to have it all undone by Tain’s legacy in the end?

For a time, at least, he’d had Cardassia. Whatever husk of who she was, he’d had her- beneath his soles, before his eyes, within his lungs.

Now, he has nothing.

And a man with nothing to live for is no man at all. Who is he, anyway? Who is he going to be in his final hours?

He supposes that, as usual, will depend on who he is around. But Garak doesn’t want to be around anyone.

Oh yes, he can pretend. He can handle any interactions thrown his way with trademark finesse and skill. But right now, he doesn’t want to be skilled- he doesn’t want to be Garak, Obsidian Order Agent; whatever would be the point? The Order is a best-forgotten relic of the past. And he certainly doesn’t want to be Garak, Son of Tain; for that was the name of an outcast. That made the least objectionable person he could be at the end of his life Plain, Simple Garak… and, while he doesn’t like it, he concedes that life rarely gives the living what they want.

So he steps onto Deep Space Nine for the first time since the war’s end, feeling so unrecognisable, he couldn’t bear to be recognised. He hopes he won’t encounter a single person who could.

He wouldn’t know who to be anymore.

It looks different, now. Cleaner. Busier. A few Cardassians pass him by, and he avoids them resolutely.

(He’d wondered whether the new, Bajor-dominated staff would’ve rendered this place less welcoming, but if anything, his people seem more welcome here than ever. 

And it’s nice to be welcome. Not, for once, in that “we are in a sticky situation and need your expertise” way, but this… blanket, unremarkable, oh-so-Federation one.) 

Garak cannot tell what precisely has brought him here. He’d boarded the transport to Bajoran space in a trance; operating from outside his body, moving about on autopilot. Perhaps, now that Cardassia has spat him out forever, this miserable hunk of metal is the closest thing he has to a home. 

He skims the upper levels of the promenade, seeing but not looking- his usually-vigilant eyes haven’t really looked much, today. Actually, in the last fifty hours, he’s barely felt anything at all. The verdict had sent a jolt through his system that hollowed him out and rendered him numb. 

I’ll never set foot on Cardassia again. 

… He feels nothing. 

Perhaps it is some sort of defence mechanism. Could he feel, it’s possible he wouldn’t be able to function. 

Perhaps it’s why he’d selected this particular implant. Grief had a funny way of vanishing, with only hours left to live… This way, he might actually be able to spend them in peace. 

But- oh.

… Hmm. This does surprise him. 

He’d fully expected his tailor shop to have long since been converted into something else. Yet, here it stands- the old signboard declaring it was Garak’s Clothiers still at the front.

And Garak’s Clothiers is closed. 

He stands blinking. He’d almost forgotten the sensation; something having piqued his interest. 

Garak hopes the new Chief of Security is less stringent than Constable Odo, and tries his luck with the old charmingly-hackable doors. Amazingly, there’s no need.

His key code still works.

Chapter Text

Come to think of it, he’s been envious of Damar, of late.

(Something else he can finally admit to himself; even chuckle a bit at the thought.)

Damar, the hero. Damar, the revolutionary. Whatever happened to Damar the collaborator, with rivers of Cardassian blood on his hands? Even at the end- all that bravery, that passionate patriotism which inspired millions- had it really stemmed from any genuine sense of honour, or from hatred of the Dominion and of himself? Garak quite securely thinks the latter. 

(It takes one to know one, after all.)

All his life, Corat Damar was a misguided fool, a poor servant of the State- and yet, he got the opportunity to die in the throes of liberation; secure his legacy as a good Cardassian. He got the effortless road to redemption. He got to be a sacrifice.

Damar got to die saving Cardassia, bleeding out into her soil, and leave it to others to clean up the blood.

The perfect way to go.  

Ah, so that’s why I came here, Garak muses, taking in the old exile’s domain… It feels strangely right. Only valuable, serving bodies really belonged on Cardassia, and her surface was marred enough; he hardly wanted for his final act to be littering it with his worthless corpse. This room full of irrelevant junk, on the other hand…

Walking slowly through the old racks- each an accusation, each inevitable as guilt- he can’t help but remember the other time he’d seriously considered hacking this implant. A memorable occasion; shortly after Tain’s failed mission to wipe out the Founders in the Gamma Quadrant.

(Which is part of the reason you’re exiled again! Garak has to appreciate a repetitive epic.) 

That night, as his stupid designer shoes crunched against the charred remains of his fraudulent artistry, he’d wondered who on Prime he even was without Tain; how he could ever go back now, how he was going to live with himself here, what he even bothered for- what it would be like to simply lose consciousness at some unknown point and never have to reopen his eyes to this station’s cruel lights.

But then, Odo had appeared. Spoken to him as if he hadn’t tortured the man mere hours ago.

Invited him to breakfast. 

Garak hadn’t shed tears since he was a small child, but that day, he’d come dangerously close. The sheer effort of keeping it all in had him shaking. 

He’d planned to die when the wire was breaking down; Doctor Bashir hadn’t let him. He’d wished to die when he’d believed Tain was gone; Odo had surprised him. 

He was perfectly aware he didn’t deserve their forgiveness. But he’d taken it anyhow, allowed it to propel him through a few more years- just a few more, so that the Romulans may enter the war, so that he may fight in the resistance to help liberate his homeland…

Now? Well. His tab was long overdue.

Cardassia couldn’t forgive him, so it was finally okay to give in.

He runs a hand over a wedding ensemble he’d once spent five weeks on. The sensation is blunt; muted. 

Such a damned waste of time.

Time was cruel, in the way it devoured opportunities, loyalty, value… If Bajoran chatter was to be believed, then Benjamin Sisko was indeed the luckiest soul alive, to now exist in a realm without it. Down here, Garak is but a product of his time- and products are meant to be used in the way they were designed.

Garak was designed to serve up until death. There is no instruction manual on what to do if he stops working; no repairing damaged goods. He is unexpectedly discontinued, incompatible with the latest and destined for the scrap pile, and there isn’t any point in trying not to be, because-

Strange, that they kept all this intact after I left.

… Because, there’d never been a plan for after. There was service to the Union- and, all right, service to Tain- but the latter is dead, and the former has rejected him because of the latter. What is he to do, anyway? Become a tailor again? All these fabrics around him look so utterly colourless, meaningless-

… And I wonder why they didn’t lease out the place.

Well. It simply didn’t matter. Nothing made his shop any different from all the others; business was likely stagnant, and the colonel couldn’t find anyone to-

But there were so many people. Look around, DS9 is thriving! And this is a prime location-

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered, the station was lifeless to him! And who would want this place, anyway? It’s just an empty chamber, one that was wasted for seven humiliating years on performing the most worthless- 

And why would the clothes still be here?

… Even if there was no one else waiting to snatch this place up-

Highly doubtful, given Quark’s penchant for lurid business ideas-

Why would every single one of Garak’s designs, rows upon rows of dresses and tunics and holosuite costumes-

Yes, why would anyone-

… Why would anyone keep these things here, gathering filth for ten months? 

Quark would have sold them, or-

Or come to think of it-

Garak turns around, slowly beginning to actually look-

… It doesn’t make any sense!

Everything is exactly the way it was the last time he’d set foot in this room. 

Garak’s Clothiers is a time capsule; a thin layer of dust being the only evidence that the last ten months on Cardassia even happened.

What…?  

He swallows, undeniably curious. And… And now that he’s feeling again, there’s a small flash of… 

Fear? Regret?! Oh, how very pathetic.

Whatever it is, it’s small. Not enough for him to reconsider what he wants. 

But it persists all the same.

“Computer…” he says, starting at the sound of his own voice after an uncharacteristic forty hours spent in absolute silence- “Who is the owner of this establishment?”

“Garak’s Clothiers is owned by Elim Garak.”

Still in his name, then. But before, Garak had paid the Bajoran government on a monthly basis. Who was paying now?

Something catches his trained eye. His front desk is thick with dust; but the one at the back of the shop, where he used to sit to unwind, eat his lunch- that has recently been in use. The seat is pulled out, the surface clean, there’s even equipment of some sort lying around…

Normally, Garak would approach with caution, suspecting booby traps. Now, he’s about to die anyway, so he walks over without a thought-

And one look at the medical devices confirms suspicions he hasn’t dared entertain.

“… Computer,” he says, swallowing again, “is Doctor Bashir on the station?”

A chirping noise. “Affirmative.”

Suddenly, sensation again, cutting through the numbness in a flash- Garak runs his fingers along the edge of a PADD left on his desk, actually feeling it; feeling the chill of the station’s air again with a shudder, feeling a sickly sense of anticipation-

But- but I don’t want to see him, I don’t want to see anyone, I don’t want-

“Where is Doctor Bashir?”

“Doctor Bashir is in Garak’s Clothiers-”

“What?” Garak whips around, faster than he’s moved all day- and finds a very familiar figure frozen at the entrance, staring at him in slack-jawed disbelief.

Garak might have frozen a little himself.

The doctor looks like a very tired person suddenly reanimated with a jolt of electricity. There’s so much tension crammed into his body, it’s like his hair is standing on end, every inch of him practically vibrating-

But, instead of speaking, his hands fly to his mouth, and he just stands like this for several moments and stares, fingers pressed into his own face-

Where they remain, as he takes a cautious step towards Garak, and then another-

“… Am I hallucinating?” he finally says, edging forward slowly, like Garak is some wild and unpredictable creature-

And the effect of hearing that old, familiar voice is immediate. 

Warmth. A surge of it that counters the chill in his bones so viciously, it makes Garak a trifle lightheaded. 

“… I’m afraid not, my dear doctor.” He’s surprised at how naturally a smile drifts to his lips.

And hearing his voice, Bashir stills again, as if he hadn’t expected the mirage to speak. He breathes shakily into his interlaced fingers. “You’re afraid…?” he repeats plainly. “You’re… You…” He lets his hands drop to his sides. 

And the rest of that sentence is lost to a hesitant- then, unbelievably heartfelt embrace.

If Garak thought he’d felt warmth before, this was nothing short of a furnace. Julian’s grip on him is strong, almost to the point of being protective- and it burns, everywhere, most of all in his throat- stealing his breath from him, possibly even blurring his vision-

“It’s so good to see you, Garak,” Julian says, and Garak can feel so much, now- feel his voice rumbling out from his throat into Garak’s shoulder, feel the way his arms tighten as he breathes Garak’s name, feel the harsher-than-usual rise and fall of his chest-

For a moment, Garak feels something other than worthless.

And to think, I didn’t want to see him again… Oh- he is warm, he is wanted, he is almost briefly happy- and if there is one person left in the galaxy who still means something to him, it is Julian. 

… Perhaps experiencing this reunion before he slipped away was something he’d desired more than he’d known.

After a surprisingly long duration, the doctor pulls away; his face contorted in an impossible blend of distress and delight. “How long… When…?” His voice is raw, the disbelieving look in his eyes rawer still.

“I boarded the station not half an hour ago,” says Garak, feeling strangely at peace.

“Where- How’ve you b- Garak, are you going to-”

“Girani to Bashir,” comes another voice from Julian’s commbadge. It takes a few seconds for him to snap out of his daze. 

“Oh!” he exclaims, fumbling for the Starfleet insignia on his still-unflattering uniform. “Bashir here. Sorry, I- I’ll be there right away.”

“Please, Doctor. Girani out.” 

“Um, I have- I have an emergency, actually,” Julian stutters, looking more than a little guilty. “I was on the way, but I saw… I saw… Garak, what are you- I mean, will you-”

“Doctor, am I to understand some poor soul is bleeding out somewhere on this station as we speak?” Garak never could help but tease the doctor. Neither time apart nor impending death would change that, it seems.

“Sort of,” he mumbles, staring- then blinks himself out of a trance. “Well. Yes. And, I really should be there…” He speaks as if he’s trying to convince himself. “But… Garak, will you still be here when when I’m done?”

He looks so desperate, Garak almost feels guilty. For what, he cannot say.

“When will that be?”

“Hopefully, less than twenty minutes from now.”

“Ah. Then, certainly.”

For a second, Julian seems on the verge of tears. “Wonderful. Just… don’t vanish, all right?”

He truly is anxious. A dozen retorts have rushed to Garak’s mind, but unexpectedly he finds he only wants his next words to be reassuring. 

“I shall remain exactly where you found me, Doctor.”

Julian bumps into no less than three mannequins on the way out, attempting to exit the room without taking his eyes off Garak… It’s endearing, really. Much like the way he’d behaved during their earliest lunches together.

… And Garak feels an ache inside him that could definitely qualify as regret.

There’s no undoing what he’s done. Not without invasive surgery, and Garak certainly isn’t planning to indulge in anything of the sort. 

Besides, reversing his decision simply because he caught sight of an old friend is laughable. 

They’ll talk. Exchange pleasantries, catch up. Garak is even feeling so bold as to suggest they get tea at the replimat, for old times’ sake- some familiarity to bask in before his final hours. Then, Bashir will go back to his life, and Garak will wait in private for the end of his. 

It doesn’t sound so bad.

But… what is Bashir’s life these days, anyway? Garak suddenly finds himself pondering things he was earlier too preoccupied to think of. That the doctor now does his medical research in Garak’s shop, for instance. That Chief O’Brien apparently left the station shortly after the war… He remembers the hours the pair of them would spend in the holosuites together, commissioning costume after ridiculous costume. Who was Bashir spending his free time with now?

“Computer, is Lieutenant Dax on board the station?”

“Lieutenant Commander Ezri Dax is not on board the station.”

Ah, a promotion. Perhaps she was leading an away mission. “Does she serve on Deep Space Nine?”

“Ezri Dax was stationed on Deep Space Nine from Stardate 52152.6 to Stardate 52963.4. Current posting: USS Bellopheron.”

So… Dax had left DS9 not three months after Chief O’Brien, then.

A few more cursory searches confirm that apart from Bashir and Kira, the entirety of the old senior staff was now replaced. Garak wonders if-

But why am I wondering? I’ll be gone in a few hours, what’s the point, why am I-

Well, did Julian have anyone here?

… “Julian”. Garak has not thought of the doctor in such terms, even within the privacy of his own mind, for a very long time. Perhaps such distinctions ceased to matter in the end.

Precisely. The end! None of it matters anymore.

But… But what is Julian still doing on the station, treating cuts and burns when he could’ve been reassigned somewhere else? It just isn’t like him, to remain here while dozens of planets all over the Federation are desperate for doctors-

Well, perhaps he’s still looking for a posting! Now move on, before you-

For ten months? With his extraordinary abilities, Julian could have found one anywhere.

… Unless the Federation still fears his genes too greatly.

Oh, that was a distinct possibility. Alternatively… This could be about Section 31.

Garak straightens, eyeing the console- the one that’s been relocated to his shop, for some reason. Was Bashir in danger? After that excursion to Romulus- the details of which had never been revealed, but Garak was sure involved kidnapping and torture of some sort- Julian had grown somewhat preoccupied with ending their reign; and they, in turn, had grown intriguingly preoccupied with him. Is that why he was using Garak’s Clothiers; easily the safest, most impenetrable room on the whole station?

There’s no denying his burning curiosity anymore. Garak’s heart pounds as he touches the console, actually feeling it under his fingers, and it glimmers to life- Really? Just like that? If Bashir was trying to follow the ongoings of a ruthless spy organisation, the least he could do was remember to close the-

Oh…?

What Garak finds on the screen is quite far from expected.

… Cardassia. 

It’s… news from Cardassia. 

Public surveys, records of relocations, official post-war censuses- 

Painstakingly compiled documents and data- 

Death tolls- 

Months and months of death tolls-

Logs from Bajoran and Ferengi trading ships, impressively-hacked official channels, Kardasi language programs-

Dozens of personal logs, some of which were even location-stamped within the Union-

Skilfully decrypted transmissions, some of which were even old Obsidian Order codes-

Lists upon lists of names, some marked- 

Various Garaks- 

Elims- 

Characters from his favourite works of literature-

Elim Silan-

Elim Komarak-

Enabran Namar-

Hoseeka Garak-

Mila Nilor-

Kesatran Tain-

Garak-

Elim-

Elim-

Elim-

Garak blinks; processing this. 

… He was looking for me.

An hour ago, someone could have punched him in the gut, and he wouldn’t have felt it. Now, he feels every molecule of his stomach intimately as it turns to lead.

He was looking for me… Why? When had this begun? And… how had Garak slipped so far, that he hadn’t known?

The thought makes him angry, which is irrational. Why, indeed. It’s the reason he’s in exile again- with the emergent government’s position on the Obsidian Order, he’d needed to keep his head down and rely on both a lifetime of secrecy and post-war bureaucratic inefficiency to survive. 

For a time, of course. His face was a known commodity. Too many people and cameras had caught him fighting alongside Kira and Damar; he’d even been in the room when the Changeling surrendered. Eventually, his past had caught up to him. If he’d successfully hidden for a time even from the stringent eyes of his people, he’d obviously managed to hide from Julian’s. 

But- why am I thinking about this? None of it matters!

That, of course, is a lie; and it’s not even a good one. Remembering the moment he’d decided to hack this lesser-known implant and commit to an eventual, painless death- well, more than anything, he’d felt worthless. Worthless emptied him, filled him up and overwhelmed him, possessed his mind and fingers and soul. This wasn’t just Tain banishing him out of spite- Cardassia didn’t want him. And if Cardassia didn’t want him, then who would? What did he have to live for, who did he have left? What would it matter if he was found dead the next day?

… Now, he finds someone has been searching for him this whole time.

Garak gulps, taking a seat by the console. 

It’s closer to forty minutes before Julian returns to the shop, which is plenty of time not only for Garak to comb through his computer, but also to act like he’s spent the entire interlude reacquainting himself with the fabrics.

“Ah, Doctor. Welcome back to my humble establishment,” he jokes with a bow- though, the smile on his face isn’t quite so performative as he’d like.

Julian’s laugh is more relief than amusement. “You’re still here.”

“Of course.” Garak tips back playfully. “I am nothing if not a man of my word.”

The doctor shakes his head. “God, I’ve missed you,” he says wistfully, leaning against the wall. “You have no idea how much.”

(Actually, Garak has spent the last half hour in a flurry of conflicting emotions over learning exactly how much. It hasn’t been very good for the air of numbness he’s attempting to cultivate.)

“I- I never asked properly,” Julian says, breaking the silence. “I suppose I had too many questions at once. But… how long are you going to be on DS9?”

For the rest of my life, Garak has to resist the urge to say with a laugh.

“For the rest of the night,” he says instead; not untruthfully.

Julian’s face illuminates with hope in a way that makes him ache. “Have dinner with me, then? Please?”

(There is, pathetically, not a single thing Garak would rather be doing.)

But he smiles, and Julian seems to melt with relief (… and suddenly, it does not seem so pathetic.)

“Of course. In fact, I have just the thing for the occasion.”

(Obviously, Garak has checked to make sure the old vintage is still here, stored away behind the panel. It would not do to look foolish.)

Julian chuckles as he retrieves it. “Oh, I know about all your secret stashes.”

Garak quirks his brow. “All of them?”

“All of them.” Julian folds his arms, walking over slowly, and Garak thinks how strange it is, that they haven’t seen each other in nearly a year, that a war has happened, that certain death is hours away- and yet, they’ve so effortlessly slipped into what feels like an exchange from ages ago. “When I had to clear out your quarters, the first thing I did was finally look behind that false panel by the replicator. You know the one.”

(I know you wouldn’t have liked anyone else looking through your things, so I cleared out your quarters myself, was the hidden meaning woven between the words of that sentence. 

Garak appreciates not only the skilful execution, but also the sentiment itself.)

“To my immense disappointment, I didn’t find any isolinear rods to eat,” Julian quips, close enough now for Garak to notice the swollen, puffy skin around his eyes directly at war with his good-humoured nonchalance. “But I did find Delavian chocolates.”

“Preferable, as snacks go- wouldn’t you agree?”

“Perhaps,” Julian shrugs. “But, on the other hand… if I’d found a datarod, I would’ve known you’d left it just for me.”

There’s a playful glint in his eye that induces a sharp pang of… all right, regret. That he’d missed the opportunity to honour that little inside joke. That he hadn’t even thought of Julian as he’d left. That he’d never have a chance to do something like that in the future.

Do I want to do something like that? Badly enough to want a future?

No. Garak is clear on that.

“I also found two bottles of extremely expensive kanar, one Romulan ale, and one half-eaten box of Tarcassian fudge,” Julian says, with a haughty air of judgement that’s somewhat irresistible by Cardassian standards. Garak wonders why he’s doing this now.

(Garak is also sure he’s found Mila’s brooch, which he’d forgotten behind, left fastened to the roof of that very panel. Yes, keeping it was sentimental as it was dangerous- but even to an agent of the Order, it was difficult to leave one’s roots behind so completely; especially in exile. If Julian has discovered it, he’s kind enough not to bring it up.)

Garak clears his throat. “Well, every man has his vices.”

“And here I was, believing you couldn’t surprise me anymore.” Julian’s smile remains, though his eyes turn contemplative. “Why are you here, Garak?”

There’s a whisper of pain within that question, and Garak can hear it all too well. He doesn’t even know how to process it. 

Here is Julian, someone who’s spent months searching tirelessly for him, trying his best to pretend this reunion is just a happy coincidence that’s fallen into his lap- but the twitch about his mouth says otherwise. The obvious signs he’s shed tears say otherwise. The way he’d embraced Garak had said otherwise.

(And it’s all somehow familiar, isn’t it? Julian has always made him feel valued to an alien degree.) 

Suddenly, the very nature of his presence here feels cruel. Garak wishes he had just come here to have dinner with Julian- he wishes he could just lie about it, and make it true. But looking into those kind, sad eyes, he finds he can’t.

The old trick, then. Answer a question with a question. He even springs for an enigmatic smile- the likes of which he thought he’d never have the energy for again. 

“Does it matter?”

Julian stares, actually considering this. 

“No,” he decides. “Not one bit.”

Chapter Text

Unspeakable grief and imminent death notwithstanding, Garak finds himself enjoying dinner a great deal.

Sharing a meal with Bashir is pleasantly familiar- though, the novelty of dining in his quarters is somewhat uniquely engaging. They eat Andorian food, and it’s not so bad, as final meals could go… Over the last ten months, Garak has certainly eaten worse. Besides, it’s not so much the food he’s focused on. Tonight, he is here to enjoy the company of his dearest friend one last time.

“Though, I am surprised at the Colonel’s lack of interest,” he remarks. 

(In reality, he’s surprised at his own interest. It feels like darkened, shut-down areas of his brain are gradually powering up one by one- much to his chagrin.)

“Oh, Nerys doesn’t know you’re here.” Bashir smiles a little sheepishly, and Garak cannot help but remember the hundreds of times the doctor has smiled at him across a table like that… Some of them mischievous, some exasperated; all of them fond.

(… He distracts himself from that unwanted thought by focusing on the casual use of “Nerys”. He hopes it means Bashir and Kira have grown closer in the others’ absence.) 

“My dear doctor,” he remarks in mock scandalisation, pausing to widen his eyes at his salad. It makes Julian laugh. “Is it not your sacred Starfleet duty to inform your commanding officer that a known spy has boarded the station?”

“A-ha! At last,” Bashir grins. “You admit you’re a spy.”

Had anyone else said it, Garak might have felt a stab of pain from reality’s cold blade. But Julian makes everything sound like a game; like being a spy could truly be heroic or exciting or easily rewarding. Like it wasn’t the sort of life that consumed, that would use someone up and spit them out, leaving them homeless, suicidal and alone.

(Well, perhaps not entirely alone. For that at least, Garak is grateful.)

“It is a little late to keep pretending otherwise,” he quips, hoping Bashir catches on that he isn’t really up for this old routine tonight. “But there’s no need to worry, Doctor- I assure you, my dealings with espionage are firmly in the past.”

Julian’s smile shifts from playful to purely affectionate. “You know, I never doubted it.”

Garak is still wondering what to make of sincere pride over his perceived reformation, when the doctor continues, “And that’s why I didn’t tell Nerys. I don’t know why you’re here… But I also don’t believe you’d harm any of us.”

Attempting to stay unaffected in the face of those words is difficult enough, but mercilessly, Julian adds, “Besides. If you are in trouble, and you’re hiding on DS9 for some reason- it would be safer if your presence was never noted in the logs. And after my encounters with Section 31, I’ve had my quarters reinforced with extra security. So, you can relax, Garak. You’re safe.”

Garak has not felt safe for one second in over ten months. And as if he weren’t already bowled over by all this, Julian goes in for a finishing touch with a self-deprecatory smirk. 

“And… perhaps I just wanted you all to myself.”

There is no appropriate response. One does not exist. So Garak does what he does with every uncomfortable truth- pushes it down into the depths of his mind, and says something witty instead.

The hour is well past 2330, and Julian is yet to show any signs of wanting him to leave. 

It’s just as well. Garak doesn’t have quarters to return to, anyway. 

So they end up on the couch, side by side. Garak doesn’t have much to look forward to, but he has to admit- he’s been looking forward to the kanar.

At first, however, Julian politely refuses.

“Still haven’t acquired a taste for it, I see,” Garak laments. 

This makes him wince. “More like, acquired too much of a taste.” 

At Garak’s blank expression, he reluctantly elaborates, “I… might’ve developed a bit of a drinking problem earlier this year. Thought the old genetic enhancements business would protect me, but, apparently not.” He rolls his eyes as if he’s just made some humorous joke. “Quark cut me off, if you could believe it.”

Garak has suffered similar dependence at three separate points in his life, most recently following withdrawal from the wire- something he’d gradually phased out over lunches with Julian. It makes him unexpectedly sad, that Julian hasn’t been able to rely on him similarly. 

(He very deliberately does not allow himself to speculate on what drove Julian to addiction in the first place.)

“I am sorry to hear that,” he says neutrally. “There’s always synthehol, vile as it is… Or would you prefer we shared a pot of Tarkalean tea?”

Julian’s eyes soften- no; they sparkle. 

“… You know what? This is a special occasion,” he decides. “And I haven’t had any issues in a long time, now. Pour me half a glass, please.”

As much as Garak does not wish to bring him harm, he supposes the doctor’s judgement is sound. 

(There is also the unfortunate fact that he doesn’t seem to be able to say no to him.)

Perhaps it is the time of day, that he is off-duty, that they are in private- but Julian is behaving mesmerisingly differently tonight; somehow even more relaxed and personable than Garak remembers. He laughs, he teases- he shines- he squirms about on the cushion and flops over the backrest. As he talks, his fingers brush casually against Garak’s arm with a familiarity the war had long since stolen from them.

It’s easy to pretend he’s not on a ticking clock. It’s so easy to forget.

And- there’s really no point in remembering, is there- what, with his hours drying up…? It all just seems so pointless. Being in pain, it’s… so pointless.

So, here with nothing to lose, Garak makes a decision. For the first time in his life, he opens his fist and lets go of whatever cord tethers him to Cardassia, and lets himself fall- lets himself forget, forget, forget.

And what a surprise: it is not hard and unforgiving ground that meets him, but soft eyes alight with investment- warm laughter at the jokes his mouth is making on autopilot, and strong arms that had embraced him so unreservedly earlier, metaphorically outstretched- ready to catch him yet another time.

They do not debate literature or argue the finer points of each others’ cultures. For once, they aren’t trying to match wits, challenge one another, show off how clever they are.

They just talk about ordinary things. Station gossip. Jake Sisko’s novel. Quark’s ill-fated attempt to turn Julian’s discarded LMH into an amorous holoprogram. Villix’pran’s newest litter. Morn’s wrestling competition. Grand Nagus Rom. Bajor’s refusal to join the Federation until the Emissary himself expressed his approval some way or the other. 

They carefully skirt around the obvious questions… Perhaps neither of them is in the mood to dig into painful subjects tonight. 

The kanar is crisp and wonderful. Garak watches the range of expressions Julian cycles through as he lets it settle on his tongue, remembering the restless youth who would have gulped it down in an instant. His very demeanour is altered now; contemplative, mature. 

Not so boyish anymore.

(Garak tries not to think how he’d always secretly missed the boundless energy of their early interactions while slyly complimenting Julian on his newfound cynicism. Seeing the wells of sadness behind those smiles today, he wishes he never had.)

“I don’t think Keiko’ll ever let Miles and I watch Yoshi alone again, after that,” the doctor laughs wistfully at the end of a story.

“You must miss them,” Garak remarks, though it’s something of a relief to learn Julian has regularly been visiting Earth. 

His brows pinch together. “A lot of the time, yes.” He straightens abruptly with a smile. “At least I get to see them every now and then. Dessert?”

To Garak’s enormous surprise, Julian returns from the stasis unit with… a very familiar box of chocolates. He leans back, unable to contain his curiosity.

“When you said you’d found them, I hadn’t expected you’d kept them.”

Julian breaks out his most blisteringly adoring smile of the evening. 

“Well, it wasn’t as if I was going to eat your chocolates,” he mutters, as if the very suggestion were strange. “Not without you.”

“You might have sold them.”

“In case you didn’t notice, I haven’t gotten rid of a lot of the things you left behind.” His smile seems to falter, and he quickly pops a chocolate into his mouth. “Mmm- oh, this is so good. Try one, Garak! Also, there’s a whole box of your personal belongings in my closet. You should probably take a look.”

Garak tries not to remember that he’ll be dead in a matter of hours, and accepts the chocolate with a smile. 

It’s not quite so sweet as he recalls. But the flavour floods his senses all the same, more potently than the Andorian food had managed… and this flash of cutting clarity brings with it questions he cannot ask.

Julian’s eyes have taken on a somewhat distant quality. It’s as if he cannot believe Garak is really sitting before him, that they’re really sharing this box of chocolates at last. He’s smiling like someone who hasn’t wanted to smile in a long time, and now can’t stop… Why, Garak wonders. Why couldn’t he move on? Why couldn’t he let go, find something else to make him happy?

It just cannot be asked. Not directly, anyway.

“… You could have eaten them, you know,” he says, with slow deliberateness. “I hardly would’ve minded.”

Julian narrows his eyes. “Well, I did consider it. They’re rather difficult to come by, after all.” 

He relaxes over the backrest and rests upon his arms, limbs loosened by kanar… Seeing him so unguarded, so inviting, is more than Garak can bear. He’s always wanted to know the curve of that neck beneath his palm… What would happen, Garak wonders, if he were to reach out? Would Julian want that? Years of pent-up longing and denial seem to be suddenly reemerging from the depths, pounding away at the surface-

“But… then I pictured you, alone out there on Cardassia with a whole world to rebuild, and…” Julian shifts from chin to cheek, eyes twinkling. “I just thought you might need them more than I do.”

Garak wishes he didn’t have perfect recall, so he wouldn’t have felt that little reference pierce him the way it did. He wishes he could still pretend Julian wasn’t clever enough to understand the questions, so he wouldn’t have to understand the answers. 

The slow realisation that there’s actually quite a lot left to say begins to gnaw at him- he’s starting to almost dread his impending demise. But to avoid it, he’ll have to come clean. Garak is certainly more prepared to die than tell Julian what he’s done; to face his horror, his pity- his disappointment.

Yes, Garak finally knows who he wants to be in his final hours, and it’s… somewhat the opposite of a disappointment to Julian.

Julian, who is still gazing at him quietly, deep in thought… Shoulders angled playfully, collarbones half-exposed. Brown-green eyes roaming over Garak’s face in a way that burns holes through every shield he’s desperately trying to uphold.

“How are you, Garak…? Generally speaking, I mean. Are you all right?” 

He asks it without a hint of irony.

Garak blinks. “You know, I’ve always thought that was among the more inane questions people ask each other,” he murmurs. “Nobody truly wants an honest answer. It’s a hollow inquiry, merely a courtesy.”

“Not in this case,” Julian insists, brow creased. “I genuinely want to know. Actually, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering if you were all right.”

Another flash of sensation- guilt, anger, regret, all at once- Garak sighs and pushes it away. You cannot tell him. It isn’t even an option. He focuses instead on what he has before him; this unexpected boon of an evening where after months of stress and grief and running, he can relax on a couch at the end of his life with a glass of kanar in hand and Julian Bashir next to him, if only-

If only there could be more of this-

Garak closes his eyes. Well… there could be, couldn’t there…

No. He inhales slowly, exhales a bit unsteadily. There can’t.

The inherent intimacy of silence- of late hours, uncloaked words, and unwavering gazes- it’s suddenly oppressive.

“Am I… all right,” he repeats. 

It is not a question he’s been asked many times. Garak feels like he at least owes the doctor an answer; some reward for being the only person in the galaxy so consistently invested in his well-being. He’s been resolutely avoiding thinking of Julian learning of his death tomorrow, and now, after this- after learning of the attempts to find him, the drinking issues- he badly wants to ensure his friend won’t blame himself.

No, he is most definitely not all right. But… he smiles warmly all the same, and finds it isn’t so difficult. 

“Tonight… I believe I am, my dear.”

And something in Julian flips like a switch. 

Perhaps it is that Garak chose to omit “doctor” from the old nickname; perhaps the sentiment itself. Perhaps something else altogether. But Julian peels off the backrest and shifts, reaching forward- and gently, he covers Garak’s hand with his. 

A tight knot forms in Garak’s chest. He watches their hands, because he cannot bring himself to look at Julian anymore.

“… Why are we still pretending?”

The question cuts like a blade, admirably devastating in its simplicity. 

It doesn’t matter that he isn’t looking. Garak can feel that gaze burning through him all the same, setting his last lines of defence alight. The skin against Julian’s palm is smarting. Julian’s voice sounds like an unhealed wound, the pain within it screaming through at just the right frequency to shake every atom within him- Garak wonders if he’ll just crumble right here on this couch.

“You and I are accomplished in the art, Doctor.” His voice falters towards the end. 

It’s almost funny. Here he is, at the end of everything, and he doesn’t want to pretend anymore- but depressingly, he doesn’t know how to stop. He doesn’t know of any other way to be.

“I’m tired,” Julian whispers, and he sounds it. “I’m so sick of pretending… Aren’t you?”

Garak, who has spent the last fifty hours pretending he hasn’t willingly terminated his own life, wants to laugh at that. 

He does not. 

He does not want the last thing he does to be breaking his dear doctor’s heart.

So instead, he smiles vacantly. “I’m afraid I find myself at a loss. What is it you wish to give up pretending?”

Julian’s eyes harden, and he withdraws his hand. For a moment, he stares at his own lap, looking frustrated and a little insecure… Garak wishes he had the time to puzzle him out. He wishes they could just meet for lunch tomorrow, or perhaps for dinner again, or perhaps…

“It’s rather a long list,” Julian mutters. “Currently, I’m pretending that I’m not losing my mind at the mere sight of you, seeing as I’ve only thought about you every day since we parted ways… but perhaps we should start with something simpler, and give up the notion that you don’t already know that.”

This inflames Garak’s throat to an unpleasant degree, and again he’s drowning in a sea of what ifs, and maybes, and if onlys, and perhaps, perhaps, perhaps-

“You were in there nearly an hour, Garak. I’m sure you’re more familiar with that console than I am, by now.” Julian’s eyes are pleading with him. “… Do you really not have a single thing to say?”

Garak has plenty to say. Why were you looking for me? Why did you keep all my things, why did you preserve my shop, why do you spend your free time in there, why didn’t you leave DS9, why did our reunion bring you to tears, why are you looking at me like you are drowning too, perhaps, perhaps-

“… Very well,” Julian says softly, and Garak just wants to disappear-

But, then-

“If you won’t stop pretending, I will. Because… fuck that.”

And before he can realise what’s happening, Julian’s lips are on his.

In his fantasies, this had always played out differently. Sometimes, it was Garak who made the first move, sometimes Julian. 

Sometimes they’d be passionately debating literature in one of their quarters, gesturing more and more wildly and intrusively until one of them ended up on top of the other. Sometimes he’d walk in on Julian in one of the tailor shop’s fitting rooms. Sometimes they’d make a scene at the replimat, Julian rounding the table in a huff and employing more enjoyable methods of shutting him up. It always ended in sex. 

Well… almost always. 

Once, soon after their escape from the internment camp, Garak had dreamt of Julian simply holding him close… The entire month was mired in insomnia and claustrophobic attacks, and in his lowest moments, he’d imagined Julian kissing him gently, soothing him with warm hands and softly spoken promises of safety until he fell asleep. He’d wanted Julian- and not just in some shallow way, he’d wanted all of him then, more than ever- but perhaps he’d pushed too far. He’d revealed too much. Once he’d allowed the doctor to see Tain’s death, to see what actually drove him, to see what Garak was like when he wasn’t pretending…

Well, after that little spectacle, they’d comfortably settled into pretending it never happened. 

Julian had been fascinated with him for years, yes- but never more so than when he resembled a capable, mysterious spy. That pathetic failure he’d glimpsed begging for his father’s acknowledgement obviously didn’t interest him as much.

So… what was this, then?

The man Julian is kissing now is powerless, homeless, undeniably worthless… And Julian is kissing him wholeheartedly. 

His walls of numbness stood no chance. They are set ablaze. Soft palms delicately surround his face, fingertips trailing the ridges below his ears, lips pressing against his with so much cautious feeling it makes his head spin… He can just about receive, there’s no hoping to reciprocate- his brain is overwhelmed, his body is overwhelmed, shuddering in shock at having its armour eroded so swiftly and thoroughly-

A warm, thick sensation fills his chest, swirling, expanding, beating at the insides of his skin- the most cruel sort of regret that feels like joy. 

And suddenly, Garak is opening up for him; letting it in.

Julian is sweet like chocolate and burns like kanar. He tastes like missed opportunities and impossible dreams; he kisses like a hand pulling him out of the dark, out of a confined space, promising there is so much more beyond this place, please, let me show you-

While Garak’s own hands stay firmly at his sides, digging into the sofa as if that could tether him- as if that could possibly stop his mind from expanding out of control with the thousands of possibilities suddenly flooding it, stop his throat from flaring with emotion as Julian’s hand weaves through his hair and curls around a fistful of it needily-

- Oh, but it’s over! 

Garak blinks, staring at his knees, the sound of their lips parting still resounding in his ears. It feels like a slap to the face.

He is, for the first time in fifty hours, fully alert.

The kiss is over, but his mind is not done- his mind is giving him more, giving them opportunities to kiss again- giving him other parts of the galaxy they could go together, giving him lunches and dinners and debates and smiles and birthday presents and conversations had and secrets shared and-

And so much more than he ever thought possible-

“… I’m sorry,” Julian mumbles, looking vaguely frightened. “Garak?”

A small fraction of his mind realises several seconds too late that he’s probably given the wrong impression, first by reciprocating poorly and then by looking away- but he’s far too busy paying attention to the rest of it, the rest of it that is telling him Julian is in love with him- that Julian has been looking for him because he wants him, he wants him, he wants him alive, he wants more lunches and dinners and debates and more, he wants a future-

Garak wants a future-

“I’m beginning to think I misread this horribly.” Julian’s eyes dart about a second, and he fidgets anxiously with his hands. “… Garak?”

Garak wants a future. He’d truly believed there was nothing left for him to want, but… 

But there are so many things he hasn’t done. Kissing Julian properly, for example. He doesn’t have to be on Cardassia to kiss Julian, to have lunch with him, to freely allow himself to love him- and how strange, suddenly he wants to do it, and Julian will let him do it, oh, he wants to do so much, and now he just doesn’t have the time-

“… Oh-” Julian gasps inaudibly in shock, and only then does Garak feel something searing about his eyes- trailing down, pooling in ocular ridges before dripping off. It’s been so long, he didn’t even recognise the sensation.

He continues staring at his lap, not bothering to stop the fall, not even sure he could if he tried- and he breathes, unable to handle this newfound awareness; these twin truths that there are still so many things he has left to do, and that he’ll never have a chance to do them- 

“Garak…?” Julian’s face is horror, confusion, sorrow- he reaches out, but thinks the better of it. His hands tremble in his lap. “Hey, it’s… What did I… Garak, what’s the matter?”

Julian wants to help. Julian always wants to help. 

Julian would want him to live.

He watches distantly as those alien tears splatter against his own forearms. Garak still cannot fathom that he has produced them. He cannot fathom that there is so much he could be capable of that he doesn’t know about, and there won’t be any time to explore it, not now that he’s so rashly decided there was nothing left worth exploring-

Giving up on self-control, Julian soothes a hand over his shoulder, and Garak can feel his face being studied- the tears don’t seem eager to stop either way. He does not heave, sob or sniff; he just sits quietly, allowing a fraction of his sorrow to spill quietly from his eyes, trying to process that there is someone before him who wants to help him quell the rest of it-

“I’m… sorry I kissed you,” Julian says, looking hopelessly confused. “I shouldn’t have done that- god, I wasn’t going to make a move on you tonight, you’re… obviously going through something, and it… was wrong of me…”

He trails off as Garak’s eyes begin to leak even more profusely, watching with alarm. 

“I should’ve asked, first,” he tries again. “I- I’ve wanted to apologise for my behaviour last time we spoke more times than even I can count, and- Garak, I’m sorry if it seemed like I didn’t care, I promise you, I do, I…”

Oh, Julian. Silly doctor. How could he possibly think this was his doing? Slowly, Garak inhales through his nose, more shakily than he’d like. He hopes when he speaks, his voice will not sound too frail.

Because… he is going to speak. 

“Garak, I’m really sorry.” Julian is now beginning to panic; he wasn’t the type to do well in silence. “I wasn’t thinking straight, I’ve just spent a long time worrying about you, see, and- well, maybe… maybe the kanar was a mistake. I’m sorry I did it, I was just so happy to see you again, alive and… well, I’m just happy you’re alive. And that you’re here, and I got to spend tonight with you, and… Garak, please tell me I haven’t ruined our friendship?”

Julian sounds like he’s afraid of losing Garak all over again. He says the word “tonight” like he wants more nights; like he wanted more of Garak so badly he spent eight months on an obsessive search for him, and now, he can’t understand why his friend is unresponsive on the couch, sitting with his eyes streaming-

“Or… is it something else? Are you-” Julian’s face scrunches up, as if aware what he’s about to ask is ridiculous. “You’re not… married, are you?”

Garak almost laughs. Instead, he blinks hard, spilling more hot water so he can stare at nothing in particular for just a few seconds longer, and he breathes. 

He thinks of “I’m just happy you’re alive.” 

He thinks of all that he could have, if he just came clean now.

He thinks that there is no more dignity left to lose. 

And he makes a choice.

“Garak, would you please tell me what’s-”

“There’s an implant embedded in the fifth vertebra of my spine, just before the lumbar nerve- two centimetres in length and virtually undetectable, as it is made of solid isonodrelyne,” he blurts, sounding, for all the world, astonishingly normal. He wonders if Julian can perceive the urgency in his voice, the fear.

“Okay?” Judging by the way Julian is trembling, he can.

Garak swallows painfully, and another swell of burning liquid brims from his eyes. He cannot take it back now. He cannot take any of it back.

“… Approximately fifty hours ago, I… initiated a chemical reaction that causes it to slowly disintegrate. Ensconced within it are several dozen nanobots, programmed to latch onto specific points along my spinal cord, infect my central nervous system, and… eventually kill me.”

“Oh- oh, my god-” 

“There’s no external danger, the Obsidian Order installs it as a-”

“You said fifty hours, how long does it take?!”

“One can never s-” 

“Garak!”

“Never more than two Cardassian days, and that’s about sixty.”

“Oh, shit,” Julian mutters, eyes blown wide with fear. “Can these nanobots be deactivated?”

“No. But-” Garak feels his throat harden to stone. When he speaks again, his voice is in shreds. “In the event that they are still unreleased, the entire implant can be removed, before…”

“Bashir to Infirmary!”

“Before it’s too late…”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“Nurse, prep the suite for emergency surgery, and make sure nobody else is in the infirmary- I want absolute privacy, is that clear?”

“Yes, Doctor!” the voice on the other end agrees, spooked into action by his tone. The request for privacy might have been politically motivated, but Garak finds himself sobbing for air all the same.

“Because… I want you to help me, Julian,” the interrogator finally confesses. “I want to live.”

Julian’s hand returns firmly to his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. 

“You’re going to live a long, happy life, Elim. I swear it.”

Chapter Text

Julian’s face is the first thing he sees. The dreamlike backdrop of the infirmary is next.

Horrifying recollections of the events that led them here follow close behind.

“Welcome back,” the doctor says softly, and Garak notices the lights are turned bearably low. They’re in the surgical suite, rather than one of those biobeds outside- and Julian is still in red scrubs, save for the headpiece… It hasn’t been long since the procedure, then.

Dark room, creepy lights, freezing air- I see you’ve got your thermal jacket on. What’s the matter, Cardassian? Can’t handle a little cold?

“… Garak?”

Oh. He swallows, feeling overexposed and deeply ashamed. 

“Am I…”

“You are isonodrelyne implant-free,” Julian says, with a smile that’s far too raw with emotion. Garak cannot bear to look at it. 

Unfortunately, he is locked in position with his stomach to the mattress, head to the side- so he also cannot turn away.

… Based on the way I’m feeling, I’d say you’ve dosed me with something. Wait, don’t tell me. It’s truth serum, isn’t it. Hah, you know, I’ve heard all about your famed Cardassian torture chambers, so let’s get something straight right away- your silly theatrics here don’t scare me. This whole… ominous silence, your stupid “evil person” clothes, and- and your creepy-looking smile- oh, you’re enjoying this, are you? Yeah? Well, you’re wasting your time. As long as I’m alive, I’ll never betray my people.

The monitor beeps. Beep, beep, beep-

Alive, alive, alive-

“Your blood chemistry’s still a little off-balance, but- that’s to be expected, with the amount of toxic metal circulating in there,” Julian murmurs. “You probably feel rotten, but… don’t worry, Garak, I’m stabilising it now, you’ll be clear of it within a few hours…” 

So, am I your first Human? Or, are you the “Human Specialist” around here?

The doctor must be proud, to have saved the day yet again- to once more have Garak in his debt. It is the ultimate intimacy. To not only have watched someone break, but also to have personally broken them yourself… He remembers the tears he’d foolishly shed, pieces of himself falling away and exposing him, like some poorly-stitched-together garment- Elim Garak, flaking apart and spilling all over the place, just the way Odo had all those years ago. It’s irony at its finest.

“You’ll… I’m sure you’ll feel better soon.” Julian does not touch him, but the starchy fabric of the sheets instead, fingers curling with restraint in the space between them. Garak isn’t so certain he’ll ever feel better, let alone soon- but of all the things he currently doesn’t want to feel, chief among them is the power those hands have over him.

Huh… Yeah, I bet that’s you. You take a lot of pride in what you do, don’t you. You love holding people’s lives in your hands. You eat men like me for breakfast.

“Sorry about the immobiliser. You… weren’t kidding about “undetectable”,” Julian admits. “None of my equipment could latch onto it, so… I sort of had to go about it the old-fashioned way.”

Come on, Cardassian- I’m disappointed! Where’s the good old-fashioned terrorising? Where are those beatings I heard about, the electrocutions, the hanging prisoners up from the ceiling and stripping them?- which, by the way, if you gentlemen are really that desperate to see some skin, I can recommend several fine joints on Risa. No? No fun for you crazy, sadistic sons of bitches over here? All right then, your loss-

The air is sharp with the mingling scents of anxiety and blood. Garak wonders just how long Julian’s been sitting here. 

… Well? Aren’t you going to say something?

Julian had stayed at his side as he recovered for ten days, once.

Hey! You’ve done nothing but sit there and stare at me for two fucking hours, you freak! What are you hoping to accomplish here?

“Oh, um… It’ll also be a few days before your back stops feeling stiff. It was embedded rather deeply in your bone, I… hadn’t expected that.”

… Why’re… why more, what is this, some kind of sed… sedative? You haven’t even… What the hell’re you drugging me for, if you aren’even gonna…

His head spins. He feels excruciatingly weak. Garak doesn’t know if it’s the anaesthetic to blame, or simple emotional exhaustion. He wishes he knew what time it was. He wishes he were back in his clothes; the infirmary’s purple surgical gowns are an aesthetic nightmare. He wishes he were somewhere else.

He cannot tell if he wishes the doctor would just go away, or if he wishes Julian would come closer.

He cannot tell if he wishes he weren’t alive.

… Oh. You’re still here… Fucking bastard. Aren’t you bored of this by now? Haven’t you got other people to stare at? Don’t you need to… sleep, or- or use the ‘fresher or something? ‘Cause I do… I’ll tell you that much, you reptilian freak. I’ll happily tell you I’m fucking starving, I’ll tell you exactly the… the way I want to gouge those hideous eyes of yours out, slowly, and… and then throttle you to death, but I’ll never tell you anything you want to hear. You understand? Never! I… I’ll never tell you-

“Thank you for telling me,” Julian whispers. “It was so close, Garak- another half-hour, and-” He stops to clear his throat. “I’m so grateful you told me.”

What kind of sick game is this? Huh? Am I supposed to be grateful to you, for not hurting me? What, are you waiting for me to thank you?

The right thing to do would be to thank Julian for saving his life. Garak cannot bring himself to do it just yet.

Hey, what’re you even typing over there, anyway? You haven’t learnt a single thing from this! All we’ve done is sit here, you and me, neither of us saying anything meaningful- what’s the point?!

He breathes out, painfully. “Is anyone… else…”

“No.” Julian hesitates for a second. “There’s… no one else but you and me.”

Garak closes his eyes. His words to Tain at the internment camp… It seems, after all these years, the doctor finally understood.

How humiliating.

How… How many days’s it been? Why’s the ceiling… why’s it spinning, why’d you look like my… my fr… What?… Hey, Jaques, is that you? Where’re you going, where… Where’d the Cardie go? You’re… going to kill him? You need my h…? Wha’s the new assignment, are you…

“Are you going to dredge up all my weakest moments?” he manages, feeling more tired with every word.

Julian’s eyes widen. “No! I- Never mind. I won’t say anything.”

Predictably, this lasts less than twelve seconds.

“… How are you feeling?”

Garak groans, hissing at the uncomfortable angle he’s in. “Like I just… had invasive spine surgery.”

“You shouldn’t be in any pain,” he frowns, brows knit together.

What, where…? Hm? Where’s… Oh, you wanna know where’s Jaques going? Prob’ly the… the ssss… Hm? No, they didn’t hurt me, I’m fine, I’m not… What? I… almost accomplished the m-mission? Medical teams on the w… what? I’m… I’m bleeding…? Where, I’m not even in any pai… Right. Have to tell you quick, no time. Uhm… Jaques. He’d go to the… yeah, the… Salran System… No, I won’t fail you, Sir, I’ll tell you, it’s the… w-wait… The fourth moon orb-b-iting Salran V-

“You shouldn’t be in any pain.”  

Garak cannot remember a time when he wasn’t in pain. There was always something; old wounds that never quite healed right, fresh ones arriving to claim their turn in the spotlight… It’s the closest thing he’s known to a marriage. He’s often wondered what it must feel like, to be pain-less; to finally be faceless, weightless.

It was a feeling he’d rather been looking forward to. 

Now, he is here instead- back again in the torture chamber, with pain rippling through this body which does not suit him. 

A body used as Cardassia’s shield for half a century, a back carrying constantly the weight of unwavering service- of course it would be in pain. If not injuries, then memories. If not memories, then this faint, irritating stiffness, this lingering reminder that Elim Garak had failed yet another task- the spy who couldn’t even kill himself. How pathetic. 

Tain would’ve exiled him all over again. 

Oh, and exile… The taste of exile which settles in his limbs like a perceivable mass, like sludge, twisting his muscles and winding his nerves into unremovable knots-

“You shouldn’t be in any pain.” Julian really believes that.

Garak is so tired, he wouldn’t even have had a witty remark to spare had he not promptly fallen asleep. 

Permission to… s-sleep now, Sir?…

The last thing he registers is the warmth of Julian’s forgiving hands closing around his, and a distinct feeling of what humans refer to as déjà vu.

Oh, permission granted, my friend… You’ve done just beautifully.

When he wakes for the second time, he is far more alert.

He doesn’t know why, but he was dreaming of Mila… Mila, foolishly daring to tell him that he was wanted, and cared for, and she would keep him safe from Tain. Garak has not dreamt in a very long time, and wonders why this saccharine nonsense of all things had suddenly slipped into his psyche. 

The real Mila had certainly never been so cruel, to lie so blatantly to a child. She’d been clever enough to know all that did was create false expectations.

His back still hurts. There’s something cool and jagged pressed into his hand, like a flower between pages… He struggles to tell what it is.

Oh… and it seems Julian is still in the room. But his voice comes from somewhere far behind Garak… and it comes as an urgent whisper. Furthermore, it is communicating with another urgent whisper… one Garak recognises as Colonel Kira’s.

Oh, dear. 

He instantly pretends to be asleep.

“- just… popped up in the tailor shop, out of nowhere?”

“Yes! I damn near fainted, as you can imagine-”

“How long has he been on the station?!”

“… Since yesterday evening.”

“Yesterday- I can’t believe you! He’s been here all night, and you didn’t tell me?”

“I’m sorry!” Julian insists. “Really. It was stupid, but I sort of wanted to puzzle it out for myself, like- like the old days, and- well, I also thought he might be in danger, and I didn’t want the logs to-”

“I wouldn’t have put it in the logs, Julian!” she huffs. Garak is admittedly shocked to hear it. “I could have helped, I… Honestly, I’m still trying to process that he’s here, I can’t imagine what you’re feeling.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m going to have a nice, long, proper cry later on,” he deadpans, and Garak can somehow tell they’re both looking at him. “For now, I’m just glad he’s okay.”

Kira pauses before speaking. “Me too.”

There’s a rustle of fabric; she is likely rubbing his shoulder or back to offer comfort. Garak wonders how much time the two of them have spent talking about him this past year.

“So… when’s he gonna wake up? I do need to make sure this isn’t a security threat.”

“Right.” Julian exhales. “I really don’t think it is.”

“… You said there was a device in his body killing him. He came here. He left the Cardassian Union and came here. I don’t know, Julian, that sounds a lot like political drama to me… Whoever activated it might come after him again.”

So Julian hadn’t told her the truth, then. There’s hope for you yet.

“Look, um… whoever was trying to have him killed, Garak assured me they only wanted his death, specifically, as the end result. So, as long as it doesn’t get out that he’s alive, there shouldn’t be a problem- right?” he attempts.

“Then why wasn’t he killed with a disruptor? Why spare him long enough to survive? It doesn’t make sense.”

Julian exhales deeply. “I think… those are questions he should probably answer himself.”

Garak silently ponders them, and finds he is just as eluded by the answers as Julian is. Possibly more.

“Call me when he wakes up.”

“Yessir.”

“And… I don’t know, if you wanna have breakfast, talk about this…”

Garak cannot see, but he knows Julian is smiling. “Bless you, Nerys. Replimat at 0800?”

“Done. And, get some sleep. Seriously, you look terrible.”

A laugh. “I’m sure you’re right… I’ve got three different stimulants wearing off right now.”

“Stimulants? Wait… Julian, you weren’t-”

“No! No, no… Well, maybe a bit. But not like before, it was-”

“How much?”

Julian hesitates. “Half a glass,” he admits. “But that’s all, it was barely anything, I just wanted to share a- look, don’t tell Vedek Bavi, all right? Please?” 

Kira scoffs. “I’m starting to think you see me as some kind of collaborator. No, I won’t tell Vedek Bavi, but… please be careful, Julian? You’re doing so well…”

“I know,” Julian sighs, and Garak wonders just when exactly hearing things he shouldn’t became an activity which made him uncomfortable. “Thanks. I’ll, er, get some rest now, there’s still another three hours before my shift.”

“Your shift is now Doctor Girani’s shift.”

“Nerys…”

“No arguments. You get the day off.”

“But-”

She makes some incredulous gesture Garak can’t see. “Don’t you want some time with him?”

Julian sighs again, but there’s a quiet joy in his voice when he says, “All right.”

Once again, Garak feels a thoroughly unwanted emotion clogging up his throat.

“No more working,” Kira warns one last time, and exits.

The room feels oppressively silent once the doors slide shut. Julian’s footfalls grow nearer, and Garak evens out his breaths to best simulate sleep- well enough to fool the doctor, as expected. Unexpected is the way Julian drapes a second blanket over him, and smooths a palm over it lightly. 

“… Hang in there, Elim,” he says after a pause, barely audible. 

The hand lingers. 

… It’s suddenly quite difficult to keep up the appearance of obliviousness. Garak is grateful to be a skilled actor. 

“I’m sorry things got so bad.” Julian’s voice falters, and he laughs weakly through his nose. “… Of course, I’ll never say that to you when you’re awake, ‘cause… I know you’ll just laugh, or clam up, or… lie, or something. But I am sorry… I wish I could’ve helped you sooner.” 

He’s talking so quietly, Garak thinks that if he hadn’t awoken earlier, he easily would’ve slept through it all. 

The mysterious weight enclosed in his fist feels incomprehensibly heavier.

“That… wasn’t quite how I imagined kissing you would go,” Julian suddenly jokes, and Garak almost tenses. He forces himself to keep breathing. “Silly me, sitting there thinking I was slowly seducing you over dinner. God,” he laughs humourlessly. “I’m still ridiculous, aren’t I? Can you believe I was trying to call your bluff, like in one of my old spy programs? And… when you started… god, I can’t even say “crying”, I don’t know why. But, for a horrible moment, I really thought you’d… actually compromised station security or something, and I thought, “ah, shit- I’m an idiot, an idiot in love with the enemy”- well. I was being an idiot, obviously. I’m so sorry.”

Julian goes silent for several seconds, which allows the phrase in love with to resound in Garak’s mind a thoroughly unpleasant number of times. Did Julian always talk to himself this much? It wasn’t a habit Garak had previously observed; but to be fair, it was an inherently unobservable habit. 

(He had always been far too compromised to put his friend under proper surveillance.)

“Tarkalean… No, scrap that,” Julian mumbles to the replicator. “… One red leaf tea, please.”

This is bad. The replicator is on Garak’s side of the room, which means Julian can now see his face.

It’s really quite impolite to look at a man’s face, Garak thinks, as one vulnerably sighs in relief while finally enjoying a warm drink. He hopes Julian is doing so with his eyes closed.

“… Here’s something else I’ll never say when you’re awake,” Julian murmurs, and Garak thinks he must be the victim of some sort of sick joke. “Jake finished The Neverending Sacrifice last week- and, guess what, Garak? He liked it!” 

There’s an ache in Julian’s laughter so sharp, Garak can hear it regardless of the extremely low volume. 

“He thinks it’s a “fascinating character study”. Personally, I still think it’s dull and depressingly predictable, but- who am I to argue with a successful author?” Julian pauses. “… I’m so proud of him, Garak, really- he was just as bad as I was, some months ago. But he picked himself up, he… He went to college- mostly so he could finally make more friends his age, but now he gets to be on Earth, which is lovely, and he gets to hang around with Nog- Nog is finishing Starfleet Academy. Did you know, he’s secretly quite fond of you? He’s quite over the whole Empok Nor incident now- apparently, being chased around an abandoned space station by a drugged-up Cardassian spy makes for a far better bar story than anything his peers could come up with.”

… Why is Julian telling him all this?

“Mm- why’m I telling you all this rubbish?” Julian yawns, as if on cue. “I’ve only had ten bloody months to think of all the things I want to say to you, and this is what I finally go with. Hm,” he chuckles tiredly. “In my defence, I really was trying to initiate a more meaningful exchange last night.” Julian gulps down some more tea. It sounds like he’s speaking into his cup some moments later, when he says, “I… hope I’ll get another chance, someday. Not now, obviously. You’ve clearly got a lot on your mind. I think, right now, you need a friend… I hope you’ll let me in, you’re… not very good at that.”

It’s everything Garak can do, not to react even a little.

“I’ll wait,” he says, barely a whisper. “I know I’m… graceless, and impulsive, and horribly obvious sometimes, but I can be patient, too- I swear, I can. And some things are worth waiting for. So… I won’t burden you with my feelings, or anything else. You won’t hear a word out of me, I promise. Not a peep. Zip.” 

Garak dwells on whether or not this expression pertains to the zippers Starfleet officers insisted on attaching to their uniforms, because he cannot begin to process the rest of this. 

“But… Garak, you have no idea, do you?” He makes a rueful noise. “Everyone knew. Ezri knew! She’s the one who finally said it, actually, when she discovered I hadn’t slept five nights in a row because I’d picked up some obscure transmission about some Garak that wasn’t even you…”

Julian sniffs quietly, then chuckles. “Here we go again. God, I’m tired.”

He hears the sound of the doctor flopping into the chair before him. Great. He’ll have to be especially careful about his expressions, now.

“… How do I still not have the words?” Julian asks the empty room. “How is it that I still can’t find them, even when you’re not listening?”

Perhaps you shouldn’t be trying at the end of a stressful and exhausting night, dear doctor. Perhaps you shouldn’t be trying at all.

“… Okay. I’m going to try,” he decides.

Well, then. 

“Because, I have to say this to you, Garak… And I can’t say this to your face, ‘cause… Well, let’s face it, things have been a bit odd between us for a long time. We both pretended nothing changed, but… Look, I wasn’t fair to you. Nobody was, but… it’s about time I stopped pretending I was the one person around here who never had any expectations of you. I always wanted too much; I wanted you to show me more of yourself, except when I wanted you to be a mystery, I wanted you to become more honest, except when I wanted you to lie, I wanted you to be cool and dangerous, except when I wanted your morals to align with mine… And, I wanted you to let me in, but… but when you did, I didn’t know how to…”

He sighs, frustrated, and Garak can hear the chair stretch as he leans back. There’s a lengthy, excruciating pause.

“Honestly? I hated that story Tain told you,” he mumbles. “The one with the riding hounds.”

Garak almost chokes. Why would Julian be thinking about this now?

“The two of you were discussing it fondly, like it was supposed to be some charming childhood memory, but- it was awful, Garak! He was only proud of you as you limped back home, after injuring yourself in some desperate attempt to please him? And this made you happy? You were five! Five year olds are supposed to be happy, they shouldn’t have to earn the right to- to- oh, you’re not even awake, and I can still hear you disagreeing with me. Of course I couldn’t appreciate it, I never could appreciate the more high-brow themes of filial piety and sacrifice, whatever.”

Julian pauses to collect himself. It should have been a relief, but the silence was so much heavier than the words.

“… Was that really the only day?”

I didn’t need other days. The pity in his voice rankled. Surely, listening to his childhood being dissected without the ability to argue back was worse than any form of torture Garak had devised. 

The metal object in his palm begins to make his skin itch. 

“My father’s… more a pompous know-it-all than an Enabran Tain, I mean… at least he never told me he should’ve killed my mother before I was born,” Julian allows. “But- I did know what it was like, you know? Feeling… not good enough? Like you’re a list of achievements to them, nothing more. But… also not being able to just cut them off, because… god, they’re the only ones who can really see through you, aren’t they? And isn’t that just grand.”

Garak cannot, cannot think about Tain right now. He cannot think about how hollow Cardassia had felt to him upon return, without Enabran’s presence. He absolutely cannot think about the way he had, against all odds, felt so profoundly invisible ever since the old bastard departed the mortal realm- because yes, Enabran was one of the only two people who’d ever really had the power to see him. 

The other was shot dead by the Jem’Hadar. 

Julian breathes in deeply; all self-righteous conviction. “Good fathers don’t raise their children to believe they’re only worthwhile when they succeed. You should’ve been loved regardless.”

I didn’t need love. I needed drive. How typical of the doctor to assume Garak’s emotional needs were the same as his own! Garak was this close to scowling.

“We never talked about it. We don’t do that, we don’t talk about things- we have these intense, vulnerable, heartbreaking experiences together, and then we talk about spice pudding the next day. But… you must have wondered what I made of it all, right?”

Of course he’d wondered. But asking was out of the question. 

It’s the same reason he’s still pretending to be asleep. 

Garak can handle gutting people and spilling the contents of their hearts out on the floor- but he cannot fathom handing them the knife. He can handle people looking at him hatefully, with resentment, even with disappointment- but he hasn’t a clue what to do with all this devotion, this persisting affection… It’s so utterly unfamiliar and absurd.

Julian is silent for a considerable length of time. Garak doesn’t dare move, dare look.

“I wished so badly you could’ve known there was someone who loved you regardless,” Julian says quietly. “Someone right there in the room.”

… What?

“I want so badly for you to know now,” he continues. “It’s selfish, I know. I have no idea what you’ve been going through, what made you do… this. But… all right, I’m going to say something else, Garak- I’m going to let myself be selfish a moment, okay?” Julian whispers shakily, looking right at him. 

Garak tries to figure out if he possesses the mental fortitude to hear it, and concludes that the odds are indeed very low.

“Garak… I really, really need you to be strong again,” Julian admits in a choked hush. “Nothing’s been right around here since Captain Sisko left us- he was the glue that held this family together, and… the moment he vanished, we all just fell apart. And, they didn’t even find a body, they- they found bloody Dukat, and they didn’t find him,” Julian sniffs. “Nerys believes he’s in the Celestial Temple, and- well, Kasidy said he even spoke to her, but that just isn’t enough for me, it never was. Oh, I was really holding out hope he’d return when the baby arrived, but… last month, Jennifer Yates-Sisko was born, I delivered her myself, and she’s healthy and gorgeous and here and he’s still gone, Garak- I don’t think he’s coming back,” Julian reluctantly admits. 

It sounds like a truth he hasn’t had the courage to voice up until this moment.

(Garak is familiar with the sound.)

“Ezri took it very hard. F‘course she did. Before, whenever the captain was out of commission, it was always Jadzia who’d pick up the pieces, and… perhaps there was a bit too much pressure on her to do the same. I admit, I put some of that pressure on her myself. And… perhaps there was some pressure on me, too, to… hold her together, the way he always had. Granted, I was practically looking after Jake myself, but… look at me, Garak. He was Benjamin Sisko, and I’m just… I mean, who the hell would look at me and think, now there’s someone I can depend upon for my emotional stability!”

… A lonely Cardassian exile, perhaps. Garak suddenly understands Julian’s frustration, at being unable to verbalise what their association has always meant to him. 

So he very pointedly speculates on what it is he could be holding in his hand instead. It feels familiar, doesn’t it? Far too familiar to be medical equipment…

“It wasn’t her fault,” Julian goes on. “We were both just trying so hard to pretend we hadn’t lost pieces of ourselves, she kept some of Jadzia’s old things, some of Worf’s, and Jake gave her some of the captain’s belongings too, and- I didn’t even let them touch the dartboard, or the racquetball court, it’s all still there, but everything’s wrong now, Garak,” he says on a fractured breath, his voice brimming uncharacteristically with pain. “God, all I wanted was to talk to you again- write you a letter, or- or come see you, something! I really meant it when I said I was sure we’d see each other again, you know? But- But you just fucking disappeared, you walked out of that room and I never heard from you again! You can’t do that, Garak, you can’t- Garak, please, don’t do that to me again,” Julian finally begs, and Garak wants to wail- because once again, and without even trying, he has ripped a confession from someone using nothing but silence. 

“I’ve been getting better, but… not that better,” Julian says, neatly summarising his confession for the official record- and Garak doesn’t know if he wants to guard it with his life or burn it. “I can’t handle losing you, too.”

The silence that follows is a defeat; a slow, steady deflation.

Julian breathes less steadily in the aftermath. “… One more thing. Keeping that secret really messed me up, you know? You… called me a computer, a few times. That hurt.”

That was flirting. Garak is sorely tempted to give up his little sleeping act- but then he’d have to acknowledge all the other things he’d heard, and… well, he’s quite far from knowing how, at the moment.

“Who knows, maybe you were just being snippy, maybe you didn’t mean it at all. But… once my secret came out, you changed. We’d talk about books, and you’d prod at my superior memory, go out of your way to point things out. It didn’t feel fun anymore, when you made fun of me for being idealistic- and it really was getting harder and harder to stay positive then, so your teasing just… Why did you sound so bitter? You never used to. It was like… you didn’t believe you’d ever really known me.” 

I had my doubts. Admittedly, he’d felt a little humiliated, which had clearly never been Julian’s intention. 

“… I was more myself with you than anyone else,” Julian insists. “Before. Afterwards, it… just didn’t feel safe, being myself around you. Miles was safe. Jadzia, Captain Sisko, Kira, Ezri- they were all safe, they all accepted it. You changed. And, I should’ve talked to you about it, like a mature adult, but… I sort of cut you out instead. And I’m sorry. I barely realised what I was doing, I just… flocked to whoever made me feel good, there was a war going on, but… still. I’m sorry.”

Garak has always considered that mission on Tzenketh to be the most difficult of his career. Currently, he is wondering if maintaining a neutral expression while Julian rips himself apart before him was the bigger challenge.

And you still won’t end it, you coward…

“… Look at me, talking to my bloody self,” Julian sniffs, either sighing or laughing quietly. “God knows I’m never going to say any of this again. You don’t tell people who just tried to kill themselves how much they hurt you. But… I suppose, I just needed to say it to you somehow, so I can finally let it go. Because… all is forgiven, Garak. The only thing I really want to tell you is, you mean more to me than I ever realised, and I’m sorry it took you walking out of my life for me to see it. And, I’m sorry you had to suffer… whatever this was about, alone.”

The air warms as he leans in closer, and Garak hopes Julian is too emotionally compromised to notice the small slip up in his face. 

“But I’m here now. I’m here with you.” 

And now, Garak’s eyelids nearly do fly open- because Julian’s voice had not come through the universal translator during that last sentence.

“That’s right! I speak some Kardasi now,” he mutters smugly, and it takes a second for Garak to realise he’s not caught out; Julian is actually just bragging to himself. “I can’t wait to see your face when you find out.”

His elbows are stretched across the biobed, and Garak can feel him lower his head to rest upon his arms. He’s so close, so warm… Garak’s heart rate is far too agitated to possibly be that of someone asleep. Thankfully, Julian seems too tired to notice the biomonitor. It sounds like he’s yawning.

“God, I’m tired,” he confirms. 

Garak has a powerful urge to reach for his hand.

“But things will get better, Elim. You’ll see,” he mumbles, sounding extremely sleepy all of a sudden. Garak understands. Confession can be a terribly exhausting thing. “I don’t know how, but I’m going to make all of this right. Things’ll get better… I’ll make them get… better… for you…”

Reasonably certain that Julian’s eyes are closed, Garak allows his face to relax into emotion for a moment or two. He’d never imagined restful breathing could be such an intense effort.

His chest heaves. He gulps, feeling naked, feeling intimately dissected and painfully undone. 

Of course you’ll make things better, Garak thinks resentfully… it’s not as if things could possibly get worse.

But that thought makes him want to see how creative he can get with a hypospray, or bolt from the infirmary and find the nearest phaser- so he concentrates on the sound of Julian’s breathing instead. He risks a discreet glance- yes, the doctor is indeed fast asleep.

Julian’s eyelids are darkened and puffy, his long lashes stuck together. His hair and skin are dulled. His fingers rest protectively upon the mouth of Garak’s sleeve. He almost looks unconscious; and of course he does, he’s fallen asleep stretched between a chair and a bed. 

The sight of him so weakened, so vulnerable… It makes Garak ache a little. 

He’s tired because he was up all night, saving your worthless life. Because he has worried about you incessantly for ten months, Garak forces himself to think, still not quite able to accept it. He wants you here. He… cares about you, and he’s distressed, because he almost lost you again.

Garak wishes his dear friend could have a better reward at the end of all his struggles than him, but… if this was the way things were, the least he could do was find the strength to simply- well, stick around.

His attention is drawn, once again, to the weight in his palm… although now, he’s reasonably certain he knows what it is. 

Garak opens out his fingers, and… indeed.

Mila’s brooch.

He blinks at it, silver lines upon silver skin… How had Julian known? Had he simply found this thing in Garak’s quarters and deduced correctly that it was a remnant from a simpler time; something Garak had always kept because the thought of it gave him the barest scrap of strength?

Even Garak hadn’t thought about it. He hadn’t taken it with him to Cardassia. He hasn’t permitted himself to want it for such a long time.

… Perhaps that is why he has become so weak.

Staring at Julian again, Garak attempts to realign his thoughts, dragging each ugly fragment together with tired arms and hauling them into place. 

Of course you’ll make things better, Garak amends, looking at Julian’s face, exhausted and pressed at an awkward angle to the edge of the biobed. He holds on to the brooch tight and closes his eyes.

You always do.

Chapter Text

Did you know, I took a bludgeon to my mask, today?

My face beneath it is bloodied and pulped

Yet, when I speak to you, through my cut-torn lips,

My voice sounds as if I am singing

“Garak.”

He turns from the porthole to the familiar voice, a pleasant smile upon his face. It is rather put-upon. 

On the one hand, he actually has been looking forward to seeing her- but he has also been looking out at the Cardassian sun, and isn’t quite in the mood to make himself in the mood for happiness.

(Happiness, it turns out, is rather a complicated affair. It seems to require a great deal more calculation and measurement than it should.) 

“Colonel! Lovely to see you again.”

Kira huffs, irritably, though with humour in her eyes. “You know, it actually is. None of us knew what happened to you after the war, so… it is nice to see you. Alive and well.”

Garak narrows his eyes… He doesn’t think she knows of his unfortunate little stunt, but this might be some kind of strange joke.

(Admittedly, it is not her style. The resentment in her voice is likely linked with watching Julian struggle to find him for half of the year.)

“Likewise,” he agrees, with a slight bow. “And, I must say- I simply love what you’ve done with the place.”

“And is that why you’re here? To admire the decor?”

He cants back unassumingly. “What other reason would I have?”

(It hurts. Maybe years ago, this wouldn’t have been so difficult- but now, Garak is not so easily able to smile and joke about his circumstances, with the sheer emptiness of being ripped from Cardassia’s arms all over again devouring him; making him regret his decision to live, eight times and counting, resenting each breath like it was poison.)

Kira crosses her arms. “I’m kind of sick of this game, Garak- and I’m starting to think you are, too.”

Oh, he is. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Well, normally, you’d have launched into some nonsense about the carpets, the flags on the bulkheads, the colour scheme- Prophets know what else. The point is, you didn’t.”

“Perhaps I am simply not up to my usual standards, recovering from my surgery.”

“Right. Your emergency, lifesaving surgery.” She fixes him with a rather confrontational look. “Would you like to go on a walk?”

That sounds exactly like the threat it is.

He smiles dangerously. “How could I say no?”

How I loathe this porcelain mask we’ve made

We’ve glued to me, carved out for me

And now it is stuck, unbreakable, inseparable,

Beneath it I choke, invisible, invisible-

They’ve hardly entered Professor O’Brien’s arboretum when Kira rounds on him and subtly corners him against the wall, all without touching him once. 

Nicely done.

“All right, Garak. What are your intentions here?”

He maintains eye contact coolly, weighing his options. Spinning stories would only arouse her suspicions further, at which point Julian would have to tell her the truth. He decides not to smile. 

(It’s easy.)

“I could promise to share them with you once I know them myself,” he suggests dryly.

She is unconvinced. “What, you mean to tell me you don’t have a plan?”

“Would I be wandering the promenade aimlessly until Doctor Bashir’s lunch break if I had a plan?” Garak isn’t even lying, and that’s the worst part. “Colonel, I assure you- if your precious station is in danger, it certainly isn’t from me.”

Kira’s eyes are softer than the rest of her expression would care to acknowledge. “Why would you come back?”

“You know of the unfortunate situation with my implant-”

“Cardassian doctors could’ve helped you.”

“Yes, but they’re so awfully busy, what with all the devastation around. Perhaps, I simply wanted a doctor who’d debate Shoggoth’s enigma tales with me as I recovered. Have you read them?” 

(There is a truth here which cannot be denied. Most of the previous day was passed in sleep- but whenever he woke, Julian was always nearby. Always smiling gently, no signs of resentment or decreased respect- ready to talk about neutral subjects, ready to learn the rules of kotra, ready to help him eat- ready even to sit with him in companionable silence, well into the night; a hand on his arm every now and then, a reminder that even though Garak wasn’t talking, he was listening. 

This first morning spent in solitude has not been so kind to him.)

“So, what? Not a peep out of you for ten months, and suddenly you’re here to talk literature? Is that what you’re going to do? Come crawling back to him only when you’re dying, knowing full well he won’t say no to you?”

The glint in Kira’s eyes is familiar. (She’d worn it once before, after misconstruing his intentions towards Ziyal… Fascinating, that she should now feel the same protectiveness towards the doctor.)

“My dear Colonel Kira, are you implying that-”

“Yes. And-” She edges closer, chin up, knowing full well his dislike of confined spaces- “I want an honest answer.”

In his present state, she’ll get one. 

“Very well,” he murmurs. “I am… unclear, at the moment, on what direction my life is to take.”

Kira scans his face for deceptions, and seems to find none… much to her surprise. She purses her lips, her whip-sharp gaze shifting between him and the porthole beyond the trees he’s been eyeing unconsciously, the Cardassian system shining so cruelly out of reach… 

“… You can’t go back,” she realises. “You’re in exile again.” 

He does not look away, though he wants to sink to the floor and weep. 

“Very good, Colonel.”

Beneath I am bleeding, one day, I’ll run dry

They’ll all be surprised- why not? They can’t know!

I broke a man’s soul, yet with all of my strength

I never could crack our porcelain face

“Well, I…” Kira actually looks sympathetic. “I’m sorry.”

“Forgive me, but that is a hollow sentiment.”

“I know. It’s just… I can’t imagine, being cut off from Bajor… Especially with my people rebuilding.”

Yes… she does understand. More than Julian ever could. The doctor would have no qualms about never setting foot on Earth again, provided he could still meet with the O’Briens elsewhere. He could never know this particular flavour of grief. 

“Does he know?”

“Not yet.” 

Kira studies him again, and seems to perceive enough of his emotional state to ordinarily qualify as alarming. Yet, Garak does not feel alarmed. Let her see it, if only so I don’t have to explain it.

“Why’d they try to kill you?” she asks, always one to cut to the chase. “What’d you do?”

“Oh, it’s rather a long story- but the gist of it involves upsetting an entire bowl of sem’hal stew on an extremely important diplomat’s extremely expensive dress. Really, the stain was something awful.”

The colonel rolls her eyes; and not fondly. “Come on, Garak.”

I cannot stop its ridiculous smile

I cannot move its hideous eyes

You sold it as “armour”- so why is it killing me?

You said it would hurt less, why are you killing me?

“What’s that you got there?” she asks.

“This?” Garak looks unassumingly at the PADD he’s holding, as if he isn’t carrying his demons around on vulgar display. “Some light reading to pass the time.”

“Reading, and definitely not secret communications, or codes.”

Garak does not resist as she slowly reaches out, does not flinch as she pulls it from his fingers and browses.

“Hm,” she remarks after a few lines, satisfied. “Personally, I’d say it’s a bit over-the-top dramatic for my taste, but I guess I’m not here to criticise your favourite poetry.”

“Oh, far from my favourite, believe me,” Garak says with a hollow laugh. “It was obviously written by someone rather young. They have a lot to learn about subtlety.”

Kira dismisses this, as expected. “I won’t… say anything, to Julian,” she promises awkwardly. “But… is there something I can do? Politically, I mean- some way to reverse this?”

“No.”

“But why were you banished?”

“Colonel, that is irrelevant. I cannot go back. If you are worried for the doctor, rest assured- I have no desire to worsen his situation with my own.”

(It is true. Yes, in the moment he’d chosen to ask Julian for help, Garak had imagined the possibility of a life they could share- but now, the more he thinks about it, the more ridiculous it seems. He had, after all, been severely emotionally compromised at the time.)

“Garak-” Kira starts, then cuts herself off. “Look, I’m sorry I came at you like this, it’s just- he’s struggled a lot this year.”

“I’m perfectly aware.”

“No,” she insists, looking at him far too intensely. “You’re not.” 

“He’s told me of his overindulgences.”

“Yeah, but I bet he didn’t tell you why it got so bad,” she says sharply, though… Strange. 

Yes, the anger in her eyes is not at all directed outwards.

You liar, you promised me power and strength

A man is not strong for shattering glass

A man is not strong for breaking the weak

A MAN IS NOT STRONG FOR WEARING A MASK

Garak pauses. “If you’re implying that you are to blame-”

“Not implying,” she corrects firmly. “And I’m not gonna fail him again.”

“Hmm.” This is an interesting turn- although, Garak suddenly feels extremely tired- 

So tired, in fact, that his knees buckle-

“Whoa-” Kira reaches out- though still reluctant to actually support him, thank the State. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Garak straightens and smiles at her coldly, but he can already feel another wave coming- 

“Infirmary?”

“No.” It’s a good thing making a fool of himself hasn’t bothered him much of late, because that means he is permitted to go sit on the grass. The colonel doesn’t stop him. 

She does, however, walk over; a determined look in her eye.

“Why’d they cast you out, Garak?”

He’s tired. He’s just tired, the room is spinning and he’s too tired to think of something interesting to say. The truth will have to suffice.

“My people are building a new Cardassia from the wreckage of the old,” he says neutrally. “And, among the first things they did away with were the systems of surveillance and… punishment, associated with what we now refer to as a “police state”.” Garak swallows with some effort- his throat has gone dry. “Torture is outlawed in the new Cardassia. All its well-known active perpetrators were sentenced to death a few months ago, and… executed. Far as something like that’s possible anyway. I was the only one granted an exception, as my efforts in the struggle against the Dominion arguably helped secure our liberation.”

“Arguably?” Kira repeats, with more passion than he would’ve expected. “You were there when the Founder surrendered! You killed Weyoun!”

“You don’t need to remind me, Major,” he snaps, then openly winces at his mistake. “Colonel.”

“They’d be nothing without you,” she insists. “This isn’t fair!”

Garak laughs unpleasantly. “Life rarely is.”

“No, I actually think you have some ground to stand on here,” Kira presses on. “I can’t believe you’d just give up like this! They say they’ll grant you an exception, and then they try to kill you? And they say they’re targeting “active” perpetrators- well, when was the last time you tortured someone?”

Again, the opportunity to spin a tale is weighed down by just how tired he is.

“Two months ago.” 

Oh, Garak really tries to maintain his blank expression as the disappointment washes over her face- but, like any poor-quality projection, it glitches. 

“I see you weren’t expecting that.”

Kira crosses her arms. “It’s exactly what I would’ve expected. But I guess I’ve just been hanging out with Julian too long. He seems to think you’ve crossed some grand road to redemption.”

“Well, he’s always been kind,” Garak says, as if that kindness were some childish flaw, and not something which had saved his life numerous times.

He does not tell her about the relentlessly narrow prison cell.

Or about the chorus of laughter as he was turned in.

Speak nothing of the panic attack as his blade made contact with flesh.

Or the way he was surrounded, four rusting disruptors aimed at him, one shoved in his mouth. 

(It always did have a knack for getting him in trouble.)

No point in mentioning that he first refused.

Or recounting the dread that crept through his every cell as his neighbour said, he won’t tell us anything. But you can make him… can’t you, Obsidian Order?

He does not tell her of the dozens of parents weeping over their starving children, wailing about a Dominion collaborator withholding precious food supplies.

He does not tell her he never wanted to do it again.

“… Far too kind,” he tacks on instead.

But annoyingly, Kira seems to be hearing more.

“… Mm hm,” she remarks. “You know, Odo never told me what really happened between you two. That time you went missing in the Gamma Quadrant. All I know is, he started having breakfast with you the next day, and when I asked him why, he said… “So we can pretend the past week never happened”.”

Garak actually chuckles. He hasn’t permitted himself to miss Julian very much these last ten months, but he has missed Odo… Odo, perhaps the only person on this station who was more of a fabrication than he was. 

Those clothes that weren’t clothes. Those eyes that didn’t see. That nose which didn’t breathe. What a conscious effort it must’ve been, to move those arbitrary limbs about the way humanoids did; to move those lips in conversation, or turn his head whenever he heard something… Or, perhaps it wasn’t an effort at all. Perhaps it was so deeply learned, he didn’t even notice he was doing it anymore. Perhaps he never had. 

“Well, you’ll be pleased to know I can finally clear that mystery up for you,” he says breezily. “I tortured him, too.”

She doesn’t seem surprised. “And yet, he forgave you.”

Garak smiles up at her from the ground, eyes blazing. “That’s right.”

Kira holds his gaze. “Why?”

Garak is certain his grin has taken on the most awful quality. “Because, my dear Colonel Kira- I broke first.”

Kira is now rendered absolutely silent. And, what a surprise- it isn’t satisfying at all.

It’s just deflating. He is so, so hollow- so what good could possibly come of letting go of his airs? What would even be left, anyway, if his flimsy old shield were to tear? 

Absolutely nothing.

But, it doesn’t rip apart just yet. And after staring at it a long time, Kira comes to sit beside him on on the grass. 

“… Well,” she eventually says. “It sounds like Cardassia’s banished you for no good reason, then. You don’t seem to be very good at your job anymore.”

Garak stretches out to stare at the ceiling, grass tickling the back of his neck. 

“My job,” he mutters, taking in the harsh lights, letting them stab at his pupils. “Interesting phrase… One could simply slap “for Cardassia” at the end of anything, and it becomes a job. A generous term, Colonel,” Garak remarks, “for what essentially amounted to “hurting and killing people for decades- for Cardassia!””

“Well, let’s face it- for a long time, my job was “hurting and killing people for Bajor”.”

He shifts his eyes to meet hers… yes, there’s some genuine empathy there. Empathy and… wouldn’t you have it, concern.

“I’m not Julian,” she says. “I’m not gonna sit here and pretend I’m above killing people to protect my own. I’ve done that and worse, and I’d do it all over again.”

“Ah, but there’s a difference,” he says with aggressively false cheer, as if they were debating some book. “You resorted to committing atrocities so that you may rid your homeland of an oppressive ruling force. And you got what your wanted, in the end- my people are off your planet, and your people are thriving. You won, Major- you and your scrappy little resistance, you defeated the towering empire! And now, in the aftermath, you have all the moral high ground you could ever want to stand on,” Garak rambles, this time not even bothering to correct his error with her title. “Now, at the end of all your struggles, you can enjoy the reward of a free Bajor- the reward you sacrificed your childhood, your loved ones, and your innocence to secure- in the end, it was all worth it. I, on the other hand, committed all my acts of violence to keep that oppressive force in power. Nameless, blameless, hopelessly mismatched acts of violence, against my own people… that are all, every one of them, now… uniformly pointless.” 

He stops for a second, to stitch together the cracks in his voice. 

(He’s always been a very good tailor.)

“… What was any of it for?” he asks the high-roofed cargo bay. “The Empire I killed for is dead. Every confession I ever extracted is irrelevant. Every enemy I eliminated would likely have perished at the hands of the Dominion, anyhow- or lived on, who knows? Lived on, to help build this new Cardassia today… This new Cardassia they’re building without me,” he says slowly. “Every drop of blood I spilled… was pointless.” 

He knows his expression is blank, and yet it feels as if it is malfunctioning like the cheapest of disguises. It’s always been far too expressive, this face. Enabran had always said so. (He should’ve gotten rid of it. He’d almost walked into a surgeon’s office, more than once- but for some reason, he just couldn’t bring himself to go through with it. Maybe if he had, he wouldn’t have been discovered, and maybe he would still be-)

“You activated that device yourself… didn’t you?” Kira whispers.

Garak doesn’t say anything. 

“And Julian knew.” She looks away, gaping. “Julian knew this whole time.”

Garak doesn’t dwell on the conversation. Instead, he ponders this ridiculous image; two war criminals lounging on the grass like carefree adolescents. It’s strangely funny.

“Oh, Prophets… Garak, if he’d found you dead the next day, right after he got you back, he-” Kira cuts herself off, cringing. “Sorry, that… wasn’t the right thing to say.”

“No, no.” He sighs, wondering why this discussion wasn’t stirring up as much humiliation as it should. “It’s… one of the reasons I’m relieved to have failed.”

(It feels like the only reason.)

Kira stares ahead. “If it helps, I… haven’t exactly been very good at my job either,” she says after a minute. “My new one, I mean. Fighting for Bajor, oh- it was hard, but I was good at it. Running this place? It’s just-” Kira shakes her head. “I have no idea how he did it, how the hell Captain Sisko kept this rust bucket functioning while also dealing with Bajor, its internal conflicts, alien conflicts- coordinating with Starfleet, which, don’t even get me started, and- being the Emissary, being a father, being in a relationship- all the while, also looking after the crew? It’s impossible!” 

Garak tracks the rise and fall of her eyebrows as she stares at the floor, wondering if it was pity, or simply pent-up frustration making her of all people tell him this. 

(What a joke his entire career had been; all that meticulously-crafted menace… Apparently, all he really needed to do to extract the unlikeliest of confessions was be openly weak and pathetic.)

“I was busy,” she goes on. “My people were just… reeling, from losing both the Kai and the Emissary in one day, and there were riots, and cultists trying to call on the pagh-wraiths and vedeks renouncing their faith and everything was just awful and-” 

Kira stops to make a funny expression, as if only now hearing herself, wondering why she was confiding in Garak of all people. 

He raises his brow unassumingly. 

“So… yeah, maybe I wasn’t there for them the way I should’ve been,” she mumbles in explanation. “Maybe I avoided Vic’s, ‘cause it felt wrong to go there without Odo. And I could tell Jake was upset, but… I didn’t notice when Ezri started having problems, these… gaps between her and Dax, apparently there’s this rare psychological thing that happens when a host doesn’t properly reconcile the other hosts’ memories, and Ezri was never even trained for-” Kira stops herself again. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. The point is, the doctors on Trill recommended that she leave the station, to put some distance between her life and Jadzia’s. And… that included ending things with Julian.”

Garak wasn’t aware that Julian had begun a relationship with Dax; let alone ended one. They hadn’t exactly been in each others’ spheres during those last few violent weeks of war.

“I’m guessing he blamed himself,” he ventures.

“Oh, yeah. Big time.” Kira scrubs her brow. “I should’ve seen it coming, but- Dax was out of commission, and things around here were crazy, so I just- look, I was horrible to him. I was starting to get complaints- he was coming to work late, even drunk, a couple times- I just told him to toughen up and get on with it. Didn’t realise it had gotten so bad. And when I confronted him about it, he insisted it was nothing, he just missed Chief O’Brien, that’s all. But, then he started staying up all night, obsessing over Cardassian transmissions- after I’d ordered him to stop doing that with Trill physiology. We had a horrible fight about it. I had to order him off duty and send him to Earth.”

Garak runs a hand over the Terran grass. It smells of wet soil and fibre. Mila’s brooch digs into his skin, concealed within a pocket once designed for a knife… What was that curious Human expression, about wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve? He’d always secretly found it quite stirring…

“Would you believe it was Quark who finally came up to me and said I was doing a terrible job?” she mumbles.

“I wouldn’t put too much stock in the opinions of a man who pairs gold lapels with Casperian silk,” Garak offers. 

The colonel purses her lips. “Well, he was right. I let this crew down.” 

“I see.”

(It’s been a long time since Garak hasn’t felt like a letdown. And all these years later, he has no remedy to offer.

He’ll be letting her down as well, it seems.)

Kira stares very intensely at nothing in particular. “I really thought he’d just get over it. I mean, it wasn’t all bad. The chief practically kidnapped him four times after that, and each time he came back, he’d look so much better- I half expected him to move! But within a week, he’d be right back where he was. Not sleeping. Drinking. Obsessing over whatever crisis was happening this time, on Betazed, the DMZ, the Gamma Quadrant… Cardassia. He just couldn’t leave it alone. Suddenly, he comes up with this idea of petitioning the Federation to send aid- and one day, I randomly find out he’s blacklisted, he’s been blacklisted for months! Can’t serve on starships anymore, can’t get a promotion, probably won’t be offered a transfer… I mean, his Starfleet career’s basically over. He still wears the uniform, but he’s barely an officer at this point.”

There is no wind in the cargo bay to soften her words. Garak swallows, trying and failing to use his imagination. 

“On what grounds, exactly?” 

“Officially, it’s because he’s “shown signs of mental instability” that “historically don’t bode well with his genetic background”. She scowls. “But it’s really to do with how he cured Odo- Starfleet Intelligence did an investigation when he proposed the aid mission, and found… something, I don’t know. That’s all he could say about it.”

Garak cannot allow himself to think about Julian sinking his career in an attempt to send aid to his home planet. Instead, he thinks that “Starfleet Intelligence” is very likely a cover for Section 31- meaning, Julian was likely still dealing with the threat of surveillance. 

(… How much had he really told anyone?)

“You should’ve seen him,” Kira continues, visibly heartbroken under her stony expression. “The night I finally reached out to him properly, I… He was literally on the floor of Quark’s. He told me he didn’t even feel like a whole person anymore, like… somewhere along the way, he’d lost his soul. I had to carry him out of there.” She swallows. “He said he couldn’t stop thinking about Cardassia, the way you’d looked, the last time he saw you… And, he had to make it right. He couldn’t move on until he knew you were okay.”

Garak is not going to produce tears twice within the same week, but the impulse is frustratingly understandable. “And… what did you tell him?”

“That you were a vole.”

“Charming.”

“Meaning,” she cuts in, laughing slightly despite herself- “however hard anyone may try to exterminate you… you’d always survive. Somehow. And… however certain one might be that you’re gone for good?” Kira tries for a smile. “Someday, you’d pop up again.”

Completely unplanned, Garak now laughs- just a small release of breath, but he cannot help it. Julian had found him in the old tailor shop, after all, just as promised… And how freeing was this, to be able to simply laugh, genuinely, at something that caught him off-guard. To… enjoy being caught off-guard.

The mood considerably lightened, he says, “He was lucky to have you.” 

Kira shakes her head. “He should’ve had me sooner.”

“He… needed a friend,” Garak reasons, remembering Julian’s words from the morning before. “That was you.”

“Well, not as much as the chief, or Ezri, whenever she calls…”

Garak notes that Dax is well-recovered enough to be in touch. “You were the one who carried him out of the bar.”

“… Maybe.” She hugs her knees. “The next morning, he came by to apologise, and… on a whim, I sort of invited him to the shrine. I was really surprised he said yes. He actually started praying, can you believe that?”

Garak cannot. “He did mention missing the captain.”

“Hmm.” Unexpectedly, Kira lies back on the grass beside him- it triggers a memory of them together in Mila’s basement, pondering their options. (And they’d been so out of options, that day… yet, Garak had felt more certain of things than he ever could now. From the moment he’d broken down and allowed himself to feel again, it’s been waves upon waves of misery and confusion; battering him from all directions and turning him about so many times he can’t tell which way he was meant to be facing anymore.)

“I’d be lying if I said I don’t wish he’d come back,” Kira admits, “but… I believe he’s where he needs to be.”

“And the doctor doesn’t have that luxury.”

“Didn’t,” Kira corrects, smiling up at the branches of Professor O’Brien’s tree.

Suddenly, something makes sense. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” Garak says, “but, it is a Bajoran belief that one’s… pagh, can be communed with more easily in a location closely linked with them.”

She turns her head. “I’m surprised you knew that.”

Oh, it’s just a little something I learned while hemming the skirt of a Vedek’s robes, his brain supplies.

“The Obsidian Order once destroyed a prominent spiritual leader’s secret home during the Occupation,” he says.

The colonel’s eyebrows nearly disappear into her hairline. 

“Jalkor Vesat? That… wasn’t Central Command?”

“No,” Garak chuckles. “Actually, the military was against it- they couldn’t see the point in bombing a building unless there were people inside it, as usual. But we knew local Resistance cells visited his home whenever they needed hope. That they… That you believed, wherever Jalkor was, he could bequeath you with the Prophets’ blessings from there.”

“… Huh.” Kira ponders this, brows pinched with a frown. After a moment, she says, “Why’re you telling me this, Garak?”

The familiar words almost make him laugh again.

“Why else?” he muses, shrugging against the grass. “So that… you can know there’s no forgiving me.”

She does not respond.

Once the silence stretches long enough to officially become awkward, Garak says, “Why tell me? I didn’t force you to name any of your struggles- or Julian’s, for that matter.”

He’s said “Julian”. He’s made a mistake again. Does it matter? 

Did it ever matter?

(When Julian was spending his evenings in Garak’s Clothiers, just to feel closer to its former owner, had “Garak” become “Elim” somewhere along the way, too?)

“I… guess, I just thought you should know you weren’t alone,” Kira mumbles reluctantly.

Garak stares at her.

“And…” She chews her lip. “I don’t know, that you were missed. Deeply,” she adds. “And, you would have been mourned. If you’d… you know, succeeded.” Catching his expression, she covers her eyes with the heels of her palms. “Oh, I’m no good at this-”

“Colonel, I don’t believe you give yourself enough credit,” he says, as if the words were pulled from his throat by some external force.

… And perhaps that was just a tad too much honesty for them both, because neither of them appears to know how to reply. 

“Well. I’m glad you’re here,” she eventually admits. “And you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

“Provided I mend the entire militia’s pants?”

Kira snorts. “Not if you’re no longer in the tailoring business.” 

“I suppose I’m not.” Garak chuckles emptily at the ceiling. “What am I going to do, anyway?”

“You’ll think of something.”

“Yes, but…” He stops. But why, is the question.

“… It’s a little tough without that “for Cardassia” at the end, isn’t it?”

Garak really should have had enough of being dissected after the last few days- but for some reason, he wants everyone to keep going. It’s a morbid curiosity. Yes, come one, come all, cut away every one of my pretences, let’s find out what’s there underneath it all! Even I don’t know! Oh, it doesn’t matter if I die, hack away, do your worst, nothing matters anymore-

“Maybe you could apply for a job as a waiter at Quark’s,” she says, cautiously threading a smile between those words. “… Or a dabo boy.”

That needle is sharp enough. It pierces through whatever shield he has left, cracked all over like a taspar egg- and he catches it, finding he’s surprisingly prepared to pass it back.

“Oh, I might be just a little old for that,” he smirks. “Past my prime, I’m afraid.”

Kira snorts again. “Not according to Julian.” And she’s smiling properly now, double-threading their conversation with a new, reassuring quality- if you want him, I won’t get in your way.

Garak casts aside that thread for now. “Perhaps I could become a nurse.”

“Mmm, or a chef? Ezri and I tried making the captain’s chicken paprikash, once- and Great Prophets, I’ve seen war zones less messy than the disaster we made of her kitchen,” she giggles. “But, who knows? Maybe you could give it a try!”

“You don’t say,” he remarks, brow raised. “Alternatively, Morn was just performing at the bar, with his new band-”

“Oh, you heard them! Aren’t they great?” Kira exclaims. “I had no idea the man could capture such complicated emotions like that!”

“Maybe I could be his backing vocalist.”

“Oh, oh- maybe you should join Starfleet!”

And there’s a colourful new thread in the mix now, a delightful pattern of helpless laughter… Truth be told, Garak hasn’t laughed like this since that nervous fit of giggles they’d shared outside the Dominion control centre. 

He looks at her- knees bent child-like on the grass, hand waving about helplessly- and marvels that he might have a genuine ally in her.

“A life of adventure? Oh, I don’t know, Colonel… Perhaps it’s finally time to settle down, become a father. Tell me, would your average Federation adoption agency disqualify someone on grounds of assassinations and torture?”

Kira doesn’t laugh so hard at this one. “Not any more than they would an ex-terrorist,” she shrugs. “But… wait, how about this? You could go to Bajor tomorrow with- no, this isn’t a joke, I’m serious now,” she clarifies. “Julian runs a clinic on the surface for recovering Vorta and Jem’Hadar.”

“Does he?”

She smirks. “You didn’t think a little bureaucratic nonsense could stop him from healing people, did you?”

“… I suppose not.” Garak cannot help but smile in return. The doctor was nothing if not stubbornly compassionate.

“Well, maybe it’d be good to tag along, get your mind off things.”

Getting off this station for a day does have undeniable appeal.

(As does, he’ll admit, the prospect of spending the day with Julian, rather than spending it waiting for him to come back.)

“Besides,” Kira says cautiously. “You don’t really need to know what you’ll be doing in the long run, Garak… Hell, I spent most of my life not knowing I’d see the end of the week. So… maybe you should just think about what you’ll be doing tomorrow.”

Slowly, Garak sits up, his attention drawn to the PADD he was carrying around earlier. The screen has long since gone dark, swallowing up that silly poem he’d been reading- such a trite piece of work, really. Its writer clearly suffered from an egregious lack of imagination. 

He hasn’t read it in years. Yet, he still remembers the way it ends.

Tonight, I’ll delete this confession

Tomorrow, my cuts will close and fade

By the end of the week I’ll forget he existed

One day, I’ll even forget me

… Terrible.

Heavy-handed, melodramatic, laughable… and also, perhaps, not the only possible ending. Perhaps the poet had always known it, on some level. Why else would this nonsense have been so hastily published, so poorly edited? Why else would its creator have remained a mystery all these years?

Garak wonders if the poet is still alive today.

And for once, he decides to take something offered to him at face value.

“… Well, then.” He nods at Kira, a grateful expression crossing his features- for a rare moment, the face they assemble feels entirely his own. 

“It looks like I’ll be becoming a nurse tomorrow, after all.”

Chapter Text

Garak is instantly awake when someone breaks into his quarters… Old habits die hard, after all.

But there’s no need for alarm. It’s Julian.

… Hmm.  

Not that Garak can object; he’s quite liberally broken into the doctor’s quarters in the past (in a torrent of adrenaline and artificial bliss, yes, but that hardly brought it closer to normal behaviour). Still, it’s… curious.

“Garak?” he calls, voice dancing with mischief.

Ah- a prank. As usual, the doctor’s sensibilities have kept him from success- what he should have done is kept the mystery alive; stood there silently until Garak caved and acknowledged him. So, Garak doesn’t.

“… Garak?” 

But now, he sounds different, almost as if he’s-

“Garak?!” Julian grasps him, violently shaking him by the shoulder. “Garak, wake up, wake-”

“Doctor!” he protests, scowling.

Julian stumbles backwards. “Oh! Oh, thank god-”

“Doctor, what are you doing in here?” 

“Sorry!” he shouts, shoving a hand through his hair. “I- I thought I’d surprise you, I just thought it’d be funny if I said “Come, Garak, get dressed, we’re going to Bajor”, it was stupid, I-”

“Do calm down, Doctor, before you pass out,” Garak says flatly, though he is genuinely a bit concerned. Julian almost appears on the verge of a panic attack.

“Yep. I’m calm, I’m…” He stops to breathe; chest heaving in the dark, eyes glinting. “God, you were sleeping soundly, weren’t you?”

Garak tilts his chin. “And that’s… bad?”

“No,” he sighs out, then holds his head. “… God. May I use your refresher?” 

“By all means,” Garak allows, thoroughly confused. 

Even through sealed doors, the razor-like hiss of a hypospray is unmistakeable.

Some minutes and several apologies later, they’re heading for the docking bay, walking side by side… Old habits indeed. In the flavour of 0500, the promenade is shadowed and empty- unsettlingly reminiscent of Empok Nor, and that is an incident Garak happily avoids thinking about.

“So,” he says, trying to steer their rapport back to lighter territory after that strange beginning. “Tell me about this clinic of yours. What’s the great Doctor Bashir up to now?” 

“Apart from making a big arse of himself?” Julian smiles. “Well, he’s grown a little frustrated with the stagnancy of Starfleet, and decided to reopen some old lines of research.”

“I see,” says Garak- not entirely surprised that Julian would neglect to mention his stint attempting to procure aid for Cardassia, but intrigued. 

“The Federation’s latest treaty with the Dominion closed down 75% of all Vorta cloning centres and Jem’Hadar hatcheries, drastically reducing new births,” Julian continues, “but some of us aren’t so comfortable with the idea that entire sentient species could just go extinct at the whim of others, simply because they’ve outlived the purpose they were engineered to-” He stops. “Well, who knows what’s going on behind the wormhole. What’s important is, the Vorta and Jem’Hadar fallen behind enemy lines in the Alpha Quadrant were left here for dead- and as you know, the latter can’t even survive without Ketracel-white.”

“And let me guess,” Garak says. “You’ve formulated a way to cure them of their dependence.”

“… In a sense. It’s not quite that simple.”

Before he can explain, a robe-clad Bajoran pokes out from the shrine behind them. “Doctor Bashir!” he waves, a grin stretching over his wrinkled face.

“Er.” Julian whips about apologetically. “One moment, please?”

Permission obtained, he jogs up to the man- they trade strings of words through familiar smiles. “I’ll come see you later,” is all Garak can make out, called over a shoulder as Julian returns to his side. “Sorry about that.”

“No trouble at all.” They pass a few steps in silence. “A patient?”

“Hm? Oh, um- yes.” A few more steps. “Yes.”

It’s only after he’s settled in the runabout’s seat that Garak finally notices. It’s… gone. A soft, gnawing pain- that months-old pain in the tissues of his abdomen he’d grown so completely accustomed to, like wall art you don’t notice anymore- it’s gone. 

… The doctor took care of it at some point after the surgery, no doubt. 

“Release docking clamps C and D, please?”

Garak blinks. “I didn’t know I’d have the privilege of being your co-pilot.”

“You were literally at the helm of one of the most heavily-armed ships in the fleet, Garak, I think we’re a little past keeping you away from runabouts.”

“When you put it like that.” His fingers fly over the consoles with unconcealed expertise.

It’s refreshing. It’s nice, not having to think of a merely a party trick I picked up on Romulus… Though, Garak didn’t ever really have to, did he? Everyone knew it wasn’t true. Everyone knew he’d once been a spy. It wasn’t even lying, really- more a bit he was so committed to, he couldn’t not perform it. He had to say it, because that was his line, that was his part. Just to make their eyes all roll. Just to keep them guessing. Just so they’d remain aware he had- once upon a time, at least- been more than the caricature who lived down the promenade.

Julian’s head is angled too cautiously to count as turned. “Thank you for volunteering,” he ventures. “I’ll admit, I was a bit surprised.”

Garak faces him.

“That you’d want to come along,” he says hurriedly. “I mean, you’re perfectly entitled to a bit of rest, considering.”

There it is. The “elephant in the room”. Admittedly, it is somewhat ridiculous that they’re behaving as if Julian hadn’t just flown into a panic thinking Garak was dead. As if Garak wouldn’t be in counselling, were he anyone else. As if Julian hadn’t kissed him. As if he hadn’t just tried to end his life. But… how can they possibly acknowledge all that? Or any of that?

“You know, ever since I woke up this morning, I’ve felt this astounding surge of energy- the likes of which I haven’t felt in a long time,” Garak says with exaggerated conviction. “I’ve rested quite sufficiently, Doctor. And with rest- to a Cardassian, at least- comes a burning desire to contribute to the community.” 

The doctor folds his arms. “A community of Jem’Hadar? On Bajor?”

The real questions ring loud and clear. Why aren’t you going back home? Why are you still here, what’s driving you to do this?

Garak has a lie lined up already. But… somehow, as it tumbles from his mouth, it doesn’t quite sound like one.

“Doctor, the last time I set foot on this planet, I defended its occupation at a political conference.”

“Yes, Dax told me all about that,” Julian says flatly.

“I’m sure. So you can see I have much to make up for,” he reasons, mentally replaying his words to Kira so that he might sound all the more convincing. Damar has a certain romanticism about the past. He could use a dose of cold water.

“Garak, is that what-” Julian stops himself.

This was veering into dangerous territory. If there’s one thing Garak doesn’t want, it’s to be stuck in a runabout for the next three hours with a surgeon keen on dissecting the last three days. 

Fortunately, his interrogator opts for methods less direct. “… I appreciate the extra set of hands.”

“Thank you.”

“And I hope you’ll find the experience valuable,” he goes on, sounding annoyingly like a Starfleet brochure. “This kind of work really can be rewarding, sometimes.”

“I look forward to it, Doctor.”

Does he? Is he really looking forward to spending a day being glared at by Bajorans, helping the very same soldiers who, this time last year, wouldn’t have hesitated to blow their ship into a million pieces?

He doesn’t know. He hasn’t a clue what’s compelling him to do this- beyond the prospect of several hours in the doctor’s company, that is.

He doesn’t get to dwell on it long. They’ve plotted their course and are fifteen minutes in on warp two when Julian finally stops fidgeting, plops his hands upon his lap, and says, “I lied.”

“Hm?”

“I, er…” The doctor winces. “I lied, to you. Earlier.” 

Garak simply watches him, already knowing the answer.

“Vedek Bavi isn’t a patient. He’s… well, if anything, I’m his patient.” A cautious half-smile floats to his features, bobbing uncertainly. “I don’t know why I- no, I know why. I was stubborn,” he shrugs, “and, I fought with a lot of people who care about me. It took far too long to accept that I needed help. But seeking it was a good decision, and I’m not going to be ashamed of it.”

Oh, dear. Was this supposed to be subtle? 

“… How nice to hear,” Garak says slowly. “I’ve always praised your intellect.”

That smile takes on a twinge of fear; red ink polluting clear water.

Garak circles it like a shark. 

“And… I’ve always thought quite highly of yours,” Julian tries.

Garak can actually feel the menace slithering into his expression; cooling all those familiar tracks. 

“Oh, that’s good to know,” he murmurs. “I’d hate for you to think I needed everything spelt out for me.”

They speak of “what promises to be a tremendous new advancement in tastebud-grafting technology” for the rest of the journey.

Bajor always was absurdly appealing, as planets went… Indeed, a Cardassian record from just before the Occupation famously described it as “a pretty young thing spinning merrily about in space, wantonly wearing its fine tropical belts about its plump and generous middle- promising boundless warmth and fertility, practically smiling in invitation”. 

Garak wonders if Colonel Kira ever heard that particular description, and thinks if yes, whoever quoted it likely didn’t live long enough to regret it. 

He doesn’t wish to treat her casual invitation to its surface lightly. He doesn’t wish to recall the months he’d once spent breathing its air through a scaleless, wrinkled nose. He doesn’t wish to be wishing Cardassia could still look so prosperous, or knowing it could- sooner rather than later, if only it could just take once more- he doesn’t wish to take more than his people already have. 

But, stepping out of the Rubicon onto fragrant green grass- he cannot help it. He straightens out slow and draws in a breath, long and deep; sweet and expansive and floral.

It smells like freedom. It feels like, could he hold it within his lungs long enough, he would float with it.

He catches Julian watching him, and is surprised to feel his heart lurch… Yes, with the early morning light winding about him, the doctor does make an irritatingly beautiful sight- all browned hair and greened eyes and sunned-over skin. But what sticks in Garak’s chest like an arrow is the smile. It’s such a private thing, a stolen indulgence; concern blending with relief like cream in raktajino. 

“… Feels good to be outdoors, doesn’t it?” the doctor says softly.

Garak knows what he wants to hear.

Refreshingly, it just so happens to be the truth.

“Yes… It feels good.”

As it turned out, “clinic” was something of a misnomer.

“Welcome,” Julian announces, not even requiring a full arc to gesture about the compact room. It’s smaller than the runabout.

“Charming!” Garak settles in a revolving chair, kicking his feet. “And I must say, I do enjoy the view.”

Julian freezes midway through removing his Starfleet jacket, so breathtakingly skeptical that Garak was referring to the meadows outside. “Ah. Yes, well, it’s important for the patients to have a distraction.”

“Of course.” Garak initiates a slow spin. “So… we’re going to, what? Sit around here all day, and wait for the Jem’Hadar to come in of their own accord?” 

He cocks his head. “Problem?”

“Oh, no problem at all,” Garak chirps. “I’m simply admiring your clinic.” He toes the ground and comes to a stop. “… Your plain, simple clinic.”

Julian bites back a grin. “What gave it away?”

“Really, Doctor, the supply closet’s panel is more worn with use than the refresher’s,” Garak tuts playfully. “Of course, I could go on about how this floor hasn’t been cleaned in at least two weeks, or how you’ve never been the sort to do anything in half measures- but would you rather hear the story of how Resistance Base 287 was raided in 2354?” 

“Oh, for- Garak, Nerys specifically chose this base because it’s one of the lesser known ones!” he cries, shaking his head. “I only hope Starfleet Command is less observant than you are.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.” Garak’s smile gains a certain edge as Julian prods a complex code into the panel. The “supply closet” whooshes open.

“Surprise,” he says theatrically.

Garak steps onto the descending platform inside like they’re about to attend a party.

Apparently, all it took was some creative genetic-splicing to persuade Leeta and her husband (the Grand Nagus of Ferenginar and, thereby, “loaded”) to sponsor an important pet project- and for Miles O’Brien to trick out an abandoned base camp with state of the art medical technology, two holosuite sessions and a shared bottle of single malt sufficed. Apparently, his dear doctor was now running a front.

“The Goran’Agar Recovery Centre,” he declares.

Two rows of biobeds cling to the cavern’s walls like eggs in a vole hatchery, hosting dozens of Jem’Hadar- the majority of whom appear comfortable and startlingly well-tempered, though some shiver and groan in their sleep. One beginning to stir more violently is escorted to an adjacent room by muscled Bajoran nurses. Starfleet monitors arc over the warrior’s bodies, betraying their secrets on neat little screens… Garak suspects they weren’t delighted about this. But on the whole, it’s spacious, well-stocked and reasonably warm; a strangely uplifting blend of competent and cozy, it’s truly…

“Remarkable, Doctor.” Catching his sincere admiration, Julian’s modest little smile takes on a note of youthful triumph Garak hasn’t seen in far too long.

And by the State, it feels good to see it. It feels so good, he doesn’t know how to process it.

“Thank you, my friend,” he softly says. “Now, this is Ward One, where you’ll be working today- your job is to administer 3 ccs of Ketracel-D to every patient marked Stage 2, 2 ccs to the ones marked Stage 3, and 1 cc to all the Stage 4s. Clear?”

Garak lifts up the bag of hyposprays he’s carrying. “Clear as the Yolja River.”

He moves from bed to bed, reading reports and labels with care. He follows Julian’s instructions to the letter; explain what you’re doing, what you’re giving them and why. Ask how they’re feeling. Repeatedly, like it matters. Talk to them- introduce yourself, learn their names- they need to understand their identities will be respected. 

He presses two fingers and thumb to armour-like scales, feeling the enemy’s pulse beneath each pad, so vulnerable and near… and he pulls on a trigger designed to cure.

With every hiss of the hypospray’s release, he wonders why he’s doing this.

And with every hiss of it refilling, he feels inexplicably less empty inside.

He thinks of Kira; far more than expected. Was this how it felt, aiding Damar’s rebellion? Surrounded by people who’d massacred her own, wondering why she was going so above and beyond duty for them? Granted, it wasn’t the same situation- she was forced to aid Cardassia so that they may win the war, while Garak is here… 

… Well, Garak doesn’t know why he’s here. But he is here on purpose. 

And he does receive some strange looks from Bajoran nurses, but certainly nothing like those threats from Rusot- even during his years on the station, he’d remained more on guard; always prepared for anyone to pull out a knife and exact their revenge. Today, he cannot bring himself to think it. After about two or three explanations from Julian, everyone seems more or less content to ignore him- so Garak absorbs himself in duty once more, and loses himself in the sweet, sweet lie of feeling useful.

“According to these reports, you’re taking rather well to your new digestive system,” he informs an ex-soldier (name: Itak’Golar, age: 3, recovery phase: 4/5). “In fact, it seems you’ve been marked to try solid food for the first time tomorrow. How are you feeling about that?”

He shivers. “I am aware pleasure is irrelevant. But, I will admit… it does not sound pleasant.”

Garak regards him with interest. “Eating?”

“Chewing. Swallowing.” The Jem’Hadar grimaces. “… Excreting.”

“Hm,” he nods, understanding why this might cause alarm. “Well, not to worry- I can assure you, the novelty does wear off.”

The man breathes in apprehensively. “Doctor Bashir says our ancestors used to consume food in this way. Before the Dominion made slaves of us.”

“The available records seem to suggest so, yes.”

“I cannot imagine it.” His eyes are distant. “We used to live to be fifty, sixty… We used to have women, children. Families.”

Garak ponders this. “Well, at least you now have stomachs.”

“Do you enjoy having one?”

“A stomach?” He blinks. “I suppose so… We Cardassians value conversation, and a meal often doubles as an opportunity for it.”

“But…” Itak’Golar frowns. “What do you talk about?”

“Whatever we want,” he replies, privately thinking the answer was more akin to whatever we can. “Our lives, mostly… Our jobs, our cultures. Other people. Politics… the food, the weather… literature…”

“Literature?”

“Ah- novels. Holoprograms, poetry, theatre.” Garak stashes the catch in his voice out of sight. “You find someone to share it with, and… then, you talk about it.”

Perhaps that was a bit too much, too specific or complicated… Itak’Golar doesn’t seem to understand. And it had to be overwhelming, the sheer vastness of living experiences the Jem’Hadar were yet to encounter. It had to be crippling. 

“If you don’t mind my asking, Itak’Golar… what are you planning to do? Now that you no longer have a master to serve, that is.”

With the way the man gazes at him, Garak wonders if he has perhaps shared a little too much.

But then he sighs, staring blankly ahead. “A community of farmers in the Rakantha Province has offered to put up shelter for me. I will help grow grain for this planet.”

“So, you wish to continue a life of service.”

“I am told this arrangement will not be similar to subservience.” He doesn’t look entirely convinced. “Supposedly, I will be treated as an equal. First Minister Shakaar has promised as much. I will be taught to cook- and, if I wish it, to weave fabrics, and to read, in both Rakanth and Dominionese scripts. I will be fed and sheltered free of cost. And if I wish to try something else, or… leave, I can apparently do so at any point.” Itak’Golar frowns. “Although, I cannot imagine what reason I could have to abandon such an arrangement.”

Neither can Garak, but he knows what Federation optimism would have to say.

(He’s only dined with Federation Optimism once a week for seven years, now.)

“Well, suppose you were to discover that you just don’t particularly enjoy farming.”

He says it simply.

“Then that would be a reason.”

Similar conversations unfold with other participants- Garak reluctantly admits to finding them fascinating. In an academic sense, of course. Purely hypothetical. How would he react, for instance- were he a reformed killing machine who’d spent his whole life single-mindedly devoted to a cause, suddenly severed from it and confronted with the terrifying prospect of a whole new life without it and no real guidelines or instructions on how to live it? 

Most diverting speculation.

“How’re we faring?”

It’s been nearly four hours since he last saw the doctor, and he’s barely noticed. The work was fulfilling, more than he’d expected. But Julian smiling fondly over his shoulder was usually a fetching sight. Now, with this sickly onslaught of it- this urgent closeness all so suddenly, these keenly sought answers- a muted panic dimly crawling through Garak’s limbs elects to spike. 

“Ah, Doctor! I was just telling Vrilak’tilan here how it is we know each other- you see, he was wondering why a Cardassian should wish to assist him, given that his people so recently eliminated a billion of my own,” he says merrily. “Fascinating, isn’t it… Just how many times our friendship has caused us to behave in ways that were, quite plainly… unwise.”

Julian’s smile has faded now, as that faint note of bitterness sticks to the air. 

“What sort of tales has he been spinning, then?” He tries for levity.

The patient glances uncertainly between them. “Doctor Bashir, I… did not know you’d foiled the Obsidian Order’s plans.”

A nervous laugh. “What?”

“Surely, Doctor, you remember the time you flew straight into Cardassian space- all by yourself, no less!- to rescue me from the clutches of Enabran Tain,” Garak piles on. “Why, you made quite the hero that day.”

Julian looks air-narrowingly uncomfortable; clearly seeing all the ugliness behind Garak’s smile.

(He never used to, before the wire broke down.)

“Well. I was only doing my job,” he mutters. Thin, like elastic due to snap. 

(Another sound Garak knows all too well.)

“Oh, come now, Doctor- modesty doesn’t suit you,” he croons, his voice gliding like shadows and honey. “Just eight years ago, the Order had so many… so very many designs. Most of which only made their way into hems, and tunics and dresses. Surely, you’re aware of the power they once had, the things they might’ve become?”

Julian stares. He looks desperate to talk about this further, but they cannot- not here, not now. Not anytime, really.

(This was the best they’d get.)

“I’m sorry if I wasted the Order’s time,” he finally says. “I imagine they must resent me.” 

The worst part is, he doesn’t even sound offended. There’s nothing there, not even a scrap of fight or remorse- just… acceptance. Belief. Resignation so chillingly un-Bashir.

… What am I doing?

Garak yearns to say something- something to repair the damage, never mind if it’s a lie- but a sudden eruption from the doorway steals their attention.

“Oh, what now…” Julian is off; rushing headfirst towards the commotion. 

And, like the day debris rained over their heads in the holosuites, like always- Garak follows.

Flashes of Ward Two reveal a realm less organised, patients more sick- quite the contrast from the relative calm where Garak had spent the morning. But as he trails after Julian through the doors to Ward Three-

Well. Here, the difference is stark.

Here, Jem’Hadar writhe and scream in agony; hurling objects and abuses at medical staff in the absence of their beloved weaponry. Here, the calmest ones sit upright on their beds in disoriented terror, watching as a rogue patient smashes up equipment in the middle of the room with a large, sparking chunk of what was probably once a biomonitor-

“Hey!” Julian yells; that duranium-strong will cast like a lasso across the room. “Fifth Arak’Etan!”

The soldier barely spares him a passing glare, before flinging the debris across the floor and shoving another Jem’Hadar off a neighbouring bed. 

“Stop right there!” he shouts again. 

Yet another approaches Julian from behind now, picking up the sparking mass, and Garak wishes he had a weapon- the closest thing is the hypospray on the tray beside him loaded with State-knows-what, but he picks it up anyway, and warns, “Doctor!”

“You! You will pay for this,” the advancer snarls. “You are killing us!”

But Julian confidently holds his ground. “Garak, put that away- it’s not helping.” He turns to the soldier- who, amazingly, falters in his tracks the instant Julian meets his eyes. “First Tolak’Adar, you know that’s not true. I won’t harm you, and neither will my friend here- all right?”

The Jem’Hadar shudders, arrested in his spot. “You did this to me,” he growls through gritted teeth. “This is agony! End it!”

“I will not,” Julian says, maintaining eye contact. “I’m helping you. You gave me permission to help you. Just last week, remember? You put your trust in me. I am now responsible for your health. You understand responsibility, I know you do… You are First. You are responsible for your men, including Fifth Arak’Etan, and Third Lamat’Toral over here.”

Garak watches tensely as the soldier grips at the debris, hands seizing and spasming around broken pieces till they bleed. His savage grasp loosens as he stands, shivering, and stares at Julian- and then at his men on the floor, both arrested mid-brawl. And he blinks.

“F-F-Fifth,” he finally breathes. “What are you doing?”

The soldier snarls at him from the ground. “He has White! He has more White and he’s not sharing it with us!”

“Now, you know that’s not true,” Julian says sternly. “Lamat’Toral doesn’t have any more White than you, or First Tolak’Adar. Remember what I explained, just a few days ago? You’re in withdrawal. We’re replacing the White in your system with a non-addictive substitute called Ketracel-A, and it will take a few weeks for your bodies to adjust. None of you have access to White anymore. Only I do.”

“Then give it to us,” Arak’Etan cries- but now, the man he’d shoved off the bed earlier begins to convulse on the floor, eyes rolling up.

“Doctor,” Garak points out.

“Damn- Garak, hand me that hypospray you’re holding.”

Its contents hiss into the Jem’Hadar’s bloodstream, and after what feels like thirty seconds, the spasms come to a stop. Tolak’Adar watches with wide eyes, still gripping the chunk of console roughly. His arms quiver. Dark blood drips to his feet. 

“… What did you just give him?”

“He was going into shock,” Julian mutters. “I needed to supply him with a small dose, just to-”

“Give it to me,” he growls.

Julian regards him strictly. “I won’t,” he says, and Garak could kill him for being so stupid.

“Doctor-”

“Give it to me, or I’ll smash your skull in.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Julian insists. “You don’t want Ketracel-white anymore.”

“I need-”

“No, you don’t. It weakens you! Do you want to be weak again? Hm? This dose here has set your Third’s recovery back by several days,” Julian says, voice low. “You don’t want that, do you? You have to be strong. For your men.”

Tolak’Adar howls in pain. “I cannot do it! Just let me die, I cannot do it-”

“You will manage,” the doctor insists. “By the end of this month, you could be in Ward Two. You want to make it to Ward Two, don’t you?”

He takes several desperate, deep ballooning breaths. “Yes.”

“Good. Then you’ll simply have to trust me, ride out these withdrawals, and behave. Got it?”

Garak, in between the two of them and weaponless, realises he’s barely breathed in five minutes. The makeshift weapon is so close to Julian’s face, so very close. The air is sour; the cave a hungry sort of quiet. He watches Tolak’Adar like a Lakarian huntingbird, watches for every twitch- every sign of betrayal, of pain that could turn a man violent- he knows them like the scales on his wrists, after all. But eventually, the soldier sinks to his knees, and slams the console bits against the ground. 

“Sekala, Ziprem- get Lamat’Toral back into bed, give him fifteen milligrams of lectrazine, and monitor his vitals closely,” Julian commands his Bajoran nurses. “Halana, take care of Tolak’Adar’s hands, and-”

“You have no right!” Arak’Etan suddenly explodes, flying off the ground. “Traitor!”

“Hey! Get back-”

“Give it-”

“No! Wait-”

Garak does not realise he’s taken a blow until his skull is throbbing and his cheek is smashed up against the floor. Then, he remembers- he remembers deciding to get in between Julian and the soldier, but he doesn’t recall doing it. He remembers the attacker picking up the chunk of debris… He doesn’t recall seeing it swing.

“Garak? Garak, can you hear me?!”

Julian’s hand is between his shoulder blades. Garak’s mouth tastes like salt and rusted metal. Arak’Etan is standing above them now, towering, imposing-

“Back off!” Julian says. “Look at what you’ve done!”

Oh, but… Even to Garak’s groggy, slightly-unfocused eyes, the Jem’Hadar looks shocked and guilty.

“I… apologise, First Doctor Bashir,” he chokes out. “I did not mean to…”

“I’m not your First. You have no First. You will have to learn to live without a First,” Julian states firmly. 

“I cannot,” the soldier sobs. “I cannot do it. I cannot bear it, kill me, have mercy and-”

Garak blearily watches as he is cut off, tackled by his leader.

“You small, ungrateful weakling,” Tolak’Adar snarls, pinning him to the ground. “You think you are the only one suffering?”

“We are all suffering! We deserted the Founders, and this is our punishment-”

“It is the Founders who deserted us! They left us to rot, alone on the other side of the galaxy!”

At this, Arak’Etan’s fist deems it appropriate to collide with Tolak’Adar’s face. 

“We serve the Founders!” Another bone-crunching sequel, and they wrestle hideously on the ground. “That,” he punctuates with an especially sharp blow, “is the order of things!”

Tolak’Adar kicks him several feet across the floor. “You are not worthy of the Founders,” he snarls, taking the sharp debris back in hand. “You are not even worthy of rehabilitation.”

“And who are you decide that?” The Fifth demands, kicking harshly at his elbows and making him cry out. “You’re not my leader-”

“Touch me again, Fifth, and-”

“I don’t need to take orders from you anymore! Your rank doesn’t matter, your life doesn’t matter, nothing-”

“That’s it-”

“Wait!”

At first, Garak thinks it is Julian who has said this- but then, he realises he is standing up, he is positioned above the two, and he is now feeling the rip and tear of speech in his jaw and tongue. 

… Well, then.

“This does not concern you, Cardassian,” Tolak’Adar spits. 

“Garak, stay out of-”

“Gentlemen, if you’ll allow your anger to subside, I believe you’ll gain some perspective,” he surges on, keeping loud enough to hold their attention.

“Garak,” Julian tries again, “please listen to me, and-”

“Pummelling your friend to death with that console will certainly feel good- oh, I assure you, it’ll feel marvellous,” he says on a positively ugly laugh. “I can only imagine how much you’ve thought about it. How much you miss the fighting- don’t you? It’s built into your blood, right from those Dominion hatcheries- fighting, it’s like breathing! You miss being fearsome, strong. Yes, you were enslaved, yes, your leaders thought you utterly disposable- but, at least you had purpose, then! At least you were powerful. Now? Look at you, you’re all helpless, now- weak, and pathetic- the mighty Jem’Hadar, brought to their knees, sobbing and shivering under soft, comfortable, Starfleet-issue blankets-”

“Garak, what are you doing?” Julian demands, but Garak ignores him.

“He said we’d be strong again,” Arak’Etan cries, pointing clumsily at Julian, shaking, clutching his own spasming shoulder. “He said we’d be liberated! That our lives would improve.”

“Oh, I guarantee you, they will- Doctor Bashir is many things, but he’s not a liar,” Garak goes on, feeling a fresh string of blood tumble from his nose. “Not about anything that matters, anyway. You’d do well to listen to him. Yes, I realise it all sounds far-fetched- all this talk of freedom, this- “liberation” the good doctor has promised you- surely, this can’t possibly be what liberation feels like? Acid within your limbs, ash upon your tongue. Everything is awful. Every time you wake up, you’re somehow more in pain than you were before- and the solution is right there. Right there, in his hands! But no, he won’t give it to you. Not even your pleas for death are answered! He has all the power, here… All you’ve done is replace your Vorta overlord with a Federation one, really.”

At this point, Julian is stunned into silence- he isn’t even protesting anymore; just gaping in horror. But he is listening.

And so are the Jem’Hadar. 

“And for all this suffering, just what do you get?” Garak laughs, bitter as young kanar. “Your blood is on fire, your senses all crawling, your brain feels like it was cooked- it’s a little difficult to care what happens to you next, isn’t it?!” he taunts. “Frankly, it’s a little difficult to care about anyone! So yes, you could bash your friend’s skull in. Yes, it’ll make you feel strong again, it’ll be absolutely liberating- because that’s what liberation is! The ability not to care. Believe me, you’ll never feel as powerful as you do when you don’t care,” he raves, fully aware that people are staring at him and he likely appears deranged. “To be able to do anything, and feel nothing- no guilt, no fear, and no remorse.” Garak widens his eyes. “If only it were true.”

Tolak’Adar’s glare is a fabulous thing; rock-steady through each uncontrollable tremor.

“I massacred hundreds of your kind, and I felt no remorse. I could kill you this instant and feel nothing.”

“Of course.” Still poised defensively with an arm out, Garak takes on a slow, cold smile. “I don’t doubt it for a second. Unfortunately, I’m not so convinced you could say the same about your Fifth, here.” 

“… What do you mean?”

The question is posed menacing and low; but it contains curiosity, not a threat.

“Well, take this little skirmish, over here. It’s hardly the kind of victory the Klingons write songs about, is it?”

“Victory is life,” both Jem’Hadar say- almost in unison, to their mutual surprise.

“Yes, yes, victory is life, it is the order of things. But- one unsavoury truth you’re going to be learning very soon, my fearless friend, is that nothing about ordinary life is so satisfactory as that,” Garak gloats with a joyless grin. “Oh, no. No. What they don’t tell you is, life is not victory- all it is, really, is a dull, plodding, endless series of choices. What shall I wear today? What shall I eat for lunch, who shall I eat it with, what shall we talk about? And- hmm, what’s this over here…? Ah! How am I going to live with all this niggling guilt I carry around, from the time I violently bashed my Fifth’s head in?”

Amazingly, the First actually ponders this a moment- a frenetic, stretching, wildly un-timeable moment. And slowly, like a hill snake uncoiling, he releases his subordinate.

“… You are right,” he works through hard-clenched teeth. “I would carry it.”

“And a good thing, too,” Garak says, feeling the pull of each word in his cheek, a pulpy burn. “It’s the mark of a good leader. But in a few short weeks, when you are no longer a leader and this “liberation” turns out to be a lie, all you’ll really have is about- oh, fifteen to twenty years, if you’re lucky, ahead of you- and absolutely no idea how to fill them. And then, First Tolak’Adar,” he murmurs carefully… “You will be grateful to have your friend with you.”

Garak doesn’t dare look at Julian. He doesn’t dare.

Which means, looking at Arak’Etan instead- and finding, amazingly, that the Fifth is actually weeping. It takes a moment to register as such; the Jem’Hadar aren’t physically capable of shedding tears.

“Why?” he asks, sounding utterly defeated. “Why endure this, if there is no victory in the end?”

Garak smiles. He is always grateful for opportunities to be hypocritical.

“Tell me- have you ever tried Delavian chocolate?”

Both Jem’Hadar are blinking at him now, and Julian silently communicates something to his colleagues. 

“We do not eat,” Arak’Etan says, and freshly-loaded hyposprays are pressed to both their necks.

“Not yet,” says Garak, raising a finger. “But your friends in Ward One have recently been fitted with artificial digestive systems, and will soon be trying food for the first time. And, Doctor Bashir was just telling me of his research on the way here- did you know, he’s trying to discern the nerve receptors of your ancestors’ taste buds, so that he might graft something similar onto your tongues?”

“… Why?” Tolak’Adar asks.

“So you’ll be able to taste your food, rather than just consuming it for sustenance,” Julian tells him calmly, running a dermal regenerator over his torn palms. “It’s what makes eating enjoyable.”

“So it is,” Garak affirms. “And it seems to me like you have an enviable new experience ahead of you! If you make it through this week, and then the next few weeks- if you ride out these withdrawals, the endocrine therapy and surgeries and the rest of the rehabilitation program- then you, a free man, will be able to try Delavian chocolate for the very first time. And, who knows,” he says, brow raised. “You may even enjoy it.”

“Pleasure is irrelevant,” comes the immediate reply.

“No,” Garak counters gently. “It is not.”

He feels ridiculous saying it. It’s the most un-Cardassian ideology there is. But he barely even resembles a Cardassian anymore- if anything, he’s now pulling from his years in retail. He sounds like a Ferengi pitching an investment scheme. But… what else is there to say? 

What was the point of it all, really, but fresh air and bad poetry and Delavian chocolates?

“What if I don’t like it?” the Jem’Hadar says weakly. 

Preaching instructions he couldn’t follow himself would be the theme of the day, it seems.

“Then you try something else.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, darts, springball, Klingon opera… Jambalaya,” Julian pitches in. “Singing- did you know, there’s evidence that your ancestors had a rich musical tradition? We’re tearing through any Dominion databases we can find, just looking for recordings. Travelling! There’s so much to see, my friend- you could fill a lifetime with the sights on Bajor alone.”

“Where would I go?” 

“You could visit the Cliffs of Undalar,” he shrugs. “They’re simply breathtaking in the summer.”

“Is there a base to invade?”

“No. It’s simply a series of cliffs.”

“Then why would I go there?”

“To look at them,” Julian says. “They’re nice to look at.”

Tolak’Adar’s hands are now healed.

“Is that where you’re sending us when this is done?” he asks tiredly.

“I’m not sending you anywhere,” the doctor soothes, in that voice with which he makes all his trademark promises. “I don’t own you. You’re a refugee under Bajoran protection. Of course, I’ll be keeping tabs on your health, especially over the first few years- but you can go anywhere you please. You can even leave the planet. No rules, really… Well, except “no conquering” and “no killing” and a few others, but- not to worry, we’ll go over those later.”

Tolak’Adar is quiet, this time. He stares in silence, stares at nothing in particular.

Garak fails to imagine any easy way forward. 

The situation diffused, Julian helps both patients back onto their beds, and wipes the sweat off his brow- and only now do their eyes meet. Only now does Garak become aware of the splitting sting upon his lips, the insistent pain, like glass moving through his skull, his nose. The way the room is suddenly blurry.

“Come here, Garak.” He feels the words more than hears them; wrapping around his shoulders and guiding him out to a storage room. “Let’s get you sorted out.”

“Well.” Garak breathes in deeply. “This is familiar.”

He is seated upon a table, the doctor standing almost between his knees- one hand tilting his chin up, so very gently… the other engaged in far less interesting activities such as treating his injuries.

“You really need to stop making people hit you,” Julian says.

The osteo-dermal regenerator hums warmly between them. 

“Me? This was hardly my fault,” he sniffs. “I did nothing to provoke them. Clearly, Arak’Etan just… didn’t like me.”

The corner of Julian’s mouth quirks up, just a little. 

“Not like you?” he teases. “Impossible.”

“Hm.” Garak had never imagined he would one day ache so deeply at this memory; that time and fate would turn his exile into “simpler times” he’d long for again.

Julian is searching his face- ostensibly, for any bruises he might’ve missed. “I’m sorry I brought you here, I… I didn’t think,” he admits, dabbing at Garak’s nose with a damp cloth. “I should’ve realised. This… It’s all a bit intense, isn’t it?”

Yes, perhaps Julian shouldn’t have brought an ex-addict who’d recently attempted suicide to a hospital full of suicidal addicts. Perhaps, were Garak anyone else, his superiors would even scold him for irresponsible behaviour.

But Garak’s feelings don’t matter; not really. They never have. He used to think of himself as the weapon they’d only wield when times got tough, but- nowadays, he wonders if he’s always just been the glove they’d wear to avoid leaving fingerprints.

“It was pleasant enough in Ward One,” he sighs, actually meaning it. “You did try and keep me there.”

“Ah, but there's really no keeping you anywhere, is there, Garak?”

The blood is almost certainly gone from his face, but Julian is still wiping away, wiping at nothing. Frankly, there is no other pretence left for touch- and Garak has steadfastly swatted away every other attempt at offering comfort. This one, he doesn’t mind so much. In fact…

“Doctor- how long is this headache going to last?”

Julian frowns. “You still have one?

He does not. And based on the scans he is taking, Julian likely knows this, too.

“Well, I did just get my nose broken,” he mumbles.

Suddenly, the silence and the eye contact together are punishing. Garak is afraid, now- afraid there’ll be another innocuous question like “Are you all right” that will unexpectedly break him to pieces.

But here are those fingers against his skin, delicate thumbs upon ocular ridges- and nothing shatters for now.

“Tell me where it hurts, then,” the doctor says. “… Here?”

Everywhere, Garak thinks, suddenly very, very tired.

“A little.”

Julian’s eyes shift between his, understanding- and then his hands shift, too- one up into Garak hair, higher; the other cupping his cheek, perhaps for “support”… And Garak lets his eyelids fall shut, because Julian looks far too much like he wants to hold him, and he cannot bear it. 

Yes, eyes shut… Better to keep things that way.

The thing is, Julian is learning. He knows not to ask are you all right, or why are you here, or why did you try and kill yourself- 

“Perhaps I should check for swelling?” he murmurs instead.

“Perhaps you should,” and Julian is practically stroking his hair.

And- he could have it. Garak could so easily have it again; that shoulder to cry on, those arms around him so tight he physically cannot feel anything else, that steady heartbeat to rest his weight against… But then, his palm tingles with phantom memory; the indent of a remote beneath his thumb. A whirring coolness that would diffuse through his brain and simply take all the pain away.

He’d like to think this fear was rooted in wisdom. But at this point, Garak would turn the wire on again if he could. He doesn’t care; he just doesn’t care anymore. The problem is Julian.

Julian, who would never forgive himself.

“Garak… be honest,” comes that devastatingly honeyed whisper. “How much pain are you in?” 

The real question is being asked with digits and palms, a tentative pressure behind Garak’s skull, a touch to the nape of his neck. Enough? Enough to let me?

He is dangerously close to accepting.

So he meets that gaze with as much strength as he can muster instead, and says, “… Less than before.”

In the end, Garak’s sudden and crippling exhaustion won out.

And, unable to argue the doctor’s diagnosis that he desperately required bedrest- Garak found himself the unexpected houseguest of Kasidy Yates.

He never could fall asleep in other peoples’ homes. But today, with soft, handwoven wool against his cheek; the sounds of the Kendra Valley curling in his ears like a steady stream, floating in on a warm breeze that makes the curtains dance; the smell of Bajoran incense drifting, drifting through the room… Garak finds it simple to drift with it, too.

Nearly three hours (three hours!) later, he wanders sleepily into the living room- he’d hardly even registered it, before. Before was a blur, from Captain Yates’s surprise to see Garak on the hospital comm- her lack of surprise that Garak had gotten punched- the fizzle of transport and amicable greetings, Julian guiding him to the guest bedroom while answering her numerous questions as best he could, promising to be back by sunset… 

Garak had barely seen any of it. 

Now, he sees- he sees the distinctly Bajoran architecture, not at all at odds with the Terran furniture, but in harmony, blending- he sees a celebration of artisanal crafts and lovingly showcased history, the traditional woven tapestries and distinctly Dakhuri carpets- he sees the baseball memorabilia and Terran art he recognises as African in origin, thanks to some of Julian’s cinematic recommendations- he sees the kitchen, wide and communal and spacious, stocked to the brim with fresh local produce- he sees the garden outside, the bookshelf, and hammocks under the moba vines. He sees the door to the porch, left open in invitation- and he hears Captain Yates’s voice filtering through the cracks; welcoming and real.

Garak had never gotten to know Benjamin Sisko very well, but even he can’t help but think it’s a crime the man didn’t live in this house. 

“- and just as I’m about to explain to Vedek Oram that no, I’m not actually joining the monastery, that’s just a rumour a bunch of kids started in town, I hear this horrible, deafening-” Yates stops abruptly, sitting up a bit straighter in her chair. “Mister Garak.”

“Captain Yates,” he nods, instantly recognising the back of her companion’s hair. “And- hello again, my dear. This is an unexpected pleasure.”

Leeta turns about with a massive grin on her face, encumbered by an even more massive belly.

“Garak- hi!” She waddles over eagerly, even holding her palm up Cardassian-style- always so clued in, dabo girls. More than once, Garak had thought they’d make excellent intelligence agents. 

She even does a little curtsy as he presses his hand amicably to hers. “It’s great to see you. We all worried, you know? Especially Julian, poor thing.”

“So I’ve heard,” he says lightly. “Ah- I see congratulations are in order?”

“Oh, this?” Leeta looks down at her stomach. “Yeah, Rom and I are really excited! Julian says she’ll be along in two months now, and- ah-choo! achh-” Garak steadies her by the arm through a lengthy fit of sneezes. “… Sorry,” she sniffs. “Turns out this doesn’t change, even if the baby’s half-Ferengi.”

“How interesting,” he remarks. “Are there many others?”

“No!” Leeta wiggles her nose and sniffs again. “According to Julian, she could even be the first- we needed a lot of help to make it happen.”

“Here, sit.” Captain Yates helps her by the other arm. “Leeta’s staying on Bajor till the baby arrives- the rains on Ferenginar were making her joints act up, and it’s closer to DS9 and Julian here, anyway. Who knows what special medical needs this kid’ll have?”

Garak cannot imagine. His mind cannot conjure up anything like this at all… having children, a family. A comfortable home in a gorgeous, green valley. 

“… Forgive me, I didn’t have the chance before to thank you for your hospitality,” he says, accepting a mug of hot cocoa. The air around them is cool, the hills beyond expansive and never-ending… Looking at them, Garak almost feels like he’ll never be claustrophobic again. 

“You wouldn’t be saying that if Jenny was up crying,” Captain Yates smiles, “but, you’re welcome. Though, I have to say- you were the last person I was expecting to see today.”

“Hm,” he agrees, sipping.

“Are you feeling better?”

“Much, thank you.” Garak tries not to perceive either woman’s obvious concern. “I… merely overexerted myself.” 

(Never mind the fact that lately, simply getting out of bed and going somewhere constituted overexerting himself.) 

“I suppose we all have those days,” she murmurs, sounding frighteningly perceptive.

“… I must say, this is a beautiful house- very tastefully decorated, and I don’t say that liberally.” 

“Why, thank you.” Her smile is wistful; lips parting at the sight of a wooden mask by the window. “Most of it was Ben’s design- Jake wanted everything just as his father planned it. He’s such a lovely young man… Took charge of the whole construction, with Chief O’Brien’s help.”

Garak pauses. “Not ‘Professor’?” 

“Oh, you… didn’t know?”

A loaded silence slips into the air, weighing it down. 

Leeta glances back and forth. “O’Brien resigned,” she explains quickly. “In protest. Starfleet ruined Julian’s career, so he didn’t want to be part of it anymore. Not even as a teacher.”

“I see,” Garak murmurs, choosing to ponder the implications of this later. “Clearly, I have much to catch up on.”

A piercing wail from inside the house saws into the evening calm.

“Ah. Duty calls,” Kasidy says, brows raised in resignation. “Jenny…? Oh… Oh, what’s wrong, now, baby girl…”

Leeta expels a nervous breath as she disappears indoors. “Guess that’s me in a couple months.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Oh, come on!”

“You’ll do wonderfully, I’m certain of it.”

“… Thanks,” Leeta smiles. “Though, I am kinda nervous- we haven’t really decided what we’re going to do, Rom and me. I mean, Ferenginar’s changing, but- do we really want to raise a little girl there?” She sighs with a dramatic pout, arms flopping about on her lap. “But I can’t ask Rom to move to Bajor, can I? He’s the Grand Nagus!”

“Serve the State, or choose to forsake it in favour of love,” he summarises. “My dear, you have the makings of a fine Cardassian romance novel.”

“Not the kind of romance novel I wanted to be in, Garak.” She sighs again. “Why do your people hate happy endings?”

He regards her thoughtfully. “I suppose we simply don’t believe in such things.”

“But people do get what they want, sometimes,” she insists. “People win.”

“Yes, but…” Garak stares into his mug. “Winning doesn’t always secure happiness, does it? I mean, look at us. We won the war. We got what we wanted… But returning to Cardassia meant finding it in shambles. Doctor Bashir cured the Founders, only to lose his job and credibility in the aftermath. Captain Sisko defeated the Dominion- and, according to Colonel Kira, Gul Dukat and his “pagh-wraiths”, too, all so that his child may grow up in a world without evil- and yet, his widow now lives in this house without him. So who among us has had a happy ending, really?”

(There’s no glee in his voice this time; no joy to be found in bursting her bubble.)

But Leeta frowns, her dark eyes swimming with thought. “Okay. But… you’re ignoring a lot of other things, aren’t you? Cardassia’s forming alliances with Bajor, Ferenginar, and the Federation- that’s never happened before! Hundreds of Jem’Hadar are starting new lives, which probably wouldn’t’ve happened if Julian hadn’t been so sad and stuck and desperate to do something- I mean, I just came in for a baby scan, and he ranted about them so much, he ended up with a sponsor by the end of the session! And sure, the Emissary’s gone for now- but Bajor’s thriving under his care, Kas and Jenny included. The Prophets will take care of them,” she says.

Garak smiles emptily. “That’s good to know.”

“Things’ll work out, Garak,” she insists, with the exact brand of unflappable faith that compelled people to create hybrid children before even deciding what planet to raise them on. “You’ll see!”

Tired of breaking hearts, Garak attempts to stitch his smile up a bit higher; pulling on the appropriate threads. “I hope so, my dear.”

Julian’s hospital hours eat into the evening, so Garak ends up chopping hajjri gourd in the kitchen. Apparently, they are making veklava and stew. 

“You’re good with a knife,” Captain Yates observes, hand on her hip. The other is occupied with holding her infant. 

Garak feels a tale spinning itself. “It’s true, yes… Many years ago, I found myself in the employment of a Tzenkethi prince. A “royal” housekeeper… ha, royal indeed. It was nothing short of a cage. Cooking became my one and only solace. Even now, I still miss it- isn't that strange? Oh, my years as a tailor have been rewarding, certainly- but deep down, my heart has always belonged to the culinary arts.”

“So how come you never became a chef?”

He stops, the translucent-thin slices of gourd slumping together. Kasidy inclines her head.

“It was hardly an option,” Garak says, intrigued. He resumes his work. “I come from a family of tailors. There was no other choice. From the moment my birth was permitted, I was meant to become a tailor- and a very good one, too.”

“Huh.” Kasidy angles the child away from the stovetop, pouring in stock. “So, is that a Cardassian family thing, or just a your family thing? If you don’t mind answering.”

“Why ever would I?” he mutters, tamping down the urge to antagonise her. “My family was hardly the most conventional one on Cardassia, true, but even we adhered to certain standards. Fathers can be quite inspirational, wouldn’t you say?”

“Sure. My daddy was a freighter captain, too- I basically grew up on starships. Always wanted to start a shipping company of my own.”

“I imagine he’s proud of you.”

“He is.” She laughs strangely. “… Though, I’m not sure how he feels about the whole, “married a religious figure who knocked me up and promptly disappeared” thing.”

Garak scrapes the hajjri into the pot. Though the steam, her expression is fluid; living. 

“… I’m sure you were in the captain’s thoughts when he made his sacrifice,” he ventures.

“Oh, I’ve come to terms with it, Mister Garak,” she says, her voice low and firm. “I’ve shed my tears and fought with holoimages- visited every monastery, every orb, went down to the damn city of B’hala just hoping for a vision- and, at my lowest low, burnt those stupid peppers of his on purpose, hoping he’d come back just to tell me off,” she laughs hollowly. “But the truth is, Ben left the linear plane ten months ago- and I’m tired of pretending he didn’t. He gave me all these dreams, these plans for the future- and then he left me to raise our baby alone. Now, I’m not mad- I love Jenny with all my heart, and I’m happy she’s here,” she states. “I’m just not going to spend the rest of my life staring at that wormhole like some princess in a tower, waiting for my husband to return.”

“I never did enjoy that cliche.”

“My father would agree. Which, by the way, nice job, changing the subject,” she says, gesturing with the ladle. “But, you were saying?”

Guls and glinns, she was worse than Julian. “What else is there to say? My father was a powerful man. He made the most exquisite gowns and sweaters in all of Cardassia. He took it upon himself to train me in the art of tailoring. It was, therefore, my duty to follow in his footsteps, be his faithful right hand, and sew the best dresses possible.”

“And if you wanted to be a chef?”

Oh, there was a question there.

“What I wanted was irrelevant,” Garak says. “But, incidentally, it was to be worthy of his pride, and serve the State.”

“So you weren’t the rebellious type, I take it.”

“Oh, my dear captain,” he laughs, looking her square in the eyes. “Have you forgotten that I was exiled?”

“Huh… Now, that is a good point.” She studies him carefully. “Let me guess… Your father caught you cooking.”

For the first time today, the smile on Garak’s face is completely genuine. 

“The most shameful day of my life.”

She narrows her eyes. “You know… you don’t sound like you regret it.”

By some absurd stroke of luck, he is spared from having to respond.

“Julian!” Leeta leaps off the couch- the doctor is hugging her in greeting even before the doors fully shut; holding her, smiling against her neck in surprise… Could it really be so simple?

“Hey,” he laughs, even planting a friendly kiss in her hair. “I didn’t know you were- whoa!”

They part, gasping, Leeta’s hand upon her belly. “Oh, she remembers you!”

“I should hope so; we’ve only been hanging out since she was a zygote,” he quips. “I do believe I’ll take that kick as a compliment. Is, er- is Garak up and about?”

“Here, Doctor,” he calls from the kitchen, folding stuffing into a pastry- casually, as if he weren’t suddenly caught in an avalanche of warmth. As if he weren’t drowning in it. As if Julian’s mere arrival hadn’t perceptibly set the room aglow. 

The doctor grins. “Whatever the two of you are cooking, it smells delicious.” 

“Good, because you’re staying for dinner. Pull up a chair,” Kasidy says. “You’ve had a long day.”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

“But, you’ve got to hold the baby. My arms are killing me.” 

If ancient Bajoran scriptures were to be believed (which, on this planet, they generally were), certain trees were more sacred than others, as they’d sprung into existence when the Tears of the Prophets first touched the surface. Staunchly religious Bajorans even professed that eating the fruits of these trees would anger the Prophets. 

Garak cannot exactly claim to see the logic there, but Leeta is pregnant and suddenly more religious than before; so the almat stew ends up tasting very different to what he remembers.

(It’s just as well, anyway. Garak usually tries not to remember.) 

“Well? How is it?” Kasidy asks somewhat nervously from across the table.

“Mmm,” Leeta says.

“Mm-mm,” Julian nods in agreement.

Garak, who cannot quite bring himself to join in on that particular trend, says, “It’s delicious. Sweeter, wouldn’t you say?”

“Much sweeter,” Leeta confirms. “Must be the hajjri.”

“Yes…” Garak tries another spoonful. “It would appear the natural sugars of the gourd have reacted differently with the stock. The traditional preparation with korukul is usually more tart.”

“Why, Mister Garak- you really are a chef,” Kasidy remarks. “When did you become such an expert on Bajoran cuisine?”

And a silence falls over the room as she hears herself; as the others hear her, too. 

“… Oh, he’s a man of many talents,” Julian says, rescuing the conversation with uncharacteristic grace. “Some of the nurses were just telling me he took advanced pulmonary scans without even needing instructions- and repaired two damaged livers with a deep-tissue regenerator. What do you have to say for yourself?” he fondly asks, though his voice ripples with wary curiosity. “Seven years, and I had no idea you were a doctor this whole time, too.” 

Garak’s once-vast ocean of lies has run dry. The obvious option is to explain that he volunteered at a hospital in the aftermath of the war, but that would just raise questions about Cardassia, and why he isn’t there.

“Well, he’s certainly a wonderful tailor,” Leeta adds, and he could’ve melted with relief. “Do you think you could make me some maternity clothes, Garak? If you still do that? Replicated cloth makes me sneeze a lot, and most of my pants don’t fit me anymore.”

Because he’s grateful, he tips his head warmly. “My dear, I’d be delighted.”

(It isn’t like you have anything better to do.)

Julian gives him a funny look for a moment, before changing the subject. “You know, they’re putting up Peldor decorations in town already?”

Kasidy huffs with amusement. “I saw three different murals of Ben last week.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” Leeta adds. “Kendra Province throws the biggest parties in the peninsula! You’ll be seeing tons of celebration.”

(Garak tries not to remember the illicit swigs of Dakhuri spirits, the whispers of “Peldor joi” in his unscaled ear- the weary desperation of a community to stay grateful to something while his people were herding their children off to labour camps.

He ends up remembering those children’s faces.)

“Will you be coming to DS9, Kas?” Julian asks.

“Hm? Oh, uh- no.” She sighs. “I don’t think so, Julian… Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.” He touches her arm. “I’m sure Morn’s concert will be televised over here, anyway.”

“That is the main event.”

“I’ll come stay with you,” Leeta offers.

“Aw, honey, no,” Kasidy says. “Go to town! Catch the festival up close.” 

“I really don’t mind,” she insists. “The last time I was in Kendra Province this time of year, I spent Peldor in a prison cell! It’s a gratitude festival; I wanna spend it with someone I’m grateful for.”

Kasidy shifts curiously. “Not that I’m not extremely touched by that, but- prison?”

“Yeah! Officially, my charge was “stealing from the Cardassian Empire”, but- well, I guess I did do that,” she chuckles. “I just wanted to sneak some food over to the poor orphans outside! I was a gruel girl during the Occupation.”

She’s met with blank expressions from Julian and Kasidy both, and Garak is unable to handle the lonely silence of memory any longer. 

“… ‘Gruel’ girls and boys were Bajorans sent to work in mines, and then deemed “too beautiful” for manual labour,” he explains. “They husked groat harvests by hand instead, and cooked gruel for the other labourers. Some mended clothes and shoes as well. Some were chosen by their Cardassian overseers to be comfort women.”

Leeta gulps, staring at him. “That’s right,” she eventually says. 

Garak is crushingly aware that 75% of the room’s occupants are currently wondering if he ever oversaw a labour camp or used a gruel girl. He lets them draw their own conclusions. 

“… Anyway, it was the same year as the Kendra Valley Massacre, so I can’t really complain,” Leeta shrugs. “I was safe in my cell.”

“You never talked about any of this when we were together,” Julian observes.

“I just used to feel guilty,” she smiles shyly. “I never fought for our freedom. I just kept my head down, and left the fighting to other people, like Nerys.”

“You risked your life to feed those orphans,” Julian points out. “Leeta, not everyone fights back the same way!”

“I know,” she says. “I know that now. And, I probably would’ve died if I’d joined the Resistance, so… at least now, I get to make a difference on Ferenginar.”

An echo of candle-oranged light on rock sends a rush of heat over Garak’s scales, and suddenly the veklava tastes like gruel.

“You weren’t safe in your cell,” he says unprompted. “The Kendra Massacre would have seen the entire valley slaughtered- all 1200 civilians, labourers and prisoners included. It was only because the location of that Resistance camp was leaked to Central Command that the casualties that night didn’t exceed forty three.”

Leeta blinks. “You… You mean that collaborator Prylar Bek actually saved everybody? People hated him, he got Kai Opaka’s son killed!”

“Actually, it was Opaka herself who revealed the location of that base.” Garak pauses, each breath a pulsing itch, feeling as if he’s slit his own veins to spill this truth; this buried history. “… Now there was a woman who understood sacrifice.”

“Garak, how could you possibly know this?” Julian asks, bewildered. “That’s classified information! Nerys only told Captain Sisko and I after Vedek Bareil died. Nobody outside the room was supposed to know.”

“Were you… here, in Kendra?” Kasidy asks, the question caught in all their minds finally bubbling over the edge.

“… No.” Garak sighs. He gazes blankly at his food; all these fruits of Bajoran soil he’s consuming. “It was… of interest to the Obsidian Order that Bajor’s top religious authority would collaborate with Cardassians. We filed her as a potential asset.”

Leeta stares in open-mouthed silence. It prompts another rush of truths, of answers Garak suddenly feels he owes her.

“As it happened, she never cooperated with us again,” he says quickly. “I heard about the massacre in passing; I was actually stationed on Tzenketh at the time. Funnily enough, also in prison.”

(Ten months. Ten months of that horrible, suffocating cell, of incessant discomfort scraping under his skin, building every day- all just to befriend that obnoxious Tzenkethi warlord. Ten seconds of warning, or less- before that Central Command missile hit the complex and blew his assignment to pieces. Ten hours trapped under that rubble… Those ten hours that felt like ten years.)

“Hm- now, that is funny,” Kasidy unexpectedly says. “‘Cause, Benjamin sent the two of us to prison at around the same time, too.”

Her small laugh infects Julian. “And, we were in prison together as well! You’ve been prison buddies with everyone at this table, Garak.”

Leeta giggles, and Garak cannot comprehend how the conversation had gotten here- the need for gallows humour, he understood. But what was it about Humans and Bajorans and their inexplicable need to find irrelevant, barely-significant commonalities and bond over them? 

… And yet. This was how the Bajorans had won- wasn’t it? By working well together, because they wanted to work together. They loved each other. They’d chosen each other. They weren’t scheming, bickering about orders, plotting to kill those above them… No, they loved each other so fiercely, they’d sooner die than see their friends killed. Their families. Their idea of a collective wasn’t a government, it was a family- held together by glues more powerful and intimate than blood.

Somehow, they had managed to weaponise empathy.

Garak had seen it on the Defiant, too… and in Damar’s rebellion. He’d risked his own life to protect Kira’s. He’d laughed like a fool outside those gates.

“Yes?” Captain Yates had uncorked a bottle of springwine some minutes ago, and was poised over Garak’s glass.

He could certainly use a drink. “Please.” 

“Kugava juice for you, Leeta?”

“Thank you,” she sings. Kugava juice is poured without discussion into Julian’s glass too; the only exchange a grateful smile.

“A toast,” Kasidy says, topping it off- “To those still around.”

So lost in thought, Garak almost starts when Julian’s hand finds his under the table and squeezes it briefly. He has no idea how they’ve arrived here, how this- admittedly unorthodox- trial hasn’t ended with the public unanimously declaring him irredeemable. 

“And those who’ll return,” Julian adds, and Kasidy’s eyes are shining.

“To prison buddies,” Leeta chimes in.

All three of them have their glasses raised… waiting. 

You don’t deserve this, he cannot help but think. You shouldn’t be here. 

… Oh, well. Garak has never had any illusions about being a good person, but he’s always been polite.

He meets them with a clink. “To prison buddies.”

Chapter Text

The walls of Tain’s summer home were tall, the roofs high. All deliberate, of course. Specifically designed to make anyone inside feel small. Elim, who was rather small already, feels a bit like a sand crab blown along in the wind- fragile and helpless, easy to crush.

“Elim?” Mila notices him as she turns the corner, pausing with a wry smile. “What did you do this time?”

Did it matter? He was crouched outside the doors to Tain’s office, his face and body- both open books, damn them- likely speaking volumes. Elim shifts the sleeves of his tunic in shame, but it’s impossible to cover up the bruises on his arm and shoulder both. He’ll have to choose. He always has to choose.

“Stole,” he mumbles. 

Mila rests a hand on her hip in amusement. “Stole what?”

Reluctantly, Elim opens his hand to show her- he doesn’t want her to see, not really, but he doesn’t have the right to defy her. 

A gasp escapes her lips. “My old brooch. Where did you find it?”

“The dressing table,” he confesses, wanting to disappear. 

She crouches to his level. “Elim. Enabran ordered us to throw these out. Legate Gorsa is visiting, and he doesn’t want any- subversive ideals of the service class on display. Why did you steal it?”

Elim shrugs. “… It was pretty.”

He’d known; from the moment the idea had formed. He’d known he was being watched. Even as he’d dragged the stool over so that he may reach the table’s fine Bajoran marble surface, he’d known he would be caught.

He’d chosen to do it anyway.

Mila tuts. ““Pretty”. Always thinking with your eyes, your heart, your stomach. Do you have any idea what this represents?”

Elim tries not to flinch as he shakes his head. He wishes he could just burrow inside his shirt- no, burrow into the ground. He often thought it must be a pleasant feeling, to be comfortably wrapped in the dark… to be held within the confines of a small, enclosed space.

“This is a symbol of arrogance, Elim. It can land you in an interrogation chamber if you’re not careful. You shouldn’t feel pride over inferior blood.”

Then why do you have it?, he knows better than to ask.

“I’m guessing you’re now to dispose of it yourself.”

He nods. “I’m to recycle it in the replicator.”

After several seconds of staring at him, Mila erupts into a fit of chuckles. “Well? Go on, then, get up and stop looking so sorry for yourself! You’ll develop a permanent pout.”

Elim, who hadn’t known such a thing was possible, jumps to his feet- but just before he’s fully off the ground, she encloses his hand in hers, as if helping him up.

Clink. The sound of metal against metal.

Mila’s gaze is twinkling. “Run along, Elim.”

His eyes grow wide.

Clink, he hears again, as their hands pull apart- and a terrible thrill fuels his sprint, carrying his legs over to the replicator in a clumsy dash.

“Mode?” asks the computer.

“Recycle.”

Elim pinches down on his own flesh hard so that he does not smile, feeding the appliance a plain, simple clasp from a typical Cardassian house servant’s dress.

At night, Mila serves his bowl of pol’tor porridge without importance, but he stirs about it tentatively all the same, and- and, and-

Clink!

This time, Elim cannot contain his glee.

He shoves their new secret into his mouth to wipe the grin off his face. 

It’s hard, but he keeps it under his tongue as he bids Tain goodnight- keeps it all wrapped up and lovingly protected, the way every good lie deserves to be.

Exasperating. Simply exasperating! 

Once again, he’s woken to find his fingers curled around that damned brooch… His dreams really have been getting foolish, of late.

Mostly, they were recollections, and most of those unpleasant- but nightmares, he could handle. It was the good dreams that truly tormented him. They were relentless. They were fanciful. They were about Julian, mostly… Julian smiling, Julian touching him, Julian reclined in a hammock on Bajor, outshining even the gorgeous countryside as he invited Garak beside him to rest…

If not childish nonsense like that, then childish nonsense like this.

He scowls at the brooch. The real Mila would laugh, if she could.

Miserable fool. Stop pitying yourself for five minutes and go to breakfast, that’s quite literally all you have to do. 

But as he picks up a PADD to message Julian about the venue-

Sorry, Garak- there’s been an emergency at the Vorta clinic, so I’m leaving earlier than planned.  

But we could still do dinner?

Maybe even at Quark’s? 

Though of course, I understand if you still prefer one of our quarters. 

Let me know!

Garak watches the ceiling tiredly. There you go. He’s making this less personal. 

He sinks further into the mattress, rubbing his eyes… It was only a matter of time; he’d always known. Julian wasn’t going to keep having all his meals with him forever. Contrary to what he’d erroneously assumed on seeing the tailor shop, the doctor did have a life- not only that, but a fulfilling job on the surface, and several friends looking out for him. Garak was the lonely, pathetic one, here.

The pathetic one Julian was being patient with. For the time being.

His arms are lead as he lifts the PADD up… Completely unbidden, one, then several of the doctor’s stolen glances from the past week spring to mind- the embarrassingly disarming affection, the way his breath would always catch after a few seconds, like unbroken dew- warmth and empathy flowing like resources infinite… then held back, policed. Hidden, the way Julian always had to hide everything. 

“Why are we still pretending?”

Garak wishes he could free him.

I wish I could free us both.

He rolls his eyes. No, the play was getting repetitive; his role nauseatingly predictable- and no one liked a character who overstayed his welcome.

(Besides… There were other paths to freedom.)

Some primitive instinct is protesting, screaming at Garak not to, wailing at the thought of having to go any longer before the next high-

I’ll see you tomorrow.

He presses “send”.

Every dissident plea from his joints to pass the day in bed is systematically crushed. His legs feel like overstuffed bags of cement, but he swings them over the side anyway, moves to the replicator for breakfast- he’ll suck it up and go to the tailor shop, like he always used to. Nine days, now, since he promised Leeta those maternity clothes. Nine days of Julian’s almost undivided attention; of meals in each others’ quarters and late-night games of kotra… each time, with holosuite invitations that went unanswered, and brittle goodnights that shivered with the weight of everything the doctor wanted to say. 

Sometimes, Garak would wish for the Julian who’d shot him in the neck. 

Yes, now there was a man who refused to blunt his words- who, dolled up that stupid costume and holding that ridiculous holographic pistol, had felt bold enough to show him everything. Such calculated, ruthless honesty. The only version of Julian who’d ever given Garak what he deserved.

Sometimes, he’d fantasise about the graze of lips instead of a bullet. 

Sometimes-

… State have mercy, enough. It was time he got back to work.

His mind believes it… His feet don’t seem to. They drag, stalling at every opportunity; meandering in search of diversions like fickle-minded children. They steer him to purchase a jumja stick he has no intention of eating. Watch a potter’s spinning hands until a lump of clay is transformed into a dove. Read the names of every special on the Klingon Restaurant’s signboard. Go start a conversation with Quark, they whisper. Go visit the arboretum. 

Anything, anywhere but that infernal tailor shop.

And in a sweep of what Garak is cynical enough to call divine intervention, his prayers are answered. 

“Elim Garak! I’ve been waiting to speak with you.”

It’s the monk. Vedek Bavi, Julian’s… Well, Garak isn’t sure what, exactly. He can’t quite fit the phrase “spiritual advisor” beside the doctor’s name.

Garak quirks his brow benignly. “I don’t suppose you need your pants let out.”

A smile spreads over the man’s deep-brown face… There’s something about the crinkles by his dark eyes that is, Garak thinks, familiar. 

“Robes suit me better, I think,” he responds. “But it’s a slow morning, and candle-lighting duty gets boring sometimes. Accompany me to the shrine?”

Garak gestures to himself. “Hardly appropriate, don’t you think?”

““Appropriate”?” He snorts. Then he doubles over with laughter, rough and bubbly and desperate. ““Appropriate”!” he wheezes. “And was your six-minute monologue at that conference on all the ways Cardassian record-keeping still benefits my people “appropriate”?”

… Now, Garak’s threat radar sputters back online.

(Possibilities: Someone you betrayed. Someone sent to the mines; or a family member. A survivor of the Order’s interrogations.)

“I’m guessing you were in attendance.”

“Oh, no,” the vedek chortles, wiping tears from his eyes- a bit much, Garak thinks. “I was on a farm in Rakantha Province at the time… probably sitting around getting high on jiroub leaves. But I did recently have a dream about it- very vivid, and, I’m sorry to say, not very flattering. Really, what were you thinking?”

Garak wets his lips, determined not to take whatever bait this man was planting in his path.

(The problem is, he hasn’t a clue just what that bait is.) 

“What if I wasn’t thinking?” he says, choosing to play “redeemed and guilty”; privately thinking the very concept was a farce. “What if that was merely “Elim Garak: Former Cardassian Oppressor” mindlessly defending his people?”

The vedek blinks almost fondly. “Now, that doesn’t sound like you… Far too honest.”

“Sometimes the sharpest weapon is bluntness itself.” 

“Nice turn of phrase,” he acknowledges. “Too direct, then. Let me guess… A lie, but not a lie- yes?”

Tendrils of dread begin to whisper down Garak’s spine. How had be been pulled into such a conversation with someone he knew absolutely nothing about? Really, how had he gone nine whole days without looking this man up?!

The price of not caring, he supposes… But the question of whether Julian was in danger from this person he so obviously trusted was a relevant one. 

(A Cardassian in disguise. A Section 31 plant.)

“It’s always nice to feel understood,” he says, unsure which game to play. Was he to acknowledge some kind of shared history between them? What if there was none? How was he supposed to handle this with absolutely no information?

The vedek smiles- was he even a vedek? Garak really should’ve looked him up. 

“Please, come along.”

He hesitates a sliver of a second, then nods. “Who am I to argue with a man in spiritual garb?”

If the vedek wanted to kill him, he could’ve done so at any point during the past two weeks… It wasn’t as if Garak would’ve objected much, anyway. 

(Besides. Getting assassinated would mean avoiding the tailor shop.) 

“Am I to understand this is the first time you’ve been in here?” Vedek Bavi asks, delicately lighting the first prayer candle. His voice is like silk.

“Yes,” Garak counters, stalling for time- “and, no.”

He points knowingly. “There we go, now that’s more like you! My friend, it really was just a simple question. Have you, or have you not, ever set foot inside this room before?”

“But you see, my friend,” Garak says, stepping further within- “that isn’t what you asked. Have I ever set foot in this shrine? No. But, inside these four walls? Yes, several times- I was stationed on Terok Nor shortly before it became DS9, and on Terok Nor, this was a storage room. They stocked vegetables, grain, and yamok sauce here.”

“So a room becomes a different room altogether, simply if it is decorated differently.”

“In some ways. In others, no.”

He grins. “Here we go again.”

“I’m being perfectly serious,” Garak says, still nowhere closer to identifying his conversational partner. “It has been repurposed, and purpose defines all. Had this shrine been constructed in a monastery on Bajor, it undoubtedly would’ve been elliptically shaped, as is tradition- but Terok Nor was designed by Cardassian architects, and so, DS9’s shrine is rectangular. To you, this room is a house of gods, but to me, I’m sorry to say, it’ll always resemble an unremarkable pantry that stank of yamok sauce.”

To his credit, the vedek appears to have a grasp on subtext.

“And… say, if Quark were to get his hands on it tomorrow,” he reasons, “it could just as easily become a strip club.”

(Someone acquainted with Quark.)

“That would liven up the promenade.”

“No arguments here,” he laughs. “Trust me, no one’s more desperate to hit the strip clubs than people who live in monasteries.” 

(Someone well-connected on Bajor. Well-liked, perhaps? Well-adjusted, certainly.)

“And yet, these orb-shaped pieces have been built into the walls,” Garak says, gesturing. “Who knows? Quark might sooner make them part of the stagecraft than choose to have them ripped out- and history refuses to erase itself. The shrine lives on in the strip club.”

“Quite right.” He fidgets with a candle in thought; grasping, ungrasping. “So- and this is something I often ponder, in my line of work- do you believe any room can be a shrine?”

(A more-than-competent conversationalist; skills downright Cardassian. No wonder Julian-)

“Any room can be anything, if one is resourceful enough.”

“Or desperate enough.”

“Quite right. An ore-processing centre can become a Starfleet outpost.”

“A base camp can become a rehabilitation centre.”

“You know of it, then,” Garak comments. “Interesting.”

“Still collecting information? Any room can become an interrogation chamber, too.”

“Not that I’d know anything about that.”

“Of course.” The vedek strokes his chin. “So… the truth really is in the eye of the beholder, then.”

(A spectre from your past who knows you intimately. A stranger with no connection to you at all, who’s simply heard one too many anecdotes from Julian.)

“It’s what I’ve always believed.”

Never mind that the Dominion War exposed to him every danger of that mentality. Never mind that he still has no idea how to shrug it off, because he’s cripplingly afraid of living without it.

“Your friends seem to think otherwise.”

(Julian and Kira both…? Or, perhaps the grapevine was, Kira to Julian to this man. This man who was very likely their enemy.)

Garak takes a tentative seat on the floor, eyeing the case that hosted the “Orb of Contemplation”. He contemplates whether he could kill the vedek with the brooch tucked away in his sleeve. And then, he contemplates whether he could kill the vedek at all, if it meant surviving the consequences.

“I know an interrogation when I see one,” he says with a cold smile. “I just haven’t quite worked out what it is you’re trying to get me to confess.”

To his surprise, the man actually comes over and kneels before him, so that they are facing each other. Limbs and roles both adjusted, gazes met- dark and inky and never-ending. 

“You, of all people, know interrogations aren’t about the contents of confessions.”

Garak leans back. “Ah.”

(Someone you interrogated. Someone you tortured. Someone you’ve forgotten.

And how could you, with your sharp and fortified memory, have forgotten?)

“So… this is your attempt at making me break, then.”

The vedek laughs. “Oh, no… I’m afraid I wouldn’t stand a chance. I know how good you are, Elim Garak. I’ve seen the strongest of blows fail to break you.”

Garak gestures over the man’s shoulder. ““Seen”, in some orb or the other?”

“In orbs… In dreams… In the eyes and words of those you left behind.” He smiles kindly. “In their paghs. You exist there.”

“Forgive me, but I find that hard to believe.”

“Why?” he laughs, shaking his head in wonder. “You were there, weren’t you? When the Emissary made thousands of enemy ships disappear?”

“I was,” Garak allows. “But, believing the captain had some sort of… amicable link with those stupendously powerful aliens living in the wormhole is one thing; believing you somehow managed to “see” me because I “exist” within Doctor Bashir’s soul-”

He stops mid-sentence. Hears his own words. Marvels.

“… Well done,” he remarks, eyes wide and alight.

“Thank you. Coming from you, I consider it an enormous compliment.”

Garak is bursting with curiosity. But he cannot ask what else he knows, or how- that wasn’t the way this worked.

“So what’s your goal, if not to break me, then? And for the love of the State, don’t say “fix” me, or I will have to roll my eyes at you.”

The laughter that follows is almost musical… A strange, ultimately soothing harshness.

“I have no wish to do either. Besides- you already broke, didn’t you? Less than two weeks ago! The Prophets let me witness it.”

“… In a dream.”

“Yes.”

(Julian’s quarters are bugged. Julian is in danger, and he’s spent the last several months pouring his heart out to the enemy.)

“He asked you if you were all right,” he continues softly. “He asked how you were… And you just crumbled.”

(… Julian told this man himself.)

Garak doesn’t let his mask waver a second. But beneath it- beneath, his jaw is clenched.

His smile remains flawless. “What a violent question it can be.”

“Indeed.” The vedek blinks at him, once, twice. “I must say, you two make a fascinating pair… He, who’s so afraid of his capacity for violence, and you, with seemingly no idea how to live without yours.”

“I notice you haven’t lit all that many candles,” Garak says irreverently. “Forgive me, I’m almost beginning to suspect you lured me here with an agenda.” 

“You’ve always been funny,” he says, in a tone that almost sounds like love- something protective, something old and deep. 

(Who is this?!)

“With conversation, as well as clothing, one can never go wrong with a little flourish.”

“Hmm. Until… one day, when you start to wonder if you’re all flourish, and nothing else.”

“Oh, I don’t wonder,” Garak croons, aware he’s playing a dangerously mismatched game. “I know.”

“Is that the truth, then?” His brows crest his wrinkled nose earnestly. “Or is there still no such thing?”

Garak feels his expression harden; an old, irremovable mask. “If you believe I’m no longer capable of violence, Vedek, then you are a fool of the highest order.”

“I never said that.”

“You implied it.”

“I implied that you define yourself by your capacity for it. And every time you fail to deliver?” He whistles- such a Human gesture, like Julian, Chief O’Brien, or the captain would do on occasion. “Who are you, Elim Garak?”

(Who are you?!)

He reaches out, a robed arm unfurling in Garak’s direction-

(Poison- Hidden blade- Electric pulse- Vulcan nerve pinch-)

And his thumb and forefinger meet around the ridge by Garak’s ear.

… Nothing happens.

Garak eyes him, all open-mouthed bemusement. “I have it on good authority that this doesn’t work on my kind.”

“Oh?” he laughs.

“Yes. Something about us lacking the necessary earlobes, I believe? Really, I couldn’t begin to explain it…”

“What a load of hara dung,” he chuckles. “So, what- this wouldn’t work on Bajorans who lost their earlobes in battle? Or emerged from the womb without them? Why would non-corporeal beings care about earlobes, anyway- what are they, Ferengi?”

“Perhaps I don’t have a pagh.” 

“First, you lack the necessary earlobes, then you lack the necessary pagh…”

“I don’t see you offering any explanations.”

He smiles again, withdrawing his hand. “It’s awfully arrogant to assume something didn’t work just because you couldn’t perceive it.”

“Ah!” Garak exclaims with mock enthusiasm. “So you just read me, then.”

“I understand your skepticism. The Emissary himself never felt anything, at first.”

“Something else the little orb told you?”

“Something I dreamed.”

“Of course.” Garak bats his eyelashes. “So! Tell me. What grand assessment have your Prophets made?”

(The answer could reveal the source of his information. His vast, frankly ridiculous arsenal of information.)

“Your pagh is strong,” Vedek Bavi says gently. “But it is also broken.”

“Hm,” Garak chuckles dryly. “I could’ve told you that.”

“You’ll stitch it back together, of course,” he continues. “You always do. But I’m sorry to say you won’t do a very thorough job… And how could you? You only ever learnt to repair the layers you clothe yourself with.”

“I know a thing or two about ripping seams.” 

“What about wounds that run deeper?”

“I’m rather good at locating them. I made a career, in fact, of spilling out what’s beneath-”

“Oh, my dear child,” he muses, sanctimonious in that way all spiritual authorities were- why was Garak even permitting this? “Your stitches are masterful. Beautiful, even! And certainly creative. But they will, in the end, always be superficial. There’ll never come a time where they keep you together forever.”

This makes him pause. 

“… I know that,” he says quietly. “I’ve always known that.”

“From the time you were a boy.”

“Yes,” Garak allows, now wondering if Julian had told him the riding hound story, too- was nothing safe? “I chose this life.”

“It’s maddening, isn’t it?” the older man says. “How he assumes you never had a choice? You could’ve ended up on the opposite side of your torture chamber. You didn’t.”

“Yes, he’s always had a bit of a blind-spot, where that pesky old chamber’s concerned… Luckily for me. If he truly understood how tailor-made for it I am, he’d’ve cast me aside years ago,” Garak laughs, every puff of breath a sharp-edged thing. “Lies can be so much kinder, sometimes- wouldn’t you say?”

“I’d say you’re right.” The vedek leans back on a palm, groaning softly as his joints readjust. “I’d also say you’re wrong.”

“Warming up to the non-existence of truth, are we?”

“A little, Elim Garak. But you are wrong about him.”

“Am I.”

“Yes.”

“Apologies, but I’d like to think I know him a little better than you do.”

(Where did this man come from, anyway? And, when?)

“I have no doubt that you do. You may even know him better than anyone.” His smile is laced with an uncannily familiar kindness- the sort of potent, brutal kindness Garak hated and loved and never really learned to defend himself against. “It’s why I think deep down, you want to test my theory.” 

(He’s trying to protect Julian. That’s his agenda- to get Julian to cut you out.)

“And by test your theory, you mean-”

“Show him your worst. You’re curious, aren’t you? To see just how far this whole… “forgiveness” business really goes.”

“I once attempted to blow up a planet with him on it. It didn’t affect our lunch plans.”

“We both know that wasn’t your worst.” 

“You don’t know my worst. You couldn’t begin to fathom-”

“What you’re capable of? Really, there’s no need to rehash old scripts.”

It’s everything Garak can do, not to let his hand clench into a fist. What hadn’t Julian given away to this person?

“What can I say? I’m a sucker for the classics.”

“So I’ve heard!”

“I’m sure.”

The vedek smiles. “I’m so glad we could reach an understanding. Now… good day to you, Elim Garak.” 

Abruptly, he rises from the floor- grunting softly once again as he stretches out his legs- and hobbles over to the candles without a word.

Garak, enraged and still thoroughly confused as to who this man was or what just happened or what exactly he’d gained from this conversation, tries not to feel like the victim of the world’s most successful interrogation. “… And to you.”

He pauses again at the curve of the door. 

“I’m… so glad to have made such an interesting new friend today.”

“You think Vedek Bavi’s a what?”

“Colonel, the evidence is irrefutable,” Garak insists, sharpening each syllable like a cherished knife. “According to every database I could comb through in the last hour, legal or otherwise, Bavi Zabura barely existed before this year! He was a nobody, a- a farmer who’d never accomplished anything of note, nor shown any religious inclinations- until one day, when he suddenly just decides to join a monastery and dedicate his life to the Prophets? I’d call that deeply suspicious.”

“Huh. Funny, ‘cause- I’d call it a spiritual awakening.” 

“I don’t trust awakenings. Spiritual, or otherwise.”

Kira leans back in the office’s chair. “He had a calling. It’s pretty much the most common reason people end up becoming monks.”

“Yes, I expected you’d say that. But don’t you find it the least bit- convenient, that these so-called “dreams” just happened to begin at around the same time as Captain Sisko’s disappearance?”

The name thuds between them, metallic and heavy. She follows his gaze to the baseball resting self-importantly upon the desk, and back… He raises his brow in challenge. 

“Well, if you must know, I…” Kira stands up a little straighter. “For a while, I took comfort in believing the Emissary might’ve sent him. Reached out from the Celestial Temple, I mean.”

Garak keeps his voice low. “Why?” he poses gently, pushing the question across the table and forcing her to look at it. “Because you were floundering about in his shoes, failing to keep his crew together?”

“Watch it, Garak.” 

Through the frost sticking between her words, he hears the wounds of betrayal- the how could you use something I told you in confidence against me?

(Garak wonders why she’d expected any different.)

“Colonel, I mean no offence,” he says, raising his hands in the shape of a different strategy. “I’m merely pointing out that it was an opportune moment for an enemy to swoop in and take advantage of a vulnerable state of affairs. Why, even Quark thought it strange that the first person he should reach out to was a lonely Captain Yates! And then, to young Mister Sisko-”

“Hey, that boy was depressed! He needed someone to support him, and I was- busy, Kasidy was pregnant, Dax was gone, and Julian, Prophets bless him, was only making things-”

“Ah, and Julian,” Garak interrupts. “Blacklisted from Starfleet, cut off from his friends, unable to reverse the damage he’d done to his lover- and drowning himself in the sweet, seductive stupor of alcohol.” Kira stares- and he releases just the right length of silence into the conversation, carefully, as if from an ink dropper. “What better time, I ask- for Section 31 to worm its way into his den of secrets? To present itself in the form of a friendly face, a chance at salvation?” Garak doesn’t include that he himself, in those early years, had wondered once or twice if Julian was an enemy agent. “Frankly, it sounds… How do Humans put it? “Too good to be true”.”

Kira actually pauses for thought. “You’re worried about us. I get it,” she says, “and… honestly, I’m almost touched. But, look- not everyone’s the devil in disguise. Not everyone’s got ulterior motives.”

“I never said that,” he points out. “But it doesn’t change the unfortunate reality that some people do.”

She throws her hands up, diverting her attention to a PADD. “Well, you can’t go around mistrusting everyone for that.”

“But what if he’s a Changeling?” Garak presses, circling the desk. “A rogue surviving agent of the Tal Shiar, the Obsidian Order-”

“Why, he seem familiar to you?” she quips dismissively.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, he did!” Garak half-sits on the Bajoran marble surface, making himself impossible to ignore. “Colonel- have you forgotten what they did to you? What we did, with Iliana Ghemor?”

That grabs her attention. 

“No, actually, I haven’t forgotten,” she mutters, meeting his gaze with cold fire. “And I still have Shakaar keeping up the search for her. But as far as Iliana knows, she’s a Bajoran citizen, and always has been. That’s good enough for me to treat her like one.”

“So you would have believed them, eventually?” he presses on. “Believed that you were, in fact, Cardassian? That Kira Nerys was a lie?”

(He’s not entirely sure why he’s asking her this.)

Kira’s expression, meanwhile, is a thing of stone and fury. 

“… Maybe,” she finally says. “If they’d erased all memories of my life on Bajor, then, maybe.”

“And that’s exactly my point,” Garak half-whispers. “If even you could be persuaded to accept a truth so unsavoury, then think of the power a sweeter fiction wields! Think of the promise it has- the idea that your captain is really still alive somewhere, watching over you, ready to return one day- and think, Colonel,” he urges, “of how easy that would be to exploit.”

She tilts her head and sighs. “Garak…”

“It’s what I would’ve done. Have done,” he says desperately- if nothing else will convince her, then he’ll say it. “I’ve spent weeks undercover on your planet before- inside one of your refugee camps, even- and nobody suspected a thing! Not the Bajorans I dined with every night, not the Cardassian dissidents I received supplies and encoded information from- all they wanted was to end the Occupation earlier, earlier than was already inevitable. I’m sure you can guess what happened to them,” Garak scoffs. “Oh, they were publicly executed for their crimes against Cardassia, of course- and their Bajoran co-conspirators were sent to labour camps, some along with their families. I sent them there, Colonel- and indeed, it was a job well done! We were everywhere- we were your friends, your lovers, your trusted freedom fighters and politicians and vedeks- and we never hesitated to betray any one of you. Don’t let us get away with it,” he implores. “Not again. Don’t let another spy… succeed, the way I did.”

Kira’s jaw and fists are clenched. It is only Garak’s decades of experience that makes the underlying whisper of fear obvious… and recognising it has never been less gratifying. Quite the opposite, actually. The longer she looks at him this way, the more desperately he wishes he were dead.

“Fine,” she says harshly. “I’ll look into Vedek Bavi’s past.”

“I’m afraid you won’t find very much,” he says. His respect for the colonel is great, but he very much doubts she’ll extract more from a computer than he could.

“I have my own sources. Bajoran sources.”

He nods. “Fair enough.”

“And I know I can’t stop you if you really set your mind to it- but if he matters to you, if you care about Julian at all,” she says fiercely, “then you’ll stop investigating the man who turned his life around. I mean it. If you breathe one word of this to him-”

“I… assure you, I won’t.” Garak inhales deeply, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. “I’ve only heard him covertly taking dexazine shots all week.”

Her brief surprise is quickly replaced with a malicious look. “I wonder why.”

“By all means,” Garak raises his arms. “Go ahead and blame me, you’ll find no arguments here.”

He might’ve imagined it, he isn’t sure… But the hatred in her eyes seems to waver just a second. It looks almost like regret.

“I’ll let you know what I find.”

It feels like the ground beneath his feet has ripped like tissue, but he nods politely. 

“I’d appreciate that greatly.”

“Now get out.” 

Garak had expected that. 

There’s nothing else to do, really. Nowhere else to go. 

He’s back in the tailor shop. 

“You know what the sad part is, Odo?” he can hear himself saying all over again. “I’m a very good tailor.”

Garak rather badly wants to scream. He imagines flipping the table over, and hates the way that even through all his rage, a bolt of fabric catches his eye and he thinks now that would look lovely on Leeta. How had this happened, anyway? How was he, loyal servant of Cardassia and Enabran Tain’s right hand, after almost a decade of exile, back in this miserable room all over again?! 

He cannot kill himself on DS9, clearly. For some unfathomable reason, he just cannot seem to die here. A part of him wants to steal a runabout and fly it as far away from the station as fast as possible and set it to detonate. 

(You could easily do it. You should.)

But it was the principle of the thing that made this all so irritating. How soft had he become, that he should even hesitate to kill someone as potentially dangerous as that vedek? That a conversation with Kira of all people should affect him so? Since when did her opinion matter so much, anyway? How many mistakes had he made in his life because Tain’s opinion had always mattered so damned much?

Garak idly considers blowing up the shop again. 

But he knows he’ll just need to rebuild it later, because apparently, it really was his lot in life to be a stateforsaken tailor- and he just doesn’t have that kind of energy.

He takes a seat at the console, fists balled, physically trembling with hatred. He can hear his heart racing.

“Computer,” he spits, “display all five hundred and seven designs for…”

Garak cannot bring himself to finish the sentence. 

He needs a distraction. Ideally, one that would make him wish for death less, not more.

Which, unfortunately, did rule out further investigation of Vedek Bavi. A pity, for Garak was rather good at investigations. If only there were something else to investigate.

What was there to do? What was he, Elim Garak, going to do?

Remembering the confusion upon the armoured faces of several Jem’Hadar when confronted with the same question is actually a small comfort.

“You could visit the cliffs of Undalar,” Julian had said- so sweetly, so naively. He clearly hadn’t read the script. Stories of self-determination weren’t meant for the cannon fodder- what enjoyment could someone exclusively designed for violence possibly derive from such a sight? Travelling. Socialising. Singing.

Garak almost chortles out loud.

But then, suddenly… Well, inspiration really did strike in the strangest ways.

He is still seated there, at that console, when Julian finds him nine hours later.

“Ah, Doctor.” Garak flashes a pleasant smile as he enters; only the barest hints of a sinister edge atop his eyelids. “How was your journey?”

“Not bad,” Julian smiles, a touch nervous. He holds up a bag. “I know you said no dinner, but this woman outside the clinic was making this whole vat of Musillan curry which smelled delicious, and there was also moba soufflé- the kind you like, with the fruit peels in the batter, and er- would you care to join me? If- If you haven’t already eaten, that is. But even if you have, I… wouldn’t mind the company.”

It’s not fair, Garak thinks, how hopeful he looks. How genuine. How innocent.

No, he’s lived his whole life secure in the knowledge that no one around him can be trusted or depended upon- but Julian has broken that security down one too many times. Garak needs to know. He can continue doubting everyone else for eternity; but with Julian, he needs to know where he stands. 

… Well, there was no better way to tell the mask from the wearer than to take in more of the performance, was there?

(And, make no mistake- Julian was one of the most deceptively good actors he’d ever come across.) 

“Of course.” Garak smiles again, eyes burning bright. “But- why don’t we have it at your place?”

Julian grins with relief. “Sure! I should warn you, though, my quarters are a bit disorganised-”

“Actually, I meant… your place in Hong Kong.”

The doctor’s mouth falls open, his charming eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. “I-” he starts- but then, after a clumsy second or two, those brows reassemble into a confident arch; his face a mask, arms folded, head cocked.

Well. Hello there, Agent Bashir.

“… All right,” Julian says somewhat skeptically. “What could possibly go wrong?”

Chapter Text

Two performers walk into a room.

GARAK: Still a decorator’s nightmare, I see.

(It’s his part. It’s his line.)

Doctor Bashir smiles wryly as he sets the table.

DOCTOR BASHIR: You’re the one who wanted to come here, Garak.

GARAK: And you’re the one who’s been inviting me to the holosuites all week! Why, I thought you’d be happy to see your old favourite program running again.

Julian cringes.

BASHIR: Oh, erm. Really? I thought you just meant dinner.

GARAK (smiling): My dear doctor. When have I ever “just” meant anything?

(It’s his bit… His whole personality, possibly. At any rate, it earns him a smile.)

DOCTOR BASHIR: Garak. 

GARAK: Doctor.

DOCTOR BASHIR: You’re serious? You really want to put on costumes and play-act a silly old ‘Agent Bashir’ story?

GARAK: I really don’t understand what it is you find so unbelievable. 

DOCTOR BASHIR (incredulous): You’ve done nothing but complain about it every time!

GARAK: Yes, well. Clearly, you still have much to learn about how Cardassians express affection. Now, where is your lovely valet, ah- what was she called again?

Garak smiles. It’s a former-assassin’s best impression of innocence.

DOCTOR BASHIR: You know perfectly well what she was called, Garak, you just want me to say it out loud.

Garak blinks. A perfect impression, really.

BASHIR (shaking his head): In any case, she is not here. I only called up the setting, not the characters.

(So they were alone, then. Interesting.)

Bashir pulls out a chair for Garak, who primly takes a seat.

GARAK: Thank you! I must say, Doctor, I feel exceedingly fortunate to be in your company tonight.

BASHIR (skeptical): Really? That’s… good, I did worry I was overstepping.

He sits down, and blinks in surprise as a grey hand covers his own.

GARAK: My dear.

JULIAN (gulping): Yes?

GARAK: Why ever would you think such a thing?

JULIAN: I don’t know, Garak. You did cancel on me earlier.

The Cardassian chuckles distractedly.

GARAK: Hmm… I did, didn’t I.

Bashir stares.

What sort of game are you playing? his eyes ask.

There are always games, Doctor, Garak’s reply.

(And- if he’s being honest- Elim isn’t quite sure what this one’s about.)

Doctor Bashir clears his throat.

DOCTOR BASHIR: Well. Anyway. What sort of day have you had?

(A horrible one? No, an enlightening one. A most unpleasant-)

GARAK: A quiet one.

BASHIR: That’s nice. 

GARAK: And you? The emergency, how did that go?

Bashir pauses, a spoonful of curry halfway to his mouth.

DOCTOR BASHIR: To be honest, it was a nightmare, at first. Eight patients in critical condition, simultaneously- they’d gone into neural shock.

GARAK: All of them?

DOCTOR BASHIR (around a mouthful): Mmhm! My colleagues on the surface managed to stabilise five before I got there, but unfortunately, we, um…

Garak watches as he digs aimlessly about his plate.

JULIAN: We couldn’t save the other three.

His voice is soft and collected, deadly in the way it melts at Garak’s edges like nothing else in the galaxy. That very same voice which had broken his resolve both times an implant was killing him.

“… I’m sorry to hear it,” Garak says.

“Well, the others are recovering, so… that’s good news,” it replies- so gently it threatens to unravel Garak’s entire agenda.

(And yet, Garak cannot wholly resent it. It belonged, after all, to a man who’d stand in line- even after a long, busy day at work, while mourning the loss of at least three patients- just to bring him back some good food, and spend a few hours in his company.

But, Elim cannot afford to yield to it now. Garak is supposed to be getting answers.)

He takes in a breath. 

GARAK: So what was wrong?

Julian sighs vulnerably.

DOCTOR BASHIR: There’s a lot we still don’t know about their physiology. Especially their nervous systems- did you know, they’re naturally a telekinetic species? Quark and Captain Sisko saw a Vorta shoot an energy beam out her chest, once.

GARAK: Really? I’ve never heard of such a thing.

BASHIR: Ah, but that’s because the Founders usually have the ability removed. It’s all very delicate… We’ve scoured every Dominion base we could for useful data, but most of it’s irreparably damaged, and they never built many cloning centres in the Alpha Quadrant anyway. We’ve had far better luck with the Jem’Hadar.

(Elim files this information away, so that Garak may continue the interrogation.)

… They’d never made a very good team.)

GARAK: I’m curious, Doctor- why the Vorta?

BASHIR (smiling slightly): I’m sorry?

GARAK: The Jem’Hadar, I understand- so cruelly made dependent on substances; then brainwashed into fighting their rulers’ battles. But the Vorta are shrewd, cunning tacticians! Ruthless warmongers, with the blood of millions on their hands- your own fellow Starfleet officers amongst the casualties.

He shrugs mildly.

GARAK: Why not just let them die?

(A flash of Weyoun’s righteous calm as he announced the annihilation of Lakarian City is an unexpected wound. Elim’s fist is tight as it rips through him. 

As a balm, Garak summons the satisfying thud of his body hitting the ground.)

BASHIR (incredulous): Garak. I’ve treated Vorta before, even during the war- remember? For god’s sake, I treated the bloody Founders.

(Oh, I remember, my dear. 

You even treated me.)

JULIAN: As a doctor, you don’t exactly get to play favourites.

GARAK: Well, I for one am exceedingly grateful not to be a doctor.

Julian smiles; and so warmly.

“Itak’Golar would disagree. He asked after you on the comm, you know?” he relates. “Wanted to know how “that curious Cardassian nurse” was doing.”

Garak pauses. “How nice,” he says stupidly, downing a spoonful of curry to distract himself- and… oh.

(Musilla Province was famous for its spices- and rightfully so, for if there was indeed a Celestial Temple, the uraan’j kernels now cracked open with heat were elevating Garak to it with perfectly-cooked shrimp. Surreal, after war-torn Cardassia… He’d frequently gone by on just five meals a week, surviving on whatever little he could scavenge and hoard. By the time the ration booths came around, Garak was a wanted man, and couldn’t afford to visit the same booth more than twice. And prison food had been… well, prison food.)

“This is divine.”

Julian grins. “Isn’t it? You know, Nerys told me she used to hate eating Musillan curry- it’s so extravagant, it always made her feel like she was being wasteful, somehow. But now, it’s one of her favourite dishes. Makes her feel proudest of her people.”

“Indeed.” Garak gulps, suddenly wanting to backpedal. “… Perhaps you should’ve shared this with the colonel instead.”

“Oh, not to worry- I brought her back a whole bag.” He readjusts a napkin bashfully. “I wanted to see you.”

“… How nice,” Garak says stupidly again.

(For the love of the State, Elim- stop falling for his charms and pull yourself together. 

… That sounded an awful lot like Tain. And if there was one thing Garak and Elim had in common, it was that they both listened to Tain.)

He steels himself as the doctor exhales.

DOCTOR BASHIR: At any rate, I think you’re wrong about the Vorta. They’re every bit as much victims as the Jem’Hadar.

(Ah- thank you, you sanctimonious young thing, for making this easier.)

GARAK: Do tell.

BASHIR: Well, their lives meant nothing to the Dominion. They were completely disposable, customisable- replaced without a thought whenever they died, only ever valued for their utility- 

He bridges his fingers; a poor performance of nonchalance.

JULIAN: It’s horribly tragic, isn’t it? The Founders all but stripped away their ability to enjoy anything! At least the Jem’Hadar are unique. The Vorta are the very definition of a “product”. 

Garak smiles.

GARAK: War makes “products” of us all, dear doctor. I thought you might’ve learnt that by now, having fought in one.

Bashir narrows his eyes.

BASHIR: I know that, Garak. That’s why war is bad.

(“War is bad”. He nearly bursts out laughing.)

GARAK: I see! So, they’re completely absolved of responsibility, then. Does no one have to pay for the Dominion’s crimes against the Alpha Quadrant?

Now, Julian looks afraid.

“I’m not… trying to trivialise the damage they did,” he explains. “God knows I’ve done things I regret, too… We all have. But- I just don’t see how the galaxy would be a better place if the Vorta were now punished for things they can never undo.”

“I forgive you. For whatever it is you did.” 

Garak blinks hard. Several times, preemptively. 

(He doesn’t trust his body not to betray him anymore.)

GARAK (casually): Well, you’ve always been generous.

Bashir puffs out a sigh.

BASHIR: You’re entitled to your opinion, of course. But I believe there’s hope for them.

GARAK: The next thing you know, you’ll be advocating for the Borg.

DOCTOR BASHIR: Well, if Jean-Luc Picard could come back… It’s certainly possible. Call me naive, if you want.

GARAK (smiling wickedly): My dear, I wouldn’t dream of it.

Just on cue, the doors slide apart. Ms. Mona Luvsitt walks in, effortlessly confident and scantily clad, stiletto heels clacking against the wooden floor. Doctor Bashir looks up from his plate, gaping.

BASHIR: Mona?

MS. LUVSITT: Mister Bashir, I didn’t expect you home so soon.

Bashir casts an exasperated glance Garak’s way.

BASHIR: I didn’t expect you home at all. Garak, what is this?

GARAK (innocently): Now, how would I know?

Quite against his will, the set of Bashir’s mouth begins to resemble a smile.

(A beautiful, inconveniently disarming smile.)

JULIAN: So I’m supposed to believe the holosuite just spontaneously decided to fire up a mission for us?

GARAK: Stranger things have happened.

Julian leans back on the sofa. He’s visibly blushing.

JULIAN (sheepishly): Garak, I see what you’re trying to do, but I just- I don’t think I have it in me to play this role anymore!

GARAK: Why ever not?

JULIAN: Because- well, maybe you were right! Maybe it really is just- I don’t know, shallow, unrealistic and masturbatory, I suppose.

GARAK: I certainly don’t recall using those words.

JULIAN: Look. I never even got to the last three stories in this collection, all right? I nearly deleted the whole thing, after that- jolly old time with Section 31. 

(Garak doesn’t miss the way his eyes quickly dart to the liquor cabinet; and Elim feels a quiet pang of guilt.)

JULIAN (fidgeting): I don’t know. Maybe it just doesn’t make me happy anymore, dressing up and playing hero.

(… Intriguing, Garak thinks.

Elim grasps for other words, such as “heartbreaking”, before his hands are swatted aside.)

He puts down his fork and leans forward.

GARAK: Then… perhaps, you should try playing the villain.

Julian stares.

GARAK: Only a suggestion, of course. It could break up the monotony.

Clearly intrigued, Bashir takes a slow sip of water, considering. 

BASHIR: Maybe you should play the hero.

It catches Garak so off-guard, his derisive scoff comes out as a giggle.

“My dear- don’t take this the wrong way, but- that’s ridiculous.”

“Not to me. Now- do you want to play, or not?”

Hmm… An unexpected turn. 

(Garak rationalises that Julian is more likely to talk if the game is played on his terms, and Elim marvels at how powerless he’s always been against that particular combination of gentle sternness and endearingly arched eyebrows.)

He sets down his bowl. “Very well. Find me a tuxedo.”

His priorities threaten to undergo a radical alteration when Julian emerges from the bedroom and stops, looking him up and down with pure delight.

“Worth it for this sight alone,” he chuckles, walking over.

“Do I really look so comical?” 

“Comical? My dear Mister Garak, you cut quite the dashing figure.” His voice has dropped to a flirtatious hush, and it occurs to Garak that he really could just play pretend with Julian for an hour and leave the holosuites with their friendship intact. 

(He intensifies the glint in his eye, then, stifling the urge.) 

“Sadly, I can’t say the same of you.” He regards Julian’s misshapen beige cardigan. “Your character is some sort of- scientist, I presume?”

“Correct,” he says smoothly, blinking in surprise as Miss Luvsitt ignores him completely and moves over to adjust Garak’s collar instead.

“Comfortable, Mister Bashir?” she purrs in his ear. 

Julian looks like he’s about to burst out laughing.

“Yes, thank you.” Garak smiles politely as she smooths down his shirt- a process for which she employs a frankly unnecessary amount of touching.

She trails her fingers along his cheek. “Anything else I can do for you?”

Somehow, Garak has the feeling Julian normally would’ve come to his rescue, but is electing to throw him to the wolves today. The insufferable man’s even made himself comfortable on the couch, damn him- one leg crossed over a knee, as if he’s watching a play. 

“That would be all, my dear.”

“Not so fast,” Julian laughs. “I read the holoprompter. We’re meant to fly over to Istanbul, where you’ll think you’re gathering intel on an American billionaire’s purchase of plutonium, with my expert help- only to find out much later that I’m the billionaire.”

“I see. What’s your character called?”

“Doctor Amadeus Gore.”

“And it’s supposed to be a surprise that you’re evil?” 

“Garak!” Julian rolls his eyes fondly. “Look, I’ve already admitted this game is silly, so if you’re just going to make fun-”

“No, no! No.” He holds his arms up, then turns to Miss Luvsitt. “Fire up the jet, darling.”

Julian shakes his head, smiling an old smile.

And it is silly, but… Garak cannot deny this somehow feels more real than any exchange they’d shared since the doctor kissed him.

Fifteen unrealistic minutes later, they’re roaming the streets of Türkiye.

“I didn’t know you liked Motown.” 

Garak checks his holoprompter… It’s blank under ‘Doctor Gore’.

Julian asking, then.

“The melody was rather pleasant.” He says this to avoid commenting on the lyrics; some of their in-flight entertainment had almost made him shut off his translator. 

(It had also served as one of two possible excuses for Julian’s (or Gore’s?) hand to slip discreetly into his during the landing.) 

“I didn’t know you were afraid of heights.”

Julian holds up a coin from the street to the light. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me. My metal detector, please?”

Garak hands him a small, silly-looking device. It chitters and blips merrily as his friend points it at a nearby warehouse. 

“My, you really know how to work that thing.”

Julian turns to him, caught off-guard.

He smiles. “Just getting into character, Doctor.”

“Of course,” he mutters, smirking unconsciously. “… There.”

Garak enjoys the charming inaccuracies as “Doctor Gore” continues to scan the room inside.

“Damn. I’m afraid there’s no doubt about it, Agent- Mister Harcourt bought two hundred grams of plutonium in this very spot, and he will be back for more.” Julian shakes his head dramatically. “Imagine! That kind of power in his irresponsible hands…” 

Garak widens his eyes. “Could very well spell the end of the world.”

“Or the start of a new one!”

They whip about to see a gunman enter the warehouse, his telltale eyepatch glittering in the low light.

“Falcon,” Julian snarls. He seems to be enjoying himself.

Garak’s prompter reads, Mystery: How does Doctor Gore know Falcon?

“I gather the two of you are acquainted?”

“Oh, we’re acquainted, all right,” the assassin scoffs. “This fella sold me out to the fuzz three years ago!”

“Sold you out? You were working for Donna Kimberly! She’s a fascist and an egomaniac,” Gore shoots back, sounding perfectly sincere- Garak is beginning to think he’s a more interesting character than he’d given him credit for.

“Shoulda known you’d take up with the likes of him,” Falcon says, now turning to Garak. “Surprised to see me, Mister Bashir?”

“Frankly, no. It’s been nine years, Falcon,” Garak chirps. “You’re like a small, ugly weed I just can’t root out of my garden.”

Julian is barely containing the most unsubtle grin. 

“A weed, am I?” Falcon moves in until the barrel of his gun is mere inches from Garak’s nose.

(Elim’s tongue burns with the memory of a disruptor forced against it. Garak tries to push it aside- it doesn’t work, so he reluctantly summons Julian kissing him instead.)

“Well, you should use something a little more lethal than a rake. Something…” Now, Falcon uses the gun to tip Garak’s chin upwards. “… Like this.”

Goodness, the man really had an extremely limited set of responses. Garak almost would’ve preferred Chief O’Brien.  

“I’ll keep that in mind.” His prompter is blank; but Julian appears to be reading. “I suppose you’ve been sent here to kill us?”

“Kill you? Ha! If I wanted you dead, you’d be floating in the Bosporous by now.” 

Garak highly doubts that, but allows the old oaf to bluster on all the same.

“Oh no, Mister Bashir… Luckily for you, my employer wants a meeting. Face… to face.” He punctuates this by drawing the gun once more over Garak’s chin, which Julian observes with mild discomfort. 

What would happen, Garak wonders, were he to shoot Falcon now? Would the game end, or spin off in a completely unpredictable direction? 

(And what would happen to this secret, secondary game he and Julian were playing?)

Summon your trusty getaway car, the prompter finally says. How quaint! I could’ve used one of those in the Obsidian Order.

“Give me a moment? It seems my lace is undone.” 

At Falcon’s acquiescence, Garak crouches and presses the button he knows is hidden in his shoe… He glances up at Doctor Gore, and with a meaningful look, Julian nods.

Ready. 

They waste no time once Agent Bashir’s signature vehicle bursts through the warehouse’s walls, swerving to a halt amongst the wreckage. Mona Luvsitt flips her hair in the drivers seat.

“I leave you boys alone for one minute!” she huffs as they clamber in.

“Apologies, my dear, but apparently plutonium doesn’t quite attract the most agreeable people. Drive!” 

Falcon’s bullets pelt away at the car as they screech into the city. 

Garak turns to Bashir.

GARAK: How did he know?

Bashir leans out the window to fire back a few rounds, then turns to Garak.

BASHIR: Know what?

GARAK: That we’d be here, Doctor! That I’d come to Istanbul. How could Falcon possibly know these things about me?

Julian frowns. 

He’s confused; Agent Bashir isn’t meant to be suspicious of Gore so early. Garak is going off script.

JULIAN: His employer’s a- man of many talents, I suppose!

GARAK: I see! And who, exactly- were you to venture a guess- would that employer be?

Now, Julian stares.

(What are you really asking? his eyes are saying.

Garak’s reply, I think you know.)

Bashir awkwardly clears his throat.

DOCTOR GORE: Nick Harcourt, of course. Who else could have the resources to learn so much about you, a spy who covers his tracks so well?

(The admission makes Garak’s eyes go wide with glee, and it’s almost enough to cover the sound of Elim’s heart breaking.)

GARAK: Who else but Nick Harcourt, indeed.

“Damn,” Luvsitt shouts, breaking through his thoughts. “We’ve got company!”

Two large, black automobiles close in as they speed down the runway, bullets raining upon them. If this were real, Garak very much doubted all three of them would survive the climb to the jet.

But Mona’s deadly stiletto heel has slammed against the brakes, and now they’re all making a run for it.

“Duck!” Julian yells, which Garak does just in time for three bullets to whizz past him and meet their victims. He’s seen the doctor kill before- numerous times, during and before the war- but the sight of Julian taking lives so casually still strikes him as strange.

(… Strangely arousing, too; but they were hardly mutually exclusive.)

“Wonderful aim,” Garak gasps out, “for a scientist!” 

They leap behind a baggage cart, both panting. Julian’s eyes are wild.

“I think you’ll find, Mister Bashir, that I’m full of surprises,” he grins- then yelps as another wave of bullets clatters against the dolly. “Jesus- Christ! This is your day job!?” 

“Indeed,” Garak huffs, reloading his pistol. “Great Britain doesn’t pay me enough.” 

And he jumps to his feet and fires away. 

“You’ll have to climb!” he yells. One bulky silhouette crumples to the floor. “I’ll cover you!” 

“Are you sure?!” Gore yelps. “I don’t know if I’ll make it!”

(… Something from the prompter, no doubt.)

“Yes, Doctor! You’ll just have to trust me!”

A ridiculous sentence- inevitably stained false as it leaps from Garak’s mouth.

But Julian just nods, all tight-lipped determination. “Okay!”

He launches out from behind the car, flashes from guns illuminating his dash to the ramp where Luvsitt is waiting- but just as she reaches for his hand-

BANG!

“Ah!” Julian shouts, grabbing his shoulder- his hand’s coated with blood as it’s pulled away. 

“Doctor!” 

(It’s fake, but- well, the possibility of death had been real enough the first time they’d run this program together. Elim can’t help but be a little alarmed at Julian bleeding so profusely.)

He scrambles towards the plane, shooting blindly all the way- music blaring in the background; triumphant and heroic and just about the opposite of everything Garak feels.

“Doctor, are you all right?”

“They shot me,” Julian says, in a tone that’s either poorly-performed agony or extremely realistic shock.

Garak grabs him by the legs, helping Luvsitt bring him inside. “You’ll live. Now, Mona darling- fly us the hell out of here!”

Julian half-breaks character with a chuckle.

“On it!”

Patch up your injured friend, the prompter reads- Garak is already well ahead. Calmly, he rummages through the medkit, the sound of bullets hammering away at the jet fading to nothing in the background. His priorities lie elsewhere.

Doctor Gore is hurt.

(Julian is hurt.)

Besides, a mere ten seconds later, the plane is already pointed skywards… Garak figures Mona can handle it. She is, after all, very capable.

“Here, let me.” 

But- hmm. This pretence again. There’s no way to do this without unbuttoning Doctor Gore’s shirt. Thankfully, Julian doesn’t seem to have any objections… Garak wonders what the prompter’s feeding him. Was this… tension between them part of the story, or just a happy accident because they were playing the roles?

“Ah… Son of a bitch,” his patient curses, playing up his discomfort as the holographic alcohol Garak pours over his holographic wound washes out holographic blood. “This is why I never leave the lab!”

“A little sunshine can do wonders for the spirit,” he says cheerfully. “Hold still.”

He slathers some sort of miracle ‘Agent Bashir’ medicine over the wound, watching it solidify.

“Fascinating. Did they not have dermal regenerators in this era?”

“No,” Julian chuckles, leaning back against the jet’s wall. “Actually, if this were realistic, you’d be stitching me up with a needle.”

“Something far more qualified to a simple tailor.”

“I’m sure,” he says affectionately. “Well, I’m very impressed all the same, Agent.”

“Why, thank you, Doctor.”

In the flickering light of the jet’s emergency signs, the smile playing at Julian’s lips is impossibly soft… They’re both shaking, the holosuite floor rumbling away beneath them, where Julian’s legs are stretched out and Garak is crouching over him. They’re so close. 

Garak blinks. What could possibly be the point of this scene? Merely to sympathise Gore, make him appear more vulnerable, more… Human?

… Human, like Julian’s skin, so alluringly warm under his fingers. 

That wrinkly Human brow. That warm-blooded Human heart, hammering away with adrenaline under that curious, unadorned chest.

Those strange, kind, expressive eyes, the most beautiful Garak has ever seen.

Kiss him, he thinks unprompted.

… And the prompter doesn’t seem to have any objections.

Julian swallows. “Garak-”

Go on, do it. Kiss him. More a demand this time, really- and his fingers obediently brush up against Julian’s throat, feeling intimately the catch of his breath.

Garak is near hypnotised by the simplicity of it. 

(Kiss him! Elim begs. For the love of the State, it wouldn’t even be out of place in this ludicrous game. What are you waiting for?

What indeed! says Tain- yes, definitely Tain. Have you forgotten already? “Doctor Gore” is meant to be the enemy! You never understood some of the more complicated lessons, dear boy, but don’t tell me you’re too stupid for ‘Agent Bashir’-)

Garak blinks, shaking temptation away… no, Tain was right. He’d brought Julian to the holosuite for a reason, and it wasn’t to bed him-

(Although that would be nice, wouldn’t it- to finally just give in, and get this seven-year distraction out of his system-)

“… Garak.” Julian straightens, now looking away, and the moment is mercifully shattered.

The Agent clears his throat. 

GARAK (withdrawing his hand): My apologies, Doctor.

BASHIR: No, no… it’s… 

Julian gathers his shirt back over himself, sighing in a way that’s almost…

(… flustered? 

No, not flustered. Frustrated.

Victory.)

BASHIR (stiffly): It’s fine.

Garak responds with a cool, collected smile-

(and Elim tries not to think how he could’ve instead been kissing his way down Julian’s stomach by now.)

BASHIR (lightly): Another win for your suspiciously good first aid skills! You really were quite helpful on the Defiant, sometimes.

(His attempts to tease away the tension claw at Elim’s resolve, and Garak must see them eliminated at once.)

THE AGENT: Yes… There’s a lot one can learn, in my line of work.

He starts to pack away the medical supplies with cool detachment, letting the implications bite and burrow and itch.

BASHIR: Undercover work?

THE AGENT: I- suppose that could come in handy, if the situation demanded it.

Clink, clink… The instruments aren’t the only things falling into place. Bashir tracks them warily with his eyes, while Garak allows the silence to turn words into horrors.

BASHIR: You’d… heal your victims, after torturing them. So nobody’d believe a word they said.

(He hopes his eyes are gleaming.)

THE AGENT: Very good, Doctor- turn a captive free covered in scars, and all you’ll make is a hero. But someone who can barely remember what happened to them, without a shred of proof they were even harmed?

What follows is more a strangled gust of breath than a laugh.

JULIAN: I-

GARAK: No one really knows what to make of the torturer who gently patched them up, do they? Least of all the captives themselves.

Those soft Human features are now fixed; like porcelain.

GARAK (rambling): And by all accounts, they were treated wonderfully! Cardassian records are, after all, famously meticulous- and every one of them states they were fed, watered, and allowed to rest… Who’s to say what was real, and what wasn’t.

MONA (over the plane’s PA): Mister Bashir, we’ll be landing in New York on your private runway soon.

GARAK (unhearing): The drugs muddle everything, of course. So now, the burden of remembering must fall to me-

JULIAN: Garak-

GARAK: Because they forget, Doctor. All that remains is an assortment of random details, at best. And what are details worth, anyway? When the information they coughed out was already known to us; when there’s footage of them laughing and dining with the enemy- footage we took pride in our ability to doctor, of course- who’s to say it didn’t happen, hm? All their comrades will ever see is a liar- a traitor among them, desperately clinging to some fantasy of being the victim-

The syringe in his hand breaks.

(Elim stares in horror.)

Not even a dramatic shatter that would befit this program, just… a quiet snap, breaking unceremoniously beneath Garak’s thumb. The neon green contents trickle down his hand now, mingling with holographic red.

JULIAN (taking in a deep breath): Look, I-

MONA (over the speakers): We have landed in New York City.

Bashir sighs and gives up.

“Home, sweet home,” he says irreverently.

Garak wipes the blood off his hands, daintily pockets his handkerchief, and smiles. 

“You’ll have to take me sightseeing, Doctor Gore.”

An entire battle is fought and lost on Julian’s face before he replies, “Well, I know where to start. See this?”

That little disc he’d picked off the road; which Garak’s prompter now declares is no simple coin. 

“I see you recognise it.” 

“Yes.” Garak picks it up, careful not to let their fingers brush. “This is a VIP pass to the Masquerade- Nicholas Harcourt’s exclusive casino.”

“So exclusive, even these tokens are made of Harcourtium- the rarest metal on Earth.” Julian narrows his eyes. “How do you know about it?”

He grins. “I’m a spy. It’s my job to know things. The better question is, how do you?”

“Mister Bashir?” Mona emerges from the cockpit, and with the press of a button, a closet reveals itself. She pulls two crisp suits from the rack. “If you’re going to the Masquerade, you’ll need to look your best.” 

Julian quirks his brow with palpable mischief. “She’s right. Harcourt’s defences are famously impenetrable.”

“Impenetrable, you say?” Garak’s sly smile successfully infects him. “Well, what makes you think he’ll let you in?”

Bashir even has the nerve to bite his lip playfully, the menace.

“The fact that looks can be deceiving.”

And he shrugs Garak off like an old alias, heading casually for the washroom with an armful of new clothes… Garak is 75% sure he’d begun stripping before fully crossing the door on purpose, and 100% sure his mission to drive his companion insane was a success.

(Go inside and “assist” him! shouts the tailor.

Shut up, says the spy.)

The Masquerade is more tastefully decorated than the garish Ingenue- elegant chandeliers trickling from ceiling to floor, casting various game tables in a soft light that surprisingly didn’t hurt Garak’s eyes. A pleasant tune sweetens the air- “Motown” again, if he isn’t mistaken. The bar is fully stocked. Live food counters line the walls, packed with staff ready to cater to a gamblers’ every whim. It’s a perfect place to while away a few hours… or days, really. One couldn’t always say.

(Artificial lights, comfortable chairs, not a clock in sight… Familiarly clever.)

“I’m going to go scan the perimeter,” Mona declares, tactfully leaving the two of them alone. 

Order a martini at the bar.

“Doctor, can I buy you a drink?”

“Hm?” Julian was bobbing his head to the music. “Yes, of course.”

“Your preference?”

“Surprise me.” 

Garak orders something called a Lime Soda Volcano for Julian, and he’s busy watching the bartend concoct his martini when a pale, manicured hand coasts along his shoulder.

“It really is you,” coos a beautiful woman in a somewhat ugly dress- it takes a moment, but he does recognise her. “I never thought I’d see you again.”

Garak straightens.

GARAK (politely): Colonel Komananov.

(It’s a small mercy, he thinks, that she no longer bears resemblance to a certain other colonel.)

KOMANANOV: Now, what’s all this “colonel” business, Julian?

Smiling, she slides a hand into his hair and leans in close.

KOMANANOV: You used to call me “Ana”…

GARAK (unaffected): Did I?

KOMANANOV (mocking): “Did I?” Oh… the last time we were together, you couldn’t seem to stop calling-

GARAK (chuckling drily): Of course.

But his eyes catch Bashir watching him from a distance; his mask of detached amusement soured with what is… unmistakably, envy.

And suddenly, Garak is playing a very different game.

THE AGENT (smoothly): Now that you mention it. I do recall a most… passionate farewell.

KOMANANOV: I am insulted you forgot in the first place.

THE AGENT: … Oh, dear. However can I make it up to you?

He readjusts a strand of her hair, and in the corner of his vision, Julian visibly rolls his eyes.

(Great guls, was I that obvious all those years ago?)

KOMANANOV: Well…

She moves in for a kiss- only to instantly pull away; a case file previously hidden State-knows-where suddenly between their faces.

KOMANANOV: I am here for the American. Allow me to kill him, and I won’t breathe a word to my superiors that you were here.

Garak tips back, impressed.

THE AGENT: Now, why would I let you upset my entire operation?

KOMANANOV (smiling): You wouldn’t do it just to make a girl feel special?

THE AGENT: Tragically, no. I’m afraid it takes a little more than that for me to betray my State, Ana.

(Ha! Says the two-time exile.)

The colonel is suddenly urgent.

KOMANANOV: Julian- listen to me. Nicholas Harcourt is not simple playboy billionaire. He is building a superweapon- and if successful, he will sell it to the government. Now, who do you think they will come for first? An enemy?

She glides a hand up his arm.

KOMANANOV: Or, an ally?

Garak smiles.

THE AGENT: You always made a good case.

She flashes her sultry grin.

KOMANANOV: And always, you flatter me. I like it. Make no mistake, I am still going to kill him- but, I like it.

Slowly, she smooths both hands across his shoulders, murmuring in his ear…

KOMANANOV: To show my gratitude, I will offer some advice, yes? Do not turn your back to that one over there.

GARAK: Doctor Gore?

KOMANANOV: Da.

GARAK: My dear…? I can’t imagine what you mean. He’s harmless; merely an over-eager youth who longs for a better world. Why, throughout our acquaintance, he’s been nothing but compassionate, an idealist to the core! He wouldn’t hurt anyone.

She laughs disbelievingly; a huff of breath warm against his cheek.

KOMANANOV: I have never known you to be foolish.

“Gaa-rak?”

Julian is waiting with arms crossed, impatient enough to break character. “Are you planning to bring me that drink sometime this year?”

(… How very charming.)

“Apologies, my friend! I’ll be with you in a moment,” Garak calls, then leans in towards his companion once more. “What do you know about him?”

The colonel’s gaze is intense.

KOMANANOV: There is… How would you Englishmen put it? More to him than what meets the eye.

(If only someone had told me, Elim thinks.)

Garak simply smiles, coiling a ringlet of brown hair around his finger.

GARAK: A trait common to all my favourite people.

Komananov looks at him lovingly.

ANA: I… I am going to miss you, Julian. Very much.

Garak blinks.

GARAK: You sound as if you don’t believe we’ll see each other again.

(… Oh! This was the last ‘Julian Bashir: Secret Agent’ holonovel, wasn’t it?)

ANA: I want to believe… There is so much to tell you, Julian, so much left to say. But… Who knows?

(Garak doesn’t think he’s imagining the tears in her eyes.)

ANA: Things do not always turn out as we think.

(… And he isn’t imagining being strangely moved by this, either.)

GARAK: No. They don’t.

She stares at him beseechingly, almost as if waiting for something- something different, something drastic, something small, ANYTHING-

ANA: Well?

GARAK: Well, what?

ANA (holding back desperation): You are just going to let me walk out of here? 

Garak stares.

Suddenly, she seems angry.

ANA: Julian! After everything we’ve been through- all of our missions together, and- and everything else, you are going to just let me leave? You won’t even tell me you love me, or say I, too, was special to you? Or that you’ll miss me? You won’t even-

He leans in and kisses her.

(It’s probably a sign of just how starved he is for touch, that he finds himself pressing in closer, cinematically chasing that holographic warmth… Garak couldn’t exactly call her closeness unwelcome, but it certainly is frustrating; having her fictional hands caressing him while the real object of his desires is right there, still somehow out of reach-

Meanwhile Elim is recounting that last kiss, the shock of it, the tears, the shame, the fear, the fear, the fear-)

They pull apart. 

ANA (breathless): I see you have… taken my earrings.

GARAK: And you’ve stolen my VIP tokens! Good luck, my dear, playing the exclusive lounge- he’ll never see you coming.

A slow smile of satisfaction spreads across her face.

ANA (purring): You old romantic.

Garak sighs.

GARAK: Ana… The truth is, the certainty that we will meet again is just as strong as the certainty we won’t. I wouldn’t be so cynical about it, if I were you.

Komananov smiles.

ANA: Then I say, “Til’ next time”, Julian. Take care of yourself. And… 

She murmurs in his ear.

ANA: You wouldn’t catch me dead in exclusive lounge- full of ugly, greedy old men who bore me. Besides- it is on the tenth floor, and… well, rumour has it Nick Harcourt is seriously not fond of heights.

She pulls away, smiling.

ANA (dreamily): I think… I will see you again at sea. Somewhere nice. Hmm?

With that, she slips away; a sparkling shadow into the night. 

He sighs once again, tucking her earrings- carefully, one does not make mistakes with explosives twice- inside his shirt pocket, and carries their drinks back to Julian.

JULIAN (sarcastically): Having fun?

Garak half-smiles, suddenly a bit abashed… Even if the goal was to get answers, this behaviour was cruel. 

“Just… catching up with an old friend.”

“… I’m sure.” Some of the annoyance drains from Julian’s stance. Garak watches him as they both pause time for a sip. 

“Delicious,” he remarks blandly… mostly to stop staring at his friend’s lips.

“Shaken, not stirred?”

“Obviously. How’s yours?” 

Julian inhales passive-aggressively. “Thirsty, Agent?”

“I’m simply asking how your drink is.”

“Well, why not steal a taste and find out?”

Garak hoods his eyes with amusement. “I’m… more of a martini man, myself,” he says carefully.

“Why, because you’re cold, salty, and dry?”

… Now, that was keenly flirtatious, even by Human standards. 

(By Cardassian ones, Julian was practically falling out of his clothes.)

“I assure you, I’m… quite the opposite of dry.”

Julian coughs up some soda. “And what exactly would that be, Agent?” he sniffs, chuckling.

“Interesting, of course.”

“Of course.” He gestures to the drink in Garak’s hand. “Couldn’t possibly be ‘dirty’.”

“Why not ‘perfect’?”

Those lovely eyes dance with affection. 

“A perfect arse, is what you are,” he says softly. “But… yes, Garak. Well. To me, anyway.” 

Quite against his will, Garak’s words take on a certain warmth. “Why, Doctor… you seem a little shaken and stirred, yourself.”

“Hm.” Julian is watching him strangely; still fond. Always fond. “I’m about to betray you, you know.”

“How nice of you to warn me.”

He laughs again, quietly ducking his head. “All right. You want the good news, or the bad?”

“Both, I’d wager.”

(The music is loud, all of a sudden- If you feel that you can’t go on-)

“The good news is, there’s a way you can secure a meeting with Harcourt.”

(Ah, the same record Gore had played in the jet! Because all of your hope is gone-)

“As for the bad news…” 

(And your life is filled with much confusion- But why was the room suddenly spinning?)

“Well, it seems your Russian friend slipped a little something in your drink, Agent.”

(Until happiness is just an illusion- Oh, for pity’s sake- why did Humans enjoy losing consciousness in their recreational programs? Ridiculous!)

Julian shrugs faux-apologetically as his legs start to buckle. “Sorry… But, the best martinis do come with a twist.”

(And your world around is crumbling down- When had Komananov done this, exactly? Darling, reach out- Yes, this was merely a childish game, but it was so unlike Garak not to notice-)

The holosuite is blurring his surroundings, tilting the floor- and the agent half-falls into Gore’s arms.

(Reach out…)

“Doctor?” he slurs- the simulation really was convincing.

(Reach out…)

“Whoa there! Looks like my friend’s had a few too many- better get the poor thing home, eh, folks?” Now walking them away, Julian leans in close. “Did you really think you could win?” he murmurs, pitched low. “Did you honestly believe you stood even the tiniest chance against me; the great Nicholas Harcourt?”

There’s a quiet venom in Julian’s voice, and Garak can’t understand it. The room is falling away… He used to think he was so smart, always aware of everything going on around him, what a fool he was, how clueless he’d been, how arrogant…

(I’ll be there, to give you all the love you need…)

I’ll be there, you can always depend on me…

I’ll be there…

The song fades out and the world fades in, and he finds himself upon a sofa. Julian- or rather, Nicholas Harcourt- sits across from him, smiling enigmatically. 

(Not bad, as transitions go… Garak would rate this holonovel a 6/10.) 

“Mister Bashir.”

“Doctor Gore… Though, I suppose we’re a little past calling you that.”

The enigmatic smile turns villainous. 

(Garak thinks it’s adorable, and Elim finds it unsettling; how easily those beautiful features can be moulded.)

“You can call me whatever you like,” he shrugs. “How about “Nick”? Now that you’re finally here on my private island off the coast of New York, with only my guards around us. An excellent opportunity to get to know each other better, wouldn’t you say?”

The agent regards him curiously. “How can I “get to know” someone who was never really himself around me?”

(Anyone else- anyone else would’ve missed the way Bashir almost flinched.)

“I assure you, the time for illusions is up. I am exactly who I say I am.”

“And what is it you want?” 

Julian smiles again- this time, a smile Garak recognises; something playful and fun-loving.

(… And this swaggering performance was unfortunately attractive.)

“What I want, Mister Bashir- is complete control.”

“Control over what?”

“You! Me! Everything, the world,” Julian raves, getting up to pace the room- it’s plush and indulgent as silk; all rich woods and velvet maroons. “Do you know, I have a gift? A gift to see the future.”

“You don’t say!” 

“And what I see,” he continues, “is annihilation. Destruction. World War Three.” Those same eyes now glimmer with the sort of conviction that suggests one could, at any point, blow up a shuttle to lure one’s enemies into a war, or attempt mass murder to prevent one.

Garak finds it difficult to look.

“But what I also see… is a revolution,” Harcourt declares. “Computers. Billions of them- beautiful, hand-held things- capable of forming bonds with the owner, learning their habits, thoughts, desires! And sooner or later, well- masters always lose control over their pets.” 

(If only, Elim thinks.)

“These innocuous little devices give way to- cybernetic augmentations, cranial implants! People like you and I become remnants of a bygone world. But if we adapt…” Julian tilts his head. “Oh, then we could really be something.” 

“This is all very fascinating,” Garak says. “But what does it have to do with me?” 

His enemy considers him. “You see, I plan to ensure it’s my computers in the hands of people all over the world,” he explains. “With each passing day, they’ll become more susceptible to my manipulation- through invisible waves emanating from the screens! And all those habits, thoughts, desires- well, they’d be mine.”

Harcourt pauses by the window.

“It’s the future, Agent. And I’d like you to be my partner.” 

The agent blinks- then laughs, self-righteous as called for. “You must be joking.”

“Not at all,” he says. “We’re very similar, you and I. If we joined forces- my innovation and charisma, your strength and intelligence- why, we’d be unstoppable together!” 

“Surely, a scheme of this magnitude is beyond anything my skillset could offer.” 

“Harcourtium waves are activated by special plutonium cells. And your comman-… your government, has authorised you to make plutonium deals for this mission. Supply me- and I’ll make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.”

(Your commanding officer, dear doctor? Well, that certainly made sense.

Garak’s jaw aches with the memory of a then-corporeal fist.)

“But why attempt to persuade me like this? If you truly can control my thoughts,” he probes. “It’s not very efficient.”

Julian crosses his arms. He doesn’t seem to know what to say.

“Well, let me put it this way,” he goes with. “It would be easy to force you. What I want is genuine loyalty, your…” He pauses. “Your devotion.” 

(Now, there’s a throbbing ache along his eyeridge- the ghost of a Changeling’s very-solid fist. “Oh, that looks painful”, Julian had said that day. As if Odo hadn’t been the one crumbling to dust mere hours before.)

His enemy’s hand now hovers before him, outstretched. 

“What do you say?”

Garak regards him suspiciously. “This is a trick.” 

“No tricks. You wanna leave, I’ll have a guard of mine escort you back to the mainland. I want you to join me, Agent.”

(“Agent”. How laughable and meaningless the word sounds, now.)

“Well?”

Bashir is waiting.

And the holoprompter is curiously quiet.

(Elim stares at that hand he’s always wanted to hold… and too bad, really, because Garak is enacting a very different fantasy.)

“… No,” he murmurs. “You must think I’m malleable as claysand, to abandon my morals at the drop of a hat. I’m loyal to my people, not to you. I won’t join you.”

(Neither Garak nor Elim can tell if the hurt in Julian’s eyes is real. 

Was he posed a similar question by Section 31?)

“Your Russian lover didn’t seem to have such qualms,” Harcourt points out.

Garak sighs. “She stuck by her people and principles, as I will with mine. Our relationship is irrelevant. It was inevitable we had to part ways.”

“Bullshit,” Julian whispers, apparently surprised at himself.

“… I am sorry, my young friend,” he replies. “But, that’s the way the world works.” 

After a long moment, Bashir coldly mutters, “Fine. I suppose you’ve made your choice, then. Guards!”

A handful of thugs burst into the room, Falcon in the lead- and of course he’s holding a gun to Miss Luvsitt’s head.

Oh no! Mona’s in danger!, the prompter very helpfully informs him.

“Ah! I take it you weren’t really working for “Donna Kimberly”?”

The assassin sneers. “I was, actually!” 

“Old alias of mine,” Bashir says, a touch wistful. “Didn’t quite fit anymore, you know?”

“Julian,” Luvsitt whimpers. “I’m sorry- They caught me while I was-”

“It’s all right, Mona.”

“You’ll get us out of this, won’t you?” 

Garak stares at her. This was the fantasy… wasn’t it? Not the glamour of espionage- or wealth, or adventure, or even attractive holograms throwing themselves at you. No; this was about being able to promise someone you’d save the day, and then never, ever failing to live up to that promise. That was all Julian wanted.

Something aches within Garak’s chest. 

Julian, meanwhile, circles Luvsitt with cartoonish glee. “How touching… You really should put your trust in someone more reliable, sweetheart.” He turns to Garak. “I’m going to need you to complete that plutonium deal.”

“And if I refuse?” 

“She dies.”

Garak smiles. “Now, whatever happened to “no tricks”?”

“Surprise- I lied! That really shouldn’t surprise you anymore, Bashir.” 

Ouch, he says with his face- though the obvious delight in his eyes says, touché.

“I won’t cooperate.” 

(He’s curious to see what’ll happen.)

Julian’s eyes are reading… Garak awaits his fate.

(Come on, Doctor. You can do it.

Give me what I deserve.)

“Strap him to the Hypnotiser,” Harcourt declares. 

“Tell me,” Garak laughs, as two henchmen drag him towards a slanted, dubious-looking contraption, “why did you go to all this trouble?”

Bashir frowns. “I’m sorry?”

“All these- deceptions, the aliases, the play-acting, all of it. What was the point?”

“To deceive you, of course.”

“Forgive me, but…” He smiles as he’s strapped in. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Garak. Are you seriously pointing out plot-holes now?”

“No! I only mean, Mister Harcourt, that- you appear to be deceiving no one but yourself.”

(This was it. Things just didn’t add up, with Julian’s ill-defined position within Starfleet, the Bajoran vedek, Section 31… This was where Garak would get his answers.

You could’ve just asked him, Elim points out.

Well, that’s exactly the sort of attitude that got you killed.)

“I’m building a new world,” Harcourt pushes back. “A world in which I could play the stock market like a fiddle, or run for president tomorrow and win! I could convince entire populations to jump in the ocean just because I’m bored. That’s power, Agent. Where’s the delusion in that?”

(Julian’s voice is out of character; it lacks conviction. 

What’s going on? his eyes are asking.

And it’s a good thing Garak brought the mask, because Elim’s are screaming, I don’t know, I don’t know.)

“Clearly, you don’t understand “power” at all.”

“How so?” Julian asks; strangely contemplative.

“You have no idea what it is, do you? You’ve never truly experienced it in your life.”

(What am I saying?)

“Big words, from someone strapped to a table.”

“Why am I? Here, strapped to a table. And please don’t say you need me alive for plutonium, my dear- you can get that any way you want.”

(These aren’t the questions we prepared! Garak protests- or Elim or Enabran or State-knows-who-else.)

“My guess?” says the agent. “You’re bored. Unspeakably bored. And miserable, and lonely- so you spin these tales, and entertain yourself with my reactions. You could’ve just acted like you didn’t know Falcon, but you chose to make me suspicious. You scattered these crumbs yourself! Why? Were you secretly hoping someone would see them? Me, perhaps?”

Julian scoffs. “Well, you certainly have a high opinion of yourself.”

“I don’t! You’re just that pathetic,” Garak laughs spitefully. “Whisking me off on needlessly complicated adventures, because you don’t have any friends-”

“Agent Bashir, I don’t think you understand,” Bashir muses. “I’m Nicholas Harcourt! I have the most powerful, influential friends in the country.”

“Who’d all stab you in the back, if it suited them.”

Julian’s eyes widen, ever-so-slightly. I see, he seems to say. I see you.

(Garak feels very, very naked.)

“Say what you like. Soon, I’ll have an army.”

“And still, you won’t have what you seek.”

“Well, who are you to talk, anyway?” Julian says a little desperately. “Flying about from place to place, chasing success and fixing problems- then leaving, because you couldn’t stand to get left. Lonely life, isn’t it? Where are your friends?”

Garak shrugs. “I have Mona, and Komananov-”

“Your colleagues?”

“As far as I’m concerned, they’re family.” He turns to Mona, who gazes back, pleasantly surprised. “They’ve rescued me more times than I could count, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. What good is power and control, if you can’t trust anyone enough to share it?”

(I’ve missed you, Elim, Tain’s voice drones on. Things just haven’t been the same since you left…)

“I’m building a better world,” Julian argues again- his prompter was likely losing its mind. “For superior people. I’ll forever be known as the man who brought order to chaos.”

“Oh, spare me. You’re so sheltered and naive!”

(Was Harcourt sheltered? Garak really doesn’t know. 

He also doesn’t care.)

“Have you so much as gone outside and talked to these people you want to control?” he goes on. “You have no idea what they’re like, do you? What they want, how they live. Yet, you’re so fanatically devoted to squashing them under your boot. Why? Because it’s the only thing you’ve ever been good at?”

“I don’t-”

“Are you afraid you’ll meet someone who actually, “god forbid”, challenges you? Are you afraid of me?”

“Of you?”

“Yes! My very existence disrupts your worldview. You never knew there could be people like me, so selfless, and good, and- and unreal! I’m a threat to everything you believe.”

“A threat to- oh, you’re unbearably arrogant,” Julian snarls, and something about it makes Garak’s blood freeze. “You’re nothing, Bashir! Men like me, we’re untouchable. We’re more powerful and well-connected than you realise, and you? You’re just a silly idealist with a broken heart. I mean, look at you! Mouthing the platitudes of an institution that hates you… You parade around like some beacon of justice, when really, all you do is leave a trail of destruction wherever you go- and endanger everyone you care about!” He points aggressively to Mona. “You think you’re some great nemesis I’ve feared all my life? You’re more like- some annoying little insect people like me swat aside!”

Garak stares. Julian seems to realise that he was, perhaps, getting a little too into it. 

“… You’re not a hero,” he mutters more softly, venomous all the same. “The sooner you realise it, the better.”

And- no, forsake it all, this was actually making Garak angry.

“All these pretty inventions, these elaborate aliases and fictions,” he taunts, “and you’re the least imaginative person I’ve ever met. You don’t even know how to behave, when someone’s being kind to you, and suspicion isn’t an option. You can’t even fathom a life beyond hurting and terrorising your own people!”

“Garak, I think-” 

“You’re a selfish old coward who was never as important or useful as you thought you were, and you’re going to die miserable and alone, because you don’t know how to ask for help!”

(Okay. Perhaps he was getting a little too into it, too.)

But Bashir’s just staring, now. Heaving. Blinking. 

“How could you help me?” he finally asks, stepping closer.

Garak huffs out a laugh. “What?”

“How exactly could one go about helping me? What would you do?”

“Are you intimating that my opinion matters to you?”

“Yes. Computer, deactivate Hypnotiser. Falcon, let her go.”

“Sir?!” The assassin splutters. “What about-”

“Computer, delete Falcon and the guards.”

“Now hang on,” he starts, then winks out of existence. 

Mona gapes. “… I don’t-”

“I’ve had a change of heart, Miss Luvsitt. There’s a helicopter on the launchpad. Go.”

Hesitating a second, she complies after Garak nods his permission. Tied to a torture machine and now completely at his friend’s mercy, he watches Julian’s face, dumbstruck… There’s no mask upon it at all. There’s no one else but the two of them. He’s definitely breathing too fast. 

“Say you still cared about me,” Julian continues, advancing, “And you still thought we had something real, you and I, a bond worth fighting for-”

“In spite of everything that’s happened.”

“Yes.”

“Despite all the horrible things you’ve done, that- men like you have done to me-”

“Yes! You, Julian Bashir, still care about me! Now, how, precisely, would you get that through into my stubborn, thick skull?!”

Every last rational thought vacates Garak’s head. 

“My stubborn- Oh, my dear doctor, I’d’ve thought, after countless hours spent running this ridiculous program, you’d’ve learnt by now! If you want to get the key, you have to-”

… In retrospect, he would realise that Julian had moved, then, at a speed that wasn’t quite Human.

Now, he’s busy- because this time, he was ready. 

This time, as Julian’s lips surge against his, he kisses back ferociously- desperately leaning into those warm hands, hot skin, hot tongue; and melting. And great guls, wasn’t it perfect that his dear doctor should taste of sugary, bubbly soda? There’s no denying it anymore; Garak has well and truly craved this forbidden sip of root beer, and he can’t get enough. It’s a ravenous surge; a struggling lean- he wants to call it exploring, but it’s more like attacking- he has to compensate, after all. His hands are still tied, rattling uselessly against the restraints above his head- which sends a vicious thrill down his spine as Julian’s hands move over his body, snaking their way from his face to his chest up his shoulders and along his arms-

- and with one swift burst of augmented strength, Julian snaps both handcuffs in two.

… Oh, dear. Oh, Mother Cardassia.

Whatever remained of Garak’s self control snaps along with it. 

His fingers sink and tangle into soft, brown curls- and he doesn’t mean to pull, but Julian moans into his mouth and he realises he’s pulling- grabbing, really, because it’s not every day you finally get your hands on something you’ve wanted to touch for the better part of a decade. And Julian is pulling, too, pulling him down onto the sofa and caressing his way inside Garak’s tux with maddening caution- Garak has to resist the urge to shove one of those clever hands down his pants. And it isn’t so difficult, not really- not with Julian climbing in his lap, growing noticeably warmer under his touch, making all kinds of pretty sounds against his lips as Garak’s hands travel up his long legs-

“Garak,” he gasps, pulling away.

“Yes?” 

“What the hell just happened?!”

They both explode with laughter, short on breath and patience and any semblance of restraint. 

“I’m not sure,” Garak admits, wrapping his arms around Julian’s waist, “but I am enjoying the results.”

“Oh, you- infuriating tease,” Julian huffs, leaning down for a possessive kiss. “Seeing you with all those beautiful women- touching them, calling them “darling”, god, you were driving me insane!”

“Finally, you know how I felt!” Garak groans, trying not to shiver as Julian loosens his tie. “Would you like me to call you “darling”?”

He laughs again. “After eight years, my friend, at this point, I’d settle for “Julian”.”

“Too bad. That’s me, remember?” 

Julian grins, the gleam of defiance sharp in his eye- and he reaches inside Garak’s collar to grip a very specific neck scale. 

“Go on, say it,” he teases, as Garak fights the urge to gasp. He can hear it, vividly- the purr of a dermal regenerator from four years ago, knitting him back together as apologies flowed like blood. 

There’s not one hint of apology in those eyes today. 

Garak growls and fits his hand over the doctor’s, tightening his grip. “You knew exactly what you were doing. Didn’t you!”

Julian bites his lip. “Well… there was a thirty seven point four three percent chance I could’ve killed you.” He bumps their noses together. “More, if you’d moved about unpredictably.”

“Oh, my. You’re a terrible doctor.” 

Eyes blazing with challenge, Julian rolls his hips.

Garak moans. “Impudent thing. Did you know, on Cardassia, it’s considered deeply inappropriate for the younger partner to- mount the elder, as you’re doing now?”

Julian’s smile is just so vibrant before him; so dizzy and real. “That’s a lie, I bet.”

“I never lie about pretty young men mounting me.” 

Another delightful grin, and Garak can’t stand any more- he turns the silly creature over on his stomach, holding an arm behind his back.

Julian is still laughing. “Ah, so you’re free to flip me about like a pancake, is that it?”

“I don’t make the rules.”

“But you do play the game.”

“Hmm,” Garak smiles, kissing his hair. “And you were right. I do play dirty.”

Beneath him, Julian shivers, and Garak can imagine having him just like this- reducing him to whimpers with a few well-placed strokes, unravelling him with some well-timed praise until he’s spilling helplessly into Garak’s hands, spilling all manner of secrets into his ear…

But for whatever reason, that’s not what he wants right now.

Perhaps because any and all plans he’d come into the holosuite with suddenly seem so dull next to the objective reality that he could, very easily, have Julian pounding him into the sofa till he can’t feel anything else. 

He sits up, releasing his grip. “But rules, my dear, are made to be broken…” he invites. Julian turns around, eyebrows raised. Garak smirks. “Or at the very least, bent.”

“I’ve missed you,” Julian breathes unexpectedly, still giddy as he recaptures Garak’s lips. “It’s just… It’s good to have you back, Garak.”

Elim, he thinks. And it’s probably not fair- in fact, it’s actively counteractive to his mission.

But really, damn the mission! He said it when he thought you were asleep. He said it when he thought you were dying. Why won’t he say it now?

“Julian,” he whispers, supposedly as bait- and damn it, he wasn’t supposed to like the taste of those syllables in his mouth.

But they are effective. His companion pulls away, all dusky-red and starry-eyed. 

“This is what you want, right?” he whispers back.

“It is.” Garak’s eyelids flutter shut as those nimble fingers travel over his cheek, all the way down to his stomach… It’s so good. It’s so fucking good. It’s the best he’s felt in fucking ages. 

“Come on,” Julian’s voice tells him. “I’m sure the great Nicholas Harcourt has a bedroom around somewhere.”

“Whatever happens with him, anyway?” 

“Well, either you join me and we take over the world with Harcourtium waves, or Komananov swoops in at the last minute and saves you. You even get to throw her earrings at Falcon again!” The doctor pulls him to his feet by the lapels of his jacket, kissing him roughly. “You set the island to… mmh, self-destruct, Mona flies the two of you out just in time… and I burn to death in a fiery inferno.” 

“How sad,” Garak quips, as Julian leads him by the hand. “I think I prefer this version.” Their fingers interlace, and it thrills him. This suddenly feels very real. 

… Too real, perhaps. 

“Would it change your mind to know Komananov “debriefs” you on the flight back home?”

“My answer stands. Why does your popular entertainment insist on making sexual scenarios of interrogations?” 

Julian laughs a little bitterly. “Well, I’m sorry. Most of the folks both writing and playing these games haven’t actually experienced interrogations.”

“How lucky for them.”

“How lucky for us,” Julian stresses, turning to gently cup his face at the bedroom door. “Garak… We’re alive, we’re together, and I don’t give a damn what we’ve been through, okay?” His voice almost breaks. “I’m so happy you’re here. You make me so happy.” 

Garak cannot begin to process that, so he just allows Julian to kiss him.

“I can’t believe we’re having sex in Quark’s holosuites,” he comments instead; those perfunctory last three words the truest kind of lie. 

“If it makes you feel any better, they actually do- miraculously- pass my annual health inspections.” 

“I despair for the state of your inspections.” 

“Oh, be nice. Wouldn’t want me finding anything unseemly in this one, would we?” 

It’s a joke, but… laid down on the soft mattress, the New York skyline far away outside, so isolated and overwhelming with Julian climbing upon him… Garak does feel rather inspected. 

“Is there something I can do for you?” he murmurs after a solid minute of kissing; because it’s more polite than Well, are you going to get on with it?

“We’re not in the tailor shop, Garak.” 

Elim! Why won’t you call me that? This was maddening. He’s still calculating! He’s still holding back…

“… Would it be crass to make a joke about being “open for business”?”

He laughs. “In a minute! Why’re you in such a rush, anyway?”

Because the faster you use me and get this over with, the-

Garak stifles that line of thought. “It’s been a long time, Julian.” 

“I know,” he says tenderly, and steals another kiss. “That’s why I want to do this right. Besides, it was you who taught me to savour my meals. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve imagined stripping you out of a tux?” 

“All I know is the sooner you’re out of that cardigan, the happier I’ll be- if only so I don’t have to look at it anymore. Oh!”

Julian grins, teeth around neck ridges. “It’s not my fault Gore and Harcourt lack your impeccable taste.” A few strokes with his tongue, and he’s already discovered the precise angles necessary to have Garak trembling and holding on for dear life- and it just wasn’t fair, that Garak couldn’t enjoy this. It wasn’t fair that he was such an open book to this curious scientist; a forbidden book of secrets that actually held nothing inside, now exposed for what it is- gaping, incriminatingly blank pages rotting and detaching and fluttering away as the binding turns to dust-

“Everything all right?”

That infernal question again. “Of course, why wouldn’t it be?”

“It’s just… Your breathing’s gone a bit shallow, all of a sudden.” 

“I see. Well, clearly no one in your Federation explained this to you when you were young, my dear, but when people are about to have sex-”

“Shut up,” Julian snorts, mercifully distracted enough for now. He sits up, pulling off his cardigan and his shirt- both completely without fuss, but Garak is enraptured all the same. “Better?”

“Much.” 

“Good,” he smiles, slowly getting to work at Garak’s bowtie. On a different day, Garak might’ve taken more interest in Julian visibly growing aroused as it slid from his collar- now, he’s just relieved to have it gone, because this was getting somewhat claustrophobic. Julian’s attentive gaze upon him was crippling. The thick, burning adoration in his eyes; the plain, simple desire as he undid one button, then another, and another… It was heavy enough to suffocate.

“You’re so gorgeous,” he breathes, looking far too much like he believes it. 

It’s too much. Garak just wanted to be bent over some ugly furniture and taken roughly, not lovingly unwrapped like a gift. 

(Really! Then why did you come to him all tied up in a bow?)

“I’m not… quite the sight I used to be,” he warns, as his softer middle is gradually exposed… He hadn’t anticipated this outcome. What did he even look like naked, these days? Elim wishes he knew.

(Liar, liar! Garak sings. You had a look in the changing rooms, remember? You changed your outfit even before getting into this one!

How quickly you fool yourself.)

“You,” Julian repeats, with a slow caress of his belly, “are so gorgeous.”

(Liar, Garak tries to think. He can’t.

Julian has always been the more convincing.)

He breathes even faster as Julian starts to kiss his way downwards, caressing him through his trousers- interestingly, incorporating some Cardassian-style nosing as well. The ineffectiveness of his rounded features is only slightly more charming than the fact that he’d clearly done research for this.

(Of course he’s done research, Tain cackles. You think that makes you special? He’d research a doorknob!

Shut up, Elim begs. Go away, for five minutes of my life, please just go away.)

Those elegant fingers tease at the buttons on his pants, and it’s like watching a disaster unfold from outside of his body. 

(Yes, and all one really requires is familiarity with the science of which button to press-)

His body which had never once felt like his, because… well, it wasn’t. 

It belonged to Cardassia. 

“I was more myself with you than anyone else,” Julian had confessed, “Afterwards, I just didn’t feel safe-”

He wasn’t himself. This wasn’t his body. Perhaps it could feel like his, if it was serving; giving Julian pleasure, or being used, if it was in pain- oh, Garak wishes he could just ask for what he wanted, but that wasn’t-

That’s not what dignified people do. 

(… Mila, now. The brooch in his pocket feels molten.

You don’t reach for more than what’s offered, Elim. Look at you, you’re no better than some Bajoran primitive! Where is your discipline? 

You came here to get answers, not give away-)

It becomes increasingly obvious where this is heading, and the idea of Julian slowly probing him open with that pretty mouth of his and studying and cataloguing every subtle reaction makes him want to die.

So Garak sits up, catches him by surprise- takes that enchanting Human earlobe between his teeth and makes him yelp.

“If you don’t fuck me very soon,” he murmurs playfully in Julian’s ear, “I might just lose interest.” 

“Well, I’m sorry if I’ve been boring you,” the doctor jokes, but there’s an undercurrent of genuine hurt, there. “I assumed you’d require some degree of-”

“I don’t require any such delicacy, thank you.” 

… Damn. Even to his own ears, he sounds unstable.

Julian tries to smile back, a mask trembling like a lid over boiling concerns below… Oh, Garak had gone about this all wrong. He should never have allowed this to leave the set. They should never have broken character. They should’ve fucked on Harcourt’s Hypnotiser. 

“And what if I was being selfish?” Julian teases. “I always wanted to know how you’d taste…” He leans in for a deep, slow kiss. 

Nice try, Doctor.

(You’re one to talk, Elim retorts. Weren’t you supposed to be “getting answers”?)

Answers. Well, Julian would shudder quite delightfully if one trailed one’s fingers down his spine. There was an answer. 

And, Julian’s sides were far more ticklish than his front. There was another. 

Also, Julian’s hair would curl as it dampened with sweat. Certainly, this was relevant information. Tain would be proud. 

And apparently, despite the lack of ridges, Julian’s neck could qualify as an erogenous zone, if one knew what one was doing… He would sigh very prettily if one sucked at the right spot, for example. His heart would pound faster if Garak took a bite. All well worth knowing, really.

In summary: Julian was warmer and more addictive than he’d ever imagined. 

(… So much for Cardassian discipline.)

“Your hair’s grown out,” Julian observes, playing with the ends… He sounds far away.

“Yes. Well, the barbers on Cardassia were a little busy.” 

His laughter brims over with pain; the next kiss burning like poison. His fingertips find the spot on Garak’s abdomen he’d healed in secret.

“Garak…” 

Ah. Second thoughts. Well, this was a disaster. 

Julian licks his lips, doesn’t say anything more… Just breathing; quiet breathing. Their foreheads rest heavy together. Garak can feel the anguish in his touch, feel the way he wishes every wound could be fixed so easily- feel the dexazine hypo in his pocket. Their eyes haven’t met in minutes. Julian lifts Garak’s hand away, slowly kissing each finger, one by one… Eventually, he loses momentum. They rest against his nose; warmed and treasured and no longer needed. 

“… Is this some Human custom I don’t know about?” Garak tries.

He barely manages a half-smile. “I’ve been so worried about you, Garak,” he whispers thickly. “I care about you, so much… You know that, right?”

If Garak wasn’t very careful, this was going to play out exactly like the night he’d returned to the station. 

“It would be difficult to miss, yes.”

“Then help me?” he begs. “Tell me what’s going on with you… Please?” 

(… Wait a minute. This was all one big interrogation.)

“You seem… all right most of the time, but- I can see how tired you are, Garak, I can tell you’ve been struggling to…” 

(This was- all this time, Garak had thought he was the one-

He was supposed to be the one building towards the questions-

Oh, he’d fallen for the “Harcourt” deception after all! You’re completely out of your depth!)

Julian takes a bludgeon to whatever pretence remained. “Would you tell me what happened, on Cardassia…? Why you tried… doing what you did?”

Garak has the sudden, scary thought that if Julian said “computer, end program”, he’d vanish along with the furniture. This was always meant to end in disaster, sure; but it was supposed to be a disaster of his own making, not-

Instinct kicks in, and Garak grabs for the nearest verbal weapon.

“… Why?” he says icily. “So you can tell Vedek Bavi?” 

Julian blinks.

BASHIR (softly): What?

GARAK (smiling unkindly): Don’t play the fool, Doctor. It doesn’t suit you anymore.

Julian has the gall to look bewildered. 

BASHIR: He spoke to you. What did he say?

(Do you really think I’d give you that information first?)

GARAK (still smiling): What do you think?

Bashir gulps.

JULIAN: Look, I- I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but- he has these dreams-

GARAK (sarcastically): So I’ve heard!

JULIAN: He had a vision of the day I ran away from home when I was fifteen, all right? The day I found out, about my- look, no one knows about that. He did! First day I met him, he grabbed my ear, and… told me it was time to stop running.

His voice goes raw.

JULIAN: I’d never stopped. Not once in twenty years. But, I had to- even though it was scary, because I knew I’d feel the burn in my lungs and every muscle I ever pulled, but- it was the only way I could start moving again- this time, at a pace that wouldn’t kill me. I don’t know if that helps you, but-

GARAK: Bajoran jargon doesn’t help me, Doctor. And neither do your half-hearted promises.

BASHIR: Hey! I-

GARAK: You complain that I’m never open with you, yet when I offer you glimpses, you hate looking. You claim you’re attracted to me- 

He points to the state of his clothes.

GARAK: But it’s only when there’s another mystery to unravel; isn’t it?

BASHIR (defensively): You know that’s not true.

GARAK: Do I?

He eyes the doctor’s crotch.

GARAK: The evidence would suggest otherwise.

JULIAN (scoffing): That’s completely unf-

He stops himself, suddenly looking at Garak with horror.

JULIAN: … That day in the infirmary. You heard every word I said, didn’t you?

(What a mortifying slip-up! Garak cannot fathom how he’s been so careless.)

Bashir is still blinking in shock.

BASHIR: … A part of me feels the need to apologise, but… you’re the one who just let me go on, like a complete arse.

(Garak isn’t sure which of them Julian is referring to as the “complete arse”, but he certainly deserves it.)

GARAK: My point stands, Doctor. I open up to you all the time. You pull away.

BASHIR: Garak, the last time you “opened up to me”, you confessed to being minutes away from suicide! What was I supposed to do, shrug it off and go back to kissing you? Take you to bed and find you dead the next morning?!

GARAK: There are worse ways to go.

JULIAN: Well, not for me. I fucking care what happens to you, you selfish bastard- and I know you’re intelligent enough to see it!

GARAK: And what if I’d succeeded? Would you still?

BASHIR: What?! What kind of question is that, of course I-

GARAK: Not that day, Doctor! The other one.

He gestures to his tux; the unravelled persona.

GARAK: As you told Alexander Rozhenko and Jake Sisko that their fathers wouldn’t be coming home- no more Dax to adopt Jake either, and Captain Yates not so involved yet… Hmm, you likely would’ve adopted him yourself, wouldn’t you? Feeling responsible. Yes, I think you would have. Well, there’s no way you’d’ve gone back to having lunch with me, at any rate. And as you walked past your beloved dart board, now no longer able to think of your next game with the chief- but of Keiko O’Brien, raising their daughter alone- and with the war against the Klingons raging on, too; DS9 falling into disrepair, now with Bajor’s liaison officer and Emissary both gone- both eliminated, by a former Cardassian assassin- tell me, would your blood not boil? Would you not want to see me punished? If the Bajoran courts came for me, demanding I be sentenced to death- me, your former friend, now the murderer of five of your colleagues, your family- would you not think, “good riddance”? Would you not feel like celebrating?

BASHIR (whispering): … Oh, my god. This was a terrible idea.

GARAK: Answer the question, Doctor.

BASHIR (glaring): Now who’s turning an interrogation into a sexual scenario?

GARAK (pedantically): That’s not at all what I’m doing. I believe I’m turning a sexual scenario into an interrogation.

BASHIR: God! Well, what do you want me to say, then? What are you trying to learn?

He stares at Garak in desperation- and the answer is, for the first time, obvious.

(That you’re a liar. That you’re too good to be true.

… That you secretly want me dead.)

It hits him like a tidal wave, the truth at last- and he just feels so unbelievably stupid, because expecting Julian to wish death upon someone was like expecting Quark to renounce money.

And he really had convinced himself this was all about getting answers, hadn’t he? First answers, then sex…

(You fool, says… someone. You singlehandedly brought the Romulans into the war, and still, you think like a powerless servant.

You wanted his permission.)

“You’re trying to make me hate you. Drive me away,” Julian summarises. “I’ve seen you do it before.”

“Do you want a prize?”

“Well, why don’t we skip over all the bullshit this time, and get to the part where you tell me what’s wrong?” 

Failure after failure. Garak couldn’t stand anymore. 

No, he has to do something right, something drastic- he has to not only tell a lie, but sell it.

He quickly allows his features to soften; porcelain melting into clay… And immediately, Julian shapeshifts, too. Such a flexible thing… He really could just summon such vast depths of attentiveness so quickly, couldn’t he? Have them bleeding from the safe curves of his delicate shoulders.

“I just…” 

Julian’s hand is on his arm. “You just what, Garak?”

“I wanted to find out if… you meant it.”

“… Meant what?” he asks.

Garak gulps. Yes, this was it. This would break him. 

“… That you loved me,” he murmurs. “Because… I love you. Julian, I love you.”

The moment he says it, he knows it’s not a lie. And, well- backfire of the century, really, because not only had he failed to break Julian- who if anything, looks calmer than before- not only had he allowed Julian to break him, but Garak had also just gone and broken himself.

Now, there’s nothing left. 

How embarrassing. He’s just… broken.

“Garak.”

(Not “Elim”. Never “Elim”, probably.)

“Obviously, I love you. I’ve loved you for years.”

Garak believes him. Why not?

“But… perhaps we shouldn’t be together in that way right now. It was my fault for letting it get this far, I’m sorry.” 

Really, his ability to strip Garak’s actions of agency was of epic proportions. What was it like, in his reality? Did Garak only threaten to kill his colleagues as a joke? Did Garak try to eliminate the Founders solely because he was having a panic attack?

Julian is studying his face with rippling guilt. “Maybe in the future-”

“The future,” he laughs unpleasantly.

“Yes, Garak. You will have a future… I promised you, remember?” He was getting choked up. “I’m sorry I still haven’t figured out how. But, I promised you a happy life, and I am going to give it to you. And… I’d love to be a part of it. However you want me.”

“You say that, yet you deny me the one simple thing I ask for.”

“You know it isn’t simple.”

“It’s very simple. I want you to stop talking, hold me down, and fuck me into the mattress. Will you kindly?”

“No.”

“Well, then.”

“… It wouldn’t help, Garak.” He swallows, reluctantly reaching for Harcourt’s cardigan to hide himself. “It might feel good now, but it would complicate things in the long-term, and I don’t want that.”

“And what if I don’t want your so-called future, Doctor?” Garak snaps, burrowing through his armoury and finding only cruelty left. “What if the thought of spending the rest of my life in the replimat with you makes me nauseous?”

Julian flinches. “I thought…” 

He trails off. He’s hurt, now; properly hurt. So hurt he requires several seconds to speak again. 

BASHIR: Right. Of course, you were lying. Another confession extracted, well done. 

He buttons up his jacket. 

BASHIR: Well, I’ll see you at lunch tomorrow, Garak, nausea and all- it never stopped you before. For now, I’ll get out of your hair, since apparently all I’m good for is a meaningless fuck- here’s the code for the original Doctor Gore, perhaps he can help you out. If you’d prefer Harcourt, go ahead- though, I’ll have you know I’ve locked you out of several holosuite and replicator settings, so you can’t make him hurt you. Sorry. 

Garak watches in humiliation as he calls for the arch.

GARAK: I am a skilled hacker, you know.

There’s a world of pain on Julian’s face.

JULIAN: Well, if you’re determined to harm yourself, I know I can’t stop you. But that doesn’t mean I have to be a part of it. I’m happy to be your friend, Garak, but… I won’t be your wire.

The doors are shut, and Julian is gone.

His first true friend, the man who saved him, the man who saw him- the man he loves, apparently- is gone.

There’s nothing left.

Garak slouches on the plush double-bed of a billionaire… A hollow man in a holographic house, a half-dressed actor on a half-collapsed stage- 

Unkept as the week he’d spent begging on the streets of Kardasi’or, undone as the week he’d spent in withdrawal-

Alone, as he’s always been. 

(It seemed Colonel Komananov was right after all; and Colonel Kira was wrong. 

Julian was perfectly capable of saying no to him.)

[End scene.]

Chapter Text

Is’kraithl, is’kraithl… Tolok’tilar… 

Shadows dive from the shrines; ellipses cast like carpets across the promenade- 

Is’kraithl, is’kraithl… Jis’tun-P’jhar…

They spring from his feet; from the dangling corpses that don’t really hang here. But they do, don’t they? Perhaps they always will.  

Is’kraithl, is’kraithl… Jis’lok-ti’…jhar, no, no, those weren’t the words…

Ghosts; ghosts everywhere- ghosts at the bar. Ghosts sculpting pottery. Ghosts selling flowers. Ghosts singing songs, and ghosts mining ore…

Is’kraithl, is’kraithl… Rather a catchy tune; I wonder what it means. 

And it would’ve been nice to keep humming it while wandering aimlessly about the station until he collapsed, but- well, Garak’s trained eyes had to go and notice the docking lights outside the window on upper pylon three.

… His curiosity always had been a curse.

Worse was when further snooping revealed the shuttle was being commandeered in secret- all without any cross-communication with Ops, too. At 0200? What is this, one of Quark’s illegal deals? Or-

Garak’s heart pounds as he considers that he might’ve been right about the vedek after all.

Melting into the bulkheads, he lies in wait. It’s an absurd thought, but he does wish he at least still had his Agent Bashir pistol with him…

The airlock rolls open, and light tumbles out…

“Initiate transport to Cargo Bay Three, Authorisation Kira-1-6-2-2 Red.”

Garak relaxes. Two options, then- he can remain hidden and simply let the colonel walk past him, or he can be creepy and unsettling.

One option is clearly more fun than the other. 

“Out for a late-night joyride?”

Kira freezes mid-gasp, hands just inches away from her phaser. She narrows her eyes as he seeps from the shadows. 

“What happened? You look like hell.”

“Thank you.”

“Get laid in a holosuite?” she deadpans, turning back to what appears to be two carts full of fabrics- Tozhat Province, no doubt.

Garak glances down at his thoroughly-mussed apparel with amusement. “After years of asking and asking, I finally gave in to Morn’s advances.”

“… Uh huh. ‘Cause, we all know how Morn likes a man in a tuxedo.” 

Garak’s smile is sly; sharp with the phantom burn of Julian’s hands all over him. And you’ll never be getting that again, will you now, Elim?

“I’ve always maintained he has exquisite taste.”

“Hm. In clothes, in lovers, and…” She glances pointedly at the bag he’d forgotten he was carrying. “Moba soufflé?” 

“Did he give you some too?”

“As a matter of fact.”

“I see,” he pouts, just for fun. “And I thought I was special.” 

Kira rolls her eyes, along with the wheels of a crammed-full cart she begins to push. The image is… not unfamiliar.

“Need a hand?”

“Wouldn’t mind one, actually.”

He nods with a smile he doesn’t feel, and takes the other. “And where would we be taking these… charming decorations?”

“These are traditional Peldor tapestries, the finest Bajor has to offer. You won’t find them anywhere else in the galaxy. Not like this.”

“Indeed. A proud tradition since the Khaf’dazar period, yes?”

Kira turns to him in surprise- then, the illusion of decent company shattered, cocks her head. “Should’ve known you’d have all the answers.” 

“Believe me,” Garak laughs out thinly, “I don’t.”

They steer their carts through the dark, leaping silence… It really could be a night from ten years ago. Thanks to Odo’s accidental meld, Garak remembers those days from a slightly different vantage point- with grime in his hair and an ache devouring his nose and limbs. The partitions. The beatings. The abysmal hygiene; the clutter, the mess.

“Your quarters?” he asks, as they make for the turbolift.

“Yep. They’re a surprise for the Bajoran staff, so I couldn’t use the transporter- or just leave ‘em hanging around the cargo bay.”

“Then why not store them in my shop? It’s much closer. No one would think to come in there.”

She stops to look at him. “Garak, I’m too tired to be suspicious…” 

“Then don’t be.” 

After a pause, Kira wipes her brow with a sleeve, and nods. “All right.”

They alter course. 

A few moments more, and she alters the conversation. “I did some investigating.”

His shoulder blades tense. “I see.”

“Vedek Bavi lived in Rakantha Province for most of his life. So if he was killed and replaced by a spy,”- and this is punctuated by another eye-roll- “then the imposter never did anything very interesting. Not unless you count farming, anyway. Everyone I spoke to said he was a quiet, non-confrontational sort- not a collaborator, not a freedom fighter, just… someone who kept his head down, followed the rules. He met every demand from the local Cardassian legislators.” 

“Clever lad,” Garak says neutrally. 

“His wife, however, didn’t,” Kira declares. “She smuggled their son off-world during the First Migration.” 

“And let me guess.”

“Then, she was murdered.”

Garak avoids her eyes while keying in the tailor shop’s code. “How very unfortunate.” The tang of stale smoke springs to meet them at the door. 

(… Interesting.)

“Bavi’s parents are dead, too,” she goes on, undeterred. “His mother some years back, from chronic health problems- his father during the Occupation itself. His adopted daughter used to be a comfort woman. Apparently, he treats her half-Cardassian child like his own grandson.”

“Believe it or not, I do grasp your point, Colonel.”  

Kira pauses. “You… weren’t completely wrong about his visions,” she admits. “The Assembly at Hedrikspool Monastery had never so much as seen him before this year- all of a sudden, this- random farmer bursts in, claiming he’s had a vision from the Prophets- a sea of time, and a woman washed ashore; a boy on the verge of losing his way. Then, four months of prayer later, he finds his way to Kasidy and Jake. And get this,” she says, looking a little mystified. “His first vision came to him the night before the Emissary ascended.”

Garak stops. “A premonition?”

“No,” she whispers. “Don’t you see? It’s… It’s non-linear, Garak. It’s incredible!”

“Is it?”

“I saw Kasidy today,” Kira murmurs distractedly, almost smiling. “She was surprised, by the way. That you’d be so concerned for her.”

“Well, that’s not very flattering.”

“Anyway,” she waves a hand. “Her husband’s last words to her were that he would be back- maybe a year, maybe yesterday. Can’t you see? It really could be him, he could be reaching out through someone else! Just like Julian and I wanted to believe.”

As a rule, Garak prefers not to indulge in such fancy- but he has to admit, he has little to offer in the way of counterarguments. And anyhow, wasn’t-

… Didn’t-

His gut turns to stone. Was… the reason, perhaps, that the man had seemed so familiar because he’d reminded him of…?

Garak blinks, trying not to betray his shock. “I suppose we have seen stranger things.”

The colonel rests a hand on her hip, eyes distant- clearly, too excited to remain angry with him. “We certainly have.”

He didn’t share her comfort. It was growing increasingly obvious that this story he’d walked into wasn’t his story at all; that he really couldn’t be any less relevant to it.

The carts both parked in the back rooms now, Kira looks about his shop curiously.

“Wow… Julian really kept this place in shape. It’s cleaner than the infirmary.”

Garak half-smiles. “That reminds me, I… must ask him to stop paying my rent.”

“What’ll you do afterwards?” 

He eyes the mannequins distractedly; various poses that all seem to be mocking him somehow. “Like I said. I don’t have the answers.” 

“If it would protect you from Cardassian persecution, I could ask Shakaar to grant you Bajoran citizenship.”

Now, there’s a lump in his throat- and Garak cannot tell whether it is gratitude that brought it there, or shame over his circumstances. This really was his life now, wasn’t it? Enabran was gone, Mila was gone, and Cardassia didn’t need him. The station didn’t need him. Even Julian didn’t need him. He was just here, surviving on Bajoran mercy- destined to live out his days under the benevolent hand of the Federation.

The worst of withdrawals couldn’t compare to how empty this feels.

“… A generous offer.”

“It wouldn’t cost me anything. Well, except a little pride, maybe,” she jokes. “But I can think of worse Cardassians to have around.”

“Why do you think that?” 

He asks it before he can help himself; before he can even catch the thought forming.

“Think what?” 

“That I deserve to be here.” Too exposed now, he readjusts his smile. “Just a hypothetical question, of course.” 

Kira snorts. “It sounds like there’s a hypothetical answer you’re after.”

“The truth, perhaps.” Garak lets slip some sincerity. “If there is such a thing.”

She folds her arms; an unapologetic display of measurement. He wouldn’t be hearing anything she didn’t want him hearing- not tonight, anyway.

“You see, the last time I heard a Cardassian speak the way you did this afternoon, I was investigating someone claiming to be Gul Darhe’el.”

“The Butcher of Gallitep,” Garak nods. He’d spied on every one of the Major’s sessions with the man, of course- but, early experimentations with the wire left his memories of the event fuzzy. “Another successful patriot.”

“Let me guess, you’re gonna say the two of you were drinking buddies.”

“Oh, no,” he chuckles, privately thinking it would’ve been an effective option. “No. No finesse whatsoever, those military types… Uniformly atrocious taste in theatre, too.”

Kira isn’t laughing. “Central Command, Obsidian Order… It doesn’t really make a difference to me, Garak.”

He inclines his chin, watching the world from her alien angle. 

“… No,” he agrees. “We were all in the same business, of course… Import lives, export numbers.”

“That’s right. You looked at us, and you didn’t see people, you saw… animals, or machines, or playthings. I’m sorry about what happened to your planet, Garak, but that doesn’t change a thing about the Occupation. You were all guilty.” 

He smiles. “The finest Enigma Tale of our times.”

At this, Kira loosens her stance- clearly with some effort; old, congealed resentment forced through steeled, obstructed veins.

“A brave man once told me, that… Cardassia would only survive if it stood before Bajor and admitted its guilt,” she says- and now the sound of Aamin Marritza’s voice sharpens in Garak’s memory; a red-hot blade cleaving through the muck. “He thought his death would change things.”

“My, my,” he remarks. “If you are under the impression that I was trying to martyr myself-”

“No. Honestly, it just sounded like you were trying to make me kick you off the station, or something.” She leans back against the desk, eyes suddenly piercing. “Punish yourself all you want- but let’s get something straight. You will never make me a tool to do it.” 

Uncanny, how Julian had said almost the same thing. Garak wants so badly to crumble.

“I suppose… Marritza was one of the “good” ones, then.” 

“… I don’t know.” Kira picks up one of the tapestries, examining it- tracing every stitch, each record of toil; labour and reverence all frozen together. “He was using our pain to build a better Cardassia. He was doing it for Cardassia, Garak. Not us.”

“I’d expect no different.”

“Oh, believe me,” she scoffs, “I don’t. I’ve never known a Cardassian who really just wanted to help.”

Garak cannot argue. Even the dissidents he’d spent his youth arresting, risking their eager little lives to supply Bajoran terrorists with weapons and food- they were doing it for Cardassia, what they believed would be a better Cardassia. The very drive to do things that weren’t for Cardassia was beaten out of them before they were old enough to think.

There’s a weight in the air that’s now heavy enough to touch- ugly and real; sagging down the middle of the shop. Kira slits whatever was holding it up with a sigh. 

“I’ve been meaning to give you something.” 

Wordlessly, Garak watches as she pulls a roll of fabric from the pile… White, unlike the others. It’s immediately obvious what it is. He stares at her- their surroundings seeming to fold to this concession; the space between them shifting.

“I picked it up from the university today. I should’ve done this years ago,” she admits. “I just… I didn’t want to, I couldn’t…”

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t.” 

“She, uh- It was made for you.” Kira’s voice is thick. “I kept it. It was selfish, but… I was so angry about how she was murdered, I just didn’t want…” She pauses to reframe whatever she was about to say. “I didn’t want to let go of it.”

“Nor should you,” Garak says, studying the painting in his hands. “An original Tora Ziyal is… quite an enviable thing to have in your possession.”

Kira follows his gaze to the rolling fields of the neighbourhood Garak grew up in. 

(… Well. The one he’d told Ziyal he’d grown up in, anyway.)

“I still remember the day she painted it,” Kira says. “You were away with the Starfleet crew… She was so excited to give it to you when you got back.” The edges of her smile are warped with sorrow. “Can you imagine? She even had Dukat and me over for dinner.”

Garak’s eyes widen. “And you went?”

“I did,” she laughs. “For Ziyal, obviously.”

“Obviously.” He traces the edge of the paper, and breathes out. “Colonel… Kira. You should keep this. It’s only right.” 

“See, that’s what I thought. I ignored her wishes, because I didn’t think you deserved it- any of it,” she confesses. 

(Garak is so, so tired of hearing confessions.)

“That makes two of us.”

“Yes,” she says, watching him. “Looking back, you were always honest about that… You didn’t- I don’t know, lead her on.”

He could have laughed at the very notion; insisted the very idea of love between them was ridiculous, that Ziyal was young enough to be his daughter, that Kira had always been wrong about the two of them… It wouldn’t be a lie.

It wouldn’t quite be the truth, either. 

“You’re sure you won’t come with me?”  

He doesn’t usually permit himself to think of their goodbye, but he’s feeble tonight- and those lovely blue eyes are inescapable now, swimming with innocent and ever-so-slightly-manipulative hope.

“My dear, you are half Bajoran, so at least half of you is going to be accepted. I’m sure that Major Kira’s friends will take good care of you.”

“But what’s going to happen to you?”

And it would never be right, the way she’d looked into his decidedly-not-innocent, effortlessly-manipulative eyes with such concern… That Garak had, against hilariously low odds, and with the help of literal divine intervention, survived the war, and she hadn’t.

The last thing he’d ever told her was a story. 

“And the moral of the story, my dear- is to never underestimate my gift for survival.”

He’d even allowed their lips to meet- just a small, rare indulgence. Later, he would let her down gently. Later, he would explain himself- “Certain shades of green should never be paired with certain shades of red, or the sharpness of one might corrode the brightness of the other”, it would be simple. For now, he would allow himself to be loved for just this one moment- even if not in the way he wanted. Just for her, he’d thought. Just for a moment. But later…

“… In a way, I did.” Garak rolls up the painting. “And now, she’s dead.”

“Yeah, because Damar-”

“Oh, please, Colonel…” Garak sighs deeply, feeling the beginnings of a headache. “I don’t need your platitudes. I know what I am. Aren’t you tired? Aren’t you and everyone else on this miserable station sick of pretending I’m something I’m not?”

She shrugs. “Not really.”

“Then I suggest that you-”

“Because we don’t, Garak. I’m perfectly aware you’re a despicable, scheming con artist who killed and tortured people for a living, and you’re a spy and a liar to boot.”

Garak blinks innocently. “And worse, I’m a Cardassian.”

“I thought that was what I said.” 

A moment of restraint, of breath and gazes held- then, crude, wicked smiles, and the tension between them begins to dissolve; fizzing misshapenly with the subtlety of explosives.

“Don’t worry,” Kira murmurs, folding the painting back into his hands with just enough roughness to promise a threat. “I’ll never forgive you.” 

“Ever?”

“Ever.”

“Why, thank you, Colonel. I appreciate it.”

(He does, actually.)

“Now take the goddamn painting.” 

Kira near-smiles as he makes a big show of accepting it, her annoyance just as exaggerated. 

“I… guess, I also have Ezri to thank,” she goes on, “but- I want to let go of some of it, you know? Stop looking at people, and feeling my mind preparing to reduce them to… targets.”

Garak has a comment lined up about how there was no unlearning certain things- but it was one thing to be patronising with Julian. He couldn’t with Kira. 

Instead, he asks, “And how is Commander Dax?”

“No problems with the symbiont in three months.” Kira pauses. “Oh, what the hell. I know you can keep a secret, so- she’s been cleared to visit the station for a few hours.”

“Oh. When?”

“Peldor. She’s looking forward to surprising Julian.”

“… I’m sure he’ll be delighted,” Garak says carefully, angling his head towards the fitting rooms… Why was he suddenly feeling such dread? Julian would be happier with her. Garak didn’t wish either him or Dax any harm. What was the problem?

The problem is, you still want him, you idiot.

Oh, and he couldn’t even place the voices taunting him anymore- there were too many possibilities; too many people he’d made unhappy over the years, over the course of his pointless, destructive, unproductive-

“Garak?”

He blinks. “Hm?”

“You seemed a little lost, there.”  

Garak breathes in slow, realising she was probably anxious to get to sleep.

“Did I? Well, it really is late. I thank you for your time, and…” Somewhat out of his control, the colourful rivulets of customer service leach from his voice. “And for the painting.” 

“Hm.” Kira sniffs- only now; Bajoran noses were not so keen as Cardassian ones. “Why does it smell like jiroub leaves in here?”

“It’s quite simple, the vedek and I shared a roll, earlier.” 

Kira bursts out laughing. “No, you didn’t.”

“It’s true! We may’ve disagreed on politics, but he does prepare the finest blends on the station.” 

She rolls her eyes, making for the door. “Well, try not to smoke too much- it gets Cardassians awfully disoriented. I should know.”

“Yes. A well-known Resistance tactic was to mix it into our elta leaf supplies, was it not?” 

“That’s right,” she says, almost fondly. “Even the civilians did it.”

“I knew a gul once who walked straight into a borewell.”  

“Ooh. Sounds painful.” 

“Looked it, too.”

“I’m almost sorry.”

“I wouldn’t be. He was a fool,” Garak laughs, not requiring much work to invent the character. “A man of his rank should know better than to injest something without checking it.”

“Goodnight, Garak.”

“Colonel?” he calls after her, suddenly desperate. 

“Yes?”

He hesitates. “You seem overworked. Perhaps what you need is a little trip.” 

She pauses at the doorway. “A trip?”

“Yes! Why, I was just reading earlier that the sand dunes at Jar’nii II are spectacular this time of year. You really should go.”

Kira narrows her eyes.

“As soon as possible,” he adds. “I think you’ll find it… most rewarding.” 

“Funny. Last I checked, Jar’nii II is inside Cardassian territory.”

“Since the war’s end, it has officially become “disputed”.” He smiles. “Worth a look, though- and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?” 

She nods, comprehending. “I’ll check it out. Any recommendations?” 

“I’ll send you the coordinates.”

Kira lingers at the tailor shop’s entrance, lips parted in thought. “Garak?”

“Hm?” 

“She never believed you couldn’t be cruel.” 

“… Ah,” he says, growing tired of feeling carved to pieces by people’s gazes alone.

Kira sighs begrudgingly. “She just… also believed you could be better. And… I don’t know, sometimes when I saw the two of you together, I… sort of believed it, too.”

It’s likely the most transparently kind thing she’ll ever say to him, so Garak forces himself not to respond with a retort.

“If I were a better man,” he finds himself saying, “then… I believe I’d have an apology to make.”

Kira smirks. “Tell Morn I said hi.”

He watches her slip away- back to her station, her quarters, her own purposeful life- and he sighs, gazing down at the fabric in his hands. The bold lines, drawn swiftly over his past by the bold will of a bold young girl. Taking his time, he folds it neatly- corner to corner, daring the room to fold with it- daring the silence to break.

“Is’kraithl, is’kraithl…” he begins to sing, “Tolok’tilar…” 

He places it upon his desk, and an errant pile of fabric catches his eye- tutting to himself, he picks it up to put it away. The moba soufflé, too- yes, now that would need to be stored, or it would spoil. He picks up the bag in his other hand. And finally, as if by accident, he parts the curtains of the fitting room- gasping in surprise at the sight that meets him.

“Doctor! I wasn’t expecting to see you here.” 

Julian smiles a smile that’s entirely sapped of amusement. “Of course you weren’t.”

Chapter Text

He’s thinking, strangely, of that cell on Tzenketh. He doesn’t particularly want to feel confined as he crouches to the ground, but he does.

A joint in his knee pops, loud and calcareous. 

“I really am too old for this,” he comments.

Julian just glares.

He’s thinking, always, of how sweet it used to taste- those vitriolic, uncooperative gazes shot his way, knowing well they’d be dismantled within the hour.

“… The colonel says hello,” he tries. 

No response. 

(Damn.)

He’s thinking- simply out of his control- of that explosive that shouldn’t have gone off when it did. His mind has already conjured up the sound of a timer; beep, beep, beep-

(Alive, alive, alive-)

“I heard the most interesting rumour- it seems, Commander Dax is visiting the station soon.” 

Julian just tiredly hugs his knees.

(Come on. You’re better than this.)

Garak clears his throat. “So! What brings you to the floor of Garak’s Clothiers tonight?”

The doctor doesn’t even roll his eyes. 

(And as always, Enabran was right. The best way to break someone really was silence.)

“Doctor…” 

His heart is pounding; the way all hearts pound when one’s surroundings have turned to rubble and the weight of one’s own consequences are stacked upon one’s chest. 

“What, Garak.” 

Julian’s eyes refuse to see him. His words soak each other over with inertia, barely travelling from the wall. He smells of disinfectant and sweat and sweetly burning leaves, and most devastatingly, he smells a little of Garak.

“I brought you moba soufflé.”

Julian leans further back, eyes closed. “No, you didn’t. I brought you moba soufflé. You’re just giving it back to me.”

Tentatively, Garak loosens his lips. “I simply thought… you might need it more than I do.” 

Julian’s eyes squeeze tighter shut. 

(And a man in a cell can’t help but feel alarmed at the sight of a closing door.)

“Doctor-”

“I don’t need anything, thank you very much. Now, you can either kick me out of your shop, or leave me alone.”

“Doctor, you’ve spent seven hours on a shuttle today, eleven at your clinic, and then nearly two in the holosuite with me-” 

“What’s your point, Garak.”

“You should eat something.” He cracks open the lid with a smile. 

“I’m not hungry.”

(He is hungry. Elim had learned to read the signs before he’d learned to read words.)

“Very well,” Garak allows, “but, given the tantrums you tend to throw when your belly’s empty, we really should take precautions- I certainly didn’t suffer all those months on the Defiant just to forget my hard-won lessons.” 

A tight-lipped smile. “I’ll make sure to throw all my tantrums after you’ve left.” 

“How about no tantrums at all?” 

“Why do you care?” 

“I…”

He feels that question like a kick to the stomach. Mostly because, he doesn’t know how to answer it. None of his dusty old manuscripts have good material left… Nothing clever or entertaining, anyway.

“Never mind.”

He’s hesitated too long. 

(Lost his chance…?)

“I’ll eat the bloody soufflé if it means you’ll go away.” Julian snatches the bowl from his hands, digging in with a peeved spoon. He doesn’t put it in his mouth… He just sits, gazing blankly at the thick red curtains separating this performance from the rest of the world.

(… Ah. Not lost his chance, then.)

“That’s all I ask.” 

The set of the doctor’s jaw is saying those Vorta at the clinic had tried to commit suicide this morning. It’s so obvious; and Garak would’ve known it in an instant had he not been so caught up in ripping his own truths from those lips. 

We never talk about things, they were saying- still saying. We have these intense, vulnerable, heartbreaking experiences together, and then we talk about spice pudding the next day. 

Was that really a problem? 

Losing Julian, it was always meant to be an eventuality. When exactly had it become something to be prevented at high personal cost?

(How many nights had Julian sat in this room alone?)

Holding his breath, Garak makes a choice to be braver. 

“He was right, you know.”

“… Who?”

“Jake Sisko.” He blinks, benign and open. “‘The Neverending Sacrifice’ is a character study.”

What he’d been expecting was a scoff for the ages. But Julian always had possessed an ability to read between his lines… Yes, even those footnotes Garak was always scrambling to erase.

(I heard you, Elim is screaming at the top of his lungs. Please understand, I heard every word.)

“Which character,” Julian finally mutters. “There’s about two hundred.” 

“Cardassia, of course.” 

Now, he does scoff. “Well, for the focus of a thousand-page-long character study, she’s rather a static one, Garak.” 

“Perhaps not anymore.” His hands are faintly shaking, and he does not know why. 

(Of course, he knows why. 

Of course you do.) 

“No, she’s been setting aside some of her old ways, of late… And, one of them happened to be me.” 

For all his vocabulary, he would never find words for this play-within-the-play- the astronomical rush in Julian’s eyes to commit to some expression or other; whether feigned surprise or righteous anger or good old-fashioned sympathy. 

“… My dear,” he chuckles, because the poor thing actually looks afraid- “I believe my skin is quite thick enough to endure whatever saccharine words you’re holding back.” 

“Well, in that case… I’m sorry.” He wishes he has more effective ones; that much is clear.

(He isn’t alone.)

Garak forces an inhalation, deciding to be braver still. “Doctor, I’ve been wondering- what did you think of the poem?”

Julian looks annoyed; possibly at himself, for being unable to resist the question.

He starts eating to cover it up. “Poem, what poem?”

“You know the one.” 

“‘Kesatran’s Tears’? Or, that “symphony of sheaths” one? Really, I haven’t the-”

Garak is tempted to sheath this symphony as well; tuck it back inside the unsafe recesses of his heart. But no- he holds up Mila’s brooch, free of censor. 

Julian continues the charade. “Was there a poem about brooches?”

(… As if you’d forget.)

Garak positively beams. 

“Come now, you’re a curious man. Don’t tell me you didn’t take a peek.”

No response forthcoming, he pops open the hidden latch and lets the incriminating datarod slip unceremoniously out- it clatters with a clink that makes his nerves wince. There was no plausible deniability left now; none at all. 

(And Julian could go on about emotional dishonesty as long as he liked- this was the fourth love confession he’d received from Garak alone. 

One would think a man with his appetite for melodrama would appreciate such things.)

The agonising seconds scraping by could’ve been eternity for all he knew, all anyone knew when stripped down and observed in a torture chamber. But after absorbing some sugar and reassurance, finally, a corner of Julian’s mouth quirks upwards. It’s difficult to believe Garak had kissed it less than an hour ago, and yet… 

It had happened. It was real.

The proof was creased into their well-tailored clothes. 

“I did read it,” he admits. “Not just to satisfy my own nosiness, mind you- I was foolish enough to believe you might’ve left me some way of contacting you.” 

Garak permits himself the sting of guilt; allows it to carve through his chest like a canyon. 

“I’m impressed. Not everyone can hack through eight layers of my coding.”

Julian shrugs; the sort of well-oiled modesty that takes a lifetime of practice. “It’s a simple enough matter once one dismantles the base three sigma fractals. The rest crumples over like a house of cards.” 

“Indeed! Well, I regret to inform you it was simply a poem.”

“Yes, I gathered that.” 

He permits himself the visual of his friend scouring those vapid lines for encrypted meanings- present, of course; just not the truths he was hoping to find.

Elim. For once in your life, be clever. 

(Mila herself, probably- snark and affection snaking out from her brooch like a djinn from one of Julian’s Earth stories.) 

“Well?” he asks, voice actually splintering. “What did you think?” 

A weak laugh escapes that nose, and Garak starves to kiss it again. Now, with his anchors to Cardassia slashed, he’s a lightship without a pilot, drawn desperately towards the sun- and he’s never been any good at resisting warmth.

“‘Twas all right. Could’ve used a little editing.”

“Ah. It’s better in Kardasi.”

“I read it in Kardasi.”

“Did you?” 

“Yes. ‘S a good thing you’re so skilled at everything else, because m’sorry to say you’re not exactly fabulous, as poets go.” 

He laughs, heartily, “What makes you think I wrote it?” - and is rewarded with a deliciously patronising look. 

(Though, it doesn’t quite reach his friend’s eyes.)

“Oh, I’d recognise you anywhere,” Julian mutters softly. “Like it or not.” 

It’s frightening, how deeply, recklessly, obviously in love with Garak he is. It feels like being given something fragile to hold, and Garak wants more than ever to put it back in the box.

Instead, he picks up that damned isolinear rod- claiming that proof of sentiment the way he’d never be claimed himself; sentiment that shouldn’t exist, sentiment he couldn’t afford… sentiment he should’ve buried a long time ago. 

(“It’s mine”, says the Son of Tain. And the crowd goes wild!)

“It’s… drivel, I’ll agree,” Garak smirks. “I’m not surprised you disliked it.” 

“I didn’t say that. I said it wasn’t good; I happen to like a lot of things that aren’t good.” 

(… Beep beep, beep beep, beep-)

“When d’you write it? On DS9, or…?” 

“Doctor, some secrets are best left alone.”

“Really. I saw you in the holosuite. You didn’t look happy.” 

“Perhaps I work best that way.” 

“I can think of a few implants that prove otherwise.”

(Beepbeep, beepbeep, beepbeep-)

“We work best that way. Don’t you agree? I greet you in the mornings, you greet me, both seeing through every lie we’re clothing ourselves with- and then, we compliment each other on the colour.” 

“Hmm,” Julian pretends to consider. “Yes, I did often think you were picturing me naked.”

“Tragically, I never could. That damned Starfleet uniform was always the most opaque thing you owned.”

He smiles sadly. “I suppose it’s a lot more see-through these days.” 

“… It’s not the only thing.” Garak draws a laboured breath, enjoying the conversation despite himself. “What do you do, Doctor? When your… costumes no longer fit.” 

Julian pouts. “Well. Before he vanished for a year, I’d see my tailor about it…” 

“Your tailor would happily pretend it still fit.”

“Fuck off. My tailor often told me- very bluntly, by the way- exactly why I looked ridiculous, and I liked that about him. Always did.” 

“So you’re ready to tell me about Luther Sloan?” 

“If you tell me about the poem, yes.” 

“I believe we did both already, in the holosuite. I also believe we could’ve done quite a lot more in the holosuite-”

“And I believe you’re evading the question.”  

“What if I gave you three stories, and you could choose whichever you’d like to believe?”

The doctor groans, head in hands- “Unbelievable.” 

Garak shrugs. “Would you believe me if I said… I don’t quite remember which is true, myself?”

At this, Julian’s eyes meet his somewhat contemplatively.

“Drugs, the implants, carefully inflicted pain, mastery over my own memory. All those years, they…”

“They’re a blur. Aren’t they? And you want… me to…”

(… Yes, Elim pleads from behind his interrogator’s eyes- I am offering you the ultimate power. I am handing you all my threads.

You could spin them- spin me- however you like.)

Another unpleasant little eternity, (the actors hadn’t learned any of their lines this night, see)- and then, a solemn nod.

“One,” Garak begins, suppressing a jolt from an implant that isn’t there, “during the Border Wars, I was tasked with interrogating a Starfleet officer. I was nineteen at the time- eager, inexperienced… oh, we must’ve been in there hours. But I still remember thinking just how… fragile Humans were. He was my first, you see. How vulnerable, how unexpectedly quickly they could be coaxed to fold. A house of cards, as you put it.” 

The doctor’s chest is tight, the look in his eyes strained- it’s clear what he’s wondering. Did you tell me this just to see if I’d crumble? 

To see what I looked like, when I crumbled?

(Honestly, no. Julian has given him much of that information of his own volition, and Garak doesn’t care to sniff out the rest of it.)

He looks away. “Julian, take your dexazine shot.” 

“I don’t need-”

“I can step out of the room if you like, but believe me- you do.” 

With a flash of anger that makes Garak ache, he fumbles for the hypospray, and it joins the datarod’s casing on the floor. He curses; tired, trembling hands clenching in frustration. 

Garak sighs. “… Allow me, Doctor.” 

He knows, even as he tenderly presses its contents to that bunched-up neck, that this was a moment he’d be deleting from his memory. 

(Who knew how Julian would choose to remember it.)

“… We can resume this discussion tomorrow if-”

“Garak, we both know that if either’v’us walks out of this cubicle now, we’ll never speak of this again.” Julian wipes away some sweat. “Tell me the next lie.”

With a strain in the cords of his heart, Garak nods. 

“I was stationed on Bajor- tasked with interrogating a group of children. A purely theatrical display of violence, of course- it was hardly world-altering secrets they held. But they’d spied on us, for the Bajoran Resistance- so of course, we had to demonstrate just what happened to collaborators and traitors. It’s important to look out for a child’s education, isn’t it?”

Julian leans further into the corner. “Of course. A child must be smart and well-educated, above all else. S’the most important thing of all.” 

(… Garak would pick that one apart later, and in private.)

He smiles. “Yes. But I was still rather ill-informed at the time, you see, rather… soft. I felt dreadful, about everything- the terror in their eyes as I towered over them, the tears, the mucus streaming down their faces- oh, it haunted me. So later that night, I stuck a knife in my arm. The implant kicked in immediately, thank the State- that glorious pain, which took it all away. And, apparently, brought with it a spark of literary inspiration.”

Not quite a laugh, not quite a scoff. “I’ll admit, both sound plausible.” 

(Garak will never ask the question: does it make a difference to you, which one?

There’s no need. He already knows the terrifying answer.)

“… Third,” he soldiers on, “I had finally teased the secrets from a Tzenkethi warlord- over the course of our tenure as cellmates, our lives had become… entangled, in many ways, ways I very much resented. Now, as a prisoner of the Cardassian Empire, he was mine to do with as I pleased. Central Command had no conditions- they were perfectly willing to accept damaged merchandise, so long as it still had a pulse for the public sentencing.” 

“And let me guess. You tortured him, and then felt really bad about it.” 

Garak half-grins. “Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Doctor.”

“Your face lights up like a starship bridge whenever I’m sarcastic, Garak.” 

He fights the urge to laugh- or weep, or both. “Well?”

“Which one is it?” Julian sighs. “Honestly, no idea. None of them, all of them- what does it matter?”

“Humour me.”

“Why choose these particular stories to tell me? That’s what I’m interested in. What is it you want me to understand, your guilt? Your lack of guilt? That you know Miles was nineteen during the Border Wars, and you were what happened to people like him when they got detained? That you know what it was like for me, in prison, in solitary, or, or Romulus? Or Adigeon Prime? Sloan’s simulation? Or just that any of these events could’ve moved you to scribble this depressing thing out and hastily publish it before your high wore off? Or are they all lies? Hm? Is there a secret fourth story brewing in that twisted mind of yours?” 

Garak leans back against the wall. “Why not? Let’s see. I was lying all three times, that poem was written no less than seven years ago, and you were in the room, actually! Sleeping. I was in withdrawal. Barely aware of my surroundings.”

(“Barely aware”, Elim chortles. Liar. You’d recognise a chamber anywhere, does it matter that your interrogator didn’t?) 

“When I woke up some hours later, there was a poem on my PADD.” 

Julian smirks. “I noticed the lack of publication date.” 

“Ah, that’s because it was shot down by the Cardassian censor board.” 

“How convenient.” 

“It was blasphemous!” he insists, animated, bold. “The sort of thing a man can get exiled over.” 

Julian narrows his eyes a long moment. “… No.” 

“If you say so.” Garak settles back cheerfully. “It’s all up to you, my dear.” 

(Beep, beep, beep-)

His heart is still racing. Julian can probably hear it, what with those genetically enhanced ears of his. He wonders if Julian can- would- often did- deliberately slow his own down. 

Yes, probably. 

(And yet- over and over again, he chooses to reveal just how keenly it beats.

Why can’t you, Elim?)

“Well, here’s a little something I learnt,” Julian finally mutters. “It wasn’t you that broke any of those people. Not really.” 

“Do tell.”

“It was the room.” He gestures around them wryly. “No rules in there, nothing off limits. You, my dear Mister Garak, were a glorified prop.”

“Astute, alarmingly accurate,” Garak concedes, “though- if you’ll allow me to argue, surely a tad reductive?” 

“Is it though? You said so yourself. It didn’t matter what happened in there, the most violent thing about it is that… it never happened at all. And yet, it did. And much as I’d like to take the credit, you really only slipped up and admitted that on Agent Bashir’s stupid jet because you couldn’t keep your eyes off of me. Or your hands.” 

“You did look distractingly well-tousled.”

“You like me well-tousled. Noted.” The smile slowly fades. “Can I ask you something?” 

Garak gestures about the four walls. “You can ask me anything you like.”

“I mean, will you answer. Really answer.”

(The sound of that damned detonative again; beep, beep, beep-)

“We’re in my shop, aren’t we, Doctor?” He smiles brightly. “I am at your service.”

“Very well, that’s the closest to a yes I’ll get. Do you regret them?” Julian asks. “The lives you ruined. The ones you took.” 

“Some of them, yes.” He decides to be honest. “A lot of them, no.” 

The doctor nods, meeting his eyes. 

“I took so many.”

“We all did.”

“No, after a while, I… stopped thinking of them as lives, or I’d go insane. Miles used to say something similar- about your kind, that is.”

Somewhere out there on an identical station, the shadows reassemble into a familiar silhouette. “Believe me, Chief O’Brien has his share of regrets.” 

“Sure. But… You know, I used to remember their faces? The Jem’Hadar. Then, somewhere along the way, I lost track of even the numbers. And I don’t even know if my regret is for them, or, or for me. Who I thought I was.” 

(Confessions, confessions- really, he should set up a couch, ask Counsellor Dax if she’s in need of an assistant.)

A gleam steals over Garak’s eyes. “It surprised you, didn’t it? How… easy it all was.” 

“Yes.”

“Doctor.” He shifts a little closer. “The war never truly ends.”

Julian breathes painfully. “You’re right there. My treatment, it- it doesn’t always work. Some, they just can’t handle the rehabilitation process. All we can really do for them’s manufacture more White, and treat some of the side effects.” 

“I see.”

“So, there you go. I’m a fraud.” 

Garak designs his next line with care. “Oh, don’t give up on us yet, Doctor.”

The gleam flashes over Julian’s pupils now; a twisted game of tennis. “Patience has its rewards?”

“Not much of a reward,” he admits. “But, here I am. Despite my best efforts.”

“So… you aren’t cross with me for saving you.”

“Maybe I am,” he says. “And maybe that doesn’t matter.” 

“It does matter,” Julian insists. 

“It almost sounds like you’re the one “cross” with me.” 

“It matters because I never know when to quit. I miss when I knew why I even did this job, how I- god, I genuinely miss believing what I wanted was to improve lives, not just save them.” His gaze turns distant. “Prolong them, mostly.”

“My dear, if you are wondering whether I’d rather be dead than sitting here having this fascinating conversation with you,” Garak starts on a laugh, but… Ziyal’s painting stares back at him with invisible, piercing eyes.

(What would you tell him if you knew this was the last time?)

“… Well. I wouldn’t,” he says. 

Julian actually smiles. “Aw. You sweet talker, you.” 

“I’m- attempting to voice my gratitude without obfuscations, for once-”

“And the best you can do is “I wouldn’t rather be dead than talking to you”?”

He slumps against the wall on a drunken laugh, helpless- and Garak has watched so many people shed layers in his lifetime, but nothing compares to this; this sloughing of doubt caked upon soft skin like tar, this relief; something so brilliantly authentic expertly concealed under polished speech and Starfleet uniforms and designer tuxes alike.

(A deleted event, suddenly- Quick, Garak, get into this surgical gown- no no, don’t bother doing the back up, we don’t have the time…)

Time was merciful, on occasion. In less than twenty seconds the doctor is near-asleep with the sheer exhaustion of it all; ten months of keeping himself together.

“Oh, Garak,” he muses. “Look at us.” 

“Not quite where we pictured ourselves, are we?” 

“No,” Julian mouths, softly giggling. His head falls onto Garak’s shoulder like the most natural pull of gravity; symmetrically jagged edges slotting perfectly into place.

(And the timer grows ever faster; beep, beep, beep…)

“This you asking f’help?” Julian mumbles, finally allowing the veritable cocktail of chemicals swirling within him to slur his words.

Garak chuckles. “I believe I’m offering it.”

“Really.”

““Reach out, and I’ll be there”!”

“Ha-ha.” 

“Are you taking?”

He feels Julian grin. “You first.”

“… Very well,” he sighs. “I’ll accompany you to the clinic next you go. I have something I believe Tolak’Adar will appreciate.”

“Wha’s that?”

(Beep, beep, beep…)

Garak decides to call his bluff.

“A secret,” he purrs, caressing the doctor’s wrist. He skims over Julian’s fingers, all closed- grins back as they tighten in response. “I’ll show mine if you show yours.”

Exasperation again; puffed out against his shoulder. “Fine.” Julian sits back up guiltily. “I know, I know, it’s not exactly methically edible… Medible. Ethically- ah, you get the damned point-”

“My dear, it’s downright Cardassian.” 

Julian squints at him. “Betrayal gets you off. What’d I expect?”

His jokes fall away as Garak coaxes open his fist like one of Agent Bashir’s lovers. The evidence is laid bare now, both of them thoroughly exposed- Beep, beep, beep beep beep beepbeepbeepbeep-

“… This was installed at some point after the surgery?” 

“Yes.” 

“Ah.” 

Garak stretches the silence… To him, it’s practically a well-toned muscle. 

“Before or after you healed my old stab wound?”

Julian rakes both hands through his hair. “Okay. What was I s’posed to do? At least with Miles- when he- look, I could trust him to take his medications, see a couns’lor, and- and he lives with his family, you? Garak, I don’t know when you’ll- drink yourself sick, or trigger another implant, turn off life support- half the time, I’m ‘fraid I’ll wake up to find you’ve just- left! Again. W’thout saying goodbye. And, and if you did go and pull something completely asinine like that, I’d have to know if…” 

Garak examines the blinking device between his thumb and forefinger, quite literally pulsing with light. “If this withered old heart was beating out there somewhere?”

“You wouldn’ understand.”

“You’d be surprised.” 

“I am cross with you, by the way. How could you make me reject you like that?” Julian asks. “Knowing how much I— After all this— God, did you even care? Ten months, did you think of me at all?” 

Those last few words come out deformed and misshapen, and Garak glances around them and has never hated four walls more. 

Let’s get out of here, he wants to say. Wants to sweep the doctor off his feet. 

But Julian wasn’t the claustrophobe among them, and they both knew any room could do the trick. An infirmary turned into an interrogation chamber here, the promenade a warzone there. Hadn’t his countrymen once turned the whole of Bajor into a prison? 

Did Julian’s quarters ever feel uncomfortably like a simulation?

When he gazed out at those stars which had once filled him with wonder, did he now see cloaked ships lurking in the spaces between them? 

How much smaller had Sloan made his entire world?

“Computer… play last opened file.” 

(It takes a confession to end an interrogation, after all.) 

For an unbearable moment, the heart monitor is louder than the voices. But then, they pick up- the sound of a Vorta, first-

“… assembled around a tree. Subjects appear to ascribe almost… religious significance to it- foolish, of course; we serve the Founders, as in all things. The primitives will be trained out of their savage habits swift as possible. They appear to be producing some sort of… music, in crudely distributed groups…”

“Wha’s this?” Julian asks- so alert, Garak suddenly has suspicions over how drunk he is. 

“Shhh… Listen.” 

That pretty little gasp again, such childlike wonder. “They’re… singing,” he murmurs. “This is- Garak, where’d you get this?” 

“Those Dominion computers you’d salvaged had a few surprises in them yet.” 

Julian laughs softly in amazement- and if the heart monitor did spike a little in the moment, Garak was hardly going to start withdrawing his well-established criticisms of Starfleet equipment today. 

“Wha’s that they keep repeating?”

““Iskraithl, iskraithl”… I’d hardly endorse the Vorta’s dismal record-keeping skills, but their official translation is, “what is true”.”

“I have a patient named Iskrai’ku’thal,” he murmurs. “Perhaps that’s a bit like… “true-born”? “True-leader”, “true-image”- some Earth cultures have names like that. The Dominion allowed them to pass along their traditional names, see, but not their languages, so most of them have no idea why they’re named the way they are, so they just- oh, listen, Garak, it’s beautiful…” 

The warriors’ voices drown out the heart monitor now, and Garak casts it aside- he doesn’t need it to know how alive he feels; how keenly he wants.

“Is’kraithl, is’kraithl… Tolok’tilar…” the Jem’Hadar chant in rounds. “Is’kraithl, is’kraithl… Jis’tun-P’jhar…”

“I’ve found sixty two recordings so far. I’ll search for more tomorrow.” 

Julian blinks at someplace beyond the walls, as if they’re not there, not noticing the sheen over his own lashes. “It might be the jirouob, but… this is the most incredible music I’ve heard in my life.” 

When no response comes, “what, no comment about Gul Wot’s-his-name from Cardassia being superior?”

Garak doesn’t defend himself. He leans into the room’s constructed corner, grateful for its solidity. 

Julian winces. “… I really should learn to shut up.”

“Oh, no…” Garak reaches out from underneath Ziyal’s painting- a whole life there, in his greedy thieving hands- and the world within it warps now, changes shape. “We can’t have that.” 

“Shouldn’ve said those things in the surgical suite either,” he mumbles on. “Wouldn’ve. ‘FI’d known you were listening.” 

Garak doesn’t quite believe that’s true. But… Julian might believe it. And didn’t that make it real? After all, Garak himself had entered this cubicle with arms full of cloth, genuinely believing he’d just wanted to “put them away”, but… now…

“Do you know what it was that first drew me to you, my dear?” he says, slowly wrapping the fabrics around Julian like a blanket; Ziyal’s work the first, most tender layer.

“No,” Julian admits, relaxing against his chest. “Spent weeks tryin’ t’figure it out, actually. “Me, of all people!”, I said, t’Sisko and everyone else… Think Kira wanted to kill me,” he laughs.

“Well. I was wandering about the replimat-”

“Stalking,” Julian corrects.

“Stalking,” Garak amends, smiling as the doctor snuggled closer, “and I happened to overhear a rather handsome young man talking to a lovely dabo girl about his credentials. Some story about a final exam…”

“Wait.” Julian squints at nothing in particular. “No, no no no… No. You’re not honestly trying to tell me you were won over by that damn preganglionic fibre story?” 

“Oh, I was,” he sighs theatrically. “Slain then and there.”

“But… it was ridiculous!”

“Indeed. And I was enchanted,” Garak says, arms around arms, his “past”- whatever that meant- draped comfortably over them both. “Doctor, I heard you tell that story with such panache- such breathtaking, and I must say, seemingly earnest arrogance-”

“And you thought to yourself, now there’s someone completely, utterly full of shit?” 

“Precisely!” He dares nuzzle against Julian’s temple. “A true kindred spirit! And here, on this desolate station. I’d struck gold.” 

“Ah. My leading theory was far simpler.”

“Was it?” 

“You saw me, and thought to yourself- “I want to fuck this guy”.” 

Garak chuckles. “Doctor, must I explain again how multiple things can be true?” 

“Well, s’ not happening. Not ‘nymore,” Julian’s lips decide to declare right against Garak’s neck (the neck they’d been firmly sucking on mere hours ago, one might add) - “I ban myself from kissing you ever again. Yep. ‘F you want something to happen, you’re going to have to ‘nitiate it yourself, not now!” he almost interrupts himself.

“Absolutely not. You’re drunk,” Garak says (plainly, as if he hadn’t- also mere hours ago- gleefully boasted about drugging people on stronger things. That didn’t make it any less true.

This… thing, with Julian, whatever it was… Well, apparently Garak wanted it to last.) 

“Not drunk. Bit high, though,” the doctor admits. “Jus’ had the one drink. Won’t do it again.” 

“I’ll ensure you don’t.”

Julian blinks. “A’you taking care of me?” 

I want to… and I wish I knew how. 

He felt the bump and push of other thoughts behind that one, and through old- or rather, young- all-atrophied channels, he forced them along. 

I want to learn. I want to be worthy of you; of your company, your seemingly endless affection and respect. I want to be someone who restores your faith in the world rather than breaks it, someone who makes you smile rather than drives you to drink…  

And the last saunters in, most insidious of all. I want to be here for you. The way you always have for me. 

…

… I want to be here.

Garak swallows, feeling those beautiful Human eyelashes against his throat. “What I believe, Doctor, is that… had you ever “learnt to shut up”, I would not be here. And I’m not simply talking about what happened this month.”

His neck is slightly damp now. He gives Julian the gift of pretending it isn’t. 

“And I did think of you,” he confesses- what was one more for the pile? “There was one evening.”

“Just one?”

“Don’t be greedy, Doctor, nostalgia wasn’t the only resource running dry on Cardassia. In fact, I’d just been stabbed for my food rations.”

“Ohhh! That’s how.”

“Yes. I was lying in a miserable, empty shed, bleeding out… and then suddenly, I wasn’t. I was in your infirmary again. You were laughing, patching up my injuries and berating me for not taking better care of myself, and all was temporarily right with the world.” He swallows again. “It wasn’t, of course. I had simply lost a tad too much blood.” 

“Did… Did my “very existence” really “disrupt your world view”?” 

Do I really make you happy? Garak decides not to revisit “Harcourt” and “Agent Bashir’s” conversations again. “When my attacker returned the next morning for my medkit, I shot him. And as I stared at his motionless body, I thought… that’s where I belong. It’s all I deserve.” He smiles blankly. “Well, the joke was on me for relying on your voice to sustain me through the night, because now you wouldn’t shut up, as usual. “No one deserves this!”” he says mockingly. “And for all the times I’d ignored that voice, on that day, I listened.” Garak’s vision blurs suddenly, dreamlike, at odds with the very real warmth of his friend pressed against him. “Look where it led me.” 

Julian is asleep. His quiet, even breaths fill the cubicle, and suddenly the narrowness of it is simply intimate, the silence peaceful. Garak marvels at this. 

The chamber, it’s gone. 

It would be back, he knew- but what a gift, to be free of it for one night. Free, like his chest of rubble, with only Julian’s ear and hands to press upon it now, the surveillance tech they’d relied on cast aside the moment Garak had allowed them close. It felt like an awakening. 

And what else was there to do in a shrine, but submit to the object of your devotion? 

The strings of his various masks loosen, and they mingle with the various threads of his lives, scattered about the floor- and there’s a fierce itch as the shards peel away, but isn’t it divine, simply to feel something again? They’d fall off, eventually. All of them. They’d been trying to fall off all week. And now that he was letting them, the skin beneath would doubtless be ugly, and raw, but Garak was going to bare it- if not to the world, then to this room, at least. Bare it first, then let the doctor clean out the wounds, and- well, then he’d get to work on some new, better ones. He’d choose fabrics that breathed. 

(He was an expert in fashion, after all.)

A new string tumbles from his eyes. 

His mouth and cheeks stretch all on their own.

Garak smiles, and he sobs, and he sighs… and finds himself completely free to do so.