Archive of Our Own ^beta

Elim Garak is in his element. 

The station is in beeping, flashing, looted, disorganized chaos. He has fellow countrymen to hide from. The Federaji are naïvely coming aboard like voles setting up quarters in the den of a sandcat – the cat content to crouch in the shadows and assess which rodent it will dine on first. 

Precious. 

Best of all, the Cardassian computer systems – no strangers to Bajoran sabotage – refuse to make friends with the Federaji programming. This leaves Garak – a mere hobbyist when it comes to isolinear data subprocessors in all their temperamental glory – to poke and pry through the information waiting to be brought online. With just a few taps of his gleaming claws, he can see into almost any room on the station. 

That he chooses to peer in on the station’s chief science officer… it doesn’t mean anything. 

Just as it hadn’t meant anything when he had flinched when she had told the young doctor that she would have dinner with him. It’s entirely proper – two young, beautiful Federaji with similar educational backgrounds – but it hasn’t escaped Garak that it has also given him a mild headache, triggering the wire. 

He tells himself that the wire would be humming along anyway, producing endorphins, because several of his countrymen had left him with parting gifts to mark the ignominious occasion of the withdrawal: a shattered ocular ridge, bruised ribs, a sprained wrist, and a few ragged scales rent by claws. Garak smoothes his tunic; even battered, he looks impeccable. And it might have been much worse. If one of Tain’s operatives had joined in, exciting possibilities like forced eversion and rape would have been added to the menu. 

He had been able to slink into his quarters to bleed in peace after that. The Bajorans had hammered at the door, but they hadn’t really threatened him. They knew the rumors of his fall; perhaps they hoped he would assist them in this Post-Cardassian era.  Garak feels something of a Post-Cardassian himself. Certainly, he has glimpsed nothing in this changing of the guard that he might offer to win back Tain’s confidence in his abilities: no weaponry, no biologics, no lead on resources desperately needed on Prime. 

How can these people, he wonders, be the conquerors of anything? Their weapons banks are paltry; their fiercest officers are impossible to distinguish from the meekest ensign. What do you offer? Garak wonders as he peers at these soft, unfamiliar beings. He has heard that the Federation is hedonistic, placing the individual over the state: do they win over new worlds with promises of pleasure planets like Risa? Garak scoffs at the notion. Any self-respecting person ought to be able to provide for their own enjoyment at need so as not to be tempted into anything unwise. He stamps the thought of Palandine beneath his feet and rakes the earth with his claws. 

With nothing interesting to plunder from the databanks, he finds himself engaged in… how do Terrans categorize this? Melodrama? 

Folly, Garak labels it, but he doesn’t sever the connection. 

“Yes,” the dazzling lieutenant with spots is saying to someone in another system – a waste of resources, to Garak’s mind, as the conversation contains nothing but gossip. “It will be dull and he will stammer all over himself, but if I don’t stop this now, it will make work impossible. Ben is still getting used to me in this shape – us, I suppose. I don’t have the time or the resources to waste on a puppy-eyed JG with a crush. Call it… squashing a bug.” 

Dax pauses, listening.

“No, that isn’t offensive! Worms are not bugs. They are bilateral animals with long, legless bodies. The symbiont isn’t even a worm – it’s simply vermiform – wormlike. All of which will, I’m sure, fascinate the young and much too eager Doctor Bashir. I’m afraid that joining is really where his interest in other beings begins and ends.” 

Garak isn’t displeased with the Trill’s decision to turn down Dr. Bashir. 

He is perplexed by it. 

His playful dive into Starfleet records has informed him that the doctor is bright and beautiful, fit and lithe, thoroughly committed to excellence in his field, and free of any vices – at least the kind that might enter into any official record. Garak frowns. The man is the perfect mate, at least by Cardassian standards.

Of course, it would be best if he were paired with someone a bit more seasoned and a bit less naïve than himself – a protector who could shield him as he scaled the lofty heights of his vaunted position. 

The Trill doesn’t want him. 

Garak wonders how the young man handles rejection and vows to be on hand to find out. 

Unlike so many of his vows to the Order, this one proves pleasant to keep. 

 •  •  •  •  •

Romantically frustrated Starfleet physicians apparently vent their feelings on what a quick data net search teaches Garak are tennis balls – little bright scrubby things that bounce around like mad. Garak feels bad for the tennis balls – they are being hit hard enough that bits of neon fluff actually float in the air – but he delights in the physical supremacy of the specimen on display. Perhaps there is some merit to these Federaji, he muses. Garak doubts any Cardassian could look on Julian Bashir as he leapt and spun and surged about the court – thwacking tennis balls into the corners, dancing away from those that escape – and not experience the feelings surging under his center crest. To watch Julian is to watch art. 

In time, the young doctor sinks down to his knees. His clingy, unflattering uniform – dreadful colors under the harshly golden lights – is dark with sweat; his hair hangs down around his face in wet curls. Garak doesn’t notice it, but his tongue flicks out as if he were present rather than watching a feed; as if he could taste the salt on that soft skin. Cardassians do not sweat. The glittering moisture fascinates him. 

“How are you, Julian?” the doctor says then, voice soft but mocking, quoting, though Garak can’t know it. “How are you really?”

Then he answers himself: “Oh, you know, mate. Low enough to walk beneath a worm without ducking.” 

Garak frowns. 

Garak aches. 

 •  •  •  •  •

Garak waits until the station is quiet and dark in the artificial night. He is in pain from the beating - illegal hypos notwithstanding - so he moves slowly along the promenade to the gymnasiums, which the previous caretakers had mostly used for military exercises. The security systems aren’t active, and it’s simple enough to locate – to draw in, to sample – the scent of the Terran who had just exercised here. Garak finds the right room. 

He removes the racket that has been abandoned on the floor. Breathing in, he learns – through scent – that it has been Julian’s for many years. 

He will miss it.

Garak won’t keep it long. 

***

Three years after

Garak is working in his shop, gathering designs to create a window display that celebrates the Bajoran spring. It is a small penance for all that Cardassia has done to the tiny planet, but he is pleased to pay it even if his debts never seem to decrease. 

He is thinking of flowers, so, at first, the object placed on the counter, decorated in flowers that echo the colors featured in the Federation science uniform (though, in this combination, they are softened and made lovely) fails to register. 

“You did this.” 

Garak doesn’t answer.

“Years ago.” 

Garak just looks placidly on.

“I should have recognized it back then. Who else could have done it? Are these Edosian orchids?” 

They are, but Garak continues to pretend that he has no inkling who could have possibly embroidered flowers onto Julian’s tennis racket. 

Julian honors the lie.

***

Eleven years after 

Their shared abode is modest by Federation standards, but they have made it into a home that is cozy and safe – and that reflects their shared loves and distinctive personalities. As he goes to summon his husband to dinner, Garak catches a glimpse of the embroidered tennis racket hanging on the wall. He pauses before it to admire the hue of the thread. It is good work. 

Julian joins him. The soundless way he can move – when he pleases – still surprises Garak. 

“It was kind of you to give me flowers all those years ago,” he says, squeezing him about the waist. 

“You were downcast,” Garak says. He feels Julian’s surprise. “I’ll tell you the story if you like, over dinner.” 

Julian thinks of asking him if the story will be true, but Garak so rarely offers to explain his actions, a decade old or not, that he decides not to press his luck. Instead, he only listens. As he does, he becomes ever more grateful that his life has followed a course that has led him here. 

“‘Lower than a worm’,” he murmurs, remembering. Even after all these years, Dax’s death still hurts. 

But Julian turns from that old pain to look across the table at the man he loves. 

“I did not wish you to feel that way,” Garak admits. His tone says: I sought to banish such swallowing depths from your life. 

Julian takes his hand and squeezes. “I won’t burden you with sentiment, my love, but I think that you can bear it if I remind you that you have only ever challenged me, refined me, and lifted me up.” 

“I shall endeavor to do so always, my Ch’ulian.” 

Love isn’t the most positive term in tennis, Julian thinks, but he has chosen the perfect partner with whom to play out the game of his life. A perfect match. In his memory, he blesses Jadzia Dax, then draws Garak to his feet and leads him to their bed.