Work Text:
Thoroughly debriefed and feeling as though he’s been wrung through a mangle, Julian Bashir leaves the captain’s office trailing slightly behind an equally deflated Garak. There’s none of the usual spring in the Cardassian’s step, none of the vim and vigour Julian has grown accustomed to from him, just an uncharacteristic slouch and a ragged inhalation of breath indicating nothing more or less than physical and emotional exhaustion – at least, until Julian says his name. Then Garak turns on one suddenly sprightly heel and pushes one of his charming customer service smiles onto his greyer than usual face.
“My dear doctor,” he says, pausing until Julian catches up with him and then taking him gently by the elbow – though whether it’s an effort to support Julian or himself is up for debate.
“Garak,” Julian says again. He hesitates in both speech and the middle of the passageway, trying to decide whether he should say what he wants to say or whether it is entirely inappropriate and unwelcome. Garak waits patiently, regarding him with soft, tired eyes, and Julian feels bad about keeping him standing here – but he’s made his decision, or rather the uneasiness gripping his mind has made the decision for him.
“I… don’t think I want to be alone just at the moment,” Julian admits, tearing his eyes away from the space station’s interior walls and forcing himself to meet Garak’s gaze. “I’d rather have some company… if that’s alright with you?”
The smile on Garak’s face seems to fade a little, but Julian knows him well enough to tell that it has merely transitioned from forced to genuine.
“Of course,” he says. “I feel much the same way.”
“Ziyal isn’t waiting for you?”
Garak gives him a look so old-fashioned it probably has a manual on-off switch. “She knows I’m safe. Anything more can wait until morning. For now, some hot food and a comfortable place to rest would make me the happiest man on the station.”
“My quarters, then?”
Garak nods and falls into step, a slow but steady trudge to the turbo lift and then to Julian’s living space. His room barely feels real after a month spent in a Dominion internment camp where he’d started to believe he’d never feel comfortable or safe again, but when the door closes behind them Julian feels home at last. He lets Garak use the sonic shower first while digging out some fresh clothes that might fit the stockier man, settling on some loose-fitting pyjamas. When it’s his turn in the shower Julian stands under the relaxing pulse for longer than necessary, enjoying the sensation and attempting to clear his mind. It’s a losing battle. He aches from barely-released tension and lack of sleep, and Garak, he decides, has his priorities straight – food and rest will go a long way towards helping him feel better.
When he emerges from the shower, Garak has replicated some food for them. The smell of warm curry entices him out of the bedroom while still shrugging into his clothes, and he slumps down on the sofa next to Garak with hands outstretched for the proffered bowl.
“Good choice,” Julian says around his third mouthful. It’s the same Earth green curry the two of them shared during their last lunch together before Julian’s ill-fated conference trip. He side-eyes Garak while shovelling food into his mouth, and barely manages to swallow before speaking. “Don’t tell me – you knew it wasn’t really me the entire time?”
Garak gives him one of his cryptic smiles, then to Julian’s surprise he laughs, a short almost harsh bark of amusement. “Indeed no. I hadn’t much chance to figure it out seeing as your imposter begged out of lunch on multiple occasions and never deigned to visit me in my shop. I was beginning to feel that I had offended you in some way until you – or rather, it – finally joined us for lunch last week.” There’s a pregnant pause in which Julian imagines some other being walking around wearing his face, having lunch with his friends, not only Garak but the innocent young Ziyal, and then of course there was the Chief and Molly and the baby, good grief the imposter must have held the baby all the while Miles believed it to be Julian… Garak has to give his arm a firm squeeze to bring him back into the moment, tightens his grip when Julian shudders in irrepressible horror.
“While I’m relieved to know it wasn’t actually you who pointed that phaser at me in the runabout, you must be quite perturbed about the whole thing. I can scarcely imagine how you must feel.”
Julian nods and swallows. The horror he felt is quickly mutating into anger, and he waves his spoon under Garak’s nose. “To be quite frank I feel violated,” he snaps. “To think that, that thing was running around the station talking to my friends, touching my patients! That’s the part I can’t stand – people should be able to trust their doctor, Garak!”
“I’m sure it did no lasting harm to anyone. It must’ve been quite a convincing physician.”
“That’s not the point – those people thought they were entrusting their health to my care, and they were deceived! That changeling betrayed them at their most vulnerable. I feel utterly responsible, Garak.”
“You are not remotely-”
“Yes yes, I know but… Damn it.” Julian drops his empty bowl on the table and slumps back against the sofa. He’s seething with indignation all over again, and if he wasn’t so exhausted he’d get up and pace the room. But the fact is, he is exhausted. And the sofa is comfortable. And the food is spreading a welcome warmth throughout his body. The rage doesn’t quite peak, and instead of boiling over it simmers down into his belly where it waits for him to come back and examine it later, sometime when he can stand to be alone again.
“Forget that,” he says, abruptly changing the subject. “Forget about that thing – Garak, your father…”
“Tain is dead,” Garak says simply. But he’s toying with his food now instead of eating it. “That’s all there is to it.”
“No one deserves to die in a place like that. I’m sorry.”
“What a quaintly Starfleet notion. Of course he deserved it – indeed, Enabran Tain deserved far worse than to die in bed with his only living relative at his side. If indeed the universe somehow keeps track of what we owe and are owed, then he racked up quite a substantial debt in his time. As have I.”
Julian frowns at that, a startlingly frank confession from his usually cryptic companion. But Garak shines a wry smile in his direction.
“Of course, I have no intention of merely rolling over and accepting what I deserve and nothing more.”
“But you don’t deserve – Garak, I know how much family means to Cardassians. He denied you that meaning for your entire life! I knew exile was hell for you, but being exiled by your own father? How could you bear it?”
A tiny muscle tightens in Garak’s jaw, barely enough to change his expression and probably unnoticeable to anyone else, but Julian is, after all, a student of anatomy. And a student of Garak too, if he’s honest.
“Perhaps I couldn’t,” Garak says, quietly. “But really, doctor, it doesn’t bear discussing. The man is dead, and while I may still be stuck on this station I am more free than I have been in years. And besides, he was a father to me in the only way that matters; I’ve learned more from him than anyone else could possibly teach me, although what I’ve learned in recent years is mostly how not to act. And exile hasn’t been entirely without merit – after all, I’ve met so many interesting people recently.” He flashes Julian a grin of the sort the human hasn’t seen for months, the playful lunchtime banter grin, and though it’s tainted by weariness it’s still a comfort.
“If you ever do want to talk about it,” Julian offers, placing a hand on Garak’s knee, “You know where I am.”
“Thank you, doctor. But I believe I will be alright after a good rest.”
When they’ve both finished eating, Julian takes their bowls back to the replicator which dematerialises them in moments. Behind him he hears Garak shifting on the sofa, getting up, and the expectation of him leaving hits Julian in the chest like a swung bat from one of the captain’s baseball vids. He turns, knowing full well his eyes are blown wide with anxiety, to find Garak standing a few paces away.
“Would you prefer your privacy, doctor, or…?” The question hanging in the air is perfectly polite, and while Julian knows what his honest answer is he’s also aware that Garak is an intensely private person. What if he wants to leave? He would surely stay if Julian asks, but he doesn’t want him to stay out of pity. Is he offering to leave out of good manners or from a genuine desire to return to his own space and his own company after days in a prison camp without any sort of privacy at all, unless you count the time he spent packed inside the wall? Julian is learning to read the enigmatic Cardassian, little by little, in the odd moments he ever gives away anything to be read at all. He had thought from their very first meeting that Garak’s end goal was intimacy with him, but is this really the time to think about that? Does Garak even still consider it a possibility, has too much changed in all this time…?
“My assumption,” says Garak, gently, into the silence, “is that you would prefer me to stay the night, in which case I would suggest it’s time to turn in. However, one is always loath to overstay one’s welcome…”
“Stay,” Julian says, a little quicker and a lot louder than he intended. Garak’s face breaks into one of those genuine warm smiles, the ones he always lets slip when Julian surprises him with an unscheduled visit. “Please,” he adds, blushing. “If you want to.”
“Of course, my dear.”
Julian smiles a lopsided, exhausted smile, and lets Garak lead him into the bedroom. It’s warmer in here but not warm enough for a Cardassian, so Julian pulls a pile of blankets out and dumps them on the end of the bed for Garak to fuss around with. Julian falls back onto his bed with a grateful sigh, and within a few moments Garak is beside him, pulling a couple of warm blankets over them both, and curling around Julian like – well, like a lizard around a warm stone. He feels cool against Julian’s back, balancing out the warmth, and the arm he tucks around Julian’s waist is a comforting weight. How long has it been since someone held him like this? How long has he wanted Garak of all people to hold him like this?
“Comfortable?” he asks, pulling that arm even more firmly close and anchoring himself to it.
“Mmm,” Garak answers. He presses his nose to the back of Julian’s neck, just below his ear. “You’re delightfully warm.”
“And you’re very…” Julian doesn’t quite have the right adjective. He half-turns instead, just enough to see Garak’s face. The Cardassian slow-blinks at him, languid and trusting. “Oh, fuck it,” Julian murmurs softly, and kisses him.
It’s barely more than the brush of warm lips against cool, just a promise of something more to come, but it sweeps away the dregs of Julian’s unease. He’s home. They’re home. He turns back onto his side, pulls Garak’s arm back around his chest, and is asleep before he takes his next breath.