Work Text:
For the first time that day, I relaxed: whatever lay before us, it would include emotional swordplay, and it would involve Holmes.
- The Marriage of Mary Russell, Laurie R. King
Tolan's shed was not really a shed anymore.
Garak had turned Enabran Tain's house into a memorial. But Tolan Garak's little gardening shed had become a home, and it changed and expanded as the resources became more easily available. It seemed appropriate that the place where Tain's memory rested was full of reminders of death, but in the places that had been Tolan's, there was life.
Garak's home was a living memorial to the man who had taught him how to make things grow, and taught him that there was more than one way to respect the heart of Cardassia. Every time the house grew, every time it gained a new room or better windows, every time it became a better place to live, Elim nodded in satisfaction, knowing Tolan would have approved.
Garak spent much of his free time out in front of the house, watching people roam the memorial, or working on the surrounding garden that had been Tain's by name but Tolan's in spirit. Sometimes he let himself hope he'd see, among the Cardassian faces, a smooth brown human one.
He blinked, looking up from his orchids. Had that been...
There was none of the Starfleet black, gray and teal of his uniform in the crowd, so he must have been wrong.
But then there was another flash of smooth golden skin, topped with that odd flourish of hair. It was Julian! Not only was he out of uniform, but he wasn't wearing his comm badge. The doctor had spotted him now, and was walking towards him.
Garak stood up and brushed the dirt off his hands. "Doctor Julian Bashir, as I live and breathe. Welcome to my humble abode." He apologetically offered his grimy hand to clasp, which Julian did, in a way that ended up half human handshake and half yut'pUr.
Garak spoke to him in Federation Standard, or, more accurately, English, since that was the dialect he knew best from the human literature he'd read. That was what they'd spoken in their circle of silence, since the universal translators that were everywhere on the station couldn't listen and therefore couldn't translate.
So it was something of a shock when Julian replied in Kardasi.
"ka tapxik vrell," Julian said. Your house is lovely. He grinned like he knew he'd won something.
"s'h'iosr'halin," Garak exclaimed, thrilled to be able to speak in his own language. He continued in Kardasi, "Your accent's not terrible. Who have you been practicing with?"
Julian kept it up as well. "Random Cardassians on the shuttle over, mostly. There isn't anyone on the station anymore who's a native speaker."
Garak shook his head, leading the way to the front of his house. "Oh, now don't try and deceive me, Doctor. You've got a better grasp of the language than the journey here could account for. Even for you."
Julian dipped his head, acknowledging. "I'd already been trying to learn. After that last conversation - that last real one - I knew I had to. I found a copy of Meditations on a Crimson Shadow in the original Kardasi and I read that and the translation you gave me side by side. It was different. I suppose whoever translated it wanted humans to enjoy it."
"Indeed I did," Garak replied.
"You wrote that translation?" Julian's eyes widened, and he stopped in his tracks. "Did you do the same for The Neverending Sacrifice?"
"I used a translation matrix and then I... tweaked," Garak admitted. "There's no other Cardassian I'd trust not to mangle the English language. And no non-Cardassian I'd trust not to mangle our literature."
"I didn't realize," Julian said, frowning. "All this time you've been writing for me, speaking my language, and I've just been giving you English books in the same state as they came to me."
"I'm reminded of a quote you once attributed to your synthetic pen-pal," Garak said. "'Creativity can be seen in any choice between sources, and the application thereof.' My dear, you may not have sewn every stitch, but you chose the right fabric for the right occasion brilliantly."
Julian was smiling again as Garak ushered him into the house, and therefore all was right with the world.
Garak made them both tea, and they sat at the kitchen table. "So are you here on business or pleasure, Doctor?" he asked.
"Hopefully, both," Julian replied. "I'm on leave right now, but I've requested a transfer to the Federation aid outpost."
"You must have left almost as soon as you got my message," Garak said, not quite a question.
"Yes," Julian agreed. "You painted a vivid picture. It gave me a lot to think about, but some things it just made me realize I'd already known." His brown eyes were liquid and bright, and he seemed to be on the edge of saying something else, but then there was a knock at the door.
Of course. The meeting was soon, and Kelas had taken to walking him there. The sudden arrival of Julian had knocked it straight out of Garak's head.
"Ah, forgive me, Doctor," he said, standing. "I'd forgotten about a prior engagement. But you're welcome to come along."
Julian stood up as well, looking wrong-footed. "Oh, if this is a bad time... I didn't even think... I can go."
"Nonsense, my dear," Garak reassured. "Between us, a little inconvenient timing is practically tradition."
The doctor's face lit with a quickly suppressed smile that still left the corners of his eyes and mouth suspiciously crinkled. "You might be right," he said.
Garak opened the door. "Come in for a moment, Kelas. I've just had a very interesting visitor. Doctor Kelas Parmak, this is Doctor Julian Bashir. He's asked to be assigned to the Federation aid outpost. I'm sure you can think of many ways to put this man to work."
The doctors eyed each other, Parmak with a little suspicion and a larger amount of open, welcoming good humor.
"I certainly can," Dr. Parmak agreed.
Julian looked at Parmak with a somewhat dumbfounded expression at first, and then a flicker of what looked almost like queasiness before he put on his best Federation smile.
"What do you need the most help with, medically speaking?" Bashir asked. "I may not have the expertise of a Cardassian doctor, but I've almost certainly spent more time treating Cardassians than most doctors that could be brought in from outside."
Garak wasn't absolutely sure what was going on under the surface - though he had his suspicions, of course - but on the surface, the two doctors were quickly caught up in a discussion of the complex net of concerns they were facing, including the problems of epidemiology, nutrition and infrastructure that weighed on Kelas every day.
As much as Garak thrived on being involved in conversation himself, he was quite content to simply watch these two debate the merits of various approaches. In debate with Doctor Parmak on these same issues, Garak tended to take the position of devil's advocate, to brace Kelas for the opposition he would receive to some of his more federaji ideas. But between Kelas and Julian, the same issues were discussed with more nuance, between many ideologically more similar but practically still very different options.
They spent the whole walk to the Oralian Way meeting engaged in their discussion, and Garak just watched, a tiny smile on his face.
There was some measure of relief on Julian's face when Parmak left them at Garak's door again and Garak said his goodbyes with a touching of hands that was yut'amn and nothing more, less familiar than the yut'pUr he'd greeted Julian with.
There was still some light left - the Oralian Way was no longer required to meet under cover of darkness, so they'd chosen a more convenient time - and people still wandered the grounds outside.
Julian returned to his seat at the kitchen table with a hint of self-consciousness that begged Garak to prod until he uncovered its source. Of course, Garak realized as he thought over the possibilities, there was an obvious question that hadn't been answered.
"Have you arranged accommodations?" he asked the doctor. "I don't know of any hotels that have been rebuilt in the city, and even if they were, I'm sure they'd be suspicious of a Federation officer wanting to take his leave here. The city barely tolerates the aid outpost."
Julian looked at the floor. "I didn't think about where I'd be staying. I just... came."
Garak felt the need for a better way to say What were you thinking? but in the end, he decided to simply say it with a look.
Julian shook his head slowly, giving an eloquent shrug. "I suppose it was a leap of faith."
It was harder to deny that Garak sometimes felt inclined to those as well, with the energy of the meeting still buoying him up.
He could feel his smile grow softer. "You're welcome to stay here as long as you like."
Julian's face showed relief, but then he braced himself for something else, and reached into his bag, bringing out the sound jammer. His eyes, turned on Garak, held many questions.
Garak approached, and put his hand over Julian's, stopping him from turning the thing on.
"We won't need that, my dear." Slowly, waiting for any sign of refusal, he leaned down to kiss Julian.
Julian leaned in and kissed back as if he had been starved for Elim since they'd parted. Then he pulled back just slightly, to look Garak in the face. "You mean we can be a couple? A real one, in the open? No secrets?"
"Well, I wouldn't say no secrets," Garak demurred. Then he smiled wickedly. "But yes, that's the general idea."
"Oh, Elim," Julian said, and pulled Garak down onto his lap to kiss him again. "This is everything I want."
"You're sure?" Garak asked. "This dusty place? This grey old man who can't give up the habit of paranoia?"
"You're not old," Julian insisted. "And your home is beautiful."
They kissed for what seemed like hours there in Garak's kitchen, with the sounds of birds, insects and playing children drifting in from outside, with none of the muffled distortion the sound jammer would have given it.
The sky was starry by the time they came around to the prospect of conversation again, and it felt like they were in some kind of limbo in between what they had been and what they might be. The stars in the black sky outside shone on Julian's form in the firm Cardassian bed, which was familiar, but the insects chirped and the air smelled of dust and the garden outside.
Garak had never felt more content than he did now, with the smells of his garden and the smells of Julian blending in the air, and the sounds of the human's soft breaths set against the background noise of Cardassia.
Would he get to keep this? The question hung in the air.
Garak decided to avoid it by dealing with some smaller questions first.
"You were afraid I was involved with Kelas?" Garak asked.
Julian frowned, taking a breath. "I know it would be terribly hypocritical of me to..."
"You also know that I appreciate it anyway. I enjoy your jealousy, because it means you have an investment in us. It doesn't matter what you've been doing with anyone else, as long as you get properly jealous over me." He said it playfully, to transform what was a terrific lie into something with an element of truth in it.
"So does it make sense to you that I sometimes wish you'd get jealous over me?" Julian asked. His smile was bittersweet.
"In that case," Garak said, "I was lying. I've been seething with jealousy over your obsession with Dax since the beginning."
It didn't quite come out as sarcastic as he'd meant it to.
"I know," Julian said. "I could tell from your story."
Garak rubbed at the soft hair behind Julian's ear, and declined to speak the words of the question they both knew needed to be answered.
"I tried to make things work with Dax," Julian said, "I really did, you were so insistent that I pursue someone else, but we realized that she was a substitute. We had lunch together in the Replimat, and we discussed literature, and we were friends with different perspectives that interested the other, and I even loved her, in many ways, but I kept wishing she was you. I think, eventually, if I hadn't heard from you, we would've gotten over that hurdle and found our own balance. But once I knew you wanted me here... she... she saw, and she sent me after you. And then I came, and you had a warm, friendly, brilliant doctor knocking on your door to go and attend a habitual outing, and I remembered how you spoke about him in your message, how similar he was to me, and I was afraid I'd waited too long."
Garak was silent for a long moment before he told Julian, "Kelas is afraid of me. I interrogated him, once."
Julian tucked his nose behind the ridges just below Garak's ear, and said, slightly muffled, "Well, that's one thing I have over him, then. I'm not afraid of you."
"I might argue that his fear is a sign of greater wisdom," Garak said, not quite joking, "but I'd much rather the person who shares my bed not be someone who has nightmares about me."
Garak could feel the little tension that produced in Julian, and thought he was deciding whether to ask if that very situation was how Garak had learned about the nightmares. But then the doctor sighed, soft and content, perhaps deciding the answer didn't matter, or he had no right to it.
Garak would have told him, if he'd asked, that he and Kelas had never shared anything more intimate than two cots side by side in an emergency tent, taking what rest they could while others dug through rubble, trying not to collapse the building further onto the survivors underneath in a delicate feat of engineering that was beyond both the doctor and Garak, who was only there as a pair of relatively unskilled hands. But perhaps Julian would have heard intimacy in that, and perhaps he would not have been so far wrong.
Elim and Kelas were very close, regardless of the fact that Kelas could not bear his touch for anything more intense than their brief palm-to-palm yut'amn farewells.
The warm weight of Julian beside him, now drifting into sleep, was reassuring and sorely needed, but at the same time it had a weight it never had before.
Garak didn't deserve Julian, and if the doctor thought having things out in the open was going to make things easier, he was in for a rude awakening. Existence on Cardassia was a fight, perhaps now more than ever. Things were changing, but in many ways that simply made them more volatile.
But the way Julian had spoken... or rather, the way he hadn't spoken... about his feelings when he'd received Garak's message made Garak sure that he wouldn't be dissuaded anymore.
If Garak had really wanted to push Julian away, he would never have sent that thing. But he had, and now Garak had to deal with the consequences.
Garak had never really been fond of that simple fact of life: the possible consequences of having something included losing that thing. No matter how paranoid one was, no matter how attentively one protected it.
He would have to face facts, eventually. But for now, he sighed, pulled Julian closer, and kissed the middle of his forehead.
Julian sighed contentedly, and settled into his arms.
Over breakfast, Julian kept smiling, as if he'd just remembered a wonderful secret.
"What are you smiling about?" Garak asked.
"You," Julian replied with a ridiculous smile that Garak fought not to find endearing.
Garak just shook his head and returned attention to his eggs.
"Do you have many plans today?" Julian asked.
"Oh, the usual mending and gardening," Garak answered. "Nothing I can't put off, if you have any better ideas."
"Actually," Julian said, a wicked light in his eyes, "I was thinking of going to visit Doctor Parmak."
"My dear," Garak said with exaggerated shock, "are you trying to make me jealous?"
"I'm merely trying to help your beloved Cardassia, first in your heart," Julian said. His smile was slightly asymmetrical.
"In that case," Garak said, "I'm sure I can keep myself busy."
"Well," said Julian, "just in case you have trouble with that, I've got another short story I thought might interest you." And he reached into his bag, this time for a data rod that he handed over with ceremony.
Garak took it, obscurely pleased that just because they had fewer secrets now, it didn't mean they were going to have fewer codes.
It was, as he'd thought, one of the King woman's stories, but this one was entitled The Marriage of Mary Russell. It followed Russ as she contemplated her engagement to Sherlock Holmes.
He was the least marriageable man I knew. On the other hand, we were already partners. And having that piece of paper - that otherwise meaningless piece of paper - would undoubtedly ease such matters as border crossings, hotel rooms, and claiming one another's body in the event of a fatal mishap.
One of the things Garak tended to appreciate about Russell was how she didn't let her attachments blind her to more practical matters. And she didn't shy away from the prospect of the worst happening. She was, perhaps, Garak's better, in that way.
She made compromises to prioritize Holmes's culture and traditions - not that it seemed to be a great sacrifice for her to do so.
"You prefer a Jewish ceremony, then."
I had not even considered the possibility until that moment, and allowed myself a moment to dwell on Holmes, kippah on head, standing beside me beneath the chuppah, signing the ketubah, and stomping on the glass, then me lifted high in a chair -
"I think not."
She saw through her intended, saw through his very deliberate facade to everything that he cared too much about to reveal to anyone else. Tradition, the home where he was raised, the art and the history of it all.
"...My ancestors have been baptised, wed, and buried in the family chapel since the days of Bolingbroke. It would be mildly irritating for the usurper to keep me from my rights."
Sherlock Holmes was the least sentimental person I had ever encountered. If he was admitting to mild irritation, it meant that the longing for his home chapel went bone deep. It mattered not that we had no right to it, or that I was Jewish, or that armed men stood ready to repel us.
They had their own rules, codes, and secrets. They had times when they kept their distance.
Affection between us remained a private thing. Private even, occasionally, from one another.
And they woke each other up in the middle of the night to go on important adventures which united families.
"Holmes, is that you?"
"Have you another man in the habit of presenting himself at this hour?" rose from the dark below. He sounded revoltingly cheerful.
Sometimes things seemed ominous, sometimes it seemed as if they would get themselves into trouble they couldn't get out of. But in the case of this, their wedding day?
Things turned out better than expected.
After he was finished reading, Garak took the isolinear rod out of the reader and twiddled it in his fingers, staring at it, as if his eyes could derive some clearer message from the amber crystal than the story itself had given him.
Was this really the message it seemed to be?
But then, half the fun of reading these tales was to prod Julian about them afterwards, about what message the doctor had taken from a given book. Just to see if they'd caught the same things, and to speak of themselves and each other without really speaking of their own lives.
On the other hand, a message like this really did need to be spelled out.
More or less.
Garak greeted Julian in the doorway that evening with an enthusiastic kiss.
"I take it you had a good day," Julian said.
"I did indeed," said Garak. "A friend from outside the city brought me some interesting new cuttings for my garden."
"Good news," Julian said. "And do you want to know how productive my day was?"
"I only have one question."
Julian smiled. "What's that?"
Garak held up the isolinear rod. "Was this a proposal?"
Garak could tell from the twinkle in Julian's eye what he was going to say before he said it. But then, it was the line Garak had set him up for.
"Does it need proposing?" Julian said, grinning.
"Only if you want an answer," Garak told him, making the script firmly their own.
"In that case," Julian said, "Elim Garak, would you enjoin with me?"
Well. He was here, wasn't he? Here for good, if Garak was any judge. There would be no more evading him. And anyway, Garak didn't want to evade. Not any more.
"Yes, my dear Julian," he said. "I would like nothing better."
Julian leaned forward to touch his forehead to Garak's, and then they were both smiling like hopeless fools.
To walk through Cardassia City holding hands wasn't as unambiguous a declaration as it might have been on Earth, but it still attracted attention beyond what looks Julian got simply for being a human, and one out of Starfleet uniform, at that.
The fact that they barely managed to keep those hopeless smiles off of their faces for two minutes together probably had something to do with it as well.
Garak was still officially assigned to Parmak's medical group, although thankfully they hadn't had much use for unskilled labor in recent weeks. It gave Garak an excuse to walk Julian over to Kelas's offices, though. He meant to offer his tailoring services to the doctors there. Garak felt it made a difference in how confident you could be in a doctor, when their clothing appeared well-stitched.
"So," he said. "When will I get to read the next Mary Russell book?"
"Pirate King?" Julian wrinkled his nose. "Let's skip that one."
"You don't like it?" Garak asked curiously.
"I enjoyed it," he hedged.
Garak narrowed his eyes playfully. "Julian, are you trying to hide something from me?"
"Only my own ridiculousness."
"Oh, my dear doctor, you failed at that endeavor long, long ago."
Julian shrugged self-consciously. "Still, you probably wouldn't even have read Meditations on a Crimson Shadow if not for me. Much less wrote a sensationalized English version."
"No," he said, "but in the end, I'm extraordinarily glad that I did."
"In that case," Julian said, "how do you feel about Earth's tradition of musical theater?"
Garak was afraid he didn't quite know what he was getting himself into.
He held Julian's hand tight in his own, and realized that he wouldn't have it any other way.