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“-And it really is fascinating, because you don’t see that kind of reproduction in other humanoids-” You’ve been talking animatedly about the reproductive methods of several races for thirty minutes. You talked all through your lunch date with Garak, have continued talking while roaming the promenade and the station’s corridors with him. He listens patiently, or at least pretends to. He doesn’t contribute, (you’re not sure you know anyone else who would even listen to you for this long, let alone contribute, so this is something significant on it’s own) but you can talk enough for ten people, and there’s only two of you, so it isn't a problem. Still, he doesn’t tell you to stop, doesn’t question your choice of topic, feigns interest well enough that it doesn’t ever occur to you to sensor yourself. You should sensor yourself, maybe, but that isn’t something you think about in the moment.
Too focused on your own thoughts, you follow Garak around the station for the better part of an hour. He walks leisurely, like he isn’t in a rush to be anywhere, and you suppose he probably isn’t. You never look at his face if you look at him at all, watch your hands as they move with your words instead, or the people milling about the promenade, or examine the colors of his shirt without losing the train of thought going directly from your brain to your mouth. There’s a lot going on, and you know on your own, the promenade with all it’s overlapping voices, complicated smells, and clashing colours, is almost too much for you to navigate. You find Garak particularly handy though, when it comes to blocking that out. He’s a distraction on his own, scales where you’re used to soft skin on most other people you see on the daily, a strange texture to his voice that you struggle to define in words but can feel on your fingertips like smooth sand. He even smells different, almost flowery to you. And he stays close, which you like. You described it to Dax once, said it was a little like he surrounded you in a bubble that kept everything else from overwhelming you.
Sooner than you realize, and certainly sooner than you’d like, you find that he’s lead you to the entrance of the infirmary. You blink, look at it quizzically before you turn back to him.
“That time already?” you ask. You think you sound disappointed. He gives you a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. None of his smiles ever reach his eyes though, and you’re sure at least some of them are genuine. You think the strangeness of the expression has more to do with you than it does with him. Still, you’re not sure how to interpret it.
“I’m afraid it’s been ‘that time’ for twenty minutes, dear Doctor.” His voice is easy on your ears in a way you still aren’t completely used to. You want him to continue talking, but he doesn’t. Sheepishly, you grin.
“Dinner?” you suggest.
“Of course. Shall I meet you in your quarters? You complain about the heat every time we try to eat in mine.” You think that’s amusement in his voice, so you laugh a little.
“Yes, please. How does…” you pause for a second. When are you supposed to be off duty? “1800 hours sound?”
“I’ll be there,” he replies. You give him a quick kiss, smile brightly, and hurry into the infirmary.
“I’ll see you then!” He says something in response that your brain doesn’t process, words getting mixed up in your head before you can parse their meaning. You slip deeper into the infirmary and hope the rest of the day isn’t interesting.
All in all, in the five hours between your return to work and your dinner date with your boyfriend, you do six routine checkups of station inhabitants, spend an hour and a half working on the research paper you currently have on the go, PADD in hand and feet planted squarely on one of your medical consoles, take ten minutes to figure out what you’d like to eat tonight (chicken parmesan? No, chicken tikka marsala? You’re not sure. Clearly something with chicken, though.), and pass the rest of your time completing paperwork and things you’ve been putting off. It’s boring, but it’s busy enough that time doesn’t drag its heels, and you hurry out of the infirmary with just enough time to make it back to your quarters, perhaps enough time to change if he-
You find Garak seated at the table in your quarters with a glass of something you recognize but would rather not think about in front of him, wrapped in a blanket you know as the one you tend to keep balled up on your couch. He tells you that you left the door unlocked and you give him a look that you intend to come off as skeptical. When you excuse yourself to your bedroom to change, he calls after you, something about wearing something decent. You ignore him in favor of picking out the clothing you own that feels the best on your skin. You find starfleet uniforms mildly uncomfortable, most of the time. The fabric just doesn’t agree with you despite your best efforts to ignore it or fix the problem. You find your favorite shirt on the floor next to your hamper, your best pants scrunched up under your bed. The colors don’t match, but you don’t care. You feel better, that’s really all you’re concerned about. You tug off your socks, toss them in the general direction of the rest of your dirty clothes, and wander back out.
“You know,” he starts as you head towards the replicator, “I could make you something decent in that fabric you like.”
“No,” you reply, punch a few buttons while you try to figure out exactly what you want to eat. You never did settle on anything, earlier. “Thank you, though. I like this shirt, it’s worn in just right.”
Behind you, he sighs. The computer gives you a chicken stir fry. You pick it up, bring it to the table quickly. It’s a bit too hot, but you manage not to drop it.
You grab a couple forks, set yourself across the table from him, and plop them in the dish. He takes a sip of whatever drink he has in his cup, peers curiously at the food you’ve made.
“And what have you made tonight?” he asks.
“Just stir fry,” you tell him, like that’s supposed to mean anything to him. You don’t know if he knows what you mean or not- he just nods in acknowledgement, takes another sip of his drink.
Dinner passes like all your meals with Garak. You start a conversation about something, talk back and forth for a while, before your brain goes off on some wild tangent and you forget about your food altogether because what you have to say is much more interesting to you, and he sits across the table from you with a small smile on his face. You’d call it fond, but you don’t know. You have trouble reading the facial expressions of other humans and Garak is a Cardassian. That’s an entirely other species from an entirely different planet from you, with an entirely different evolutionary line that you’re far too interested in learning about even if it hasn’t gleaned you much information that could help you decipher his sometimes inscrutable reactions.
He doesn’t eat much, and you forget about the food, so it sits mostly uneaten on your table until you return it to the replicator. You assume he didn’t like it and just hasn’t told you, so you file that away for later. You guess you're not surprised, you don't tend to like Cardassian food he gets you to try, and you've picked out maybe one or two things he's tolerated enough to eat most of.
Sooner rather than later, you move to the couch, having paused in your ramblings just long enough to suggest it, and then to ask him to let you under the blanket he’s cloaked himself in. You snuggle up despite not needing the insulation, room the perfect temperature for you but far too cold for him, and he all but wraps himself around you. You know he finds it cold on the station, and you know you run a degree or two hotter than average (though you’re not sure the “average” actually applies to you), so you don’t mind. You continue to talk, and he continues to listen patiently. It isn’t an interesting evening, but it’s a nice one. (He smells a little like that absolutely vile Cardassian drink you're sure he only gets his hands on via Quark, and you ignore it in favor of continuing to babble, because you don't want to deal with his awful coping methods tonight, and you doubt he wants to have you lecture him about it again. Besides, you're not sure he's had all that much anyway.)
Garak stays the night, sleeps balled up under your comforter in your bed, curled around you for warmth. It's not exactly a comfortable arrangement, but you're happy with it. Your time with him, as it so often does, passes in relative peace, and ends in the morning in front of the infirmary with the promise of another lunch.