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Usually, Kira made it a habit not to get drunk with Cardassians. In fact, getting drunk with Cardassians was possibly the last thing that would ever end up in her plans for the day. But there was something about the impending sense of death and destruction that followed her down into the basement of Garak’s childhood home that brought out the need for kanar. Several bottles of it, in fact. One for each of them. Garak had already finished his and was very sneakily attempting to steal Damar’s bottle, who looked about one more toast away from passing out.
“You know,” Garak said, pausing as he swayed, leaning against the wall as he slowly slid down onto the floor, joining Kira, who watched him, for some reason finding his swaying the funniest thing she’d seen in years and burst out laughing.
“Shh, ssh, shush, I am… speaking,” Garak admonished her, waving his hand in front of her face, which only made her burst out laughing again, resting her head on her knees.
Damar finally seemed to gain enough presence of mind to slide onto the floor next to Garak, spilling some of his kanar onto Garak’s lap and causing him to shriek.
“I’m trying--what I’m trying to say, is that, let me tell you something, about, the last time, I had kanar,” he managed to say, frowning as he wiped at the kanar now staining his pant leg, apparently far too drunk to even make a comment about ruining the fabric.
“Ooh, yes, yes, tell us the story, Garak. Tell us the story,” Kira clapped her hands twice, partially to keep them all awake and partially due to the fact that it seemed like the thing to do. She needed more drunken Garak stories in her life.
“It isn’t a story, not really, actually it’s-” he frowned, as if he were only realizing how boring his tale was, “only that Julian wouldn’t be too pleased with me, if he saw me drinking again. Something about… my liver. Addiction. Ridiculous. I don’t even like eating liver, and besides, how could alcohol result in an addiction to liver…” He trailed off, and Kira didn’t bother telling him that perhaps he’d misunderstood Doctor Bashir’s words, because she was too distracted by something else.
“Julian?” She asked incredulously, right at the same time as Damar, who sounded more confused than incredulous. “The doctor on Deep Space Nine,” Kira clarified for him, “the little twink one.”
“Twink?” Damar repeated, frowning.
Not wanting to get off track and forget her original question, Kira waved her hand at him, accidentally smacking Garak on the nose. “I’ll explain later. What’s important is that he’s Julian?”
Garak sputtered and looked away from her, before snatching the bottle of kanar out of Damar’s hands and taking a long drink from it. “Not- I only- well, I meant, I meant to say Doctor Bashir,” he said, as if that solved everything.
Kira nodded understandingly, although she meant it more sarcastic than she felt it came across, so she chose to clarify. “Like how I mean to call Jadzia Lieutenant Dax,” she continued nodded exaggeratedly.
“Exactly,” Garak agreed, nodding, before the words Kira had said actually caught up to him and he frowned. “Wait. No, not… not like that. The opposite of that.”
“Who is Jadzia?” Damar interjected again, probably feeling lost in the conversation.
“My wife,” Kira said, before turning back to Garak.
“Ah,” Damar mumbled to himself, and then frowned, as if finding out Kira had a wife was mildly distressing news to him, but then shrugged it off, stealing his kanar back from Garak. “Lucky woman. Let's drink a toast to her.” He held out his kanar. “To Jadzia!”
“Hear, hear,” Kira agreed as she once again rounded on Garak. “And to Julian.”
“To Julian!” Damar agreed, then frowned. “Who was Julian again?”
Kira leaned over across Garak’s lap, cupping her hand over her mouth like she was about to whisper a secret. “Garak’s husband,” she said, in what was decidedly not a whisper. In fact, it caused Garak to sputter indignantly and flap his arms at her, as if she should know what frantic drunken arm flapping signified.
“Garak has a husband?” Damar asked, looking even more distressed, before he sighed in a resigned sort of way.
“I do not,” Garak said, just at the same time Damar raised his bottle of kanar yet again and said, with the expression that only a man who’d recently found out the people he’d been flirting with were already in committed relationships could have, “to Garak’s husband. Ah—” He glanced at Kira for help once again.
“Julian,” Kira supplied.
“Julian,” Damar repeated, taking another drink and handing off the bottle to Garak before leaning back against the wall, head tilted upward toward the ceiling.
“I don’t have a husband,” Garak repeated like he was trying to convince himself of that fact. “We aren’t even…” he trailed off, waving his hand.
“He used to talk about you a lot,” Kira mumbled, taking the kanar from Garak and taking a drink herself, finishing off the bottle. “Not to me, still don’t think he likes me, ‘n I don’t like him, but he talked to Jadzia.”
“Used to?” Garak echoed, his voice distant, and Kira wasn’t sure if it was the kanar or the topic of conversation causing his tone; probably both.
“Used to,” Kira confirmed, nodding. He didn’t talk much anymore. No one did, really. “He had quite a crush on you. Guess he got over it. Figured there were more important things to worry about than love.”
Garak frowned, his forehead wrinkling. “You got married during a war.”
Kira shrugged. “Don’ ask me what’s goin’ on in his head. Maybe he figured you’d pick Cardassia over him, didn’t wanna deal with the breakup. He probably made a…” she waved her hands around, trying to come up with the word, “made a chart. Like ‘reasons to fuck Garak’. Y’know. A pros and cons list.” Kira wasn’t usually this crass, actually, never, but a bottle of kanar tended to loosen her up quite a bit, apparently. “He can be very…”
“Anal?” Garak offered.
“No…”
“Sanctimonious?”
Kira shook her head.
“Pharisaic?” Damar offered, leaning over to look at Kira, who again shook her head no.
“Obnoxious?” Garak seemed to be having too much fun with this. Kira frowned, not even bothering to react to his suggestions. “Self-congratulatory? Maddening? Infuriating? Endlessly confusing? Enigmatic? Mystifying? Alluring? Ridiculously attractive?” Then he frowned, his brain seemingly just now catching up with his mouth. “That took a turn somewhere.”
“I have to meet this man,” Damar mumbled, mostly to himself.
“You’re in love,” Kira said, slapping her hand onto Garak’s shoulder, forcing him out of his reverie. “Nothin’ wrong with that.”
“I’m going to die, that’s a problem,” Garak said, uncharacteristically honest.
“You’re not gonna die,” Kira said, shaking her head.
“No? And how might you know that?”
“You survived Deep Space Nine for seven years without me killing you,” Kira said matter-of-factly, earning a snort from Garak. “You survived the Obsidian Order,” she began listing them off with her fingers, “a Jem’Hadar internment camp, Dukat tryin’ to kill you on Terok Nor, that fucked up brain implant, um--”
Garak waved his hand, shutting her up. “Alright, your point has been made. Even still. You specifically said used to. The last time Julian and I were ever close was…” he trailed off, staring at the wall across the room.
“Was?” Kira prompted, and Garak jumped, looking back at her with hazy eyes.
“When we were in that godawful internment camp. I suppose it was the war, the Cardassians joining the Dominion, the--the things he learned about me in that camp, and not even a month later I learned he was genetically enhanced. All of those things…” Garak shrugged. “We were close. Now we are not.” And that was the short and long of it. And all Garak seemed to have to say on the matter, because he turned away from Kira, closing his eyes as he leaned against the wall.
Damar glanced at her, and she shrugged, unsure if she should press the matter farther, or perhaps offer a new subject.
“I miss him,” Garak mumbled, so quietly it was almost a whisper. “And I don’t mean these past weeks we’ve been gone, I mean... “ he trailed off, sighing deeply. He might’ve fallen asleep.
“I’m sure he misses you too,” Kira said, her voice soft, her hand still resting on Garak’s shoulder to comfort him.
“Because there’s so much about me to miss,” Garak murmured sarcastically.
“Well, I don’ see the appeal personally,” Kira said with a snicker, hoping to get at least a small smile out of Garak, “but Bashir saw somethin’, almost six years is a long time to have lunch once a week every week. That’s…” she paused, converting weeks into years and trying to multiply in her head. It took an embarrassingly long time. “About three hundred dates. You should be married by now.”
“We aren’t,” Garak said, obviously.
“And whose fault is that?” Kira asked, crossing her arms as if she’d just made her point. If she was being honest, she wasn’t entirely sure what her point had been.
“Mine?” Garak tried, his eyes opening a sliver to look at her.
“I’d say you have equal blame. Wouldn’t you, Damar?” Kira leaned over to get Damar’s opinion on the whole thing, and found him passed out on the floor. She frowned. “He still alive?”
Garak carefully reached over and pushed two fingers against Damar’s neck before nodding.
“We should probably move him somewhere more comfortable. He’ll wake up sore,” Kira said, and Garak nodded once again.
Neither or them made any attempt to move him.
They sat in silence for a while, listening to the quiet sounds of Mila shuffling around in the house above them before she seemingly went to sleep, the light shining in from under the basement door shutting off and the footsteps dying out.
“We’re out of kanar,” Garak mumbled.
“I miss my wife,” Kira said, vaguely aware she was losing a battle with her rapidly closing eyelids, no matter how much she tried to keep them open.
“Last time I had this much kanar, I slept with Dukat,” Garak said.
Kira made a face, feeling her body slide further down the wall, into a lying-down position. “Ew. My mom slept with Dukat.”
“Ew,” Garak agreed.
“Fuckin creep,” Kira muttered, referring to Dukat, not Garak, who seemed to get the message, nodding in agreement.
“Asshole,” Garak added, still nodding slowly.
There was another long silence, until Garak’s breathing evened out and she spared a glance at him. He was asleep, propped up against the wall. She sighed.
“I miss my wife.”