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Jules Bashir was born with a soulmark.
Like everything else about him, it was found wanting.
His parents didn’t know it was Cardassian, of course—the massacre that would set off the Federation-Cardassian Wars in earnest was naught but a twinkle in the eye of some ambitious Legate when Jules was born—but they knew it was unacceptably alien, the blocky, pale-blue symbols scrawled over their son’s heart.
The doctors had no problem removing it, when they systematically dismantled that inadequate child and replaced him with something better. Dermal regenerators really were a wonder: it didn’t even leave a scar.
Elim Garak’s soulmark appeared when he was in his early 20s.
Honestly, the lack of one up until then was one of the few things he thought his father sincerely approved of—oh, every Obsidian Order operative had their marks removed, naturally, but to be completely without! To never even know, to never even have that potential conflict of interest. Truly, if Enabran Tain had a conscience to assuage, he could tell himself that Garak had clearly been born to do exactly what he was raised to—but of course he did not, and so the point was ultimately meaningless, except for the irony it brought to the day Garak discovered that even in this, he proved insufficient.
Ah, well. At the very least, he still wouldn’t suffer the temptation of having an actual name: the mark was in no language he could understand, with years separating him from the need to learn Standard. It was rather lovely all the same, smooth looping letters in a shade that seemed to dance between green and brown, right over his heart (how trite), and Garak surrendered to the temptation to study it, for just a moment.
He had already killed more than one person. He knew, even then, he would kill many more. Strange, how the universe could think he, of all people, was destined for any love beyond that which he felt for Cardassia.
He traced his fingers over the words, just once. And then he went to report it for removal.
Humans without soulmarks were very rare—less than 0.5% of the population—but they still existed, and there were entire alien species without. It really wasn’t that strange not to have one, and by the time he was in high school, Jules decided it actually made total sense. People didn’t really like him. He talked far too much and had trouble sitting still and he was just terrible at knowing when he wasn’t wanted, which was most of the time. He tried to figure out what about himself he needed to change in order to make things better, but he never seemed to get it right; it was like everyone else was working off a set of instructions that he had never been given. It just followed that of course he wouldn’t have a soulmate, either.
Or at least that’s how he felt until he found the files from Adigeon Prime, and had a screaming row with his parents.
“You should be thanking me,” Richard had finally shouted. “You’ve got it better than you ever could have, struggling through life with some alien scribble on your chest!”
It wasn’t that it was any more shocking than any of the rest, but the words still managed to get through the haze of horror like a punch to the sternum. Jules reeled back, pressing a hand over his heart; he had always just assumed the phantom pain there when he thought too much about soulmates was normal, but now... “I—I even had a soulmark? And you had them remove it?!”
His father scoffed. “What’s the use of a thing like a soulmark in this day and age?” he asked, as if he and Jules’ mother weren’t matched. “You’re meant for bigger and better things, Jules!”
Some isolated part of Jules’ mind—the part that was grafted onto the rest, he now realized, that was constantly aware—recognized the onset of a panic attack: the dizziness, the shortness of breath, the fact he felt as though he was going to throw up as he staggered backward. “I’m leaving,” he heard himself say, distantly.
“Jules…” Amsha implored, her features creased with distress, but he just shook his head.
“I can’t be here,” he gasped, and stormed out of the house.
Once he was outside, he simply ran—his mother had always cautioned him about that, gently smoothing his hair away from his forehead and smiling in a tight, fraught way, encouraging him to go a little slower, Jules, give the other children a chance. God, did that make more sense—that, and the constant moving, hopping off-world and then back on. Never staying in one place too long, never giving anyone enough time to realize how exceptional Julian truly was. Now, he didn’t care; he pushed himself as hard as he could, until even his lungs burned and body ached with exhaustion, until he found himself in a reasonably deserted park and finally allowed himself to collapse.
He didn’t get overwhelmed. That part of his brain that was always ticking away and making notes made sure of it. But his mind was a cacophony, shock and horror and a deep, wailing sense of grief and betrayal all drowning out his ability to think straight, and he had no choice but to give himself over to it, to let himself be pulled under. Was this what it was like, he could only wonder, when I was an apparently broken child?
Eventually, the worst of it would pass, and he could think again, and that was almost worse.
A mark. On top of everything else, all the other ways his autonomy had been so comprehensively violated, he had a mark, and they had taken it. An alien mark—he had been meant to be with someone from the stars.
Oh, God. He had been, but that was plain little Jules Bashir; who would want him now? He was a freak, a monster. There were laws against people like him existing, and for good reason. He was going to have to hide who he was for the rest of his life if he wanted to live in the Federation—could he do the same to a soulmate?
Jules’ stomach roiled so hard at the idea that he gagged. No. He couldn’t just—pretend to be human, make up some story to explain the absence of his mark, subjecting his soulmate to the same kinds of lies his parents had fed him. The doctors may have taken his mark, but he could still make this choice.
He had always told himself there was a reason he didn’t have a soulmark, and now—it simply turned out it was true.
Feeling shaky and strangely numb, he picked himself up and trudged home. It took considerably longer, but that was almost a relief; it let him construct an appropriately calm mask to wear when he returned to his parents—Richard still upset, Amsha openly worried; they hadn’t called anyone to look for him. The walk had given him time to practice what he would say, to seem appropriately calm and accepting so that he would be allowed to go up to his room, and be alone. As soon as he was there, he settled at his computer, and pulled up forms he had saved ages ago.
Before, the name Jules fit like a too-small shirt, nice enough but not right, but he had always held off on changing it—everything else had been a fluke of biological chance, but his parents had given him his name, and it felt… ungrateful, to discard it. Maybe he would have grown out of that on his own, eventually, but now Jules rather thought his parents had made enough choices for him to last a fucking lifetime.
Julian Bashir went into Starfleet and spun a life of lies to get as far away from Earth as possible, and tried not to think of his one-time soulmate. Perhaps, if they were lucky, Jules’ name had been wiped from their skin when he was destroyed in some sterilized lab. Maybe he could still meet them and at least be friends, even if they could never be together.
Garak, by nature of his position, was an expert at reading tells—and one could get so much from the eyes. Amateurs would swear on gazes that flicked this way or that, depending on if someone was lying, but frankly such “rules” could hardly be trusted within the confines of a specific culture, to say nothing of the vast tapestry of galactic existence. The real professionals could simply tell, and Garak was nothing if not a professional.
But eventually, at least for a while, he stopped paying attention. What was the point, trapped on Terok Nor—oh, forgive him: Deep Space Nine. The Federation, insultingly, apparently wasn’t even interested in trying to secure him as a double agent (correctly, of course, but still). He could gain no intel of value, and what notes he did take almost always ended in rambling commentary about how useless it all was, at least until he deleted it. He let his skills go a bit stale, floated along on the wire, and was genuinely grateful when it started to kill him.
But then, of course. The doctor.
The only other thing that had managed to make his stay on the station somewhat bearable. Oh, Bashir was painfully naïve and his opinions on literature were pedantic at best, but he was smart, willing to defend his points with absolute passion and never backing down from a good debate, and Garak hadn’t ridden the wire quite so hard when they had plans to meet, just to make absolutely sure he could put forth the best argument possible. He knew there were people who disliked Bashir—reasons he would stop in the middle of some excited story, look away, and mutter, “sorry, you probably don’t care about that,” no matter how many times Garak said that he hardly minded—but he truly couldn’t imagine why. Garak tried not to make a habit of lying to himself, and at least privately, he could admit that he found the doctor terribly beautiful and wonderfully engaging.
And so, naturally, when Garak found himself entirely clear-headed for the first time in months, a warm hand in his, he glanced up and realized he had never truly looked into Bashir’s eyes. Never made a note of the color, and where he had seen it before.
Of course. What a fool he had been! The universe hadn’t thought Garak destined for love. What he was destined for was to love, uselessly, hopelessly: first Cardassia, and now Julian Bashir.
Julian had tried to temper his curiosity about other people’s marks once he got to Starfleet, but it didn’t really work—and that was especially true on Deep Space Nine, with the sudden profusion of different cultures. Instead, he told himself to look at it as a research opportunity, and tried to be as tactful as he could when asking about them.
Sisko had two names nestled on the inside of his left wrist—his wife’s, faded, and then Kasidy Yates. That’s presumably why he didn’t seem terribly bothered that Jake also had two, running along his collar, though he probably wasn’t expecting one to be a Ferengi and the other to be Gul Dukat’s daughter.
Trills have names hidden between their spots; after joining, they acquire those of all of their previous hosts, but Jadzia had Kira Nerys along the line of her throat since she was a toddler.
“Have you talked to her about it?” Julian asked, after he had recovered from the strange combination of disappointment and relief that the alien name that had been on his chest wasn’t the blue of Jadzia’s eyes.
Jadzia smiled, those very eyes twinkling. “As soon as I realized. I told her I wasn’t sure what kind of bond it is, but I’m not in a hurry. I expect she didn’t even have time to think about having a match with an alien while she was busy fighting off an occupation—I don’t want to rush her into anything now that she has the freedom to.”
Bajorans call theirs Marks of the Prophets, which are universally located on the wrist of their non-dominant hand. They’re intensely private about them, but Julian still saw Kira’s, by accident, when a plasma burn sliced right through the leather cuff she wore on her left wrist—he got a glimpse of what looked like a pale blue symbiont before he yanked his eyes away, stuttering out an apology.
“Oh, it’s fine,” she huffed, expression wry. “I'm guessing you knew already, anyhow.”
“I did,” he admitted, but he still pressed a square of gauze over the now-bare mark as he treated the burn—luckily, it had only ruined her cuff.
“There are some people that suggest we shouldn’t hide them at all, anymore,” Kira mused, as he finished with the regenerator and wrapped a bandage around her wrist in place of the useless cuff. She looked at it for a moment, lips quirked, then glanced up at him. “Since we don’t have to worry about the Cardassians using them against us.”
Julian couldn’t help but shudder at the idea of it, and the awful pragmatism of covering them. “I think that’s up to you,” he offered.
“And I think it’s nobody’s business but mine and Jadzia’s,” she agreed.
He saw Leeta’s, too—she wasn’t the type to leave hers uncovered all the time, but she was extremely upfront that their time together was just a bit of fun, and terribly excited to share her mark with someone.
“I think it’s Rom,” she had whispered, gleefully. “I’m just waiting for him to work up the nerve to say something.”
Julian tilted his head. “Is that a hammer and sickle?”
Quark said that Ferengi don’t have them—what would be the profit in marriage contracts, otherwise?—but according to Rom, that’s not entirely true: they’re tucked away in the whorls of their ears, and have something to do with what makes oomox oomox. He did match with Leeta, even if it would take her almost leaving the station for him to admit it.
There was one person whose mark he knew nothing about, of course. Cardassians were notoriously secretive about theirs, and he couldn’t even imagine asking Garak, mostly because he was afraid of what lie the other man would find to tell him. He didn’t need a mark to fall in love with Garak; it happened all on its own, without him even really realizing it, at least until the camp, when he stumbled out of his second stint in solitary and was filled with such impossible, selfish gratitude that no matter what was going to happen to him, at least he got to see Garak again. That’s when it hit him, truly, and he couldn’t even do anything about it—they had bigger problems to deal with, and Julian had to shove that realization aside, and focus on Tain and escape and keeping Worf alive. There would be time, he told himself, like a mantra. They would get out and back to the station and he would have time.
Garak was not Julian’s soulmate.
He had spent perhaps too long going over their initial meeting in search of anything that might contradict that fact. He hadn’t been abusing the wire as extensively—in fact, it was the culmination of that little affair, and the realization that even Starfleet wasn’t interested in him as an asset, that would inspire its constant use—so the memories were reasonably clear. Julian had been terribly nervous, but the only recognition he displayed was via reputation. He knew of Mr. Garak, the spy, but the name itself clearly held no meaning for him; Julian could act, but not that well.
Garak was a firm believer in the inherent apathy of the universe itself, but even still, what remarkable cruelty. To present him with someone so lovely, so vibrant, so entirely what Garak could ever want that it had once been etched on his skin, and whom he could never have. And not even a Cardassian! An alien, whom he would have had to be in this exact, already horrible situation to even encounter.
Oh, how Tain would have laughed if he knew—but then, Garak realized, he probably had known. Tain kept a record of every soulmark his agents had removed, just in case, just that much more incentive to make sure they didn’t get any ideas; of course he would have Garak’s, too, and Julian—impossibly brave, foolhardy creature that he was—had gone to Tain. No wonder the man had sent Julian back, cure in hand. He had probably taken one look and realized, just as Garak had, that it was an incomplete match, and reveled in that unexpected extra torment.
There were times when Garak wished, desperately, that Julian was unkind, or at the very least ambivalent. That he recognized Garak as an enemy of the Federation, and treated him with the same disdain as someone like Dukat. But his dear doctor was so impossibly warm, with so much affection to give, that he would extend it even to a man like Garak. It would be easier, if Julian was unkind; instead, Garak forced himself to accept lunches only once a week and basked in what he could receive of Julian’s attention, and told himself it was good enough.
All of the files from Julian’s stay on Adigeon Prime had been added to his medical records, part of the agreement between his father and Starfleet in the aftermath of the LMH debacle. They were far more comprehensive copies than the ones he had found in Richard’s office when he was a teenager, with detailed descriptions of what procedures had been done to him pursuant to what results, all of them cataloged via pictures of a thin, wide-eyed child clutching a teddy bear, clinically turned this way and that.
Looking at them made Julian feel queasy, trapped in his own skin—he couldn’t remember many of the specifics, but what he could was a haze of pain and fear. The child in those pictures was suffering, and for what? Amsha may have believed what she said about their motivation, but Julian didn’t, not really. If his parents had truly acted out of nothing but misguided care for him, he could have been brought up to the level of a neurotypical seven-year-old, but instead he had been improved, as close to perfected as could be achieved: a monument to his father’s ego. How could they truly say they ever loved Jules when they had found every part of him wanting?
Julian shuddered, rubbing his arms until he felt something other than creeping numbness. He was here for a reason: to retrieve at least part of what had been taken from him.
He flicked through the images as fast as possible, ignoring the changes as best he could lest he get sidetracked again, until he reached the earliest one: the first, baseline photo of a much smaller Jules Bashir, confused but not scared, not yet. And there, on his chest, was the mark they had taken from him, in blocky, cornflower blue Cardassian.
Elim Garak.
Julian closed his eyes, and pressed a hand over his mouth.
It didn’t really matter. It didn’t change how he felt. But he suddenly ached with the loss of it, the symbol proving that there was someone out there, there had always been someone waiting for him, someone who could accept him, like him, even the parts of him everyone else hated. What would it have been like? To meet Garak and realize, “Oh, it’s you. The one I’ve been looking for.”
Well. To be absolutely honest, it probably would have been a disaster. They were two very different men before endless lunch dates and arguments, before the wire and the holodeck, before the camp and Tain’s dying words. More than likely, that Julian recognizing his soulmate in a wayward spy willing to do anything to get back to Cardassia would have been a very bad thing.
But then again, maybe it wouldn’t have been. The only thing Julian knew for certain was that he had lost years of time he could have spent finding out, and he didn’t intend to wait another moment.
Garak did not, as a rule, receive guests. He had, in fact, removed his name from the public directory entirely, though of course it remained on the official one—and as such, when his door chimed at some 2200 hours, he did expect it had to be an officer of some flavor or another, Bajoran or Federation. What he hadn’t expected was Julian.
“Hello, Garak,” he said. “May I come in?”
The doctor looked nervous in a way he hadn’t in several years, since their earliest acquaintance, and Garak sincerely hoped he wasn’t still concerned about the reaction to the revelation of his genetic modifications. According to Dax, ingenerate gossip and busybody, Julian had been terrified of how his friends were going to take it, but every one of them had done their best to reassure him their opinions had not changed—except for Kira, who had simply laughed for three straight minutes at the concept of Julian going mad with power, but apparently that helped in its own way.
The whole station knew at this point, but Julian hadn’t actually asked Garak’s opinion. He had instead approached their usual table with visible hesitation in his lovely eyes, and Garak made a point to smile as sincerely as he knew how to and treat the doctor as he always had, as if nothing at all had changed, because as far as he was concerned, nothing had.
And so: “By all means, doctor.”
Julian stepped inside, still fidgety—his eyes flicked over the décor without seeming to take in anything, simply a way to distract himself. Garak waited until the door closed behind him, and then gently prompted, “Is there a reason you came, or is this simply a social visit? You’re welcome either way, of course, but I’ll replicate a little something if you’re planning on staying.”
Julian’s gaze finally returned to Garak. “I’m not sure,” he said. “If I’m staying. I suppose that’s up to you.”
Garak’s ridges arched in surprise. “I can’t personally imagine a reason to ask you to leave, though perhaps that’s just a failure of creativity on my part,” he said, slowly. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here, and we can find out.”
“Okay,” Julian murmured, and rubbed his mouth. He was silent for so long that Garak thought he would have to prompt the doctor again, or perhaps just get some tea, when suddenly: “I don’t have a soulmark,” Julian said, taking Garak entirely by surprise.
He blinked, off-balance by the direction of the conversation. “Is this the sort of situation that requires condolences?” he settled on asking.
“Well, I—I had a soulmark,” Julian explained. “It was removed at Adigeon Prime.”
“Then it would seem condolences are in order,” Garak murmured.
Julian shrugged, a strange nervous motion that Garak couldn’t begin to parse, and repeated, “I suppose that’s up to you. Actually—” He seemed to remember something, and looked briefly concerned. “Actually, I should probably hack in and try to delete those—”
“Doctor?” Garak prompted. Julian’s eyes snapped back to his.
“Sorry. The files from Adigeon were added to my medical record, and there are pictures. Of my mark, before it was removed.” He took a deep breath. “I never knew what it said. But now, I do.”
Garak felt himself go still. He recognized, now, the most logical direction for this conversation—for the doctor coming to his quarters—even if he cannot believe it.
“It’s you. My soulmark was your name,” Julian said.
Julian couldn’t have his mark. That’s what Garak had decided, after studying the evidence. How surreal, to be proven completely correct and utterly wrong at the same time.
Garak took refuge in opacity. “And you’ve… come to see if mine is a match?”
“Well,” Julian laughed. “That is the usual order of operations, as I understand it. But, of course—if there was anything usual about this situation, I would have asked years ago.”
“I do wish I could say I had your mark, my dear doctor.” Garak allowed himself that much honesty, and didn’t let himself get distracted by the way Julian’s eyes widened. “… But mine was removed shortly after it appeared, and before I had a chance to learn to read it, and even an eidetic memory cannot provide understanding where none existed at the time.”
Julian sucked in another, shuddering breath. “When it appeared.”
“Oh, somewhere in my early 20s, or thereabouts, I suppose,” Garak replied, and was rewarded by Julian laughing again, more sincerely, shoulders dropping.
“Mysterious as ever,” he noted, stepping closer. “But around the right time, it sounds like. And what about the color? That you must remember.”
And here was the decision to be made. Garak could make up a lie without any sort of effort. He could claim that Cardassian marks were just names, with no color at all, no tell-tale, unmistakable hazel that Garak had been staring into for years now. Julian would surely recognize the deception for both what it was and what it meant, and accept the rejection. It’s up to you.
The intervening decades hadn’t magically erased the things Garak had done, nor had it made him any less willing to commit violence if that’s what needed to happen. It remained a perfect, inarguable truth that Julian Bashir was both too good for him, and better off without him.
But Julian had sought out the mark that had been taken from him, and now he was here, jittery with nerves but still, unmistakably, hopeful. Garak would do the most unforgivable things to keep his dear doctor happy, and when what Julian wanted aligned so neatly with that which Garak himself desperately desired?
For the first time in his life, he could not find it within himself to lie.
“Yes,” he confessed. “The color was a perfect match.”
And, oh. The smile that broke out on Julian’s face was beautiful beyond compare. It was very genuinely shocking, that someone could know that they had been destined for a man like Elim Garak, and react with such unambiguous joy.
“Well. I don’t know about you, but I’m willing to take it on faith,” Julian said.
“Really?” Garak asked.
“No,” Julian said. “I’m lying. I don’t actually give a damn what my chest said, or yours. I care about you, and I want to be with you, and I think you do, too, and I’m tired of making up excuses for that not to happen. A sign from the universe itself seems like as good a reason as any to go for it.”
It should have felt stifling, the weight of something like that. A sign from the universe itself. Just another force trying to control him. But then: he had given this up once, allowed Tain to take it from him.
And somehow, he had ended up here anyhow, all on his own. A sign from the universe or destiny or sheer, stupid luck—it didn’t truly matter. Garak had once considered it impossibly cruel, to be presented with the gift that was Julian Bashir and not be allowed to have him, and he had not become such a hypocrite that he would do it to himself.
“Then it seems we are in complete agreement, my dear doctor,” Garak said, and let himself close what little distance remained between them.
Much, much later, Julian settled at Garak’s computer, still gloriously unclothed from a joint trip to the refresher after an evening spent firmly establishing their mutual, enthusiastic attraction—possibly because the doctor himself had insisted on adjusting the environmental controls to Garak’s room following the events regarding the implant, he seemed in no real hurry to get dressed, and Garak was hardly in a hurry himself to suggest it. Instead, he simply permitted himself to enjoy the sudden improvement to the aesthetics of his quarters, and watched as Julian logged in, frowned in consideration, and then glanced over at Garak.
“You know, I think you might be better at this,” he said, thoughtfully. “I need to get into my files and delete some information from Adigeon Prime.”
“Forgive me, dearest, but are you asking me to hack into Federation medical files, specifically ones acquired as part of a criminal plea deal?” Garak asked.
“Without leaving a trace, yeah,” Julian said, grinning. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Please,” Garak scoffed, and took Julian’s seat as his companion vacated it. “Would you like me to take care of anything else while I’m here?”
“No, just anything regarding my mark,” Julian said, arranging himself on the couch; it was presumably not meant to be particularly enticing, but given his predilection for twisting himself in such interesting configurations when given a comfortable seat, the effect was rather striking. “The rest I don’t care about, but—we know that Changelings have infiltrated Starfleet, and if they had access to that information when they took me—”
He swallowed, looking away. Garak paused in the middle of his work, and then continued, seamlessly, as he noted, “I wish they had.” That brought Julian’s gaze back to him, brows arched, and Garak smirked grimly. “The only reason it was ever able to fool me was by keeping its distance. If it had actually thought to attempt and manipulate our relationship to its advantage—well, I certainly wouldn’t have needed that message from Tain to know something was wrong.”
Julian looked down, but it was with something of a smile. “Still, probably for the best. I would have driven myself to distraction in that camp, worrying about it being alone with you.”
Garak inclined his head. “Everything in its time, it would seem.”
“Truly,” Julian said. “You know, when I was younger, I convinced myself I would never be with my soulmate, because I didn’t want to lie to them—about my enhancements, I mean. Now… it isn’t an issue. Everything in its time.” His expression went rueful. “Except, of course, I very seriously doubt you care at all that I’ve been hiding a secret that big from you.”
“You’re correct; I’m quite impressed, actually,” Garak said, both because it was true and because he thought it would make Julain smile, and was gratified when that’s exactly what happened. And then, unfortunately, he had to focus the entirety of his attention on the task at hand.
The files were… disturbingly extensive. Of course Garak’s upbringing hadn’t been particularly kind, but that was Tain attempting to turn a mistake that hadn’t been corrected into something actually useful; Garak had immense difficulty imagining parents that actually claimed to love their son subjecting him to this sort of treatment. But here was the unambiguous proof—and somehow Julian had taken everything that had been done to him and come out the other side as the best humanity had to offer, not because of the enhancements, but instead an impossible capacity for compassion and furious refusal to ever give up on something that was important to him that couldn’t be manufactured in any lab.
Garak was extremely grateful the mark’s removal was one of the first procedures performed, because if he had to delve any further he might do something deeply ill-advised, like hunt down any Adigeon scientist that had ever touched Julian.
But, as it was: there were only a few mentions of the mark at all—acknowledging that Julian had one, that they had been asked to remove it, and then a report of exactly that. Each was excised without effort, leaving only the image to be deleted, and that brought Garak pause. He found himself looking at a wide-eyed child with Elim Garak printed on his chest, much smaller and softer, but still unmistakably Julian.
When he lifted his eyes, it was to find the man himself watching, silently. “It would be easy enough to create a copy of this, should you desire it,” Garak mentioned, and was unsure of what he wanted the answer to be.
“No,” Julian replied, quietly. “Maybe if it was any other picture, but not that one. I don’t want to remember my mark like that—besides, I don’t need it. I’m going to get a tattoo.”
“A tattoo,” Garak echoed.
“Yes. They took it from me, I want it back, so I’m going to get a tattoo.” He lifted his chin, features resolute—but then he wavered. “Unless you’d prefer that I not. It is your name.”
Garak deleted the photo, very deliberately. And then he got up, took Julian’s face in his hands, and kissed him, deep and lingering.