Work Text:
Julian was just about to finish buttoning up his shirt and put on his jacket when the curtain of his dressing room was abruptly pulled aside, revealing Garak, dressed into mid twentieth century Earth white shirt and a waistcoat, with a red silk tie hanging loosely about his shoulders. His cardassian friend looked very annoyed.
“I’ve already conveyed to you my extreme puzzlement on the subject of your Earth’s fasion sence, but this is simply beyond any reason!”
Julian sighed and turned around, facing his friend with a weary look.
“Look, Garak, it’s an Earth day on the station, and so all the dinner guests are required to…”
“Ahrr, I might be required to put up with this nonsense of a suit, but Doctor, tell me, why on your precious Earth would you have me wear this monstrosity?”
He picked the ends of his tie and shoved it to doctor’s face, eyes blazing with anger. Julian blinked at him, puzzled.
“What’s wrong with a tie?”
Garak let out something of a growl and circled around his shop, the wratched piece of his wardrobe in question clasped in his hand.
“Oh, where do I start? For one thing, it serves no purpose. It does not dress one’s neck to make it look thinner or to hide any possible skin defects. It is not holding the shirt together, as it has buttons of its own. Secondly, and more importantly, my dear Doctor, it is just plain ugly! A piece of cloth hanging from one’s neck, tied in a knot. Why would anyone wish to wear that? Now, it could be colour-matched with other accessorises, I suppose, but from what I have seen in your spy holosuite programmes, humans tend to pick most hideous colours for that thing…” He stopped pacing for a moment and glanced at doctor, who was just barely containing a bubbling laughter. Apparently, he was doing a poorer job than he thought, because Garak’s eyes had inflated even more. “And what is it you find so funny, pray tell?”
“Mgm…Nothing, it’s just…Well, I’ve never seen you get so angry over something so…mundane.”
Garak moved a bit closer to him, hands letting go of the tie, fingers clenching and unclenching at his sides. Julian swallowed nervously. He always knew Garak took appearances very seriously, but surely he couldn’t be that angry..
“Fashion, my dear, is as much an important matter as is literature, or war, or politics. I rather fancied that our lunches together had taught you at least that much.”
Julian leaned backwards on the wall and waved his hands in dispair.
“I give up. You’re probably right. But a three-piece suit just doesn’t look right without a tie...” An idea came to him suddenly, and he fixed his eyes on the floor before him with an apologetic expression. “I suppose, if this dinner dress-code annoys you that much, you could always abstain from the whole thing. Naturally, Sisko will be dissappointed, but I’ill take all the blame. After all, it was I who suggested to him that you’ll be delighted to come.”
Garak stared at him for a moment in disbelief, and then stalked closer, looking just as threatening as before, if not more so.
“Oh no, my dear doctor, you will not get rid of me that easily, I’m afraid. I’ve accepted Captain’s invitation and do not intend to be rude to a man whose rule here on the station has been, shall we say, pretty tolerable so far. Besides,” his hands started fidgeting with the ends of his tie again, while his eyes fluttered over Julian’s unfinished attire, “As it is my understanding that you are going to wear the damn thing yourself, I feel it is my solemn duty to be there and look after you.”
“Look after me?” Julian blinlked, bewildered.
“Precisely. As it is a clearly a very dangerous thing to wear.”
“How is a tie dangerous?”
“Doctor, for a man who has spent most of his life lying to the vast bureaucratic machine of the Federation, you can be unbearably naïve sometimes. This, “ he demonstrated the end of the tie to the Doctor, “ above all its crimes against fashion, is just an invitation to be strangled! One needs only to get close enough and to apply the necessary force to…”
Suddenly doctor had stepped forward and seized the loose end of Garak’s tie, pulling him close, his nose almost touching the grey ridged Cardassian one.
“What, like this?” He asked with a concerned look.”
Garak seemed to have completely lost his train of thought.
“Quite,” he harrumphed a moment later, eyes flickering all over the smooth face of the doctor just inches away from his. “For a more..effective crushing of the larynx I would’ve suggested the grip from behind, but this is very…alarming too.”
“Good to know you’ll be there to watch that back of mine, then.” Julian smiled a most shining smile at him, still gripping firmly on his end of the tie. Garak produced something of a frustrated hum in response.
Contented with Garak utterly losing the upper hand in the whole matter, Julian finally released his hold on the tie, only to bring both his hands up to Garak’s neck and start making a tie into a proper knot.
“Here, at least let me help you with it. And I promise to also be vigilant. No enemy of yours is going to get past me and strangle you with this thing tonight.” He fixed the knot in place and slid his hands gently over the edge of Garak’s shirt, straightening the collar. As his fingers brushed across the scales of Garak’s neck, he felt the other man let out another humming noise, ever lower this time. He breathed in the faint odour of the cologne Garak had put on for the occasion.
“That’s better, isn’t it?” The doctor finally stepped back, looking over his work. “Red is definitely your colour. Now, if you excuse me, I need to finish tying my own… garrotte. Be out in a minute” he beamed at Garak and disappeared behind a dressing-room curtain.”
Garak stood there, in the dim light of his own shop, for at least a minute, unmoving. Finally, he tugged his disheveled hair behind his ear ridge, and in the quiet of the room there echoed an intense hiss:
“Humansss…”