Chapter Text
Julian had really thought he'd forgiven them. Or well, he'd thought he could maybe just let it be. Let sleeping dogs lie; he'd always loved that phrase. His parents had left a little while ago, mother promised she'd call, he'd promised he'd visit and that was that. He'd assumed that letting them leave the station without another fight could keep him from feeling so... guilty? Angry? Borderline unstable? But the feeling had stayed without them. They'd left, and the pit somewhere in his stomach- saved especially for them- had only grown.
The guilt-anger-instability wasn't new. It was strange how much he'd forgotten that it was there, ignored it for so long, but the feeling had become integral to him, sinking a little deeper in his chest with every lie he told, every acknowledgment of 'genius' put to him, every undeserved thanks he received. It clawed at him, hooked onto his insides and pulled. But he led a busy life. So he'd, apparently, just… forgotten. He’d not noticed it digging into his skin back in 371, when his hope had turned desperate, must have ignored the way it was hollowing him out day by day as he realised in fits and starts that no one had noticed, had sat almost unaware as it attacked at full-force when he’d seen his parents again, ate a meal with them again, argued at them again, stayed silent and secret as they talked all over him again, he’d ignored it.
And you couldn't fault the tactic; all doctors could “ignore it”, especially field doctors: you saw, felt, someone, somewhere, something awful and you'd tuck it into your uniform, make a passing remark, note it down for a pitch-dark joke and get on with it. Onto the next patient. You learn in his profession to hurt after the work is done- once no one could die on your watch. It’s the simplest part, learning to live with death. Not easy, but simple. You did, or you didn't. You could bear it, or you couldn’t. “Ignoring it” had worked pretty well so far, even for... last month.
The only issue was those times when there was no after. The personal times, the deaths you couldn't control, cowardice you couldn't bear the weight of. And this- this wasn't even something other doctors could help with, could know or understand. Even if he dared talk, who was there to talk to? You certainly didn't know where others were, your peers. Other... freaks, mutants, so you bear it in the moment, and the moment doesn’t end, the curtain doesn’t close. You ignore personal problems like a good doctor, and save the hurt for later. Except there is no later and the moment. Lasts. Forever.
And it all piled. He talked about normal Federation doctor problems; you could say many things about him, but he wasn't stupid- he knew talking helped, so he talked. About hurt and imprisonment, his general every-day, and therapy helped somewhat, but above the normal problems, trauma and death, apart from the Doctor Bashir part of his job, a Jules fog swirled. Because, of course, his therapist was a doctor. A starship doctor. A sworn-in loyalty-to-the-Federation type, and what reason would she ever have to protect his career, to jeopardise her own? And so the lying, and the omissions, and the half-truths to his friends, to his fellows, to his captain joined the missed calls from home and swirled in that oppressive Jules fog. And stayed.
And he got used to that feeling. Got used to lying and bursting at the seams, and he got slack. In another moment of vanity he took his eyes off the ball and he got... Jules. Slow and emotional and disappointing.
But it was fine. It wasn't his fault. It was sorted. Of course it was fine, it wasn't him being stupid, it wasn't his fault. His father sorted it all out for once. The slip-up was quietened, the stupidity dealt with, and Julian could keep his job, his career. His father got two years and he tried and failed to feel less vindicated about that, and so it was fine.
All back to normal again, back to before. Back to how he had wanted it, and it was fine.
So why could he still feel it? The feeling- so close nowadays, since his parents had stepped aboard- hadn't left him when they'd left. All day, all night, all day again. He had taken his time off, had said goodbye to them, the rogue elements, checked with Miles and his Captain that this secret wouldn't be told to anyone else under any circumstance, so why did he feel...
It wasn't completely back to normal, back to before of course, of course it could never be- with being back on speaking terms with his parents, with so many people knowing the thing he could never ever let them know, but... that wasn't what was wrong because that wasn't the feeling. The feeling was...
The feeling was 15.
15 and learning how to lie. A dreadful, overwhelming feeling that I am not who you think I am, and he couldn't do this again.
Couldn't be 15. Couldn't hear what he really was in their living room, stare at that vase, clench his fists, use that summer holiday to cancel plans, to understand fully and awfully slowly just exactly what this makes him. To finally give up on ever becoming a tennis player.
He couldn't be 16 again with that knowledge that he is fraudulent, could never be a peer to these people, that he has inescapable cheat codes.
He couldn't learn his biggest fears at 17 of They All Know and No One Will Ever Know.
Couldn't be 18, finally leaving with the hope of never coming back, with keys to the world and the knowledge he possessed to do anything, with the knowledge that he can't. Cannot do what he wants for so many reasons, where would it leave him? Where would it lead his family?
And in one fell swoop at 19, in a bar but never drinking because he could never be so vulnerable- he had pieced together the bits and pieces, putting all he had been feeling, and all he'd ever known into understanding an awful puzzle of What Has Been Done To Him.
He cannot carry that puzzle for another twenty years.
He cannot learn again how fully he has murdered that child. Tiny six-year-old Jules lying dead at his family's feet.
He will not be able to bear the weight of the differences between them, to understand who Jules was, remember that he liked to paint and was terrible at it, remember so heartbreakingly vaguely, so unlike anything else in his brain, that he could see so much magic behind his eyes in his brush-strokes. He can never understand what that little boy thought he could make with his brushes.
He does not have the wherewithal to stand those hidden memories. The hours spent staring at his kitchen wall, finding all the little beige brushstrokes, finding the best ones and stepping back to see how far away he could get before they blurred.
He knows that Jules had cried when he stepped forward and couldn't find his favourite strokes again. How angry his father had gotten when he took a pen to the wall and traced them, so he'd never lose them again.
He remembers more art, better colours, ever more lovely and brighter than his beige wall. He can see Jules's favourite painting behind his eyes, the bright pink of that waterfall and hates that he doesn't know if it's real, how long he'd looked to find it, how he'd given up years ago. He knows without a doubt that that neon pink was the colour Jules had liked best.
Until he'd died.
Until he was replaced for a newer model.
Because Julian's favourite colour is lilac. Julian likes the stringy patterns algae makes better than any paint-stroke.
He'd parsed out the differences at 15. He'd hated them. Hated himself, hated his parents and Adigeon Prime and the doctors at school, his different school. He'd flunked that whole year, he remembers, in perfect clarity, but he still doesn't know if it was from spite, or out of some small sense of duty.
Mirrors he remembers most of all. Remembers avoiding them for a long while after, because... it was Julian he had to look at.
He'd taken this body.
His parents and him- they'd found Jules and... injected him inside, as a parasite, as competition, to grow, to spread. He had been used to smother him, moulded to fit this child's body, to feed on his corpse, to grow around it and strangle that boy, strangle his terrible art and his hot pink waterfalls, his fascination with that cream-coloured wall and his... stupidity. His ignorance of numbers and letters, his small stature and his awkward nature. That lisp. Those bumps and bruises from stupid accidents.
His tears. His laughter. His life.
He knew it wasn't his fault. Not really. Knew it wasn't him, he'd fought against that guilt for so long, come out on top for a while now. But there were moments he couldn't be convincing enough, moments he couldn't quite believe that.
Because he had certainly helped.
He lied back then because he had to. Had to keep his school, his family's reputation and his own veneer of morality, and his parents would be taken away if he didn't, because he, of course, was a very illegal boy. He'd stopped caring about that after a while, but he... he still had to keep his friends, didn't he? Still had to lie, and well... he was good at it. He was good at lying. He was good at everything.
He liked being good at everything.
He still does.
And back then that was the fear, that he could get changed back, become Jules, become disappointing. Then that mirror-fear of never being able to change back, never saving that six-year-old, took over a few years after and when he'd accepted that, stopped being motivated by merely fear, it was simple habit that kept him lying.
He couldn't blame that on his parents.
Oh god they still called him Jules. He hadn't been ready for that; people knew not to call him "Jules". Jules was someone else, a casualty, one of many, but most decidedly the first. He'd actually explained it like that to someone once, when she wouldn't stop prying. He is the first dead body on an ever-guilty conscience. A small scared boy who just wanted to please, just needed to be someone worthwhile to the only people who loved him.
He'd dropped the name as soon as he knew who it belonged to, and he would not, could not pick it back up. Because god! How could he take that from Jules too? How could he steal another part of that poor. Dead. Child.
It had been almost nice when he’d thought be mightn’t have to. When Miles had known, and Zimmerman would file the report, and all the fear that had piled and piled since he was 15 crashed down around him to swallow up his life. It was almost a relief walking to the captain's office one last time, after the ache of taking off his badge and this well-worn uniform.
He loves this job, he does. Of course he does. He is so incredibly grateful he can be here, he would fight like hell for it, has fought. He needs to be here, needs to help people, needs to see and deal with it all, needs to feel awful sometimes, because it’s worth it, worth him and all his remaining sanity. And it is so worth it.
What he doesn't love is lying. God he was so ready to strip himself of it. He would take a runabout, he'd decided, head somewhere that needed him. He might ask Garak, he'd surely know somewhere, maybe with any luck he'd want to join him- he was the only person here who could. Maybe they'd go straight to the Gamma quadrant; they wouldn't have the same laws as the Federation, and maybe they would need a Doctor. Someone somewhere would need a doctor, and with a little more luck, maybe they wouldn't care less about any... genetic background. He’d dreamt about it, that last night, noted the statistics on his way.
Except then he got to stay.
He could stay. Stay with the lies and the half-truths and that poor dead child somewhere inside him still, and...
And it was fine. It'd be just like before. Maybe it'd be better, when it all got too much, because someone else knew now, he'd never had that, and maybe Miles could help now. Maybe once Julian had "taken as long as he needed" Miles could help him let some of that fog dissipate.
But he knew his luck.
He would be lying for the rest of his life to his friends, all of DS9, all his home-from-home, and he couldn't get away from 15-year-old Jules learning just exactly what he is and hiding in his room throwing that stupid vase at a wall, and getting yelled at by Jules’s father.
And he knew that The Feeling was uncomfortably close to hatred.