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Terok Nor - Winter, 2352 - 24th Year of the Occupation
Once Naprem’s spent a few hours in the Records Office, the pain in her side is the last thing on her mind. It fades into the background of her discomfort -- as negligible as the ache in her back from sitting still so long, the ache in her wrists from typing, the ache in her head from exhaustion. She’s used to being uncomfortable. Suffering is just part of being Bajoran, these days.
As soon as she gets in, Pomam’s frowning in her direction. Naprem’s behind schedule -- quite egregiously, Pomam informs her -- and she’s expected to file all her paperwork for the day before end-of-hours, and submit information on those arrested this afternoon. The fact that end-of-hours is only two hours and twenty-six minutes away is immaterial, Pomam goes on to say, and Naprem really should have thought of that before spending several of her core hours in the infirmary, and if she fails to complete her work, her delinquent behavior will be reported to the Prefect. Naprem thinks she should’ve taken Gul Dukat up on his offer to walk her back to the office -- at least then, she might’ve been spared Pomam’s thinly veiled threats. But she didn’t, and she isn’t, so she simply nods and assures Pomam that the work will be done, knowing full well that it won’t be but wanting the conversation to be over anyway.
She files her reports from rounds that morning and flags the personnel files of the rebels, forwarding them to the security office. She watches a small dialog appear onscreen for each one of them.
“SENTENCE PENDING,” it reads.
She stares at the words for longer than she can afford to.
She’s there long after her shift should end to finish the rest of her paperwork. Pomam gives her a judgemental look as she leaves, and one of the guards comes in to watch her work, to make sure she doesn’t do anything she isn’t allowed to. After she’s finally finished, they escort her to the barracks, grumbling and complaining; Naprem hardly hears them. She keeps thinking about Rena Zoarr.
‘SENTENCE PENDING,’ she thinks.
She’s so lost in thought that by the time she reaches the barracks, she’s almost completely forgotten about the ache in her side. It’s lost to her -- just a single square in an ever-broadening quilt of discomfort. In fact, she’s forgotten so completely that when B’hava’el comes at her at a sprint from across the room and grabs her by the arms, it almost gives her a heart attack.
“Tora! Prophets--”
“What?! What’s going on?”
“What’s goi--” B’hava’el stops long enough to give her an exasperated look. “You!” she snaps. “I heard you got assaulted!”
“Wh, oh,” Naprem says, taken aback, “oh. That.”
“Yes, that! What do you mean ‘oh’?! ”
“I just thought something was wrong.”
“Oh, really?” B’hava’el says with full sarcasm. “Nothing’s wrong? So you like getting stabbed, now? Is that it?”
“No!” Naprem says, but B’hava’el’s already off to the races, shaking her head and crowing.
“You ih’valla types are something else, I tell you what. Can’t stand the thought of anything softer, but you’ll take a man’s blade one way or another, won’t you?”
“That’s disgusting.”
“You’re telling me !” B’hava’el shakes her once, apparently to make sure she’s still whole. “Someone told me you took a knife for the Prefect. Tell me you didn’t do that. Tell me you’re not that stupid. I don’t know if I can take being the best friend of a first class idiot , tell me that’s not what happened.”
Naprem looks up to the Prophets with hopes they’ll give her strength. By the time she looks back at B’hava’el, her friend’s face has already fallen into an expression of affectionate vexation.
“Of course,” she says. “Of course you’re a first class idiot. Why am I surprised? Why am I ever surprised, that’s the real question.”
“It was spur of the moment!” Naprem says, flushing. “I wasn’t thinking!”
“Of course you weren’t,” B’hava’el says. “You never do! If you had been thinking, then it’d be worth mentioning! You not thinking is your natural state of being. Come over here,” she says, before Naprem can argue, ushering her over to their bed. “Come here. Let’s get a look at you.”
“B’hava’el, I’m fine!”
“No,” B’hava’el says, “you’re impaired. Let me see it.”
Pulling up her tunic makes Naprem flush for a different reason -- B’hava’el pokes and prods her, examining the dark line on her stomach, and all Naprem’s thinking about is how Skrain’s hands felt when he touched her in the elevator, when he--
“Well,” B’hava’el says, “I suppose it’s not the worst I’ve ever seen. You’re not leaking, at least.”
“Hoping for entrails?” Naprem asks, snidely, and she sees immediately from B’hava’el’s face that it was the wrong thing to say -- her pretty cheeks go pale and her brow twists with anger and she grabs Naprem by the arms again, squeezing.
“This is not a joke. Tora. You self-centered--”
“Ow! Don’t-- ugh, I have a bruise there. I get it, I’m sorry -- don’t squeeze so hard!”
B’hava’el’s face doesn’t change, but she loosens her grip. “I took work off for you, you ungrateful little toad. Everyone thought you were dead. Kranti said Gul Dukat himself ran off with your body. I thought you were gone . Do not joke about that. Never joke about that.”
“I’m sorry,” Naprem says again, feeling a weight settle in her chest. “It wasn’t as bad as all that. I’m alright. I promise.”
B’hava’el looks at her for a moment -- hard, like she wants to make an impression. Finally she breaks eye contact and sighs.
“Well,” she says, “I suppose I’ll just have to continue putting up with you, then.”
“Oh, well, I do apologize for that, above all things,” Naprem scoffs.
“Good,” B’hava’el says. “You’re going to be the one to tell Kranti about this, I’m not doing it for you.”
“B’hava’el!”
“Nope. No, you want to fling yourself on the Prefect’s ‘dagger’--”
“That is not what happened!”
“--you’re going to be the one to inform the General.”
“You know she hates when you call her that.”
“You know what I hate?” B’hava’el asks, flatly.
“Is it me?” Naprem asks.
“Yes,” B’hava’el says, grabbing her face and pecking the top of her hair. She ruffles it up and Naprem winces and swats at her. “Good job. It’s almost like you’ve got a brain in here somewhere.” She rattles Naprem’s head between her sweet-smelling hands.
Kranti takes it all much better than B’hava’el does; she at least never grabs Naprem and shakes her. In fact, per usual, she barely reacts at all. She sits on her bunk, looking at Naprem without turning her head, voice entirely flat, expression as bored as ever, composed in its eternal frown.
“You saved his life?” she asks.
“Technically,” Naprem says.
Kranti wrinkles her nose.
“You alright?” she asks.
“Yes,” Naprem says.
“Great,” Kranti says, nose still wrinkled.
B’hava’el puts her hands on her hips, giving Naprem a look. “See? Now you’ve upset her. I hope you’re proud of yourself, you little troublemaker.”
“How can you tell?” Naprem asks.
“You saved his life?” Kranti asks, looking nauseous.
“I told you,” B’hava’el says.
“You two are being ridiculous,” Naprem says, folding her arms. It makes her side ache, but she ignores it.
“You saved his life,” Kranti groans, putting her hand to her forehead.
B’hava’el shakes her head, tutting her tongue theatrically.
“Someone would have!” Naprem says.
“It had to be you?” B’hava’el asks.
“We could’ve been crashing this station into a moon by now,” Kranti mutters.
“I’m going to bed,” Naprem says.
“A moon,” Kranti says, finally turning her head to look at her. She looks absolutely crushed.
“A moon,” B’hava’el echoes, clearly just for the fun of it.
“I’m going to bed,” Naprem says, getting up and out of their aura of disapproval.
Well, she means to, at least. She lays down, and she stays very quiet, but when B’hava’el finally finishes socializing and crawls up onto their cot, Naprem is still lying awake, staring up at the ceiling.
“I thought you were going to bed,” B’hava’el says, softly, taking her hand and lying down next to her.
“I am in bed,” Naprem murmurs.
“So I see,” B’hava’el says, flicking her long hair over her shoulder so she won’t lay on it. “You know, most people find near-death experiences pretty exhausting.”
“I am exhausted.”
“So go to sleep.”
“I’m trying.”
B’hava’el reaches up and presses her eyelids closed with her fingers. Naprem winces and turns her head, opening them again and staring off, stomach twisting with unease.
“That’s you trying?” B’hava’el asks.
“I didn’t say it was working.”
Naprem can feel B’hava’el watching her. She’s quieter at night -- maudlin, almost. Closer to something authentic. Her hand in Naprem’s hand is almost preternaturally soft, a tool of her trade. She rests her chin against Naprem’s shoulder, and even her breath is enticingly sweet.
“...you saved his life.”
Naprem sighs, turning her head to look at her. “Shall I apologize again?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean, then?”
“You saw the kid?”
“...yes.”
“They’re saying he’s younger than I am.”
“He is.”
B’hava’el’s face doesn’t change -- she’s clearly neither surprised, nor particularly sympathetic. But then, Naprem thinks, B’hava’el has always survived by knowing exactly how much to meddle and when. She may not enjoy Cardassian rule, but she’s not a revolutionary, either. It’s a condition universally held by Bajorans of her age: children of the Occupation can survive, or rebel. They can’t do both, and all of them seem to know it.
“What’s going to happen to him?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” Naprem answers, honestly.
B’hava’el watches her for a moment, then sighs deeply through her nose, and closes her eyes.
“Yes, you do,” she murmurs.
Naprem’s heart turns to stone and sinks into the soft nothing of her chest. She turns her head again, both seeing and unseeing. Glinn Alomar is standing at the entrance to their quarters.
‘SENTENCE PENDING,’ she thinks.
After several minutes of increasingly frantic deliberation, she sits up. B’hava’el makes a disgruntled noise.
“I need to talk to him,” Naprem says.
“What?” B’hava’el’s voice is dismayed, but Naprem disentangles them anyway, getting up. “Where are you going? It’s after curfew!”
“I need to talk to him,” Naprem insists, brushing off her tunic and stepping over people lying on the floor.
“You are insane,” B’hava’el hisses, jumping up and following her through the rows. “Just wait until tomorrow!”
“Tomorrow it’ll be too late,” Naprem tells her. She hops and skips over several of their neighbors and hurries down the center aisle, B’hava’el struggling to catch up to her. Alomar and his watch partner turn to look at her, suspiciously, attracted by the growing commotion.
“Glinn Alomar,” Naprem says.
“Don’t you dare!” B’hava’el calls from behind her. People are starting to roll over in their bunks, squinting over at them and muttering.
“I need to meet with the Prefect,” she tells Alomar. “Immediately. It’s urgent.”
Alomar looks shocked to be addressed so directly -- he’s young, and Naprem assumes most of his behavior around her is regulation standard. He stares at her like she’s just shredded his training manual in front of him.
“I-- I don’t think that’s possible,” he says. It comes out sounding more like a question than an order.
“Glinn Alomar,” Naprem says, patiently. “You can escort me, or I can go myself. But I’m going.”
“Not after curfew, you aren’t,” says his partner, brusquely, showing his teeth and putting a hand on his phaser.
Alomar hisses at him between his teeth, shaking his head quickly and giving him a pointed look, like he’s trying to communicate an entire novel’s worth of things without saying any of them out loud. “Tora,” he says, voice straining. “I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
“Great!” B’hava’el says, sharply, finally catching up to her and grabbing her by the elbow. “Good. Fantastic. Well, that takes care of that, we’ll go back to bed now.”
“Thank you, Glinn,” Naprem says, jerking her elbow out of B’hava’el’s grip. “I’ll take your opinion under advisement. Anything else before we go?”
“Tora,” Alomar groans.
“Get back to your bunk,” his partner says, starting forward.
Alomar immediately puts himself between them, flushing with distress. He gives his partner another look, this one twisted in coils of disgust and exasperation.
“Fine,” Alomar says, “fine, we’ll go. Gyros, return to your bunk, please.”
B’hava’el puts her hands on her hips. “Oh, so when she wants to go walking the promenade after curfew, she gets an escort.”
“So do you,” Naprem says.
“That’s different,” B’hava’el says, frowning and giving Alomar an aggressively thorough once-over. “Yours is cute.”
Alomar’s ridges go dark and he takes Naprem by the arm.
“Your bunk, Gyros,” he says.
“Not yours?” B’hava’el says, batting her eyelashes.
“Good night, B’hava’el,” Naprem says, following Alomar.
“You’re being an idiot!” B’hava’el calls after her, but Naprem already knows that, and the reminder comes far too late to do anything about it. Alomar marches her down the hall with the long, harried stride of a guilty man, and Naprem keeps pace, trying to figure out what, exactly, she’s going to say when they get there.
Gul Dukat opens the door as dressed down as she’s ever seen him, wearing only his dark cloth underarmor. He looks from Alomar, to her, then back again.
“Glinn Alomar,” he says, calmly. “Is something the matter?”
“Tora requested to see you, sir,” Alomar says, voice tight, posture rigid. He’s avoiding eye contact, feathers flat to his head. He looks like he’d like to sink through the floor. “Said it was urgent. She was disturbing the other workers.”
“I see,” Dukat says, looking back at Naprem. “Well. I suppose we’ll have to honor her request. Come in, Tora.”
Naprem purses her lips, his voice making electricity skate up her spine. He’s not nearly as charming as he thinks he is, she thinks. She walks in slowly, hands held behind her back.
“Sir,” Alomar says but Dukat waves him off.
“As you were, Glinn,” he says. And then he shuts the door.
Naprem tries to gather her courage under her -- her hands are behind her back so she won’t fidget the way she desperately wants to. She’s been trying to figure out what she’s going to say since-- well, she supposes, since she left the Records office, but she’s no nearer now than when she started. She turns to address him, opens her mouth, but he speaks before she even gets a chance.
“What do you think you’re doing, Professor?”
“Excuse me?”
“I said--” He steps forward and she swallows thickly; he doesn’t look happy. “--what. Do you think. You’re doing?”
She blinks, mouth hanging open -- she shakes her head a little. “I needed to talk to you,” she says.
“Yes,” he says, coldly. “So I’ve heard. In fact, it appears Glinn Alomar and all of Section 35 have heard, as well. Did you manage to tell everyone else your itinerary, or did you think you’d let them deduce it from hearsay?”
“You’re angry with me,” she says, somehow caught offguard by it.
Dukat smiles his disbelief. “Professor,” he says. “You’re a very intelligent woman. I shouldn’t need to tell you that this is completely inappropriate.”
Naprem barks out a laugh. “Oh,” she says. “So when you call me here at all hours, it’s fine. But when I come to you, it’s a problem.”
“I am the Prefect,” he says. “If I request you, that's my business. If you request to see me, it's the makings of a scandal.”
“Right,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes. “Your reputation. Of course. How could I forget? Well, I’ll just go back to my quarters, then. I’m sorry to disturb you.”
He grabs her by the arm before she can even turn all the way around, and she knew he would, and she’s getting very, very tired of people doing that. He pulls her back, and she twists around in his grip and then she’s very close to him, closer than she wanted to be. She tries to hide her surprise even as her eyes dart reflexively up and down his body. He looks smaller out of armor -- rail-thin with broad shoulders -- but his grip is still disarmingly strong.
“Naprem,” he says, lowly. “You nearly died today. I cannot possibly abide you taking unnecessary risks. Surely, you can’t hold that against me.”
“As a matter of fact, I can.”
“Then I ask that you be reasonable, against your better instincts.”
“So your callousness is for my own good, is that it?”
“Yes,” he says.
“Let go of me,” she tells him.
He holds her gaze for a moment, then releases his grip. She yanks her arm from between his fingers and she sees him narrow his eyes and purse his lips. But he says nothing more about it, instead lifting his hand and gesturing to his dining table.
“Please,” he says, and she gives him a hard look before walking past him and taking a seat.
He turns and moves to the kitchenette, taking a bottle of kanar from the island and pouring her a glass. He returns to set it in front her, and taking a seat across from her with his own, taking a deep swig and shaking his head.
“You know,” he says, “this is why I asked your opinion earlier. So we could avoid…” He gestures in a roundabout motion with his free hand. “...all of this.”
She keeps her hands folded in her lap. “You know why I’m here, then.”
“Why else? You’re here to beg me to spare Rena’s life.” He takes another drink, grimacing -- though, whether it’s at the taste or the prospect, Naprem can’t tell.
“I’m not going to beg,” she says.
“No?” Dukat regards her over the rim of his cup. “...I’m disappointed.”
“I thought you didn’t like it when I begged,” Naprem says.
“Oh, Professor,” Dukat tuts. “Of course I do. What I don’t like is when you beg in vain. I like to be able to give you what you ask for.”
There’s so much suggestion in it that she flushes, instantly. A quiet fury wells up under her fingernails. ‘Professional,’ he’d said. ‘Never again,’ he’d said. And here he is flirting with her as punishment.
She can’t engage it, she tells herself. She won’t.
“I need you to reconsider,” she says, tightly. “While there’s still time.”
Dukat makes a rumbling sound at the base of his throat, short and annoyed. “You’ve already made your argument. And I’ve made up my mind.”
“I’ve had more time to think about it,” Naprem insists. “You have to spare him, Skrain. You have to.”
“I have to do nothing of the kind,” Dukat says, lip hitching. Something flickers across his face when she says his name -- an expression she can't make out… or perhaps it's a trick of the light. It's gone almost as soon as it appears.
“I know you're trying to disincentivize anyone else who'd try to assassinate you in his place,” Naprem says, quickly. “But if you execute him, publicly, that's not what's going to happen.”
“Oh? You know a great deal about terrorism, do you, Professor?”
She flushes deeper, this time with anger and humiliation. His tone is infuriatingly superior. She doesn't have time, she reminds herself. She doesn't have time to break him of all his bad habits at once.
“What do you think drives people to act like this?” she asks him. “You think Rena didn't know he'd be killed for this? It didn't stop him, and it won't stop anyone else.”
“It serves as a deterrent for many,” Dukat says, tone still patronizing. “Sadly, for the few too self-obsessed or too short-sighted to heed such warnings, death is the worst punishment I can inflict.”
“Stop talking to me that way,” Naprem says, through her teeth.
“What way would that be?”
“Like you know so much better than I do!” Naprem snaps, anger twisting her voice into a savage, lethal shape.
Dukat closes his mouth sharply, staring at her. Her hands have curled into fists in her lap. She elbows past his scrutiny to make her point.
“The threat of execution doesn't deter extremists. It never has. On the contrary, every time you kill a boy like Rena, you inspire countless others to try to succeed where he failed.”
Dukat’s ridges are beginning to flush with anger to mirror her own. “That boy,” he snarls, “has done absolutely nothing to deserve your kindness.”
“I’m not being kind,” Naprem says. “I’m being practical.”
“He showed no remorse!” Dukat snaps. “He’d have gladly killed you to get to me -- he’d do it again, if he had the chance!”
“This isn’t about me!”
“Of course it’s about you!” he thunders, voice ringing through the room, so loud it shocks her.
They sit there for a moment, staring at one another. Naprem's brain is white static as she struggles to process what he just said. She almost expects him to reflect her surprise, but he doesn't -- he’s resolute, anger billowing off him like heat, warping the air around his shoulders.
“There is not a single person who would wish you harm who deserves to live,” he says, when the silence has softened his fury. “I refuse to hear any different.”
Naprem searches for something to say, but her throat is too tight. She sits back, looking down, as though she might find her cue cards somewhere at her feet.
“Is that what you're really angry about?” she asks, finally, looking up at him again. “That I don't want… retribution?”
Dukat looks back at her, his kanar apparently forgotten, but his expression suitably bitter.
“You don't need to want it,” he says. “You'll have it, one way or another.”
“To what end?” she asks. “To...make you feel better?”
“To assure that it doesn't happen again.”
“Killing Rena guarantees that it will!”
“Being Prefect guarantees that,” Dukat says, and Naprem steadfastly refuses to concede his point, though there's a part of her that agrees with him.
“It doesn't have to,” she says instead.
“Doesn't it?”
“Skrain,” Naprem says, and it's not a trick of the light -- she's sure he winces this time, even though he told her to call him by name when they were in private, and if she had any less of an idea of what he wants from her, they'd be complete strangers to one another. She refuses to acknowledge it, and goes on anyway: “People like Rena Zoarr aren't afraid of death. They can't afford to be. Death is their ultimate goal -- noble deaths. Deaths that mean something.”
She swallows, thickly, hating herself for saying as much, but needing to convince him. “You can't scare us with death anymore. Not when it looms around every corner. Not when every single day we all could die for nothing; for tiny infractions. For someone else’s crimes, or for their amusement. If you kill Rena, you'll be giving him and everyone like him exactly what they want. Execution isn't a deterrent to them. It's their biggest recruiting tool.”
Dukat watches her, quietly, from the other side of the table. For a moment she wonders if he'll say anything at all, but after a while he sighs and shakes his head, and she knows she's won.
“I know it isn’t very cathartic,” she says. “But it’s what’s best. Send him somewhere. One of the penal colonies, maybe. Let him disappear. But don't kill him.”
“You think life in a Cardassian penal colony is preferable to death?” Dukat asks, a strangely rueful look on his face.
Naprem’s heart twists in her chest, tangling it's strings against her ribs.
“Anything is preferable to death,” she says, softly.
Dukat snorts through his nose, shaking his head and lifting his glass again.
“Spoken like a true Bajoran,” he says.
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “Spoken like a coward.” She swallows, looking away. Her self-loathing is leaden. “But suffering is temporary. Death is not.”
“You,” Dukat says, “are the furthest thing there is from a coward.”
Naprem looks back at him and finds him watching her. It makes her flush, and she looks away again, unable to bear it. Her eyes snag on his wrist in an excuse not to look at his face. She studies his long fingers and the fine bones of his wrist, the ridges that peek from beneath his sleeve.
“...did you know I was going to do this?” she asks.
“Yes,” he says.
She looks up, surprised at him, and he's still staring, a expression oddly neutral.
“How?” she asks.
“You're not one to leave things unfinished,” he says, swirling his drink.
“Still,” she says.
He watches her a while longer, then sighs, turning his eyes to his glass. He holds it up to the light, studying the liquor within. “Call it intuition.”
“You'd hate it if I called it that.”
Dukat barks out a laugh -- a real one, surprised and delighted. “Then perhaps it will suffice to say: I know you very well, Professor. I knew you'd never be content to sacrifice so much in return for so little.”
Naprem feels a thrill streak up the back of her neck. Her mouth goes dry.
“I didn't sacrifice anything,” she says.
“But you would have,” he says. “You would have sacrificed everything, if I'd let you.”
Naprem can't think of anything to say, and Dukat seems to sense it. He nurses his kanar, humming, then sighing.
“Very well. You've convinced me,” he tells her. “I'll contact someone about it in the morning.”
She feels an involuntary burst of relief, and goes sagging back in her chair with a sigh. “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you.”
“Professor,” he says, with a hint of bitterness. “You've already humbled me twice, this evening. Please have mercy on my pride.”
“I didn't realize your pride could be injured with thanks.”
“I'm offended that you were so convinced I wouldn't see reason.”
“You very rarely do,” she points out.
“Professor!” he says. “You can't mean that.”
“All due respect, sir, if you were naturally given to reason, I'd be out of a job.”
“Keep it up, and you just might be,” he says. She starts to stand and he puts his hand out to stop her. “Now, now,” he says, “we've resolved the unpleasantness between us -- I haven't excused you.”
“You didn't invite me, either,” she says.
“That's beside the point,” he says. “Stay. Please. Finish your kanar.”
She shouldn't, she thinks. She should make her excuses, plead insanity, and retire to her quarters to take her lashes from B’hava’el.
She sits back down, and she sees his expression relax. She's staying and he's relieved, and that knowledge does something to her.
“You know I don't care for kanar,” she says, finally picking up her glass.
“Professor,” he tuts. “Your personal prejudices aside, this brand is very expensive. Please. You'll embarrass me.”
Naprem scoffs, but takes a sip to appease him. The flavor is just as she remembers it -- like molasses and vinegar, somewhere between too thick and too runny, too sweet and too bitter. She grimaces, forcing herself to swallow and fanning herself. Dukat throws his head back laughing.
“Ugh,” Naprem says, fighting the urge to gag. “Please. Mercy on my tongue.”
“You abuse my mercy, Professor,” he says, but he reaches for her glass and she hands it over. He stands, adding her portion to his own and placing her empty glass in the replicator to be replaced with sparkling spring wine. He returns it to her with a flourish, and she tries not to be flattered. He holds out his hand, expectantly, and she takes an obediently sip -- the taste is strange laid over the aftertaste of the kanar, but it’s better than nothing.
“Better?” he asks.
“Yes,” she says. “Though, to be fair, almost anything would be.”
“Professor,” he grins. “You are in rare form.”
“I was under the impression you liked my honesty, Gul Dukat.”
“I do. But it’s usually garnished with your good manners.”
“I seem to have left them in my quarters. I’d thank you for the wine, but you’ve asked me not to,” she reminds him.
“So I did,” he says. “I suppose I’ll have to infer your gratitude.”
Naprem snorts, and takes another sip. The carbonation of the wine tickles her tongue and the roof of her mouth, and the taste is improving as she washes the sticky, lasting kanar from between her teeth. Spring wine from the replicators always tastes strangely tinny, but it’s hard to taste between the bubbles and the citrus. It’s there in the bite, but only just.
She’s sitting there, quietly enjoying her wine, watching him watch her, when it occurs to her that not twenty-six hours ago, she was sitting in that same chair, kissing him. The thought almost chokes her. She flushes in a way that has nothing to do with the alcohol and searches desperately for something else to think about.
“...I was surprised you were still awake,” she says, hoping it sounds less abrupt than it feels. It’s the only thing she can come up with on such short notice.
Dukat seems not to notice her awkwardness. He shakes his head a little, swirling his glass. “I was doing a bit of late-night reading,” he says. “Corac, as it were. You reminded me of how long it had been.”
She feels a little dizzy, but she tries not to let him see her dismay. “I thought you hated Corac.”
“When did I say that?”
“Last night!” she says. “We were sitting right here!”
“I didn’t say I hated him,” Dukat says, loftily.
“You said you couldn’t stand him!” she says, close to laughter, though whether it’s hysterical or genuine, she’s not sure.
“I believe I said, ‘if you’ve read one iteration, you’ve read them all,’” he says, calmly. “And, as I recall, you agreed with me.”
“No,” she says. “I laughed. That’s not agreement.”
Yes, she thinks, desperately. I laughed. And you laughed. And then we kissed. Quite a few times. In that very chair, as fate would have it!
Dukat tuts and leans back in his chair, as if he doesn’t remember it that way, and maybe he doesn’t. Maybe, she thinks, in his delusions, this is all perfectly normal -- them sitting and drinking after an assassination attempt, pointedly acting as though only very certain portions of the last two days ever happened.
“There are many authors far more gifted with the repetitive narrative form,” he says. “When skillfully executed, it is, unquestionably, vastly superior to every other form of literature in the known universe. It’s simply a matter of capitalizing on actions and themes that are deserving of repetition.”
“And what exactly is ‘deserving’ of repetition in your mind?” she asks.
The look he fixes her with is utterly unfair, and she feels almost pushed. He captures her eyes and he holds them, as if in his hands, and she feels riveted, pinned, hypnotized. She forgets, just for a moment, her long list of inhibitions.
“Skrain,” she says, almost in a trance, and that seems to break the spell. He sits back in his chair, looking away, and she feels like a plucked string, left to vibrate alone.
“...are we ever going to talk about this like adults?” she asks, because it occurs to her that the reason she can think of nothing else to say is because there’s nothing else she wants to say.
“I won’t pretend to know what you mean,” he says, idly, sipping his kanar.
“No,” she says. “You’ll pretend not to, which has the added benefit of laying waste to my feelings.”
“Professor,” Dukat says with a scowl. “Surely we’ve both had enough theatrics for one night.”
“And enough pain, too?”
He scowls deeper and looks away again, drinking more deeply, with greater determination. He pulls the glass from his mouth after a moment, setting it on the table. He turns it slowly this way and that, nostrils flaring.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” he says to the glass.
“Then you might ask ,” Naprem says to him.
“And you’d have an answer?” he asks, and his cruel imperiousness is back again, caught between his teeth. “Is that it?”
“I don’t know,” she says, honestly. “But you could at least care enough to ask what it is.”
He looks at her, and again it feels like an attack, like a push, like a shove, like being grabbed and turned and pulled, and she doesn’t like it. She’s had enough of it for one day. She turns her head deliberately, not bashfully -- not the way she would’ve just a few months ago. She’s not afraid of him anymore. When she denies him her gaze, it is a punishment, not an admission of defeat.
“Is that what you think?” His voice is soft; softer than she thought it would be. As soft as it was in the elevator. Meant for just them two. “You think I care too little?”
His hand on her chin shouldn’t surprise her, but it does. He catches her chin between his thumb and his forefinger and pulls her around to face him. She keeps her gaze pointedly averted, and she feels his discontent, very nearly smells it in the air.
“Naprem,” he says. “Look at me.”
When she does, it’s in her own time. They stay there, poised, frozen in a standoff until she finally decides to look at him, and when she does, she finds him peering into her with his cruel imperiousness forgotten, either pocketed or carelessly discarded, elbowed aside or swallowed by the strange softness that’s soaked into his face. He peers into her like asking for her answer would not be enough; he wants to see it in her eyes, written in her skin.
He looks like he might be about to speak -- he looks that way for a long time, and, in fact, she waits for him. He searches her face for something she can’t identify.
And then, he interrupts all the words he isn’t saying, for once, and kisses her again.
She should expect it -- she should, but she doesn’t. Every time he’s kissed her it’s come as a surprise, and this time is no different. He presses his lips to hers and she makes a short, shocked noise before surrendering entirely. He kisses her once, twice, leaning across the table, which seemed bigger a moment ago but which she now realizes barely accommodates them both. A table for one in the Prefect’s suite. How often did he eat alone, before they met? When was the last time she ate alone, she wonders. When was the last time she did anything in the utter solitude in which he’s expected to conduct his private life? She’s simultaneously envious and wondering -- is he lonely? Is that what this is? He kisses her, and she wonders; she’s never thought for even a moment that he could be, he never seemed to hunger for anyone’s companionship or attention, except perhaps…
...except, perhaps, for hers.
He kisses her, and it makes electricity sing under her skin. He kisses her, and he tastes like kanar, and she finds she doesn’t object to it quite so much on his tongue. Her chin is caught between his forefinger and his thumb, so much cooler than her own and it’s oddly soothing, and when she presses her hand to his cheek he makes a soft, crooning sound against her mouth and her stomach does a pirouette. He kisses her again, and again, and again, and then he parts them slowly, and only slightly, only by centimeters, nose resting against her nose, forehead pressed to her forehead. Her whole body tingles, and her side pains her, but her lips buzz with the same intensity, and she can’t think clearly.
“...I should go,” she says, with someone else’s voice, eyes still closed.
She feels him reach up, running his fingers back through her hair, tucking her bangs behind her ear. He kisses her once, twice more, slow and soft, sipping languidly from her lips. When he releases her, he lingers there, where she can still feel the shape of his mouth.
“...I should go,” she breathes.
He lets go of her chin, ghosting the tip of his forefinger along the underside of his jaw in a way that makes her shiver. He presses his thumb against her lips, watching her with an intensity that nearly debones her. He pulls back slowly, and nods, seeming to come back to himself. He clears his throat.
“I’ll escort you,” he says.
“I’ll go myself,” she says, standing up.
“I’ll escort you,” he says, more forcefully. “It’s not safe for you to walk alone, this late.”
“Skrain,” she says, more desperately than she wants to. “Please.”
He watches her, and she wants to elaborate, but she finds she can’t. She looks back at him, and begs him, silently. Please, she tries to say. Please don’t come any closer. I don't know what I'll do.
He finally turns away, crossing the room to the activate the intercom beside the door.
“Glinn Alomar,” he says.
There’s a short silence before the intercom chimes. “Yes, sir? ”
“Professor Tora will require an escort back to her quarters.”
“Yes, sir,” he says, voice heavy with reluctance.
Naprem walks slowly over to the door. Every step towards him makes her increasingly dizzy. He stands and waits for her in the doorway, and when she gets there, they stand very still, watching one another, as though each waiting for the other to move.
“...goodnight, Gul Dukat,” she says, finally.
“Goodnight, Professor,” he says.
The doors hiss open. Naprem steps out of the room as though out of a holosuite, or a particularly strange dream. She can feel his eyes on her back all the way down the hall; his gaze burns, but whether it’s a fire or the light of a star, Naprem doesn’t know. And, she thinks, she doesn’t want to. It’s better not to know. Never again, she tells herself.
She waits until they’ve turned the corner to reach up and touch, uncertainly, at the still-tingling skin of her lips.
Liar, she thinks, struggling to breathe. Liar, liar, liar...