Work Text:
Julian keeps trying to hold his padd out of the water, which is made harder by the way that Garak is holding him and keeps kissing him on the neck. It also happens to be very distracting.
“I just have to finish a couple of emails,” Julian says, typing up the hasty replies to the last few messages that he received, or at least the ones that he feels need his attention.
He's technically supposed to be on vacation, but it's hard not to worry about what's happening when it comes to matters of health and people’s lives, so he always feels a bit guilty over taking time for himself, even if he knows that it's healthy to keep a good work life balance. He's just not entirely sure that Starfleet has discovered this yet, or maybe they’re all just a bunch of overachievers who have problems letting go of responsibilities.
“And I have to have a vacation with my husband,” Garak says, pulling him further into the water.
Julian nearly drops the padd then, and has to raise an arm in the air to keep it out of the tub. Maybe answering his emails while taking a bath with Garak wasn't the best of ideas, but he wouldn't be able to relax while the notification light was still on. It was already hard enough to allow himself to turn off the notification ping, and he only did that because he could still receive an emergency call if it was really necessary. Trying to disconnect and take a vacation is still clearly a work in progress.
“Alright, alright, I'll put it away,” Julian says, putting the padd on the cabinet next to the bathtub, so he can let Garak pull him almost completely under the water without ruining his only means of communication with the clinic.
Garak submerges to the height of his nose, which makes him look adorably more like a humanoid alligator than he would usually call Cardassians. Julian reaches for the tub's controls and raises the temperature, to as high as it would still be comfortable to him, even if it already feels a bit steamy. The whole reason why he suggested a shared bath in the first place was because of how cold Garak can get in winter, and his own body heat isn't enough to make up for it, even if Garak wouldn't have accepted to just stay in the water on his own for a few hours a day. Maybe they should get a sauna installed.
“Better now?” Julian asks, snuggling closer to him, while still trying to hold himself out of the water enough that he doesn’t have to taste the soapy bubbles.
Garak nods, and Julian allows himself to relax. As much as he's sympathetic to how cold a mesotherm might get and how uncomfortable that can feel for them, he has to admit that he enjoys the advantages of having Garak huddled close to him to get some of his warmth.