Archive of Our Own

Would the secret glances ever amount to anything? There was no way to tell. Not right now, especially. Not while the station was in another Bajoran uproar. An uproar that was making Garak use his regnar tactics to fade into the backdrop so no one noticed him. Apparently, some of his Cardassian brothers had made some indecent spectacles dealing with some Vedek or other. Go figure Sisko was out on a recon mission to the Gamma quadrant when this exploded. But, while Odo, Jadzia, Worf, and Kira were doing all they could to handle and contain the protests, he did his best to keep doing his menial tasks day in and day out as this new explosion of holy fire raided the promenade. The Bajorans were looking for Cardassian scapegoats—and for Garak, out of sight, out of mind was his best ploy.

Though the secret glances were what got him caught. Kind of. He’d been hiding away in his shop for the last few days—and it was causing him to start to feel his claustrophobia close in. But he’d spied the good doctor a number of times outside on the promenade, helping people as always, and for whatever it was worth, the sight of him kept Garak grounded and breathing. It had turned into a nasty little habit...Creeping on Bashir from his shop, just to keep the walls at bay as he waited for the Bajoran insurgency of wanton retribution to die down. In fact, he was starting to feel the walls close in right now as some of them were stomping by the shop, chanting something he’d rather not repeat.

His blue eyes raised up instantly to scan the promenade outside his shop, his gaze diving in and out and around the angry Bajorans, hunting for the lean figure of the Doctor. Hopefully, he was out there. Though as Garak did this, he silently cursed. How had he become dependent on just the sight of Bashir to make him feel steady? He’d been part of the Obsidian order! This was silly! But despite the self-berating, he couldn’t help but keep looking and hoping.

He spied him then—just across the way; he couldn’t suppress the sigh of relief that escaped his lips as the walls began to recede from him some. But—then, for some reason, he could not, at the moment, fathom the Doctor saw him. For a split second the ex-spy and the chief medical officer locked eyes. And Garak swore again as Bashir started for him. Had he gotten sloppy somehow in his years of exile and hanging around the federation? How had Bashir noticed him? He did not need the Doctor sticking his nose in here while he was reigning in his claustrophobia, never mind the possible attention he could further bring by doing so!

But it was too late. Bashir slid into the shop with all the grace of a willow reed elegantly bowing in the wind, something of which did not escape the ex-spy’s attention, even as he endeavored to look busy with a dress he’d been commissioned for a few days before the Bajoran outcry. Forcing himself to steady his breathing, he put on an air of nonchalance and a moderately surprised façade. He looked up from the dress to Bashir as he entered.

“Ah, my dear Doctor! To what do I owe this impromptu visit?” He addressed the doctor, coercing his tone to be light and carefree.

“Checking in on you, Garak,” Bashir replied, not missing a beat. “The Bajorans on the station seem to be out for Cardassian blood, and you are a Cardassian. Never mind, usually the only one on the station...I wanted to make sure you were...alright.”

Inside, Garak felt a swell of warmth toward the doctor for that, and the room widened a bit more—but he stamped it down and kept his face congenial. “Well, thank you for your concern, doctor, but as you can see, I am fine.”

“Not going to lie, but if I didn’t miss my guess just a moment ago, you didn’t look all that fine.”

There was a slight pause. Damn. Damn Julian Bashir and his augmented self. He not only saw him, but he’d seen right through him. Though the tailor quickly moved into a response with a smooth lie. The thing he was an expert at. “Oh, but I am, dear Doctor. You don’t need to worry about me. Especially not when there are people out there who may need you more.”

Though a tiny voice niggled in the back of his mind: ‘Why do you need to lie about this? You actually want him to stay, why not just tell him?’

‘Because if he knows, I’ll be vulnerable, and he might get hurt too.’

‘Neither of you is knives, and not only is this part of his job, but again you want him to stay.’

The inner monologue was interrupted by the object of it. “I think I do. Chiefly since I should have checked on you sooner...and I’m sorry I didn’t.” Said object started off fine—but then, weirdly, began to ramble, “I mean, yeah, I have been busy with this huge protest, but that’s no excuse. It-it’s also a fact that I realized I haven’t seen you in days—and I knew that this whole thing is a witch hunt on Cardassians—and well, yes, I should have made time to check in on you...It’s awful that I had to look up in here just now and see your face, and see that something might be amiss to get me in here. And I am truly, utterly sorry, especially because you are so very…Err…Maybe it’s not chiefly because I should have sooner, but because of something else…Erm…

“But, anyway, here I am now, so, please...Don’t shut me out.”

Garak stared at the doctor with that tirade, his mouth moved a couple of times as if he was intent on saying something, but for the first time since he’d been in the Order, he was in mute shock.

Bashir’s gaze was level with Garak, but it was nervous now, and he was kind of fidgety. Like the tailor would hold it against him that he hadn’t come in to see him sooner, but they both knew that was ridiculous. The ex-spy hadn’t even considered that the doctor would come in—and in fact moments before he had cursed him for heading his way…Albeit just to keep up appearances. Speaking of appearances, Garak couldn’t comprehend the look on the doctor’s face. Not entirely. Just as he couldn’t quite comprehend the things he was feeling himself as a result of Bashir’s response to his own defensive lie.

“Well…?” The doctor prompted after the pregnant silence had spanned, where Garak fumbled with all of this, “Aren’t you going to say anything?… No quick-witted remark, or turnabout lie to any of that?”

The temptation was to give a piercing retort that would make the doctor think twice, but Garak was still so baffled by the little rant that for once his mind wasn’t functioning at peak efficiency and all he gave out in reply was a dulled “I can’t think…” and he trailed off.

And suddenly the walls were closing in around him again. For a different reason this time—but a no less suffocating one. All at once dizziness set in, his heart began to race, he was sweating and his breath came in short ragged gasps. He grabbed the edge of his desk to keep himself steady, as dread began to fill his frame and he slowly slid to the floor.

For his part, though ultimately surprised, Bashir instantly recognized the distress and rushed to the tailor’s side, looping his arms around the other man to keep him from hurting himself in his panicked state. “Garak! Easy, easy does it~!” He helped lower him to the floor of the shop—taking note that he was trembling like a kitten. “I knew something was a bit off…” he mumbled, softly, mostly to himself, but that didn’t stop the tailor from hearing it.

“Well, -gasp-good on you Doctor! -Wheeze-You guessed correctly! -Choke-Now what?!” he sputtered in reply, his anxiety getting the better of him.

Bashir’s arms tightened a bit, and he pulled Garak against his chest. “Now, you breathe with me. Deep breath in, 1-2-3, out. In, 1-2-3, out. In, 1-2-3, out…”

Strangely enough, having the doctor’s arms around him and following his voice in his breathing technique caused the ex-spy to focus on those two things, and he began to calm down...which is when he actually realized Bashir was holding him in his arms, and they were on the floor together…He stiffened a little, but it seemed the doctor took no notice. That, or he just outright ignored it, because he didn’t let him go even when it was apparent Garak was calming down.

Hesitantly, blue eyes lifted to meet hazel ones as Bashir looked down at him in the same moment. Garak’s newly regained breath caught.

He was smiling. At him…

And it was beguiling.

The tailor felt as though, at this exact moment, the doctor would be able to do anything, and he would be okay with it. Which was a weird feeling…Considering he’d never felt anything like this before. He never felt this open, even when he was with Palendine all those years ago—which was certainly another lifetime.

Still, what was the doctor thinking? There was no way he felt this way, too. He really shouldn’t anyway. It would likely be a death sentence for him if he did. It would be dangerous for him. These thoughts plagued Garak for years. It was why he’d never actually tried anything beyond enchanting the doctor with his mysterious airs. So, the tailor began to attempt to gather himself up to pull away and to say: “I—thank you, Doctor… I am feeling much better now.”

But it seemed Bashir was having none of that… His arms constricted around the ex-spy again, this time more responsively, and his smile faltered just the smallest bit. “Don’t...Not yet…” he whispered then, the sound almost a strained plea. “Y-you don’t know how long…How long I’ve wanted to do this.” This time, the whisper was almost imperceptible.

This admission caused Garak to still immediately—and for the second time in his life, not to mention in the last fifteen minutes, he found himself speechless. Dumb with surprise, he allowed Bashir to hold him—his mind racing a mile a minute and his pulse quickening again, just not because of his claustrophobia this time. After a few moments, he looked back up at Bashir—and all he could do was croak out a single worded question; but in that single word he threw everything: his fears, his doubts, his strange elation, his reverence, “why?”

Bashir looked at him again but didn’t answer right away. Instead, he looped his arms around Garak’s shoulders and buried his narrow face in his hair, drawing in a slow, shuddering breath himself. The tailor felt as though he should have been uneasy, particularly with the doctor’s silence to his question. But for some reason—he wasn’t anymore. All signs of the claustrophobic attack had subsided, and just having Bashir hold him like this was eroding his misgivings away, very slowly, true enough, but still. It was a magnanimous feat.

It was strange—his touch right now was a magic he’d never known existed. And yet, his first impression still was that this was a ruse, fake, Bashir was leading him on for some reason, but that voice at the back of his mind niggled again—telling him it was indeed genuine...somehow. So, in response to it, Garak unconsciously gripped at his blue-tipped tunic and rested his head against the slender chest of the doctor, drinking in the alien closeness. Alien because he’d never had it before.

Finally, Bashir lifted his head from Garak’s and pressed his thin lips together for a moment before he spoke, his voice a warm, yet torn hush, “I could lie a truth to you…like you would to me, but I can’t think of one, so, the plain truth will have to suffice.” He pressed his lips into Garak’s hair once more and finished speaking with them pressed against his head. He took a deep breath. Well, here went nothing, “You are an insufferable, intolerable, secretive, maligning, conniving, vengeful, amusing, interesting, lively, amazing, beautiful, git,”

Garak frowned a little, “Wonderful adjectives, Doctor…and I wouldn’t take offense to most of them, but that hardly explains anything…”

“Shut up, I’m not done, but thank you for proving my point.” Bashir couldn’t help but smirk against his head. “Those are all the qualities that—drew me to you…Kept me coming back. Even through all my other romantic escapades, I kept turning to you…Eventually, I came to realize that—well, that I was…am…in love with you…” There was a long pause.

“There, I said it…”

The doctor seemed to be holding his breath now—And Garak was once again totally and utterly stunned (three times in one afternoon, the Doctor was going for a universal record here!) and jerked his head back from the other man’s chest, his blue eyes staring up at him, plainly revealing his incredulity.

Bashir saw the look and swallowed. Hard. He tried to extract himself from the ex-spy, "Err…M-maybe I shouldn’t have…You know what? Never mind…This was obviously a mistake! I-I’m sorry…” his voice trembled, it was embarrassed and sounded hurt.

Garak, though, wanted to pinch himself, or pinch Bashir one or the other, to ascertain if this was a dream, or if there was a slim possibility that his claustrophobia had become so bad that he’d begun to hallucinate, and none of this was actually happening. But he did neither. Instead—he let his instincts alter course, and he grabbed Bashir as he tried to pull away, his own voice coming out in a husky drawl.

“My dear Doctor…”

He didn’t bother finishing the rest of the sentence as he pulled Bashir into a heated kiss. It was now Bashir’s turn to stiffen in muted astonishment. Clearly, he had not been expecting this. At all. But after the initial shock, he couldn’t help but relax a little and ease into it, returning the kiss…

Garak’s arms snaked around the doctor, pushing him down against the floor of the shop, and Bashir’s hands came up to dig into Garak’s hair—the kiss becoming more primal, deeper, sort of predatory, as everything around them faded into oblivion. The Bajoran protests out on the promenade, their duties, their fears, and their uncertainties, everyone else on the station, or outside of it, all of it melted away until it was just the two of them in the universe. Their own universe.

Outside, Captain Sisko, the leader of the station and emissary to the Bajoran people came back from his away mission, Upon seeing the mayhem and carnage that had erupted while he was away, somehow managed to calm them all down and allay their murderous outcries for Cardassian heads, with one of his well-said speeches, full of wisdom and the insight of the Prophets. Every one of the station operatives and everyone who was suffering due to the mess was beyond grateful and extremely happy that he had come back and was able to end the protests.

Everyone except Elim Garak and Julian Bashir, because neither knew, or indeed even cared right at this moment, what was going on outside the shop, due to the fact that they remained in it, strumming the strings of newfound love and pleasure. Alien as it may have been to both of them to have found true paradise in one another. They came up for breath at long last, after what must have seemed like hours, and looked at each other, breathing hard, with no more lies between them—and what was still unsaid explained with a single gasp…

“Extraordinary…”

~Fin~