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Now that he’d passed 40, Julian Bashir was significantly less interested in parties than he used to be. It was loud, unpleasantly busy and the buzz of real alcohol simply didn’t hit the same anymore. He stood in a corner of the large banquet hall, observed the young ensigns and cursed himself for not calling it a night earlier. But he was unable to tear himself away from the party, knowing that if he left now, his chance to talk to Garak would be gone.
It had been eight years since his friend had left Deep Space Nine. And while they’d spoken in the meantime, most of that contact had been limited to video messages and letters. The last time they’d properly talked face to face was years ago, when Julian’s ship had been on Cardassia and he’d managed to squeeze in half an hour to visit his old friend. He’d hoped that tonight they could at least have an hour, but he had yet to find Garak anywhere. But he knew for sure that his friend was here, and so at this party he would stay.
Soon after he’d been asked to hold a speech at the Starfleet Academy 250th anniversary ceremony in San Fransisco, Julian had discreetly asked who else would be invited, knowing full well that Garak had recently moved to Earth as an ambassador. Among the other guests of honor would be Tom Paris and Geordi LaForge, as well as the crew of the Cerritos, who had recently saved the multiverse. The list had also included various external parties, among which the first Cardassian Ambassador to the Federation. It was mostly a formality, the assistant Julian had spoken to told him - ambassadors were generally invited as a sign of goodwill, but most of them didn’t show up. He’d been disappointed, but he decided to take it in stride.
That didn't stop him from hoping. Deep Space Nine had felt different once Garak had left - it had become empty in a way it didn’t used to be before. Julian assumed it simply had to do with everyone leaving at once, but even after he transferred to various starships and forged new relationships, something was always lacking. Eventually, after he realized it was always Garak in particular he was missing, he’d drawn the conclusion that for the rest of his life any place without his friend would feel a bit empty.
So when he was making his way to the stage and suddenly the world around him was normal for the first time in years, he just knew that Garak was there, even before he’d taken his place on the stage and saw the familiar grey-scaled face in the crowd.
He’d given his speech with renewed vigor and once the reception had started, he’d scoured the banquet hall, hoping to talk to his friend. But the Cardassian was nowhere to be seen, and when he’d asked one of the organizers if they knew where he went, they shrugged. General consensus seemed to be that there was no reason to pay attention to some ambassador if you could also get in line to shake Tom Paris’ hand.
He checked his messages for the tenth time in just as many minutes, but no new notification showed up. Garak hadn’t even received his messages, suggesting that he was either in a no-service zone, which was extremely unlikely in the middle of San Francisco, or that he purposefully kept any messages out. Either way, Julian was not getting a hold of him. With a sigh he took one last look around the room and once he thought no one was paying any attention to him, he set his now-empty champagne glass on one of the tables and started walking towards the door. Maybe he’d have better luck elsewhere in the building.
‘Julian! Hey, Julian!’ Apparently he wasn’t quite as stealthy as he thought himself to be. A female voice called him before he was even close to the exit and it made his system go into full high alert before he’d even recognized it. He turned in the direction of its origin and saw a woman storming towards him, dragging a nervous-looking purple-haired man along. She had long, dark curly hair tied in a ponytail, wore a red dress uniform and waved at him like she’d known him for years.
‘Mariner?’ he asked, recognizing her as she came to a screeching standstill just slightly too close to him. ‘Beckett Mariner, right?’ That explained his body's reaction. Julian didn't dislike her, but even back in the day, Mariner had been... a bit unruly. She was one of the few people who called him by his first name without asking, and Captain Sisko had made it a point for Julian to try and correct her, hoping to keep her in check. It worked in the beginning, but as the war lasted, she'd become more and more difficult to manage. Julian couldn't even fully blame her considering the circumstances, but it hadn't made her easier to work with.
‘It’s Lieutenant Mariner, nowadays. But yeah.’ She grinned proudly, pointing at the two pips on her collar, and turned towards her companion. ‘See, Boims? I told you he’d remember.’
Boims - which, based on the other man’s nametag, Julian assumed to be a nickname for Bradward Boimler - needed a few seconds to get himself together. ‘Man, I really shouldn’t be surprised that all these people seem to know you, but somehow every time I am. Doctor Bashir, sir, it’s an honour to meet you, sir.’ He held out his hand for Julian to shake, starry-eyed and brimming with nervous energy.
Julian took it, noticing that Boimler’s hands were exceptionally sweaty. ‘Well, your friend here is a difficult one to forget. She was in the infirmary for more fights at Quark’s than for actual fights on the battlefield.’
‘Yeah I was.’ Mariner didn’t seem bothered in the slightest about that reputation. If anything, she was slightly smug about it. ‘Not only Quark’s. I once even got into a fight at the infirmary immediately after Julian here had taken care of some of my injuries. They'd left me alone for a few seconds, I was woozy from some kind of anesthetic and saw a Cardassian sneaking around. So I just went for it. Turned out he was our local tailor. Luckily for me, no one saw it and he never told the Captain.’
‘That was you?’ Julian took a new glass of champagne from one of the butlers that passed by. ‘That Cardassian was my friend Garak. I treated him afterwards. He refused to tell me who it was, though. He just said it’d been “friendly fire”’.
Boimler blinked. ‘Garak? As in, Ambassador Garak?’ He turned towards his friend with huge eyes. ‘You fought Ambassador Garak?’
‘Heh, yeah.’ Mariner grinned. ‘He kicked my ass.’
Garak had been extraordinarily dramatic about it, Julian remembered. He’d complained during the entire treatment about how undisciplined Starfleet was, and that this would never happen with Cardassian forces. He’d even returned multiple times after his injuries had been healed to get an extra check-up. Julian suspected Garak just liked having him as an audience for his theatrics. He didn’t mind - it meant more time with Garak, which was often sparse during the Dominion War.
‘Anyway,’ Mariner continued, ‘as much as I’d love to catch up, I’m here for business first. Boims here has a request. And because he’s too chicken to ask it himself, he made me approach you first.’ She flung an arm around Boimler’s neck, resulting in what could best be described as a loving chokehold.
‘Yes.’ Boimler dug through his pockets, missed whatever he was reaching for three times and finally unearthed a small, leather notebook. ‘Couldyoupleasesignthisthankyou.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Could you please sign this for me?’ He flipped through the notebook and opened it on page 73. He handed it over to Julian, along with an expensive-looking golden pen.
On the top of the page, in calligraphy, was Julian’s name, but the rest of it was empty. A quick scan through the rest of the notebook revealed that every page was styled in the same way, albeit with a different name every time. A handful of them, among which the one titled William Riker, had a signature on it.
‘Boims here collects signatures of important Starfleet officers,’ Mariner explained.
‘Well, I am honored to be included,’ Julian said, although he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a bit of a dubious honor. ‘Why me, if I may ask?’
‘You got attacked by a Lethean and lived to tell the tale, you found a vaccine for the Blight, you were in the Dominion War… and I mean, even besides that, basically every one of the Deep Space Nine senior staff is Starfleet royalty, you know?’ Boimler gushed.
Julian blinked. Hearing it summed up like that he could imagine how it might sound impressive from an outsider’s perspective. Maybe he would’ve thought so too, back when he’d been 27 and had just arrived on Deep Space Nine. Nowadays he mostly remembered the suffering.
But Boimler looked so hopeful, and if Julian were honest, it was very good for his ego. So he went back to page 73 and scribbled down his signature as Mariner and Boimler continued talking.
‘I’m actually surprised you still had that page open,’ Mariner remarked. ‘Didn’t you get EMH Julians’s signature back when we met the crew of the Anaximander?’
‘Obviously he’s in a separate section. Where else would I leave this doctor Bashir? He’s under Alternate Timelines, and then in the sub-section Photonic Beings,’ Boimler said impatiently, like he couldn’t believe Mariner even had to ask that.
Julian was immediately drawn back into the conversation. ‘A hologram? Of me?’ He browsed through the pages until he saw a signature that looked a lot like his, albeit a bit more blocky.
Boimler wrestled himself out of Mariner’s headlock. ‘Yeah. We serve on the Cerritos, and a while ago we met the crew of the Anaximander, with Starfleet personnel from all sorts of different universes. One of them was an EMH based on you.’
It weirdly stung to know that an EMH had happened in another dimension. Julian didn’t consider himself a particularly jealous person, but here he was, feeling jealous of himself of all people.
‘But you did put Anaximander Garak’s signature on the page reserved for our Ambassador Garak, right?’ Mariner asked Boimler. ‘I saw you ask him.’
‘I did. I’ve heard that Elim Garak in our dimension is extremely private, so I assumed I was never going to meet him anyway. I didn’t think he was going to be here tonight! Although I think he left immediately after the speeches, so I didn’t really have a chance to ask him anyway.’
Julian’s eyes started to sparkle with curiosity. This was an opening to talk about Garak, which was always one of his favourite topics. ‘You met an alternate Garak? What was he like? Is talking to him also like some sort of guessing game?’
‘We didn’t really talk much, so I don’t know a lot about him,’ Boimler admitted. ‘He was a bit enigmatic - it seems that’s the same in every universe. And he’s a surgeon.’
Julian wondered what his Garak would say if he told him that. He assumed it would be some spiel about how similar stitching wounds had to be to stitching clothes, so that it made sense as a career choice. It made Julian surprisingly happy to know that there was a version of his friend out there that had chosen the field of medicine.
‘Yeah. And he’s married to your EMH!’ Mariner added helpfully.
Her tone implied that she thought it was a normal thing to say, that it barely even qualified as gossip. Julian, however, swore he could feel the ground shift under his feet, even though everything else was still in the same place. Married? A hologram based on him, married to a version of Garak? Did his Garak know about that? He should tell his Garak. Somehow it felt like important information for Garak to know.
‘Married?’ He raised an eyebrow and hoped that Mariner and Boimler couldn’t hear the frantic beating of his heart.
‘Yeah. Again, don’t know the details, but they seemed pretty happy.’ Mariner shrugged.
Boimler nodded. ‘They were holding hands basically all the time. I spoke to them for five minutes and they told me three times how fortunate they were that they’d found each other among all possible universes.’
‘You sound bitter,’ Mariner pointed out.
‘Yeah, well, every single person would be bitter around those two.’
Mariner started talking about how she was happily single and that she would never be jealous of them. Julian took that opportunity to take some time and process this information, which no one seemed to find as shocking as he did. The idea of being married to Garak was appealing - he fully understood his EMH in that regard. Garak was handsome, and cultured, and one of the few people he’d never gotten bored with. Being married to him would be a privilege. Too bad he wasn’t in love with him.
That thought stopped Julian in his tracks. He wasn’t, right? He went through a mental overview of his old flames. Hadn’t he considered getting married to most of them? There was Palis, obviously, and they were even engaged. Then there was Jadzia, but even if he had been successful with her he didn’t really want to marry her. He’d never considered getting hitched to Leeta either, as he’d realized fairly quickly that that relationship was going to run its course at some point. His relationship with Ezri had been too complicated from the beginning, with the spectres of the war and Jadzia looming over it, so obviously they weren’t going to tie the knot either. To say nothing of the other flings he’d had on the space station. That left him with a long list of people he’d never consider getting married to, despite technically being more romantically involved with them than with Garak.
Julian’s chest tightened as he started to move towards a conclusion that he hadn’t really considered before, although it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation. He allowed himself to follow the thread for a bit longer, replaying his time with Garak in his mind. He remembered supporting each other in a prison camp. Playing spy in the holosuite. Long lunches filled with spirited debate. Forgiving Garak, even though he himself thought he was far beyond mercy. Garak’s hands on his shoulders, telling him how glad he was to have made a new friend. But most of all, he remembered being drawn to Garak through it all, wanting to be near him, more than anyone else.
He looked back at his friendship with Garak with a new sense of clarity, like he’d spent fifteen years stumbling around a dark room and now someone else had turned on the light. His desire to see his friend suddenly became almost unbearably strong. He had to go look for him.
He chugged down the rest of his drink in one go and put the glass on the table next to him with slightly more force than necessary. ‘Well, I did appreciate talking to you, Mariner, but it’s getting late. Lieutenant Boimler, here is your book, signed and well. I hope you have a good rest of the evening.’ He tried to sound light, but he missed the mark. His companions didn’t seem to notice - Boimler was too busy gawking at his signature book and Mariner was too busy gently making fun of him. They just politely waved goodbye and then went back to their friends.
The moment Julian left the banquet hall he started walking faster to the point he was almost running. He went down every hallway he could find, hoping to catch a glimpse of those familiar grey scales, but to no avail. Just when he was about to start a second round, he realized how stupid of an idea that was. No one had seen Garak since the speeches - there was no way he was still in or around this building. But where else could he be?
There was one other option. Starfleet had offered every guest a stay in the hotel next door, in case people planned to get drunk or simply didn’t want to deal with transporting home. Julian, whose home was the USS Jacobs, had taken up the offer. He saw no logical reason why Garak would have, but logic had mostly left his brain by the time he entered the large, brightly lit lobby. All he knew was that he had to try and find Garak.
‘Excuse me, could you tell me whether Ambassador Elim Garak is staying here and if so, could you tell me his room number?’ he asked the young woman at the reception.
‘I’m not allowed to give you that information, sir,’ she answered politely but firmly.
‘Yes. Of course.’ How typical of him to forget about the concept of privacy in his frenzy. She looked like she wanted to say something, but Julian continued talking before she had a proper chance to speak up. ‘If he is here, could you give him a message next time you see him? Tell him that Julian Bashir wants to talk to him.’
‘Ah, you’re Julian Bashir?’ There was a spark of recognition in her voice and her eyes drifted towards the name tag he was still wearing. ‘I do have a message for you, actually. Someone asked me to tell you to come up to suite 11-8 if you asked for Elim Garak.’
‘I see. I am indeed Julian Bashir. Suite 11-8, you said?’
She confirmed the room number and a second later Julian was in the elevator. On the one hand, this was so typically Garak that he was certain it couldn’t be anyone else. On the other hand, he couldn’t think of a good reason why his old friend would go about it like this, and he wondered if it might be a trap. He went back and forth between the two so much that by the time he’d reached suite 11-8 and it was indeed Garak who opened the door, he was still moderately surprised.
‘Ah, you’ve found me,’ Garak said by way of greeting. Despite the fact that he’d left the function quite some time ago, he was still dressed in a sharp tuxedo that reminded Julian of their visits to the holosuite. ‘Truly, my dear doctor, that took much longer than I expected. Come in.’
Julian followed Garak into the luxurious suite. While his own room was nothing to complain about, Garak had gotten the best one in the house - it was lavishly furnished, had a separate bedroom and even came with a large balcony. ‘Can I get you a drink? We can catch up outside,’ Garak said as he gestured at the glass doors on the other side of the room.
‘Yes, please.’ Julian followed Garak’s instructions and went outside. He walked up to the railing and leaned against it, looking at the skyline of San Francisco.
Garak followed him a minute later, holding two glasses of kanar. He handed one to Julian and then stood next to him, drink in one hand and the other hand in his pocket. The lights of San Francisco at night glittered behind him and he made for such a beautiful sight that any thoughts Julian had about starting a conversation were gone from his mind.
‘I liked your speech, doctor,’ Garak said, and the sound of his voice was enough to draw Julian from his daze.
‘Why, thank you. I think it went well.’ He took a sip from the kanar to give himself some time to think about what to say next. What had his game plan been here, exactly? Walk up to Garak and tell him ‘hey, I just found out that two alternate versions of us got married. It got me thinking that I might’ve actually been in love with you for a while. I know we've barely seen each other in years, but wanna give it a shot ourselves?’ Just a few minutes ago it had seemed so important to see Garak and talk to him, but right now he had no idea what to do. ‘I was glad to see you,’ he eventually said. ‘Why did you leave so early?’
‘Oh, you know. I’m not really one for these sorts of happenings. I only really showed up to hear my good friend speak.’ Garak’s voice was light and Julian recognized the tone - Garak used it if he was playing some sort of game. It made Julian’s body tingle with equal parts nerves and excitement. Garak continued: ‘You stayed a while longer, it seems. Tell me, how was your evening?’
‘Boring,’ Julian admitted. ‘These things are always sort of the same. People come over to shake your hand, and once everyone’s done with that you drink, talk to people or take your leave. Drinking for the sake of getting drunk doesn’t interest me much anymore, and I didn’t want to leave before I’d had a chance to talk to you, so I just chatted with some people. I met Beckett Mariner again, actually. I don’t know if you remember her, but she was stationed on Deep Space Nine during the War. Dark curly hair, bit of a loose cannon. She told me the most fascinating thing.’
‘Did she now?’
‘Yes. Apparently she’s the ensign who attacked you all those years ago.’ Not the most important thing she’d told him, but Julian’s hands were sweaty enough with nerves as it was. He had to give himself some time to ease into it. ‘You refused to give me her name, for some reason.’
‘Ah, yes.’ Garak nipped at his kanar. ‘I did. She was a good fighter, and I didn’t want to risk her getting court-martialed. That could’ve cost you a useful soldier.’
Julian laughed. ‘How very pragmatic of you.’ He considered taking another sip of his kanar, but he realized that would just be delaying the inevitable. ‘She also told me something else.’
‘Enlighten me.’
‘She’d apparently ran into some alternate universe versions of us. Sort of. One of them was an EMH based on me, and the other one was a version of you who was a surgeon.’ More stalling. Coward.
‘Well, it makes sense as a career choice, considering my natural talents. Both a surgeon and a tailor need a steady hand and good hand-eye coordination, after all.’
Julian was so nervous he couldn’t even smirk about having predicted that answer. He continued, his heartbeat drumming in his ears: ‘And there’s more. Apparently they were married.’
‘I see.’ Garak didn’t even blink. ‘Is that all?’
‘What do you mean is that all?’ To his annoyance, Julian’s voice was slightly off. He couldn’t tell if it was out of embarrassment, irritation or disappointment.
‘Well, I fail to see how that is of any concern to the two of us. It should make no difference to our friendship, should it?’ Garak looked just as perfectly pleasant as he had before the revelation, but Julian could feel something was up. Sadly, this being Garak, he had no idea what exactly that would be.
‘It does, doesn’t it?’ he asked carefully.
‘In what way?’
‘Because it means our relationship could be something different than friendship. In theory.’
‘In theory,’ Garak echoed. ‘I fail to see why that theory would matter to you.’
Something about the way Garak emphasized the word you nagged at Julian’s brain. Why was it weird that he had a reaction? If anything, it was weirder that Garak didn’t. He was unpredictable, sure, but he was by no means without emotions or opinions. On the contrary, the man was dramatic, and would not let any chance to react to news like this pass by. Unless…
‘You already knew,’ he concluded, and suddenly he felt like an idiot.
If Garak was in any way surprised by Julian’s train of thought, he didn’t show it. ‘I did,’ he readily admitted. ‘I spoke to the new captain of the Cerritos about a week ago, and he told me about our counterparts.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I simply assumed it did not matter to you. However, you seem to feel differently.’
This was his opening, Julian realized, and he gave himself some time to search for an answer to Garak’s question.
‘I think that I might be a bit envious of our counterparts,’ he said, as he took a few steps away from the railing to put his glass of kanar on a small table in the corner of the balcony. Once he’d done so, he positioned himself in front of Garak, leaving very little space between them. An anticipatory gleam appeared in Garak’s eyes, and Julian knew this was what he'd been hoping for.
‘I think,’ he continued, weighing each word carefully, ‘that I might want our relationship to be something else than just friendship too.’
Garak now looked like a hungry predator ready to pounce on prey. He leaned forward, their faces only centimeters apart now, and a storm of pleasurable nerves rushed through Julian’s stomach. ‘Is that so, dear doctor?’ Garak asked, his voice low. ‘Care to elaborate?’
Suddenly the art of speaking was lost to Julian Bashir. All he could think to do was close those last few centimeters and kiss his friend. And so he did.
Their lips met and their tongues found each other within seconds. Through the haze in his mind, Julian wondered why it had taken him so long to realize he wanted to do this. Kissing Garak was overwhelming in the best way possible, with pleasure spreading from his lips through his entire body. He needed more contact - he wrapped his arm around Garak’s waist and pulled him as close as he could, some of Garak’s kanar spilling on the balcony tiles at the impact. He placed his free hand on the back of Garak’s head and ran it through his hair, eliciting a sound of pleasure from the Cardassian against his own mouth. Julian wanted to listen to that noise forever.
He had no idea how long they stood there, tongues intertwined and bodies desperately pressed against each other, but eventually he had to let go to get some air. His breathing was heavy, he could still feel the trace of Garak’s lips on his and when he looked at Garak’s blue eyes, his pupils were just as blown as Julian assumed his own were. He remembered something from his old files on Cardassians and their erogenous zones and placed his lips on the ridges in Garak’s neck. He was careful at first, sucking gently on the scales, and when that got him a needy noise in response he softly bit down. Garak growled and nipped at Julian’s ear, his movements becoming less and less controlled with every passing second. Julian revelled in the knowledge that he could let the normally so disciplined Cardassian get so worked up.
Garak traced Julian's back with his free hand and stopped just below his waist. It left a trace of pleasure down Julian's spine and the world around him started to disappear, leaving only Garak's body against his. With the last bit of clarity he still had, he let go of Garak's scales and realized they had to get off this balcony, before he'd get any more worked up and someone down on the street saw them. ‘Shall we leave the catching up until later?’
‘A splendid idea,’ Garak agreed, his voice rough. He put the glass of kanar he’d been holding all this time next to Julian’s on the table, after which he kissed Julian again and then dragged him towards the bedroom.
*****
When Julian woke up, he needed a few seconds to remember where he was. He was naked, on his back and a large Cardassian was draped over the left half of his body. Right. As lovely as lying here was, Garak cuddled up against him, his left arm was starting to get numb. He carefully tried to move, but the moment he tensed his muscles, Garak made a noise of protest.
‘If you ever want me to be able to use that arm again, you will need to let me reposition,’ he told Garak, his voice barely louder than a whisper.
‘Fine,’ Garak grumbled. ‘You may move, but I get to hold onto you again the moment you’re done. This is the most comfortably warm I’ve been in ages.’
‘Of course.’ Julian shifted around a bit until the feeling returned to his arm, then let Garak curl up against him, his head buried in the crook of his neck. ‘This okay?’
Garak made a happy humming noise. ‘It will do. You can go back to sleep now.’
‘What about you?’
‘I generally do not sleep while there is someone else in the bed with me. Even if I wanted to, my body won’t allow me.’
‘Oh.’ Julian frowned. ‘Then have you been awake all this time?’
‘Do not concern yourself with me, doctor. I am used to it, and I am trained to function on very little sleep. And if it soothes your conscience, I have nowhere else to be today, so even if I weren’t it would be fine.’
‘It’s not about my conscience, it’s about your health. But fine.’ Julian rotated a bit so he was now facing Garak and put his right arm around him. ‘However, I do have places to be in a few hours, as the Jacobs expects me back at 11. So if you’re not going to sleep, then we might as well have that catch up we were planning.’ Even if its contents might be different than either of them had probably anticipated.
‘Must we?’
‘I think we must.’ Something about Garak’s tone made Julian worry. He knew the Cardassian wasn’t really one for these types of talks, but this was different from his normal reluctance. It sounded far more fragile. ‘But first of all, you can stop calling me doctor at this point, don’t you think? I’m Julian.’
‘Julian.’ That seemed to set him at ease somewhat. Julian stroked Garak’s back, hoping it would help him relax even more. His scales made for an interesting, coarse texture, and although Julian had had a good chance to feel them last night, he wished he had more time to explore them further.
‘So, my first question - how did you know I was going to come visit you yesterday?’
‘I didn’t. But there was simply no one else I wanted to speak to, and if I had stayed at the party someone would have struck up conversation. This seemed like the easiest way to ensure only you could talk to me.’
‘That was a lot of faith to put in me.’
‘I have you in high regard.’
Julian grinned. ‘Sure you do.’ It wasn’t quite an answer. But warmth pooled in his chest upon hearing Garak compliment him, and so he pressed a kiss on the top of his head. ‘Second question. If I hadn’t talked to you about it yesterday, would you have told me about us being married in another universe?’
‘As I told you yesterday, I didn’t think it would matter to you.’
Again, that emphasis on his reaction. ‘Okay, but what about you? Did it matter to you?’
Garak stiffened in his arms and fell quiet.
‘Elim?’
‘I…’ For a second Julian feared that Garak might retreat, but he took a deep breath and eventually said: ‘If you must know, it confused me.’
Julian thought he knew what Garak meant, but he didn’t want to draw this conversation to himself by saying so. Not now that Garak was here, in his arms, possibly more honest and vulnerable than he’d ever been. So he stroked Garak’s hair instead, giving him the space to continue.
‘I… care for you, Julian, in a way that I have never cared for anyone else. But one of the fundamental truths in my world, ever since I met you, was that you did not feel the same way. I had made peace with that. Until I learned that there was a universe out there where you might. I was unsure what to do with the implication that there might actually be a possibility.’
The information struck Julian like lightning. ‘Ever since you met me?’
‘Oh, it was mostly physical at first, I assure you. Nothing more than a silly fancy. But even then I assumed it was unrequited. It became more complicated in your second year at the station, when it moved beyond a silly fancy.’
After the situation with the wire, fourteen years ago at this point, Julian deduced. That was a long time for Garak to keep that to himself. Julian had barely been able to keep his mouth shut for an hour once he realized that he was in love with Garak. His heart broke a bit for his - friend? Lover? He wasn’t quite sure.
‘Is that why you made me come to you yesterday?’ he asked carefully.
‘I had no idea how to face you, so I hoped you might seek me out yourself and spare me the embarrassment. While the Obsidian Order might have trained me in approaching targets for a variety of reasons without letting my emotions get in the way, love is the one sentiment that training has never quite been able to overrule.’ For the first time since waking up, Garak looked him straight in the eye. ‘Do not misunderstand, Julian. If you had not shown up, I would not have blamed you. And if all we had done yesterday was talk and reaffirm our friendship, I would have been satisfied.’
‘Garak,’ Julian said softly, then correcting himself: ‘Elim. I love you too.’ He desperately hoped that he’d read correctly between the lines there - that was an art that occasionally eluded him.
Any defense that Garak still had up immediately came crumbling down. He looked at Julian with some disbelief, but more importantly with so much love that Julian was immediately reassured that he’d guessed correctly. He leaned forward and kissed Garak on the lips, hoping that it made clear just how much he meant it.
‘And now what?’ Julian asked once they separated again.
‘Well, I think the hotel will serve breakfast soon. I’ve read it’s the most important meal of the day, so I think we should get something to eat,’ Garak said, slowly returning to his usual self.
‘I mean between us,’ Julian clarified, although he did not doubt in any way that Garak knew exactly what he meant.
‘Well, you said it yourself. You have to be on a starship in a few hours, on a long mission no doubt. Last night was more than I had ever thought I would get, Julian. And I know how you operate when it comes to these things. You owe me nothing else.’
‘But I want to. I want to have a proper relationship with you.’ Julian realized that he had to open up first. Garak wasn’t going to tell him what he wanted. He’d spent fifteen years only telling Julian the bare minimum. It was something they might be able to work on, but that wasn’t going to happen overnight.
‘Then, I would say that I am in the middle of an important assignment and that I am afraid that I am not in a position to join you on a starship for more than a day’s visit or so.’ Garak spoke carefully, as if he didn’t quite trust the words that came out of his mouth, let alone the ones that Julian had said. ‘But the Ambassador’s home in Paris is large enough for an additional inhabitant, either temporary or permanent.’
‘Then I’ll come to you and stay with you for as long as you can stomach me. I have quite a few months of leave built up, and we can see after that. I’ll need to go and wrap everything up on the USS Jacobs, of course, but that won’t be too much of an issue. I think a lot of my fellow officers weren’t too keen on having an augment on board anyway. I can come join you in Paris in a month at most.’
‘I will have a room ready.’
‘Thank you.’ Julian pressed a kiss on Garak’s forehead. The Cardassian made a satisfied rumbling noise.
They were silent for a minute, simply enjoying being in each other’s arms. Eventually Julian suggested: ‘I think we should ask the hotel to provide us with food in your room. I don’t want to share you with the rest of the Starfleet guests just yet.’
‘I’m certain that can be arranged. In due time. I’m in no hurry.’ Behind Garak, the sun had started rising and its rays came in through the gap between the curtains. They would have to get up and face the day, eventually. But for now, Julian decided to ignore that morning light and pretend he could stay here with Garak forever.