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Black Bottle	By : herm42 Category: Star Trek > Deep Space 9 Views: 2407 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Julian is
transformed by sleep. Whereas some people are quite themselves
whether awake or asleep, Julian becomes another person altogether.
When they slid into bed the short night before, Julian was a strong
and comforting, protective presence next to him. Now he lays curled
up against Garak, head bowed very low and off the pillow, and his
fingers are haphazardly splayed and mashed on Garak's chest,
stretching the fabric of his shirt. He looks like he couldn't protect
a flower from a bee. And he doesn't look comfortable at all despite
the ease with which he seems to be sleeping. Garak lies still as
stone, looking, and thinks about trying to rearrange him a little.
Thinks he probably could and Julian would be none the wiser, but
despite his deep slumber, Garak doesn't want to risk waking him just
yet. It is still very early.
    Some people,
quiet and reserved people, sleep quietly and reservedly in their
beds. Some boisterous and mad people thrash about in their fitful
dreams, and wake with wild hair. And some, like Julian, go from being
lonely, intelligent, and complex people, to contented, companionable,
malleable, and simple sleepers.
    Garak hasn't
slept like that in years, maybe decades. He wonders if Julian always
sleeps like this or if tonight has been different. He knows it was
different for him. He barely slept at all, he realizes, and yet he is
wide awake, refreshed, for the moment. Not sleeping is seldom a
problem for Garak as he usually has a chemical helper of some
fashion, almost every night. He doesn't usually wake up feeling this
way. Of course, last night he needed no chemicals besides what was
already pumping through him. An intoxicating cocktail of emotions on
top of exhaustion spun him out on a wing of shallow sleep more
valuable than any long deep slumber in recent memory. He is struck by
a fleeting, but startling thought. Could the doctor have slipped him
something? Ridiculous. He would feel it this morning if it had been
artificial. No. It was just; so much...
    Garak
takes in a deep shaky breath and looks down at the human in his bed.
Cautious still, Garak brushes a hand softly through Julian's hair.
Julian stretches in response like a slumbering cat and leans into the
touch unconsciously, craning his head back now with an airy noise to
expose his Adam's apple. His breath comes slowly through the pastel
edges of slightly parted lips. Garak watches his face. His eyes move
back and forth under their thin lids. He has a dewy film of sweat on
him, Garak notices then, so he carefully pulls back the covers from
him a little, one-armed. He smiles fondly when he sees the doctor's
uniform shirt is rucked up under his arms from his night-time
squirming and he tries to pull it down some with two delicate
fingertips. Julian stirs, perhaps just one more movement or
disturbance between him and wakefulness, and then burrows down deep
again between Garak's arms, against his chest. The uniform works its
way right back up where it had been and exposes a wash of brown skin
shadowed by simple young starlight. Something akin to a reflex makes
Garak curl around him, and he wraps his arms around Julian fully,
fists curled tight and wrist bent as if his hands were coated in wet
clay. Their clothes stick and stutter against each other from the
moisture and heat and the conflicting nap of the cloth, and Garak
takes another deep and unsteady breath, this time taking his air from
within Julian's hair.
    “Sisko to
Bashir.” Garak lets go smoothly but with the wide-eyed
speed of guilt.
    Julian muffles, rubs his face
twice quickly into the mattress, perhaps slightly startled, and
cracks open warm eyes that are already directed up at Garak. Garak
can feel Julian's breath stop in his throat for half a second before
he rolls over to touch the comm button and give his voice to the room
instead of Garak's neck. “Bashir here,” he nearly
mumbles.
    “Sorry to wake you Doctor,
but we have a Klingon Bird of Prey coming in with casualties. At
least four in serious condition. They'll be docking in ten
minutes.”
    Julian exhales just quietly
enough that it isn't picked up by the comm. “Understood.”
Then he hits the button once more and sighs aloud. He doesn't look at
Garak right away, and all Garak can do is lay perfectly still on the
pillow and watch him rub his eyes and yawn at the ceiling. Any
pretense now would be unseemly, he thinks. It may be early and
morning may soften the edges of feelings and actions and lower
Julian's voice to a purr, and night may bring fatigue and loneliness
to a head, but it is too early and too late for discussions right
now. And he can handle honesty for ten minutes at least.

Julian finishes grinding his palms into his eyes and then scratches
his fingers through his hair. He hasn't said a word yet and he
wonders if Garak has noticed. He wonders if Garak is going to say
something. Hopes he will. Hopes this won't turn into another
game.
    Garak remains silent. So before the
silence grows too thick, Julian wets his lips a little and slurs
through another half-hearted yawn, “What time is it?”

Garak would have asked the computer for that information in any
normal moment of the day, but he feels detached from his body now,
somehow. He's been lying there watching Julian in that position so
long he barely exists outside of what he can see and sense. Julian,
some wall and some ceiling, drapes, and in the blurry foreground, the
bridge of his nose. That is the half-dream world now. He doesn't want
to move and acknowledge anything else yet, nor does he want the
computer butting in. He can't bring himself to break it. Silence is
honest, he thinks. He also suspects in some automatic part of his
brain that Julian doesn't really care what time it is anyway, but
that part is nearly mute right now and he still feels as though he
knows nothing, is nothing, besides the contents of his purview.

Julian looks over at him with one eye from inside the crook of his
elbow. His arm, arched over his head, conceals the rest of his face
as his fingers busy themselves with idle scratches to his scalp. The
eye blinks once, then crinkles up at the corner a little, the lower
lid bowing up in the middle as Julian's smiling cheek peeks into
view.
    Thn he rolls over and faces Garak, and
Garak breathes in and holds it. Julian is still smiling, sweetly,
maybe ironically. Like he knows something; like this simple human can
see something besides just the bridge of his own nose.

Julian's smile ebbs most of the way and he returns Garak's gaze
unashamedly. Ten minutes, Garak. He lets loose the breath he had
forgotten he was holding and it comes out loud to his ears and
vibrato. A long-fingered, delicate hand comes up then and slides into
his hair. The world Garak knows grows to include the millions of tiny
stroked and happy nerves in his scalp and the leaden fluttering of
his eyelids that threaten to wink the rest of existence away. He
wants to hold on to it, make sure it doesn't disappear when next he
blinks.
    “I have to go,” Julian
says. It sounds damp and melancholy, and it is. This early (he's
guessing it's still early) he might be a little slow on the pick up,
but as soon as it's out of his mouth it starts to take shape in his
mind, and the part of him that cares for foresight and the planning
of what is likely to be a long day is already in motion, drawing up
blueprints for every moment of the next ten hours or so, reviewing
his schedule, Klingon anatomy, it's all going on up there, but
another part, an insistent, pleading part which seems to have hooks
in his chest and eyes, has buried an anchor here in this bed and does
not want him to leave. It wants to ignore everything else. It could
happily declare everything else unimportant and irrelevant. For a
moment those two parts team up and try to think of a way to unload
this on to someone else this time, just this once, but they both know
it is a waste of time.
    Julian's eyes pass over
powder soft grey scales to bowed and parted lips. He wants Garak to
sew the two of them together with gentle adept hands, forearm to
forearm, then thigh to thigh, stitches through yearning skin until
they start to melt together; and maybe thoughts such as these just
mean he's still half-asleep, but he wants those hands. The ones he
couldn't have last night. And like magic, there they are, the one,
trapped below, timidly takes his hand and the other smooths up over
his wrinkled shirt, over his flank, the thumb locking around a
sensitive tendon under his arm, and fingers curling up to his
shoulder. Pressed together it's a small tilt of the head to bring
their lips together, and he does, sucking in a sharp breath as they
unfold into each other's mouths. Warmth crawls up his body and covers
his head, engulfing him, and he grabs hold of Garak tightly.

Garak is all too happy to let his eyes slip closed now. Not much to
see but blurry shapes at this proximity anyway. He knows Julian is
still there. He can feel the tickle of his exhale on his upper lip,
hear the sheets rustle just a little under him as he shifts deeper
forward. He can smell him. Dear Gods and Prophets he can smell him.
He never wants that smell to leave his memory, so salty sweet and
warm. And yes there is other warmth. Tactile warmth in the pulse at
his wrist and in the flesh of his curled palm; and heat, real heat
from within his mouth. Garak, though normally cool and collected,
answers with his own heat. It builds within him like bellows-fed fire
far more quickly than his ambiance-loving mind can cope with. He's
dizzy suddenly, but nothing spins him away from the silken lips until
Julian's neck stiffens and he lets them come apart.

“I have to go,” he says again and curls a sad little
smile at the realization. His eyes are still heavy and his limbs
languorous, but he lifts them and rolls slow and smooth out of
Garak's welcoming, beckoning bed. Garak has hardly moved, but watches
him with alert and searching eyes. Julian can't help but wonder what
any of this means. His silence, his inertia. Julian slips on his
shoes and runs his fingers through his hair in front of Garak's
mirror, watching Garak watching him in the background of the
reflection. He wonders if he's scared the tailor so badly that he has
been reduced to a supple lump of acquiescence, willing to go along
with anything Julian wants until such time as he can escape. Could
falling in love be that horrifying of a prospect to him? Again, he
thinks hypnogogic imagination is at work this morning, but it still
doesn't sit quite right with him that Garak is so still, so quiet. He
has never seen him like this. He wishes, as he pauses in the doorway,
that he had a little more time.
    Garak
feels...indebted. To all of the people who came and went, to
all of the happenstance that arranged itself to allow him to live in
the present moment he lives in now. Yes. He is lucky, he realizes
now, and for the first time feels it too. He is in debt to all who
tried to guide him to amnesty and peace, and to all of the brave who
fell before him.
    Garak lays in his bed for some
time after the sound of the the door closing behind Julian reaches
his ears and becomes real. Julian is gone and he feels he is finally
awake, as if he had stepped through a door of his own, back to this
world. The room remains ever the same, but he is off to one side of
his bed. The wrong side. Isn't that a human expression? He is sure it
is. Perhaps it does not have the same effect on Cardassians. He lays
there and looks over the details of the room, the Bajoran orchid on
the nightstand on the drape of smooth green cloth, the red-grey
nightstand beneath that, and then right next to him, on the right
side of the bed, a curious dent, and a short brown hair on the
pillow. It all seems poised to convince him of the reality of it, but
this could still be a dream. If it is he will cling to it a while
longer. There is no hurry. Garak pulls that pillow to him with
crawling fingers, careful not to disturb this new dream, and even
before his face reaches the rippled cloth he can smell the salty air
left behind where Julian slept. He has never dreamed such a smell, he
knows, and finds himself smiling as he pulls himself upright.

Elaysian cotton. That is the answer.

~*~


"Let me die or let me live! Do not dishonor me for your own
glory, Human." The Klingon clutches his chest with shaking
fingers and spits at the floor to remove some of the blood filling
his mouth.
    General Martok grumbles from a
nearby bed with bleeding lacerations on both arms. Julian almost
fails to repress a smile at the General's obvious annoyance. "Do
not be an idiot Kornan. A punctured lung is not going to kill you so
you might as well let the doctor patch you up so you can get back to
your post quicker."
    Julian continues to
take readings on Kornan, mindful of the sometimes unpredictable
temper of an injured Klingon, but heedless of his complaints. All
around, other broken and bleeding Klingons make their way through
triage and patiently if not agreeably endure the ministrations of
Deep Space Nine's medical staff. They just wouldn't be Klingons if
they didn't at least try to fight it.
    "I
will not be a soft and feeble petaQ suckling at the
federation's teat." Kornan growls. Julian avoids an eye roll
only just barely.
    Martok does not even try, but
then he doesn't have to; he's the general. "Kornan! You will lie
there and allow Doctor Bashir to do his job without any further
complaint or I will hold your mouth closed for you! Is that
understood?"
    Kornan heaves a few rattled
breaths as he fights to keep control of himself. He pauses a moment,
breath held, back arched in pain, as if physically halted at a fork
in the road, but then nods curtly in the general's direction. Martok
fills in the resulting silence with gruff, hollow-cheeked mutterings
in Klingon. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "Now, Doctor.
Where is that nurse of yours? I seem to be bleeding on your carpet
again."
    Julian smiles and hands Kornan off
to his assistant who wheels him away to be prepared for surgery. "I
noticed," he says cheerfully, and begins cutting Martok's tough
uniform off of him at the shoulder. "But I can't hold you
responsible this time it seems. I'll send the cleaning bill to the
Dominion when this is over."
    Martok winces
as Julian carefully peels an under layer of cloth from where it has
stuck to the wounds with tacky half-dry blood. "With the
increased frequency of my visits to you, Doctor, perhaps it would be
wise to replace your carpet with titanium flooring. It would be much
easier to clean."
    Julian shakes his head a
little as he dabs blood away from the long gash on Martok's left arm.
"No," he says absently, intently concentrated on the still
oozing wound and his tricorder. "It would just get slippery when
you bled all over it. Wouldn't be safe."

Martok chuckles heartily but it turns into a little groan at the end
when Julian prods his other arm.
    "How was
this treated by your ship's surgeon?" He meets Martok's eye.

Martok huffs dismissively. "It doesn't matter, just get it done.
I am needed back on the Rotarran."
    Julian
squints a little at the General and takes in a slight pallor in his
face he hadn't noticed before, a heaviness in his good eye beyond
what could be expected of a mildly wounded Klingon. He takes his
pulse manually. "I think you should lie down." Martok sighs
irritably, avoiding Julian's gaze for a moment. "How was this
treated? The battle was a day ago but this is fresh blood. Did you
reopen it somehow?"
    He sighs again. "It
was not treated. I do not put my fighting arm in the hands of that
flesh-tinkerer on board my ship."

"General, you could have died of blood loss on the trip
here."
    "Could have, would have. Will
you get on with it?" Martok is already perturbed. There is no
point to arguing further about it. Julian glowers and begins
regenerating the exposed blood vessels to stop the bleeding.

Julian is in surgery for nearly eight hours following the sorting and
triage of the Rotarran's wounded. Eight hours he focuses on the men
and women on his table. Martok's injuries were light, and even with
his blood loss he was luckier than many of his crew. Kornan lost the
lung and though he would be no worse for wear in the long run he
looked like a man violated when he came out of surgery, not relieved
to be alive. Ch'Targ had major disruptor burns all over. The pain
kept him delirious the entire trip to Deep Space Nine according to
the Rotarran's surgeon. He at least had a word of gratitude for
Julian when he woke under an inhibitor field.

Twice in that eight hours he had to order General Martok back to the
recovery room. He insisted that he was well enough to leave, and he
probably was, but Julian wanted to see his blood pressure get back to
at least the low side of normal before he left. Also, he liked having
him around. His presence more than likely discouraged dissidence
among his crew, and his example, though not perfect, probably allowed
the other Klingons to accept the treatment and the soft beds a little
easier. The disruptions were kept to a minimum and the usual chaos
and havoc of battlefield medicine remained atypically mild with a
largely veterined team under Julian's direction.

Until Tavana was brought in. Her injuries, broken bones and internal
hemorrhaging mostly, had been caused when a plasma vent exploded on
the Rotarran. They were lucky the whole ship had not been destroyed.
Tavana had been directly in the line of the explosion and was thrown
back against a control panel and a bulkhead. She was stabilized and
then sedated en route, Julian had been told, which he knew was rare.
He found out why when she came to suddenly in triage. The sounds of
her roaring screams could be heard across the promenade undoubtedly.
She did not scream solely for her own pain, but for Ortikan who died
before her eyes only a moment before the blast. Julian could only
frown and swallow around his empathy for her. His staff, clearly
shaken, became markedly quiet after Julian administered another dose
of the sedative. Martok did not attempt to leave again without
Julian's approval after that, either. She too would wake after
surgery stolid and composed with an appreciative nod for the doctor
as she left, but nothing further about her loss. He had no doubt she
would make the Jem'Hadar pay for it, but she would not burden anyone
else.
    Blood coats every surface of his
infirmary it seems. A pervasive substance, like ink, once spilled it
transfers to anything and everything silently and secretly. The whole
medical staff looks dogged by the time the last Klingon leaves
surgery and everyone is either back on their ship or resting in the
recovery room. Marcia is one of just a few of the staff who have not
yet left to wash up. A small but boisterous woman from Georgia,
Julian chose her himself out of hundreds of academy applicants to
join his staff. She arrived only last week. In that short time she
earned a reputation for being the untiring sunshine of the infirmary.
You just can't help but smile when she smiles at you, nor stifle your
laughter when she tells you her stories about growing up on a real
family farm on Earth. Now she stands in a corner near a console,
uncommonly quiet with a hand to her mouth. Julian sends an orderly
out with a case of instruments for sterilization and approaches her
slowly, arcing around the room so that he passes in the corner of her
vision before reaching her. They are both still in red surgical
covers but with the hoods down loose around their necks. A clean
white towel over his shoulder, Julian crouches a little to look at
her face and sees her eyes wedged with the look of overwhelming grief
that often accompanies one on their first major day in triage. When
he gets close enough that she notices him, she flinches and tries to
hide the tears glittering in her eyes, but instead they just fall to
the console. The cause of hiding now hopeless, she sobs once,
quietly, and Julian gently takes the wrist she has bent before her
mouth and wipes a smear of blood from her fingers with his towel.
Julian drops the towel to the console but it slips off the slick
surface and fluffs to the ground ignored. Julian takes her guarding
arms away from her chest and pulls her in to what feels like a
natural but oddly intimate embrace. Like a tactile echo of the night
before.
    "It's ok," he murmurs to her
and smooths a hand over her shaking back, rocks her a little side to
side. He wonders if this is going to become his mantra and smiles a
little into her hair. Julian, Comforter of the Alpha Quadrant. Then
he pushes her back a little and she hurriedly wipes her face with her
hands. He lets the smile stay there on his face for her. "You
did wonderfully, Marcia." She takes a breath but it shakes and
her face crumples again, so Julian pulls her back in and continues
where he left off for a moment more.
    "I
thought it might be easier," she mumbles into his shirt.

"What?"
    "Easier to handle
the...because they're not human."
    He
understands what she can not yet say. "It's very good that it's
not, Marcia. It just means that you have compassion that extends
beyond you and your own kind. You'll find your own way to handle it.
I promise."
    Her brow and her frown quiver
and her eyes sparkle anew. "I don't know if I can do this."
Her voice shakes with distressed laughter.
    He
hugs her again and she accepts it plainly this time. "You can. I
know you can. You just did."
    The captain
appears in the doorway of the infirmary just then, unobtrusively, and
his face changes from simple inquiry to concern at the sight of the
crying woman. Julian grants him a reassuring smile and pats Marcia's
back a little.
    Marcia startles slightly when
she notices Sisko and wipes her face again. He puts up a hand in
response but she is bent on repose if not yet achieving it.

"How did it go?" he asks Julian softly with a worried shake
of the head.
    "As well as can be expected,"
he says, and holds tightly to one of Marcia's hands. "Everyone
who came in will be leaving under their own power by tomorrow."

"That's good news," comes Sisko's low reply with an equally
pleasing lift to his brow. "Let me know if anything changes, and
I'd like a detailed report later on when you get the chance.
Starfleet wants data on Klingon casualties."

"Tomorrow morning."
    Sisko leaves as
silently as he arrived.
    Marcia just has a
needful look left on her face now that she's wiped away the tears and
the red of upset is abating. Julian looks at her for a moment and
thinks of Garak again. He wants to see him. Badly. A day like today
is exactly the kind of day he normally seeks him out. To talk, to
laugh, to argue. To anything besides think about the war and the
effect it is having on himself and the whole quadrant. But he also
wants to hang on to Marcia. She's exceptional at her job and he
doesn't want to lose her. This was a tough first week for her, for
anyone. He needs to take care of this. Everything else must wait. For
a while.
    "Can I get you a glass of water
or something?"
    She shakes her head and
looks around the room though Julian isn't sure what she's looking
for. An escape, something to do maybe.
    "Well
what about lunch? Have you eaten?"
    This
startles a laugh from her. No one has had a thought to food much less
something as sophisticated and formal as lunch all day.

"Ok," he says. "Let's get cleaned up and we'll have
lunch."

~*~

    "Come on. When
was the last time you did something stupid?"

Julian chuckles. "What do you mean? I do stupid things all the
time."
    "Name one thing...Come on.
Don't think about it. Don't flip back twenty-five years. Something
recent."
    "I was dismissed from the
bridge once."
    Marcia's jaw drops. "You're
joking."
    "No."

"What happened?"
    "I...said
something I shouldn't have."
    "To the
captain?"
    "No. Worf was in command at
the time."
    "And he didn't cut your
heart out on the spot?"

"That's...generally frowned upon in Starfleet, lucky for me. And
everyone forgets to turn the voltage down on the regenerator after
using it on a Bolean, Marcia."
    Marcia
sighs harshly and frowns. Her brown eyes implore for relief though
she knows only she can forgive herself. "I just can't forget the
way that Klingon yelled. I knew it immediately. I knew I forgot."

"He's a Klingon. He'll be fine. It was just a small burn."

Marcia pushes her food around on her plate a little. "Julian."

He looks up from his tea and empty soup bowl.

"Why does the captain want a report on Klingon casualties?"

Julian meets her eyes for a moment and then answers. "Starfleet
wants casualty projections. They're using data on the injuries and
deaths from Klingon ships to predict the kind of casualties we can
expect in our own ships and also to identify vulnerabilities."
Marcia's eyes flit to a place somewhere behind Julian, then down to
the floor and back to her plate. Julian senses her discomfort, but
the fact that she asked tells him that she is only trying to prepare
herself. He continues with as gentle a warning as he can think of. He
wants her to be prepared, but he doesn't want her to run away. "The
Cardassian's bloodlust is only deepening since they allied themselves
with the Dominion, if you ask me. Most of the deaths on the Rotarran
were not from the Jem'Hadar raiding party, they were from the
Cardassian ships that ambushed them on their way back to Federation
space."
    Marcia looks oddly distracted and
then pushes the remainder of her meal a few inches across the
table.


~*~


It's 25:00 hours again already. It seems as if it is always too late.
As if time rushes on without him, hastening the day of work,
lengthening the amount of time it takes to finish what he has to and
leaving precious little left at the end of each day to do the things
he wants to. Two hours in triage. Eight hours in surgery. Three hours
of damage control with his greener staff members, then paperwork and
a senior staff meeting. He's not even tired. He's had longer days
than this, but none of those have ever occurred at a time like this.
When all he wants is to be with him. And now it's too late
isn't it.
    Unless Garak happens to be up
too.
    Julian is a little startled as he steps
out of the infirmary. The insulated quiet of his domain usually
prepares him only for the uncommon stillness of the midnight
promenade and the creeping emptiness of his walk back to his
quarters. Tonight however he is assaulted by glittering curls of
light, colorful curtains draped over the hard angles of Cardassian
architecture, and five hundred people at least hanging still more
decorations, banners, warming up instruments in B flat and preparing
food. He'd forgotten Ha'mara was today, and tomorrow, now almost
here, marks the end of the fast and the beginning of the celebration.
Hungry Bajorans smile and talk, even at the late hour, and grow more
excited for the feast and the rite that begins in just one hour. Long
minutes for the starving. It could go either way for Julian.

He smiles wanly at the residents who greet him as he walks the
promenade. He filters through the people as much as he can visually,
looking for just one, but it gets more and more difficult as more
people arrive, more Bajorans dressed in warm colors, glittering
smiles and earrings. He weaves his way past the Klingon restaurant
which is filled to capacity with burly patrons, some of which came
directly from the infirmary, also celebrating but unwilling to wait
until midnight to eat. Quarks is busy too. He's staying open through
to the next evening to accommodate the celebration, and Julian
expects to see Leeta in his office tomorrow with "Dabbo
Shoulder". She always gets it when she works double shifts.
Beyond a cluster of people loitering in front of Quark's, he passes a
few smaller shops that actually closed for the night, probably
because their owners are helping with the preparations, and then
finally Garak's shop which, Julian sees as he approaches, is dark and
shut. Julian peers in the tiny glass window on the door but sees only
the silhouette of a dressmaker's dummy and the dark glitter of
sequins from an unsold Ha'mara dress.


~*~


It's 25:00 hours again. Lack of sleep is finally catching up to Garak
but his nerves are on fire everywhere. His senses are dulled and
vision tunneled. It feels like fear except he's running toward
the object instead of away. Or at least he hopes he is. The closer he
gets though the more his shoulders flinch and his pulse races. He
feels like maybe he's walking too fast and the swarms of Bajorans
moving in and out of the habitat ring are watching, noticing his
unease. It feels so horrendously stressful, so why is he doing this
to himself? Ah yes. Because he has no choice but to try to be near
him. Whatever embarrassment or discomfort that may bring.

He's standing before Julian's door before he knows it, almost walks
past it, not realizing he had crossed the distance already. His hand
wavers before it touches the call button and then stops. It's 25:00
hours. Hello Julian. It's the middle of the night. I brought you
some pants.
    Garak sighs at himself and rubs
his eyes. You need to sleep. And you need to calm down and stop
thinking about it.
    He turns and heads back
toward his own quarters.
    Garak waits at the
door to the turbolift down the corridor from Julian's. He taps his
foot irritably, wondering if Julian is even in his quarters.
He could ask the computer, but then Julian would know in the morning
he had been looking for him. Looking hard enough to have the computer
track him down. Garak rubs his fingertips together and glances down
the hall toward the bowed wall where Julian's door hides. The
turbolift door opens, a half dozen people leave it, talking and
laughing, even in the face of a flustered Cardassian, then several
more hurry on to it before the door closes. Garak turns and walks the
other direction toward the promenade.
    The music
is getting louder and the vents in all the walkway ceilings are
pumping out cool air to combat the heat rolling off of excited
bodies. It dries Garak's eyes and makes him shiver. He sidesteps this
way and that to get through the throng of people all lined up and
waiting for the Vedek to begin the ceremony. Finally he finds an
eddy, a break in the current where he can cut a clear path around the
outside edges of the noisy promenade toward the infirmary.

Brightly lit and sterile, he knows without asking as soon as he
approaches, Julian isn't here. One foot in the door, he looks around,
bends his neck in the direction of the open office door to peek
inside and then turns.
    "Are you looking
for Julian?"
    Garak turns back again and
then looks down. Marcia, possibly the smallest adult human Garak has
ever seen, approaches him. He's taken aback for a moment. He didn't
think he was that obvious.
    "You're Mr.
Garak, right?"
    "Yes," he says
hesitantly, out of habit. He can't be truly suspicious when the
inquiry comes from such a creature.
    She smiles
a little and he can instantly see why Julian likes her. This in turn
makes his stomach clench as lightly as she smiles. "I saw you
today when we were having lunch."
    "I
see." He didn't think he'd been obvious then either. You're
losing your touch, Elim.
    She seems to want
to say something else but does not. A pause, and then, "You only
just missed him."
    Garak doesn't have time
to consider what she's leaving out, but he does take the time to
smile warmly at her and nod. "Thank you very much, my dear,"
he says and bows out, noting the blush that creeps over her face as
he does.
    Out the door again and into the fray,
he has a purpose now at least. He's not wandering aimlessly, hoping
to stumble upon his destination. The promenade is thick with people
and smells and sounds but they're not quite as cold as a moment ago,
not so alarming or unsettling. He's rather hot now actually. There
seems to be two sides to this constant dread. There may be after all
a good reason to put himself through this exertion, this
anticipation. The cold inhospitable melancholy comes from the cynical
anticipation of loneliness and disappointment. That is clear
now. Yes it is a gamble, but when the flip side is this butterfly
high of impending commencement, well. It all seems worth it.

He hurries, feels like he might have actually taken wing over the
crowd he sifts through it so quickly, heart beating like a bird's.
Past the raucous racket of the Klingon restaurant, alien smells and
baritone singing. Past Quarks, hot trays steaming with the buffet
offerings all along the bar, past his own shuttered shop and on at a
polite jog to the habitat ring. Having come full circle, Garak pauses
outside Julian's quarters, takes a steadying breath as three Bajoran
dancers in blue pass behind him, and presses the call button.

He waits and prepares a nonchalant smile behind his lips.

He presses the button again and listens for the chime from behind the
door, which he can just barely hear. Still nothing, and Garak begins
sorting through the possibilities. Surely he couldn't already
be asleep. Showering? Avoiding?
    Garak's neck
begins to itch, but he stands there and waits. One minute, two, two
and a half, then hits the call button once more, waits, and then
wanders away.
    Confused, disappointed.
Uncommon sensations. The turbolift takes him down a level and as he
stands on the hard metal floor of the lift, the garment over his arm
feels heavy and his fingers cramp around its edge. He's been carrying
it like that for a half hour now.
    The lift door
opens onto the familiar corridor of his own level of the habitat
ring. He emerges from the small lift alcove avoiding the eyes of the
lifts next group of sparkling passengers and stops.

Julian halts in place, forcing a Vedek and two acolytes to weave
around him in the hall to get to the lift before it leaves.

And finally the only two faces not bent in merriment, the only two
holdouts for dolor on the whole station give in and share a private
smile between them.
    "Garak. It's nice to
see you," he says, impressing himself with the apparent control
in his level voice. "How are you?"

Garak approaches another step, cautious, wary of the observer,
whoever that might be. "Wonderful," he says, and means
it.
    Another string of dancers and a flustered
costumer pass between them one way, a pair of Bajoran siblings from
the other. Garak waits until the flourish of tails and fringe is
gone.
    "Now," he adds with a smile.
Julian reacts conservatively to that before his eyes glance to
Garak's parcel. "I brought these for you." He doesn't
mention that they are no where near Julian's quarters nor any place
that they had planned to meet. He takes it as read finding each other
was an inevitability tonight.
    "What's
this?"
    Garak hands him the pants which
Julian unfolds and inspects. "Your old ones were worn. I thought
you could use a new pair, and I thought considering how busy you've
been, you probably haven't even put any thought to getting a new
pair."
    "No, I hadn't. Thank you.
But...You know I can get a new uniform from the replicator whenever I
need one. You didn't have to go to all this trouble."

Garak smiles brightly. "What you get from that replicator may be
regulation but it will never fit as well as something made just for
you. And it won't be made of Elaysian cotton either."

"Practically floats, I understand," Julian says, his grin
returning.
    "Usually."

There is an odd quiet between them for half a moment until Julian
notices people looking at them both as they pass, the phenomenon of
two people simply looking at each other in a hallway and not speaking
drawing their attention. "Um. Have you eaten?" Julian
tries.
    "There you are." Dax and Kira
approach in a hurried flourish. "Are you coming? It's going to
start any minute," Jadzia urges.
    They're
decked out in some of the loveliest greens and blues they've ever
worn, as far as Garak is concerned. Obviously from Jadzia's closet.
Although the major does look fetching in autumn colors, she overdoes
it, and the purely passe Bajoran fashions currently occupying shop
windows on the planet certainly don't help. A smear of glitter
brightens Jadzia's already dazzling face.

Julian looks uncertainly at Garak, then back at the two smiling
women, and Garak realizes that surrender is in order tonight. "You
go ahead, Doctor. Perhaps we can have lunch tomorrow."

Julian is relieved to be offered the pardon but wishes it had come
from the other side, honestly. The further thought occurs that
breakfast sounds better than lunch, and wonders how much of
this is written plain on his face.
    Garak is
looking back and forth between Julian's obvious inner struggle and
the ladies' urgency when suddenly the major, for all she means well,
complicates and elongates an already painful submission with an
uncharacteristic spurt of camaraderie. "Come on Garak, why don't
you come with us?" She's smiling that bright as the sun smile
she reserves for people she actually likes and it's tempting
to take her up on it. After all, he could spend the next few
exhausting hours watching Julian vibrate in his own skin as he is
doing right now, enjoying the subtle blush to his cheeks he'll buy
with a drink or two, but then Garak has never found much pleasure in
self-inflicted torment. He thanks her for the offer quickly and
politely declines. "I should really get some sleep. And, the
gratitude festival is just around the corner," he says with a
leer. "I don't see why we need another enormous party in the
same month. You'd think you'd want to spread out the late nights of
imbibing and debauchery a little more." Garak says finally, just
to restore a little normality. Kira looks appropriately shirty.

"Hey, it's not the Bajoran's fault that the emissary decided to
show himself scant weeks before the biggest Bajoran festival of the
year. He'll have to suffer the consequences." Dax says through a
grin.
    Julian tsks. "Like having a birthday
near Christmas. Poor guy."
    "All right
already, are we going?" Kira demands and starts trailing away,
pulling Julian by the hand.
    Julian casts a
quick glance over his shoulder at Garak as he and the two ladies head
off down the corridor, and Garak just stands and watches him float
away.



III.IV
The Debt Part 2


Garak leans against
the cold railing of the lift, his mind quiet for the first time in
recent memory. He isn't sure what has caused this reletive
tranquility after the frothing anxiety of the past few days, but
he'll take it, he'll enjoy it while it's here. Perhaps it's the
normalcy. This feels like a very normal day. He woke, showered,
changed, opened his shop, made a delivery, and soon he'll be going to
lunch with Julian. Even that thought doesn't make his heart leap like
he expects. It all feels very familiar and easy. They haven't gone to
lunch together in ages, but the experience of that weekly, sometimes
daily event over so many years, well, it's like sewing. He could stop
for twenty years or so he imagines and then leap right into it again
with no problem, with joy even. A little normalcy would be nice right
now.


The lift slows, then
stops, then opens. Garak stands up straight. Julian meets Garak's
eyes and smiles a secret wry smile before stepping inside. He doesn't
even wait for the door to close completely. Garak gets half a
syllable out of his mouth before Julian closes the distance, all the
distance between them, and brings thier lips together. Garak lets his
hands fall gently to Julian's hips and greedily tastes the warm
sweetness of Julian's mouth and the juicy flesh of his tongue.


It's gone in just
over a second, time enough for three quick mouthfuls of Julian. Just
his unexpected presence there was enough to shatter Garak's calm, but
the hot wet assault and the smell of him so near, so suddenly, has
made him forget everything else but the mad strangling want in his
gut. His planned destination from the lift, his objectives for the
day, this "normality" of a moment ago. All gone.


As Julian turns away
from Garak to face the door, a fluid motion from his step in, to the
theft of Garak's mouth, to where he stands now, two nonchalant meters
away from Garak, the lift door opens again on the next floor down and
a Starfleet crewman enters. The young engineer nods at Julian who
nods back, and the lift is on its way.


He can hear his own
river-rapids pulse in his ears and nothing more. Garak looks at the
floor and studies, not for the first time, the box pattern minted
into the metal. He counts thirty-seven three centimeter squares
surrounding his feet before the lift stops again and the crewman
exits.


He looks over at
Julian who smiles a little and bites the corner of his lip.


Garak is reclaiming
a little of that calm. "We must stop meeting like this, Doctor.
People will talk," he says finally.


Julian laughs out
loud though he knows it wasn't that funny. He's nearly giddy with it
though. The need to just grab him is driving him mad, and the walls
of time and duty between them are looking perilously thin from his
point of view, even as Garak stands there looking cool as a
Cardassian, steel grey eyes, broad chest softened and disguised under
muted green and blue. "Do you...do you want to go to lunch now?
Are you free?"


Garak dissects the
mirth around Julian's eyes for a second or two. "I think that's
a wonderful idea."


Julian looks at the
lift floor this time. "My quarters? Since we're here?"
Indeed the lift slows and stops again on Julian's floor. Garak makes
no mention of the fact that the promenade is equally close on this
level. Julian's smile and slight blush says it.

~*~


Garak's hand is a
leaden weight on his hip and it makes him shudder internally when his
thumb squeezes in just a little. The hand moves back and wraps
tighter around his lower back , so low he can feel his tough
fingertips, hot as they dig into the bone of his pelvis through the
whisper thin material of the trousers Garak made for him. His mouth
is hanging open a little he realizes, but he has no power to close it
as long as Garak is going to steal his breath as he nips at Julian's
chin.


Julian doesn't know
what to do with his own hands. He rakes them down Garak's back and
chest but with so much material in the way it is not very satisfying.
He wants to touch him, wants to feel and discover the alien skin
beneath. Blind, Julian finds the bottom hem of Garak's shirt and
begins worming his fingers under one layer, then another. Garak's
hands come from off of his body and grasp and hold Julian's away as
he kisses and licks and devours.


Julian kisspushes
him away, two, three times, then pulls back to look at him, wild-eyed
and raw-lipped. "Did you want lunch?" he asks through a
pant.


Garak doesn't answer
him again. He doesn't know what that means when he becomes
unresponsive, but he trusts for now. Elim backs him up with a
step forward and the balance of his body against Julian's. Dancing
again, but this time through the doorway to Julian's bedroom, another
kiss connecting them as they go. Julian grins brighter as they enter
the dark, quiet room. He doesn't bother to keep his arousal to
himself now, but lets it press hard into Elim's hip. Elim hums low in
his throat and just looks back at Julian, shark-eyed and intent.
Julian swallows hard and then pulls his uniform shirt up over his
head followed by his undershirt.


Garak's breath stops
in his throat as he looks on all that tawny flesh. He thinks in that
moment that he may have never felt a riptide craving for anything
quite as he does for the warm and inviting body before him. Julian
keeps kissing him, placing his hands at Garak's belt trying to get at
more skin. Garak takes Julian's clever hands in his again because he
just doesn't know what else to do to curb this.


Hands are safe.
Hands are made for touching. Hair is soft and inconsequential. Lips
shield teeth, but are matched when you kiss. The weapons there cancel
each other. But you don't bring lips to hands, or anywhere else where
they might be tempted to bite soft skin and durable muscle. Likewise
hands to lips or any other delicious parts to touch is out of the
question. They may taste the silk of skin, the satin of sweat, and
pilled roughness of hair or scale, but who will stop them when they
want to pinch and dig and bleed?


"Elim,"
Julian whispers. "Please." A request for mercy or an order,
he isn't sure. It comes too softly to his ears, needy, aching down
feathers.


He lets go of
Julian's hands then and slips the button on Julian's trousers, lets
them fall. He barely glances down then as he pinches then curls the
fabric of Julian's shorts around his fingertips and pulls them over
his cock to let them drop as well.


Julian is standing
naked and painfully aroused in a room with a fully clothed and
irritatingly stoic Cardassian. All Garak has to do is lean forward a
little and Julian's calves meet the edge of his bed and he is forced
to sit. Julian watches with something akin to fear tumbling through
him as Elim removes his jacket, and nothing more. He kneels silently
and pulls off Julian's shoes and pushes his clothes to the side. He
looks up at Julian under lowered ridges, and all Julian wants is to
touch him, but twice now he's been refused and he isn't sure if he
should try again or not. He looks dazedly back at him, searching his
face. Garak smiles just a little, leans up to kiss him once and then
braces his fists on the bed on either side of Julian's hips before
dipping down between his knees. Julian gasps in the way you do when
you see a bottle fall from a shelf, before it actually hits the floor
and shatters with musical bedlam.


Julian's concerns
are gone in a flash as the sun below the sea following that harrowing
second of hesitance. His fingers knot into Garak's hair and in
response he hums around Julian's cock. He's slow and langourous about
it at first. Seems to slip down by only the lazy force of gravity,
then crawl up to the top again and start over. Just a few times, and
then he's licking at him, at the underside from the base, tantalizing
and real, then up to the head, and Julian feels he might crawl out of
his skin. He makes some inarticulate noise when he reaches that place
again and finds he can't hold himself upright anymore, and leans back
on one arm. But now he can see what is happening and he huffs several
times and squeezes his eyes shut against it. Too much. Garak's lips
sliding down under gently closed eyes. His cock disappearing into
Garak's mouth, it's unreal. He keeps his eyes shut a few more seconds
but it's no good, he's seen it and that image is going to stay burned
there for some time. He moans out loud as Garak sucks hard on the
head and then dives back down on him. Julian opens his eyes and finds
himself chuckling at his own lack of control. "Oh my god,"
he mumbles and wants to kiss him again. But Garak starts pumping up
and down on him faster, his lips tight around him, his tongue flat
and slippery under his cock, teasing with the tip and running around
the head in circles every time he comes up for air. Garak breathes
steadily, gulping through his nose and Julian can feel the cool rush
of air inside his mouth as it blows across the head of his cock. That
in itself is going to kill Julian. The hot and cold trading places
over and over. He feels it drawing near, he wants to push it away,
petulant. Not yet. Too soon, way too soon. But it's inevitable
and quickly squeezing his groin inward, blood stiffening his cock
rock hard and purple against Elim's face until Julian's abdomen is
spasming. Oaths spew from his mouth punctuated by other wordless
noises and calls as he squeezes his legs around Elim's head. He can
feel the Cardassian's silky hair on his thighs. Julian gasps for
breath and goes limp, feeling bodily numb except the tingling ecstasy
like rivulets of gold all over him and Elim's rapid breath on the
base of his cock. Garak comes up slowly, partially, and Julian
shivers at the feeling of him swallowing with his mouth still full.
He pauses then, still except for a tremor Julian can feel in Garak's
lips. Then his head dips down on him again and Julian cries out and
grabs Elim's head with both hands. He comes back up, and that tongue
laps at him, and he's so oversensitive it's like sweet burning
knives, so good but so much. Garak tongues and sucks and dives at him
over and over and each time, Julian thinks it will be the last time
he torments him, but it is not. He begins to laugh and can not help
the reflexes of his body that pull him away from the onslaught, that
demonic mouth. He shivers away from Elim, calling his name and
laughing anxiously still until finally Garak is out of range.


Garak is panting but
still kneeling as he was. Julian catches his breath for a moment and
then crawls to him, limp and wasted, but more appreciative than he
thinks he could possibly express in words. He takes Elim's face in
his hands and begins kissing him over and over, tasting himself on
his tongue and feeling the slip of swollen lips between his. He nips
at them gently until Garak's hand comes up to the side of his face, a
thumb running over his ear and hair. He pulls back to look at him
again, to search him for a desire. He wants to know what Elim wants
from him, wants to hear him say it, but he'll take a subliminal
message if he can't get conversation.


"I'm afraid I
must be going, my dear," Elim mutters then clears his throat.


Julian wants to say
something in response to that, but he can't come up with a thing. Nor
does Elim give him a chance to. He looks his face over again, as if
memorizing it, which strikes alarm in Julian like breaking glass to
his ears. Then he kisses him again, quick and soft, and then he's
gone.

~*~


Garak gets the door
to his quarters closed behind him, locks it with a word and begins
gasping fishlike as he had wanted to ages ago in the corridor. He's
leaned against the corner where the doorway meets the wall and he
undoes his trousers. The darkness in the room seems to hide him from
himself. Hide his face from the cold eyes of his rooms. He winces,
holds his breath and clenches his teeth as his organ emerges, painful
and hard, from his body. He lets the breath go when it's out and
tingling in the air. Dripping wet onto the floor and his pants, he
takes it in hand and strokes with relief up and down the hard shaft,
nudging the head through his fingers with the movment of his hips.
His eyes slip shut, and behind them he can see Julian, and he
remembers with crystal clarity the dark weight of his cock in his
mouth. Not like a Cardassian's. Thicker and more rugged. Perfectly
fleshed and silky. His cock jumps in his hand, and as if it directed
his thoughts with a mind of its own, Garak sees Julian in front of
him again, his bare back to him, fistful of his flesh in Garak's left
hand. He's not screaming anymore, just placid and accepting, sweat on
his brow, dry tear track on his cheek. His skin is red and the first
dappling of purple is rising in arcs across his back. Garak fucks his
hand but his face is crumpling in shame, despair. He can't resist.
He's violating Julian in his mind and it feels so good, just
imagining his fist is Julian, but it can't be enough. He wants it to
be, but it isn't and his hand is clutching something. Now that he
knows what it's like to touch him, to taste him, the fantasy is too
real. It's too close to the surface and he can not sink it. He hits
Julian with the rod in his other hand, the real hand coming down to
smack the wall behind him, bruising his knuckles. Julian cries out as
he did when Garak wouldn't let him go. Just moments ago this
happened. Garak's eyes fly open and he throws his arms away from
himself with a growled Cardassian slur.


He's shaking and his
hard, weeping cock points angrily into the center of the room. The
room doesn't seem to notice, but Garak collapses on himself anyway,
hiding. He puts his face, distorted and mangled into his wet hands
and slides down the wall.
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