Title: Black Bottle: Chapter 2: The Debt
Author: Hermit
Fandom: Star Trek:DS9
Pairing: Garak/Bashir
Rating: PG-13 to be safe
Yadda: Not my characters, made up, just for fun etc.
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.
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