ST:DS9 G/B: Black Bottle: Ch 6: Grey Anatomy Pt.2

Title: Black Bottle, Chapter 6: Grey Anatomy Part 2, Or: The Gift of Anatomy Direly Indebted and Dipped in Chocolate
Author: herm42
Fandom: ST: DS9 EG/JB
Rating: very very very adult
Notes: Canon is starting to crumble this chapter. Also, I've taken some liberties with the Cardassian species. Fleshed them out a little with some things that do not exist in canon, not even in fanon as far as I know, but seemed to me to be possibilities. I hope you will look at my additions with an open mind. I don't intend to make very many enormous alterations to the Cardassian paradigm, or any other Star Trek aliens, so I won't be asking you to integrate too much new information beyond what is in this chapter. Also, if you don't like what I did here, it won't be cropping up again for a while, and I hope you can enjoy the rest of the chapter anyway. If you find yourself a little confused here and there, it's ok. I promise I have a plan.
This is a long, hormone-intensive chapter. It is quite a bit longer in fact than all the previous chapters combined, mostly because there is so much sex in it. (yey!) I've broken up the post in the best way I could. A/N2: I've been mercilessly puncturing my credibility as a writer in this series by sticking stupid references to things in every chapter. I think I want to make it a contest. He/She who can pick out and identify the most pop/cult culture references will get... something. A gold star. Or. A cookie maybe. Also, I discovered after a strawberry daiquiri that this chapter becomes a lot sillier if you imagine it narrated by Michael Palin. Contest number two: Which of the "excerpts" in this chapter are actually taken (almost verbatim) from the mouths of modern human doctors of psychology and not out of my head? No you don't get to Google it.

Grey Anatomy Part 2

Garak wakes to a ghostly tingle on the back of his neck and a rare silence in his head. A dream withdraws its fingers from his skin as he opens his eyes and exhales a steady breath. There is nothing tethering him to his fears this morning, and even that realization does not bring him crashing back to reality or uncertainty. Though serenity is always welcome if it graces him, once again he isn't sure of the source. He knows from experience that it is usually a harbinger of something to come. It is an automatic response he conditioned in himself a long time ago, though he does not always recognize it when he feels it. When something important came due, rather than work himself into a froth preparing for it, he found it was far more useful to become quiet, to clear his thoughts. Now it happens whether he knows what is about to take place or not, similar to the way that animals will flee a tsunami before it strikes while the people remain unaware there is a danger. Rather than fleeing or frenzying like rats on a sinking ship, however, he feels his mind clear slowly over the course of a day or so, faster if there is less time. He knows not to take this feeling as cause for alarm, that would defeat the purpose, but he does note it, knows to expect something. He is rarely disappointed.

Two days, less than two days to go. That could be it.

He can thank Tain for this ability, this pseudo-prognostication. He had a hand in teaching him to bend his instinct into this mechanical coil that tightens and focuses when needed instead of springing out in panic. Can thank him for his survival over the last six years if for little else.

He can't help, however, the ring of anticipation in his ears. Intellectually he knows that an event is on the horizon, instincually he knows as well, it seems, which really only serves to make his heart skip along happily, as it seems just that much more plausible that he is going to get what he wants. He feels, though contrary to his nature, that everything somehow will fall into place, if he just lets it.

Though, it occurs to him, whenever Julian is involved, his sight becomes skewed. Certainly with foresight he could expect the effect to be magnified as any margin of error when projected into the future. Perhaps there is something else on the horizon he is not expecting, or perhaps his heart is jumping the gun. He keeps going back to that kiss in the lift. He felt just like this right before that happened and ruined his calm. Well. Ruin is perhaps not the best term for it. Still water is poetic, but splashing is far more fun. He doesn't think Julian will break the arrangement, not on purpose, so he can probably rest easy another day, but the actuarial paradox of preparing himself for what is coming without thinking about it and unsettling himself is almost as tempting a worry as the feeling itself.

Something is definitely going to happen tomorrow night. That does not depend entirely on him. Giving Julian the manifesto of four days, he can count on an event then regardless of his own action. What will happen exactly, he isn't yet certain, even this close to the deadline.

It's just that it feels different lately. In the more distant past this calm had a vibration to it like a humming cello, ringing out a low base tone until the moment of truth. This time it has manifested as an absence. Just an inner silence where there would not ordinarily be one. This is what seems to be tripping him up. Usually when he feels this calm before the storm, he can at least tell which direction the wind is blowing beforehand. Today it seems to be swirling around him and obfuscating the compass points, clouding his eyes and in turn, somehow, blanketing him in uneasy tranquility.

The gratitude festival is again upon them. Garak wonders if he will be burning a scroll or not. There is really only one thing he might put on it.

He can't help but cringe internally when he thinks about how enormously indulgent and unfocused his behavior has been recently. I love you too much. Gods and Prophets he's becoming an old ninny. At least the worst of it is over. If it weren't for Julian's own display of childish maudlin in last night's short conversation, he'd still feel indelibly asinine. He would like to blame his emotional instability on something outside his own body. Life on the station, the cold air, the isolation, but he'd be lying to himself. Yes it is a factor, but frankly this has been so long coming, whether they consummate this fool's errand tomorrow or it all blows up in his face, at least he can look forward to the eventual settling of things after it is done.

Garak feels a momentary flutter of trepidation and glee and then rolls out of bed.

The shop glitters again today in a way that makes him squint irritably despite his good mood. The place looks like a dance hall there is so much color and twinkling rainbows streaking the walls. The celebratory garments strewn about the place, though all hanging perfectly still on their hangers in the early morning shop, create dizzying movement with great washes of intense colors, every color you could wish for provided it is bright or powerful, and so much refraction of the overhead lights that it takes Garak a few minutes every morning to get used to it. The Klingons sneer as they walk by his shop, which is no bad thing. For one, he knows it isn't just him who finds the gaudy festival fashions of the Bajorans too much to bear, and two, it means he might not have to see the Klingons in his shop for a while. Not that they come in often, but when they do it is never to buy clothes.
It isn't long however, optical system adjusted, before Garak finds himself humming quietly as he goes through a crate of clothes which will be replacing the sequined mess the minute the gratitude festival is over. He pulls stray cut threads from them, presses out small creases they've gained from the last few weeks of storage, then folds them precisely and stacks them behind the counter. These clothes are the staples of this place. Grays, blues, black, maroon, rarely, some green. Sensible colors, though never any white. He wonders about that. He likes a variety of colors, likes to see the way they react to each other, the way people react to them, but it just isn't necessary to have sickening amounts of flashy color to create an inviting atmosphere. White would be a nice change right now.
Garak is daydreaming as he slowly and absently folds and presses. His fingers know on their own how to do this. His eyes passively tell him what shapes belong to the garment and what belong to a foreign piece of something that should be picked off by the automatic functions of his hands. He imagines himself a robot when he does this, an android who's only initiative is the clipping of strings and pressing of wrinkles. It leaves his mind unoccupied and free to roam. Garak folds a green tunic and places it carefully on the pile, then reaches for the next item. His hands know what it is before his eyes float over it. A pale brown, butter-soft enyak leather vest. It is a favorite of his, and he keeps it priced as so. Garak made it four years ago at the request of a young man visiting the station. Never came back to claim it. Irritated, Garak eventually gave up, kept his small deposit and hung it on the rack to be sold as any other item. However, while Garak sat in his shop with that vest swaying gently in the corner, he found himself dragging his fingers across its flank every time he passed it. He would spend minutes every day standing in front of it puzzling and frowning, smoothing it against the hanger though it never needed any maintenance, and wondering why it drew him so. It was made for a man much smaller than him so he could never hope to wear it. Would look ridiculous on him anyway; Cardassians don't wear vests. He would touch it again and again and wonder but never come up with a reason for his fascination. Then one day, Julian came by looking for something to wear on a date with yet another beautiful young Starfleet officer. He hadn't dropped by like that in a while, so it was a welcome surprise, until Miles followed him in the door. Not that the Chief is unwelcome, but his presence meant that Garak simply stood behind the counter and exchanged pleasantries while attempting to look engaged in some bookkeeping rather than engaged in the doctor the way he would were he alone. Julian tried on a few things and Miles, bored but humoring his friend, simply thumbed through some of the children's clothes. Julian came out in a drooping blue shirt, too shiny for him, then a few other things that all got apathetic reviews from Miles. Finally, after an extended amount of time in the fitting room, and a few strings of perturbed Irish nagging from from the outside, Julian emerged wearing a pair of light brown trousers that were much too large for him, and so old and out of date that Garak had forgotten they existed, and that damned vest. Nothing else. Miles doubled over laughing while Julian grinned triumphantly. It was then that Garak realized that that smooth leather, perfect and supple and so agonizingly gorgeous to touch was the exact color of Julian's skin. He appeared almost naked standing there in Garak's shop with a grin on his face like he knew what he was doing. Maybe he did. When O'Brien had controlled himself again he suggested that he wear that to the Alamo, but Julian, aware that Garak makes almost everything in his shop, was kind enough to mention that it was far too nice to let it be ruined in the holosuite. When the two of them had gone, Garak took the vest in his hands again to feel the leather, still warm with Julian's heat. Someone else walked in the shop at that moment, he recalls, and he could not indulge more than a second more, so he placed it behind the counter, and later on marked up the price of it higher than it would ever sell for and hung it back in the corner where it stays most of the year.

This really has been a long time coming, Garak thinks to himself and stretches just a little in his midsection. The pressure in his belly increases, the throbbing present and momentarily intoxicating. That sharp ache is lessening every day now, last night being the closest he has felt to normal in weeks, and he is relieved that it is nearly done. He does not want to have to deal with the pain never mind the explanation tomorrow night if it comes to that. It has been so long since he felt like this. The last time must have been twenty years ago. He feels young and alive and recalls the blush of lust as it felt when he was a young man struggling to rein in ebullient hormones. The fact that he is placidly going on with life while so much goes on inside him is a testament to his training, and his father.

Then he remembers that he doesn't even know what it looks like. Musth is different for everyone, and different every time, but you can always count on it being uncomfortable, and you can count on your genitalia being unrecognizable as your own by the time it peaks. One way or another he is going to have to take a look tonight. Last week it was in the early stages and not nearly as painful as it has been this week. He hasn't seen it since then and has frankly been dreading it. It is receding quickly, but that doesn't mean all is well. It is foolish, as the saying goes, to neglect the blades of your shears. Or if he were a Klingon, he could probably come up with some sword-related euphemism, but the meaning is the same. Pain and discomfort, work, or institutionalized shame, none are good reasons to put yourself at risk.

A man wanders into Garak's shop as he folds the vest in half and places it on the pile. He nods at Garak without even a hint of disappointment or worry upon seeing the Cardassian tailor, which is unusual for a newcomer. He meanders through the small shop and fingers a few of the men's items. He isn't human, but he could pass for one almost anywhere but on Earth. He looks to be relatively near Garak's age, and wears the expression of a man with no aim and nothing planned. If the expression is genuine, and Garak thinks it is, this man has no attachments, no ties to anywhere or anyone, and reminds Garak of himself betimes recently past.

Garak doesn't think he'll stay long, just browse, then nod again as he leaves, but surprisingly, he approaches Garak's counter and Garak puts on a solicitous smile and steels himself alert and ready. His phaser is strapped beneath the counter and aimed nicely at the man's crotch.

"I was wondering if you have anything else on hand in a men's jacket. Maybe a little warmer than what you have out?"

"Certainly. Did you see the rack at the far end? Bajoran fleece coats and jackets." Garak is relaxing but wants a few more sentences out of him before he abandons his weapon.

The man makes an unsure noise. "Yes. But...I was hoping for something a little less....colorful."

Garak smiles. "Gaudy, you mean," and the man grins bashfully in return. "I would bet I have something you'll like right here," Garak says and ducks behind the counter to collect some of the autumn and spring men's jackets from the storage containers he has surrounding him. He keeps half an eye on the man, but he does nothing but peer curiously over the counter as Garak disappears. When Garak rises again it is with a guttural groan.

The man is approaching a chuckle when next he sees his face, and Garak is suspicious again. "I know exactly how you feel. Every time I bend over like that I nearly need an antigrav belt to get me right side up again. Getting old just isn't much fun is it."

Getting old has nothing at all to do with Garak's groaning, but that certainly isn't anything that this stranger needs to know. "On the contrary, I have more fun with every year I pass here," he says cheerfully and places the garments on the counter. "Why don't you go through these and see what you like. And if you are planning on being on the station for a few days, have a look through the catalog. Most things in it can be made within that time."

The man thanks him, and Garak chooses to busy himself elsewhere to avoid the inevitable conversation. He approaches the cubbies where he stashes his reams of cloth. He isn't sure what he is looking for other than an escape from the present moment, but at the least he can make it look like he is doing something terribly engaging so the man will think twice about bothering him. He pulls out a bat of dark purple satin, then puts it back in favor of a toffee colored one. He places the thick roll on the table in front of him and smooths a hand over its surface. He loved the color when he saw it in the sample book that his Bajoran supplier always carries with her. She isn't keen to trade with him, nor does he need her merchandise, he has other sellers plus the replicator, but it is nice to keep communication open as much as possible. So now and then he will buy something superfluous from her. This particular one he may actually use. It is no coincidence that it too is in the same color family as that vest. Maybe he'll make Julian some pajamas. Though really what would be the point. He smiles faintly to himself. Why dress him to just look naked.
Garak is staring at a spot off toward the door of his shop as his mind wanders again to Julian's face and hands. His chest he has only seen and not felt, so many other parts of him in the same state. He wants to feel all of that skin against him, wants to bury his face in Julian's hair again and smell him as they rock together in a lulling rhythm. He wants to wind him up. He wants to do everything Julian wants him to do, but only after he has teased him with it for as long as he can. He can not wait to get that body beneath his hands and work it like a hard lump of warm brown clay. His belly throbs and for not the first time it feels almost like you could see it throbbing through his clothes.

His customer clears his throat and Garak looks up. He is standing patiently at the counter with a blue-green jacket in hand. Garak tries to abandon his daydream and tend to the man, but finds himself attached to the bat of cloth. He looks down and discovers he has unconsciously twisted his thumb into the tight center of the roll and it has grabbed him like a finger-trap. Garak nervously shakes himself loose and goes back to the counter. "Just this one?"

"Yes," he says. "Can you take the sleeves in just a little?"

"Of course. You can pick it up in an hour."

~*~

It's awkward being a doctor attracted to one of your patients. Julian has had the misfortune of being in that position, oh, many times. One could possibly add that to the Chronicles of Julian's Inimitable Stupidity if one was inclined to blame him for the exertion of his drives as well as his decisions. Of course, being the CMO of Deep Space Nine, he is sort of everyone's doctor. So if he is going to be attracted to someone, more than likely he is their doctor by default. Can't blame him for that. Can blame him, however, for torturing himself with scandalous reports dug from the bilges of the station's computer. The kind of thing the Cardassians made sure they purged from the memory banks beyond all possibility of restoration before they turned over the station to the Bajorans. The kind of thing the Cardassians probably don't even allow their citizenry to read, encrypting it with seven layers of digital mire and authorization codes and false faces so that no one save a small elite group of Cardassians could ever hope to access it.

Yes, he is looking for trouble again. Not just looking but digging deep, scouring every possibly crevice for it. He calls it research. Julian pieced together the articles on deviant sexuality over breakfast, bending or breaking at least a half-dozen regulations and rather impressing himself with his decryption technique. Then he spends some quiet morning hours in his office reading them.

What he finds is indeed shocking, though not for the reasons the Cardassian public might find it shocking. He finds little in plausible or useful information. Mostly contradictions and archaic-sounding sensibilities. Granted there could be fundamental differences between human and Cardassian sexuality, but some of this stuff doesn't make a lick of sense.

"If children at an early age witness sexual intercourse between adults, they inevitably regard the sexual act as ill-treatment or an act of subjugation; they view it thereafter in a sadistic sense. People become masochistic as a way of regulating their desire to sexually dominate others. The desire to submit, on the other hand, arises from guilt feelings over the desire to dominate. Also, the desire to be bound or punished can arise on its own when a man wants to assume the passive female role, with bondage and beating signifying being castrated or copulated with, or giving birth."

"These people are addicted to cruelty. They feel compelled to be anally abused or crawl on their knees and lick a boot or a penis when the problem, is that they can't love. They are searching for love, and this deviant behavior is the only way they can try to find it because they are locked into sadomasochistic interactions they had with a parent."

"Like alcohol abuse, binge eating, and meditation, sadomasochism is a way people can forget themselves."
The best one, though, came from the most highly respected psychologist in Cardassian history. Julian had read one of his books, and even remembers liking it. "This form of abnormal sexuality is nothing more than a primitive, infantile response to stress within a relationship, or, in the case of single people, stress cause by a damaged self-image manifesting in a desire to either be punished, or to make the outward appearance match the inward."
Primitive? Julian laughs out loud. Inflicting pain in retaliation or anger, that's primitive, that's basic survival instinct, the behavior of children and animals. But the process that algolagnists go through to arrive at a state in which they can show each other love and care with such an enormous spectrum of behavior is anything but simplistic. Most people settle into a long-term relationship with a partner at some point in their lives, the stability of which depends upon those people building a sturdy foundation of trust and consideration. That's fine, of course, if you can build that foundation with what you have: your body and your faculties. But for some it isn't enough. It doesn't seem strong enough, at least for Julian it doesn't. How do you know if your relationship is rotting from the inside when you can't see inside your partner to know their feelings? The idea of getting that extra depth has always appealed to him, though he has never before found anyone willing to try for it. And this is only one facet of the phenomenon. Another is the way it takes pain away from the relationship by introducing it as a deliberate action done in love. Not only is it not a simple or primitive concept, but it has echos in sociology that have been accepted for hundreds of years. People take pain away from derogatory words by using them themselves. He can see, however, how it might seem infantile from the outside. In a way, you could interpret the algolagnist's mental state as being child-like, as children are similarly susceptible to take whatever attention bestowed upon them by their parents as love, no matter how cruel, but children never appreciate pain. The thought makes Julian cringe a little. It takes an adult sensibility to take pain delivered by another being and make it belong to you, whether in love or simply for survival.
It isn't long before Julian abandons the abnormal psychology texts in favor of less scholarly, but more useful works written by eye witnesses, i.e., the deviants. He finds sketchy, mismatched, and badly written accounts, but there is the occasional factoid that he finds anecdotally corroborated, the occasional gem.

"The Cardassian penis, being internal, is more sensitive than an external mamunian penis. While most Cardassians will say they have a high tolerance for pain, many will make an exception when it comes to the genitals. Common surfaces and substances that would not bother a being with external genitalia will render a Cardassian incapacitated with pain. Too much friction is the most common problem for Cardassians during intercourse. This can be caused by dryness or foreign matter."

Julian considers this passage in particular.

~*~

Before heading home, Garak stops and gets his hair cut again. The barber at the little shop next to the Klingon deli is naturally surprised to see him there, and sort of squints, as if trying to remember something that doesn't exist for him to remember, that being a lapse of time long enough to warrant Garak's current visit. He usually only goes about once every two months, and just a trim. The short little old man, a Ruitian with nothing but white hair himself, far from home but possibly better off, mumbles absently about a red-headed girl as he cuts nearly two centimeters from the back of Garak's head.

At home, Garak trims his fingernails, has a few bites of some fresh fruit to tide him over for another hour or so, and then a few large gulps of Bajoran whiskey.
He draws the bath just barely warm enough to be comfortable. It has been a long time, but as he recalls it is a trial to get the water the right temperature for this. If it is warm enough for him on the outside, the inside is offended by the heat and the pain can be too much. If it is too cool, he will begin to shiver and he won't be able to do what he needs to do. Garak turns off the water when it reaches a high enough level and steps in. Not his usual bath, but maybe afterwards he can relax in a hot one. He thinks about adding some lavender to the water but he isn't certain it won't do more harm than good, so omits it for now. He has a chilled bottle of gel on the edge of the tub that should be soothing, a small hand mirror, and a soft mouth guard he can bite down on if necessary.

Garak lays back and lets his muscles relax group by group, squeezing his toes and releasing again, rolling his shoulders, until he feels ready to start contemplating his goal. He breathes slowly at first, then more quickly as he thinks about what it is going to feel like. Something tickles at his neck and he finds a few scales peeling there in response to the warmth and moisture. He rubs away the bothersome skin, scratches at a few places where he suspects more may be threatening to slough away and lets them disappear into the water. From his chest down he slowly starts to tighten everything, his shoulders, arms, then down through his abdomen and just that tiny pressure sends prickling electric pain up his trunk, and Garak gasps a little. He doesn't loosen his pose though, and a second later he squeezes again. His insides are warring with him, but with his teeth clenched he begins to push in earnest. The head emerges a little from his swollen opening and it feels like fire. He lets a little whimper escape from his teeth and lifts his legs up over the edges of the tub to make more room. It probably looks ridiculous, but it hurts enough that he really doesn't care how he looks to the empty room. In fact, as he pushes, it hurts enough that he wouldn't care if someone walked in the door this very minute. He isn't giving up now. If he stops it will be just that much harder to get going again. He pushes gently, and on a normal day it doesn't take more than a gentle push to unsheathe himself, but he can not be gentle enough today. The head escapes and he can just see it under the water. He keeps the muscles timidly poised where they are and takes a couple of gulps of air, then continues. More and more it slips out into the water, and the water seems to be a good temperature, the section that is out is relatively pain free - it's just getting it there that hurts. A few more quick breaths and Garak pushes again, letting out a strangled cry at the end as the cords take hold of him. A little saliva runs out of his mouth, and he sits up quickly to keep his half-hard member from falling forward and slapping his stomach. That would hurt. He takes a lot of slow shaky breaths now, and groans at the relief. His feet are getting cold out of the water so he cautiously brings them back in with his knees bent and plenty of room in between. He's bright red and swollen, and healthy-looking. Garak shakily squeezes a thick layer of gel onto his fingers and endeavors to lift it. The gel won't last long in the water, but will hopefully cushion his fingertips enough that he will be able to inspect the underside. Two gelled fingers beneath the head, and it protests with pinching pain again, but only briefly, then he lifts it up out of the water. The temperature change and the difference between wet and not wet is a little uncomfortable too, but he only needs a quick glance with the mirror in his other hand positioned under the shaft to assure himself that after tonight, the worst is over. There are no signs of any infection or damage from the swelling. Now all he has to do to prepare for tomorrow is get off.

Right.

More gel in his hand, covering the whole of his palm this time, Garak breathes deeply and carefully takes his cock in hand. The pain is actually delayed a few seconds, probably by the cold gel, but soon engulfs him. Garak's stomach muscles contract more or less involuntarily, and his hand claws away from his cock. He holds his breath as the pain washes away in waves, and then breathes quickly through his teeth when it is manageable again. He shakes a little as he recovers and then picks up the mirror again to take a second look. There is nothing there that should hurt that much. The startling redness, though out of place, just doesn't look bad enough that the pain makes sense, but he supposes that is what everyone thinks. How bad can it be? Then it happens to them and for a few hours at least, they regret ever meeting the person who inspired this affliction.

He turns the mirror on himself. "Garak," he says severely to the man in the mirror. "If you don't do this now, tomorrow is going to be very disappointing. Last time was twenty years ago. You are a lot stronger now than you were then. And aside from that fact, last time is immaterial. Do what you have to do, or lose it all." A moment of looking Garak seriously in the eye, and he puts the mirror down.

The soft pads of his fingertips feel like stinging barbs, and Garak's strangled cries bounce violent echoes around the empty room.

~*~

Julian's mind keeps wandering off to the sculpted ridge of his neck. He wants to know where it stops exactly, and what begins after it. He knows where it ends, he's studied Cardassian anatomy, but seeing a picture of some random, long-dead Cardassian model is not seeing Elim.

He keeps himself busy the rest of the day with some spur of the moment training activities. As long as he stays out of his office, forces himself into action, the day seems to go by a little faster, and there is less opportunity for his head to fill up with pictures and unexpelled feelings. He can only divert himself in the infirmary for so long, though. It is a finite amount of time that even his staff will endure him patiently, humor his good intentions and play along with unnecessary, tedious drills and exercises. Marcia is even quiet and humorless after about three hours. She and the other four nurses just don't seem to see the need in his face, behind his smile, nor the need for yet another lesson in the minutiae of naso-orbital-ethmoid fracture treatment.

When he finally gets back to his quarters, the door shuts behind him with a sigh mimicking his own. What follows is a burning itch and a tremor in his limbs like an electric shock. No word yet from Elim. He wants to know when. How. Where. When. He checks for messages on his computer terminal, then checks again. Then checks to make sure his messages are getting through. He considers calling him again, then fidgets as he eats a creole dish he barely tastes before it's gone. It's not really late yet, but Julian is ready for bed, ready to get the day done with, though he doubts it will go quietly.

He gets in the shower with the sonic off and just stands with his head under the spray, letting the water like a million tiny fingers tapping him in the face and forehead drown out as much of his thoughts that he can hear. The water deafens him, but it doesn't stop his mind from racing from one possibility to the next, stress amplifying in the echoey chamber of his bathroom.

Julian shakes it off and washes perfunctorily from head to toe before taking a slick hand and running it around his groin from left to right, then sliding gentle fingers through the hair and under to cradle his balls. He sighs, and his brain shuts up for a moment. That was all he was really looking for. Some peace in between his ears. If rubbing himself raw between his legs will achieve that, so be it.

Julian leans forward to prop himself up against the wall, forehead to the cold tile, running an achingly slow hand down his length. His thoughts butt in once, wondering if Elim does this in the shower too. His cock jerks a little in his grasp and he pets it down again. His bones and muscles don't seem to want to support him anymore now that no one is looking. Everything feels as heavy as his cock in his hand and Julian slides into the corner of the shower, brow against the wall, hips cocked to let his arm rest on one. The other arm comes up to cushion his head. Not terribly comfortable, but his back is lax and enjoying the warm water snaking like rolling strings of beads down his flanks. Steam rises around him and when he closes his eyes he stops seeing it, but he can feel it come in disorderly puffs into his face, fuzzing against his nose like a bubbling drink, then gone again, leaving cool, crisp air in its place while it springs up in the space between his arm and ear, tickling and burdening the hair on his forearm, brushing his face featherlight, sending a shiver up his back. Julian squeezes with his right hand and the steam seems to pass right through him this time. The heat rises up from heel to groin, then slows as it loses momentum, crawling with blushing fingers to his cheeks before his head starts to swim in it and his cock throbs in response.

He stands like this, body bent and limbs twisted hard into a knotty shape like a tree embroiled with vines, such that the water finds a favorite path to travel along his body and warms those parts red and leaves the rest of his skin cold and exposed. The raw distinction in those places is distracting, but he can almost imagine fire and ice in the lines where they meet. The slight involuntary movements of his frame under the spray change the path of the hot water and it singes his skin in the cold spots. He breathes open-mouthed as water has broken over his hair and is running over his nose. The pull of it on his lips is subtle but with his eyes closed and the focus of his senses lying at the surface of his skin, he can feel the weight change and the pressure drop around his face as the water trills off of him. He wets his tongue in the stream. The water has long since washed away any trace of sweat or salt from his skin. All he can taste is water, and it makes him realize he is thirsty. He tips his stiff neck up to take a sip from the spray. Hot water always tastes thin to him, unsatisfying, but it is enough for the moment.

Realizing how long he has been just standing there, he concentrates, feeds the pictures in his head, some of Elim, some of other people, people he has imagined once in a while just for this purpose only, but the sound of the water starts to take on patterns in his ears, like voices and music. Distracting, enchanting, lulling. He can snap his attention forward again to his cock, the skin rolling over the shaft and the rough skipping of his wrinkled fingerprints on the head, but it startles him away from that pinnacle too, and he has to build it up again. So he does, and lets his mind slip away to nights long past, to skin he's touched before, lips he's sucked between his own. His mouth waters, indistinguishable from the hot water except in density. Then he is sliding in drunken slow motion in a cluster of bodies. Naked skin glittering, maybe it is his own wet skin he sees, maybe not. Dancing hips halt on the apex of their swing before turning away and snaking back with a tantalizing curtain covering what he wants to see and feel. Then he slips too far. The water is spattering at his feet yelling nonsense syllables and commands over and over. It is tinkling on the metal bar at his waist, sounding like a marching band drawing ever closer but never reaching him, and it is dribbling from the shower head to the drain in a perfect arpeggio, sounds like a burbling whistle below the thousands of voices crowding his ears. He tries to make them out, any of them, but they are like forgotten faces in a dream. He shakes his head again.
He keeps slipping into this meditative state too soon. While interesting and relaxing, it does not seem like it is going to help him get off. At least not here where the stimulus is so chaotic. By the time Julian gets out of the shower he is waterlogged but no closer to alleviating his frustration than before he got in.

Naked, still damp, and too hard to sleep, Julian lays down on his cool sheets to try again. The only thing wrong with masturbation is that it's a closed system. You have to provide the stimulation and receive it as well. Even a genetically enhanced human can't do anything to improve that situation. Even Julian fails to clear his head enough to get off now and then. He really really hopes tonight won't be one of those nights.

He knows what he wants, at least. These days it isn't nameless, objectless arousal. He wants the man a few floors up and down the hall. The man with the evil bright eyes that haunt his thoughts even when they're nowhere around. He wants those strong hands on his hips, and for now, his own hands can press down on the bones there and he can pretend they are Elim's light touch. He...still can not imagine much more of his body than he has seen. Putting the image of someone else'e body there seems odd. A bad idea since, hopefully, he'll have a real mental image to finish the puzzle pretty soon. So for now he wants what he can see. He wants those elegant ridges against his own face. He wants to feel the bony curve against his cheekbone and jaw and the kiss of skin on skin between, and he wants soft lips to tease with kisses down his chest just as he does with his own fingertips now. Then he gasps a little, and smiles at the improvisation of his own imagination as he sees Elim behind his eyes rub those ridges against his cock. It sways and jerks up to meet his face, and Elim rubs an eye ridge beneath the glans, then runs his nose down the underside of his cock to press the head against the relief of his rebec. Julian rubs his knuckles against the shaft and hears a tiny wanton noise escapes his own throat.

He remembers the other day. Tries to remember just those few minutes instead of the whole day. Elim's mouth was cool. Cooler than he expected simply because he was taken so completely off-guard. If he had thought about it for even a minute, it would have made more sense. Elim had been at work all day in the cold station. His body temperature would be relatively low. Julian opens his nightstand drawer and gets a handful of gel, smooths it on with a sigh. It's cold, but only briefly. Elim's mouth warmed up quickly too. Friction he supposes, maybe a burst of epinephrine, a reaction to arousal. Julian turns at the shoulder and wrist to put the web of his thumb and forefinger down around his cock first, a tight opening into the softer chamber of his hand. He hums low and listens to the reverberation of his own voice in the room. Down and up like Elim did, then he runs his thumb around the head and tries to recall his tongue.

He remembers a flash of Elim's face, lips tight around him, eyes shut lightly. He can't quite pull out any more images. He knows he ended up laying down at some point, but the memory is fuzzy, and swells of heat come to his cheeks because he remembers how good it felt, even if he can't remember seeing much after that. Julian tries to make his palm drag up his cock the way Elim's tongue did, flat and soft. He urges the uncomplicated pleasure up and over, shaping it like soft dough in his mind with the same strokes his fingers use to attempt to shape his cock to encompass his whole body. That is what it feels like at the best of times, when he can make the rest of him just an extension of that part of him that seems to give him so much easy and simple pleasure, connects him to life.

He can remember making love with Leeta too. Some nights were perfect and unscripted and she would be uncharacteristically quiet. All that would transpire between them for communication was the gentle pat of skin, and Julian would sweat as he held himself on stiff arms, head up and eyes closed, imagining himself reduced to nothing but a swollen organ, loved and adored by the part that was made to love him and treat him with a soft, yielding touch and sweet slickness over ribbed, smooth muscle.

Julian's hips rotate seemingly without his volition, and he eventually turns over to give in to their desire to move and direct these more primitive functions of his body, relieving his sophisticated and literate hands. They were made for other things. He lets his face be smashed against the pillow as he keeps his body awkwardly posed on one hand, while the other coils tightly, ready to receive him. He rocks his hips forward, pushing his cock through a tight grasp and hums a little into the pillow. It's easier, this way, to feel like he's there. His hips connect with his fist, and though it nearly topples him occasionally, the illusion is nice. Gravity pulls the blood down in his cock to the head, tightening the skin and making that slip over his fingertips a little sweeter, a little sharper.

He wants Elim. He whimpers a little into the pillow and that want beckons him forward into the frustrated plateau he knows so well. His hips and hand work in tandem now, slapping wetly but quietly under the sound of his breathing. He can not conjure images of Elim's body or the look and feel of his sex, but if he listens, and he does now, deep enough into the heat and fantasy to let his mind go, eyes shut lightly against the faint light from the bathroom, sweat starting to break out across his back; every little sound can become something else. The slap of his skin and the friction of his fingers on his cock, the slight murmur of the bed, the air rushing past his teeth; they can all whisper Elim's words if he lets them. "I want to hurt you. I want to bite you. I want to scratch you."

Julian rumbles deep in his chest and things seem to quake around him or within him. He shifts then, because this can be better, he knows. He's very close, and he got there pretty quickly once he set his mind to it, so he isn't quite ready to let it go. He lowers his chest to the bed and rests his weight on knees and shoulders. It makes that delicious thrusting of his hips almost impossible, but it frees up his other hand which goes to his mouth. "I want to hit you. With my hands."

He wants Elim. Wants him like there is no tomorrow, wants to know finally what he will do to him. Wants to know what it's like to be possessed by such a person, to let him take control and see where he leads them. Julian's fingers wet, he reaches back and slides them down his tailbone to the heated space there both begging for and leery of attention. He rubs a wet finger across the sensitive skin and delights at how easy it is to imagine it is not his own. He sees little more than flashes behind his eyes now, skin, sex, sweat. Hears words in the rhythmic pants coming from his lips, though in another man's voice. "When we make love..." He imagines Elim's face gritted fiercely through his orgasm as if he had seen it before, detailed and believable, and Julian presses a fingertip at his opening, feels it give and then resist minutely, and then comes.

He's moaning nonsense and his body jerks over and over, abdomen and back pulling him in and springing out as he rolls over, unable to maintain his posture. His cock throbs and seems to send pulses of white light along an invisible line up the front of his body to the back of his eyes. He distantly hears the sound of his own dry gasps and doesn't stifle them, lets them ring out loud because he knows Elim will want to hear him. The urge to force air through his vocal chords and between tightly clinched teeth would not usually overwhelm his urge to keep his voice down, but tonight, he lets a melancholy growl escape half into the pillow in three or four bursts. He has enough sense to catch his mess in the palm of his hand, but his hips rock without his consent into his fist a few times, smearing it over his cock. Julian cracks his eyes open just a hair, still sparkling along the last half second of orgasm, and on reflection, hot come on his cock doesn't sound like such a bad idea, so Julian pants and slicks his hand down his whole length, reminding him of Elim's devilish tongue once more. Julian strokes himself for only half as long as Elim managed to before he can not make himself do it anymore. Just too damn much. Somehow, it's too good, so good it hurts.

He's sweaty and messy and parched again. Perhaps moreso now than before he got in the shower. Hair is still wet from the first one. And it's late. Really late. He managed to far overspend his early night trying to get his head back on top of his shoulders. And now he needs another shower.

Julian rolls out of bed after a moment of drowsy consideration and stumbles toward the pale light of the bathroom. The shower comes back on with a sound like an echo of an explosion from light years away. He washes again, quickly, and climbs into bed bemoaning the small amount of sleep he has allotted for himself now. He's had nights like this before, too. He rolls over under the sheets, yawn-grumbles and thinks it may yet be one of those nights he just can not find any peace simply because he will be thinking about how little sleep he is going to have to function on tomorrow, dreading the long day ahead so much that he won't be able to close his eyes much less....

~*~

Julian hears the comm chime suddenly at ten AM through his open office door from his post at an exam table. He hears it loud and clear but doesn't move a muscle in that direction. His hands work steadily, eyes focused and narrow. It chimes again, and he could swear his ears tic at the sound. A Bajoran child of less than ten probably wouldn't appreciate the restraint Julian is exhibiting, not leaping for that door the instant he heard that Pavlov's bell, but she probably wouldn't appreciate it either if he slipped with his dermal regenerator and accidentally erased her freckles instead of the scrape on her cheek. Going around each tiny caramel colored spot with the regenerator on the finest beam, he knew it was gong to take a while, and he knew it was gong to be a thankless job, and he knew it was going to take a ream of patience to keep her still for that long.

But he didn't know it was gong to make him miss the call.

That is Elim. He knows it is. For one thing, the timing is impeccably wrong. While Julian has waited four long days to hear that sound and prepared himself for the inevitability of it coming at an inopportune moment, he has still managed to catch him during the only ten minute span in that whole four days that he has been genuinely occupied. And there is just something about the tone of the chime that makes Julian completely confident that it is, in fact, Elim. It just sounds sneaky.

Julian fights back a stupid smirk and hopes little Tayor Amra can't see it in her peripheral vision. She sniffles just a little, the remnant of a few tears in her eyes when she came in, and his thumb comes off the trigger, then back on when the minute movement has ended.
At least the little boy who pushed her down got what was coming to him. Marcia saw the whole thing, and Julian saw Marcia. That will the be the last time in a long time that boy picks on the girls. She stands at the door to the infirmary now, waiting for Julian to finish so she may escort the girl back to her quarters.
He finishes the delicate work moating around all her freckles, and then changes the setting of the regenerator to do the freckles themselves. Finished, he puts the instrument down and runs a gentle thumb over the spot. She doesn't wince, and he can't feel a thing, like there was never anything there but perfectly ageless skin. Like an illusion. He's surprised too, that the freckles have no palpability either. He doesn't know many people that have freckles. He knows they aren't supposed to be raised, but it's still surprising somehow that a surface so extravagantly dappled with color could be so soft and smooth. This too, illusory.
"Good as new," he says, and the big-eyed child looks at him, touches her face. Julian smiles because she doesn't, but then loses control of his facial expression when she silently, fast as a rabbit, leans in and kisses him on the cheek. Before he can say anything or respond in any way she is sliding down off the table and prancing toward the door. Marcia is there, a sentinel. She is just as visibly surprised when the girl reaches up for her, though not too far, because it is Marcia, and kisses her too when she comes within range.
Well. Julian doesn't know everything, does he.

The two just look at each other from across the room with weird smiles, and for almost a whole second, Julian forgets about the call. "I'll be right back," Marcia says, and takes Amra by the hand.

As soon as they're out the door though, Julian is bounding into his office and bringing up his message. The text reads simply and enigmatically, "Good morning, Doctor." Julian calls back and realizes he has begun to sweat a little in the time it takes Elim to answer.

"Ah. There you are."

"Hi. Sorry, I was tied up."

"Not a problem, my dear. I wanted to ask you..." Elim looks around inside the small view screen image.

Julian gets the hint and smiles faintly. "There's no one here."

"Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?"

An innocuous question, yes, but Julian's response is not, at least not internally. He is glad they are alone. He grins and replies softly, "Yes. I would."

"In my quarters?"

Julian's smile slips, but then he picks it back up again even as his heart starts skipping. "Sure." He wasn't expecting that at all. That invitation comes with an implication, whether Elim intended it or not. It means he needs to bring something. He also never expects to have no ideas whatsoever when it comes to things like this, but none are immediately forthcoming as Julian stoops, looking wide-eyed at the screen.

"When will you be free?"

"Um..." His shift ends at nineteen hundred. He could conceivably run the distance to Elim's door in about a minute and a half - or even use the transporter - but, as he smiles at Elim who is undoubtedly thinking his friend has gone mad over the past few days, why else would he be grinning like a skull, he thinks he might want to shower and get changed at least before sprinting to his door. And there is still the matter of finding something to bring with him. "How about twenty-one hundred?"

"That sounds fine." Julian nods and doesn't know what else to say. Someone could walk in the door at any moment. "I'll see you then," Elim says softly, and something about that softness in his voice, both gentile and somehow ominous, turns Julian's head to mush.
He's smacking the heels of his hands together before he knows it as he paces aimlessly through the infirmary. He has a highly complicated and vital process to plan, and he thinks better on his feet, dammit. Marcia asks him, advises him to go read a book or something after about fifteen minutes of that. At least she still seems convinced that it is mere boredom causing his behavior and not something else. Something she could be grilling him about to dispel their ennui and give her material with which to entertain their future guests.
He has hours to go, and really nothing to fill them but thinking. He realizes the danger of over-analysing this, but when he pulls his prion research up on the screen in his office, he can't keep his mind focused on it long enough to even fully review his last results never mind make any progress.
Instead he finds himself trying to decide what he is going to wear. When in doubt, Julian always just showed up at any kind of social event in his uniform. Living on Starfleet property, it's perfectly acceptable in all but the most formal occasions, and certainly the most casual. Plus if you are always in uniform, it makes you seem more dedicated. Not that he needs a facade, but rather he needs to live up to the extraordinary expectations of his coworkers. Elim...has no such expectations, and in fact, he being a tailor, sort of, probably has some other expectations of him. Julian doesn't think he owns more than a handful of things from Elim's shop, nor is he certain that Elim would like to see him in those things. Some of them are quite old now, some of them inappropriate for the occasion. He thinks it might be just tacky or overexerted on his part to go out of his way to wear one of those items. He'll have to scour his closet when he gets home. Maybe he'll find some gem at the bottom that he forgot he owned.
And there is the friction issue. Julian feels slightly dizzy thinking about it. He thinks when he gets home he is also going to try to take care of that, but he wonders what Elim's reaction might, or will be when he sees the change. It will be obvious why he did it. He just doesn't like his motivations to be laid bare like that. It seems he has no choice though but to do the things he needs to do to make this as perfect as he can. In the process he is going to be exposed in more ways than one, but it will be worth it.
The only thing left to decide then, is the gift.
Naturally the first thought is to wine. It's the traditional offering when invited to someone's home for dinner in many cultures, not just Earth, Cardassia too. He just doesn't want to do that again right away. The last bottle of wine...was complicated. He doesn't want to conjure that night even if it did in a way get them to where they are now. Elim will have something anyway, and if he thinks it is appropriate, they'll have wine.
Then there is music. He could bring over some Chopin. He doesn't think Elim has heard much of him. But the truth is, Julian's stomach clenches at the idea of walking through the door and handing him a data rod, chit-chatting about Chopin's influences and how he compares to Bach and Gul Grisin. As if this is an ordinary dinner date. As if they could hope to have a discussion on an unheated, unloaded topic at this point.
Julian has to calm his breathing every time he thinks about how close, how far away tonight is. It's approaching. It's not approaching fast enough. It's approaching. Julian feels himself breaking a slight sweat and he wonders how he smells. Elim smells fantastic. God he smells fantastic. He inhales deeply but all he smells is the infirmary and the Klingon restaurant. Flowers. Flowers smell good. Flowers? He tests that idea mentally as well. The door slides open, Julian grins above a bobbing bouquet. No.
There are shops on the promenade, the contents of which he knows by heart, the inventory never changes, but he runs through each one during his lunch break anyway in vain hope.
He can only blame himself for not anticipating this. And maybe it isn't the end of the world, but if tonight is going to be everything it can be, he is going to have to shrug off a little pride and ask for help, but quickly.

.......

"Doctor. How can I help you," Sisko purrs from his desk chair, bitten apple in his hand at the moment instead of his baseball.

"If you were invited to dinner with someone, a private dinner at their quarters, what would you bring? As a gift."

"A bottle of wine?"

Julian purses his lips. "Anything else?"

"A smile," he says with one, gleaming, though slightly evil because he knows he's not being helpful, and though he doesn't know why, he also doesn't care why. It's fun, Julian knows. He has a little evil in him too. Julian returns it tight-lipped and nods.

The door whisks quietly open then closed again. Julian's steps are light and percussive on the stairs down to the busy ops pit.

"Dax," he hails.

"Julian," she acknowledges.

"Gift."

"Yes."

"For a dinner host."

"Wine."

"No."

"No?"

"No."

A pause. "...Nothing."

"Why."

"If I'm not comfortable bringing the party, it must be because the party is already there."

Julian laughs as he sinks down the turbolift shaft.

.......

"Good evening, Colonel."

"Good evening Doctor how can I help you in ten words or less."

Julian counts on his fingers. "I-need-a-gift-idea-as-a-private-dinner-guest."

"Bottle of wine."

"Something else."

"I'm sorry Doctor you've exceeded your word limit." Kira grins as she furiously punches at the padd strapped to her forearm.

"Come on."

"No idea."

"Come on."

"I don't know. Why not wine?"

"It would be...inappropriate in this case."

"Who are you having dinner with, your grandmother?"

"Noooo," he whines and continues standing there.

Kira sighs and stops working. "Flowers?"

"Ick."

"That's all I have. Why don't you ask Odo. He's the romantic one."

.......

Julian aims for the door of the Security office, then diverts his course suddenly and heads in another direction, randomly. You don't have time for this, Jules. Then he turns on his heels and back at Odo's door. Then he stops, pivots twice, and indecisively sidesteps toward the door again until it opens automatically and he is committed. Odo looks up and addresses him with his sly curious gruff. "Doctor?"

Julian doesn't like hiding things. Especially from Odo. It's hard. Even for Julian.
"What can I do for you?" he asks plainly.
"Um. Just a question."
"Alright."
"If you were invited to dinner at someone's quarters," and as he says it he realizes how ridiculous and strange it is to ask Odo this, but continues because he is definitely committed now, "what would you bring?"
Odo pauses long. "I don't know. Who's quarters are we talking about?"
"Anyone."
"Well is it Colonel Kira, is it the Captain? It would all depend on the host and the other guests-"
"No other guests."
"Ok. Who's the host?"
Julian knows he's stupid. At least he has that. "No one. Never mind. Thank you."
.......
Lunch over, the infirmary welcomes him back with not so much as a bump on the head or an aching Ferengi earlobe. Marcia is reading when he comes back in, and watches him from the corner of her eye as if Odo had managed to brief her in the time it took to walk back the forty meters from Security. He thinks about asking her too...
Julian may be stupid but he knows enough not to approach a woman with a look like that on her face. And he gets to look at that face scrutinizing him for the next four hours. Maybe the review on Romulan stomach acid chemistry was taking it too far today.

~*~

He is out the door at nineteen hundred on the dot and begins his journey on the promenade. There is even less to look at now than there was at the peak of the day, unsurprisingly. Most of the shops are closed this time of night, and it doesn't seem that a fairy tale merchant is going to approach him and offer him some otherworldly item or curiosity for a pittance that will be exactly what he's been searching for. Julian stops outside a darkened jewelry store with Betazed pearls in the lighted display case, and spins around in a slow circle. He doesn't even know what he is looking for. The only place open besides the restaurants is Quark's, so lacking another plan, that is where he goes.

It's busy inside. Many people have the next few days off, the weekend approaching, and the gratitude festival right around the corner. Miles is laughing with some of the boys from the day shift engineering crew over glasses of something blue and fizzy. Leeta smiles at him as she passes by the doorway on her way back to the bar, swiftly and deftly navigating the flow of patrons with a tray dangling from one hand. Morn does not hide his appreciation when she leans over the bar directly to his left to fetch an ale, but she is gone in a flash and he resumes what sounds like his three hour version of the story of the time he accidentally married a Flaxian. Julian sneaks past and occupies a clear spot of the floor nowhere in particular between the bar and the small stage in the center of the establishment. Here he continues to look around like a man setting foot in a Gothic cathedral for the first time.

The smell of spilled alcohol is stronger today than usual. It probably indicates a recent visit by a party of Klingons. Or Quark is having trouble keeping waiters with good reflexes. Or both. The music piped in from the box behind the bar is cheerful and inane. The dabbo table is spinning and busy as a beehive. None of this is inspiring him.
"You look lost, Doctor," Quark says, nudging the air in his direction with his chin.

"I think I am," Julian replies, absently.

"Have a seat, what can I get you?"

He takes a warm seat at the bar and straddles it. "I need...and idea, Quark."

"An idea," he says, disbelieving. "Ideas are a dime a dozen--and you can't drink an idea."

Julian makes a noncommittal noise and looks around, grasping for something. Anything.

He hears Quark sigh. "Fine. If I give you an idea will you order a drink?"

Julian looks back at him, studies his blank Ferengi face. Seems like an odd but fair exchange. "Alright."

"What kind of idea do you need?"

"I need to get a gift for someone."

"Oh," Quark perks up. "Well that's easy." Quark bends down behind his bar and produces a tall red bottle in an impossibly complicated shape, adorned with green and blue labels and tassels, a gift tag, and and antigrav suspender to keep it standing upright as it would not be able to do without it. "This is from Lissepia, 2365, a very very good year for Lissepian wine. Right, Morn? Just one single strip of latinum, for you Doctor. A special price, just for you."

Julian makes a face.

There is a distinct pause in which Julian does not react. "Well?"

"No, thank you, Quark."

"Well. I tried. Now what will you have?"

"I'll have a glass of water."

Quark rolls his eyes and pours the water, leaving him without a word. Julian doesn't touch it. Instead he gets up after Quark has found another person to throw his pitch at, a young couple on a date at the corner table. Julian wanders over toward the table where Miles is sitting. Miles spots him approaching and ushers him over. "Julian! Come join us."

"No, that's alright Chief, I'm just here to say 'Hi.'"

"Don't be ridiculous. Sit down. Have a drink with us."

"No, really I..."

"Come on come on."

Julian sits at an empty spot that appears for him, muttering quiet thanks to the young officers who move to make room for him.

"Now, my friend Julian here is a perfect example," Miles continues, apparently, with the conversation he had been leading before Julian arrived. "The only man I know who can calculate, in his head, the inertial dampening field necessary to stop a comet fragment in the shape of a sixty meter Klingon targ, using the deflectors on six separate shuttles all with varying degrees of phaser damage and unstable main power grids, while being chased around the room by a mad Bolean with a pair of clippers. The rest of the table is fit to burst with laughter, but they hold back because they know that he has not yet reached the punchline. "He can do all that, but he can't remember the second verse of 'Jerusalem.'" Then they start laughing, and few just titter because they don't know any of the words to Jerusalem, or they've never heard of Jerusalem because they are Bajoran or Benzite.
"I remember the words! What are you talking about?" Julian says through a laugh, wondering how long Miles has been here and how much of that blue stuff he's had.

"Then why do you always sing it wrong?"

They laugh again and Julian smiles and shakes his head.

"But seriously," Miles says, addressing an ensign Julian does not recognise, probably fresh from the academy, "Despite his flaws, a finer doctor, a finer man, you'll never find in all of Starfleet." Julian smirks modestly and Miles claps him on the shoulder.

"You're in a good mood," Julian says privately to the man. The others are filtering out, refilling their drinks.

Miles shrugs. "Gotta live life while you can," he says, and smiles, takes another swig of his drink. He's been like this ever since Captain Cusak's funeral. Julian isn't sure if its a good thing or a bad thing, but he isn't worried just yet.

He tries to change the subject. "That any good?" he motions toward the blue drink.

"I dunno. I've only had five of them. Haven't decided yet," he says with another silly half-smile. "What brings you here if you weren't planning on staying?"
"I'm...lost."
Miles blinks at him once. "The station directory is right over there..."
Julian smiles at him patiently and Miles returns it.
"I need an idea. I really good idea."
"Self-replicating beer," he says immediately.
"Chief, are you drunk?"
"I'm Irish. I can't get drunk."
Julian tries again. "I need a really good idea-" he stops the chief's imminent interruption with a wide gape and a deep expectant breath, "-for a gift."
"For whom?"
"Just a gift to be presented to a host at dinner."
"Bottlawine."
"No."
"Flowers?"
"Definitely not."
The chief pauses. "Chocolate?"
Julian huffs a little. "Replicated chocolate? That's classy."
"Not replicated."
"The dinner is tonight. I need something now. None of the promenade shops are open. They wouldn't have anything good anyway."
The chief turns then, reaches behind his chair to the tiny wall bar where Abdon has his drink precariously perched with nearly thirty percent of the bottom hanging off the edge. Julian watches as he bumps the drink a little, watches the yellow liquid slosh within the confines of the glass, miraculously not fall off the counter nor spill outside of the full glass, and then continues to watch with interest as Miles pulls a little box from the space out of Julian's sight. He tosses it to land in front of his doctor friend and picks up his drink again.
Julian can smell the chocolate.
"Kira got Keiko hooked on Rigelian chocolate."
"Oh," Julian says. "Why aren't you giving these to Keiko then?"
"Because these are Rigellian chocolates."
"Oh," he says again.
Miles shrugs. "Rigelian, Rigellian, Terellian, Xyrillian. I don't know. She knows the difference and she doesn't like these."
Julian opens the little box to reveal a small stack of hand made chocolate pieces. Miniature ingots in glossy sorrel. They smell fantastic, and Julian grins and stands. "Chief! you're the greatest."
Miles chuckles as Julian runs off with his prize, and says into the waiting mouth of his glass, "That's why they call me The Chief."

~*~

"Well, here we are."
"Did you bring it?"
Garak motions with the very obvious package in his hand. Marcia has not removed the look of skepticism from her face.
"What has he been up to?"
"He's been driving me crazy. And everyone else in the infirmary, too."
"In what way?"
"Pacing. Humming. Thinking out loud. Trying to get the rest of us to entertain him by inventing work for us all to do, and then leaving us to finish it after he runs out the door the second his shift is over."
"Has he mentioned anything to you?"
"He has doubts, but nothing specific he will directly tell me. Which I'm kinda glad about, frankly." Garak is about to look displeased but Marcia cuts him off. "I didn't do anything to make him feel he couldn't talk to me. But I didn't encourage it either. I don't like this sneaking around. I like Julian. I don't want to barter with his trust." She eyes the package.
"And I promised that my intentions are worthy and that I would not breathe a word of this transaction, my dear. Is there anything else you can tell me?"
She thinks a moment, the haughty, guilty look in her eyes says she wants to say more than she shall, but she gets to the meat of it at least. "He's afraid. But in love."
Garak smiles ever so slightly, bows, and turns the flat box into Marcia's waiting hands.

~*~

First things first. Julian tosses the little chocolate box gently to the interface of his computer terminal where he won't forget it. It lands on the amber security settings keypad and slides down to the lip where it stays backlit by the red comm buttons. He undresses on his way to the bathroom, tossing his uniform and everything under it into the laundry receptacle in a great wad. He starts the shower, and takes his shaver inhibitor from its holder by the sink. This should be interesting. He considers the possibility that he may end up accomplishing this lying down on the bathroom floor rather than standing up, but either way he needs to get clean first.

It takes about five minutes to wash and another ten before he is satisfactorily smooth, and then a few more to marvel at this particular sensation he hasn't felt since he was too young and bald to appreciate it. Just the water running over his skin is astounding, and soapy hands - well, he has to get out of the shower or he'd likely make himself late.
Naked as the day he was born, and really feeling it now, Julian sets about objective number two: finding something to make him less naked, if only temporarily. That giddiness is coming back and he stamps it down, shivers a little in his shoulders and opens his closet. He pulls on a pair of clean shorts and once again the newness, the nakedness, more naked than he has been in a long time, is making him tingle, and making his shorts too tight. He finds himself twisting his hips idly as he scans his closet, enjoying the feeling of smooth skin on smooth skin between his legs. It's distracting, but eventually he pulls on some trousers, and then grins when he spots that elusive forgotten gem he had been hoping for. Nothing outrageous, just a simple light blue tunic of Elim's own creation. He bought it ages ago when he went clothes shopping, frantically, with Miles one day because he was supposed to go on a date with Dr. Lense when the Lexington was here. She cancelled though. He never thought to wear it again after that. It was really just sort of an irritating reminder hanging in his closet. Now it would finally fulfill its role. That being to lie quietly on the floor at the end of the night.

~*~

Julian will be here soon. It's close enough now that Garak isn't steeped in calm anymore. Far from it. His calm has floated down the hall and out the airlock. He would like to retrieve it but that doesn't seem likely. He was so happy this morning. He had a spring in his step, the pain was gone, still is. He felt fine, better than fine. He felt alive. And then he met with Marcia and she told him exactly what he was hoping to hear. Julian is acting like a love-sick fool. Now he feels like dirt again.

He thinks about what is to come and his stomach knots. The mad lust is abating, but he still fears that it is going to be difficult to restrain himself. That the chances of him taking this too far tonight seem very high. That unless he has severely underestimated Julian's appetite and tolerance, this night could end badly. It is beyond his control now. It's a bit like watching himself do something stupid. He has done that before. Powerless to curb his impulse as a young man, lusty and brazen, he has watched himself flirt with death in the form of another man's wife. And it wasn't surprising at all when he found himself with a phaser burn just to the left of his heart. He watched it happen as if he were a bystander and not a participant. This feels much the same. As he places tall candle holders on the table, and lays the cutlery, looking himself in the eye on the mirrored surface of the knife in his own place setting, he can see this all going too far. He can see himself with Julian at his mercy, and granting none. He wants to break him down now. And maybe, he reflects, that wouldn't be such a bad thing. To give him a taste of what is to come down the road.
He can not possibly have any idea what he is getting into, can he? Better that he know now rather than later when it is too late to turn back, when Julian finds himself strung up and bleeding, victim of Garak's unchecked whim. Perhaps it would be better this way. It wouldn't take much. One crack across his back would probably do it. Julian doesn't need any more reasons for people to be afraid of him or to look on him with suspicion and doubt. Garak has a chance here; to erase that. To turn him away from this forever. And that is about when it starts to feel too familiar again, a sickening deja-vu. Garak looks at the wine glass on the crisp red table cloth and realizes he has been here before. You're doing it again.
How easy it is to slip back into old habits. It shocks him, and he shudders just a little, realizing that the reason he has felt over the past few days that he was watching himself behave completely irrationally, was that he was preparing to sabotage this again. The fact is, he wants this. He wants it more than anything, but he's walking the line still between fighting for it and deliberately jeopardizing it out of fear.
Julian is acting like a love-sick fool, and so is he.
He looks at the clock. Nineteen forty-five. Not much more than an hour to pull himself together and understand what it is he is doing.
Garak sits on the end of his bed, trying to wring the tremor out of his hands. He sees his reflection in the mirror above his dresser, at the very bottom, looking like a child who can only just see over the dresser top standing on his toes.
He takes a breath and addresses his reflection. "This should be a very simple thing Garak. You want this. He wants this. He is a grown man and can choose for himself and any interference from you would be disrespectful at the very least and simply wrong at the worst. You are not going to lose control of this situation tonight. You may want to lose control, but now is not the time for it. You are going to show him that you can respect him. You are going to make this good. Perfect. And he will like it. He will respond and come back for more because this will be good for both of you. This isn't a test. This isn't the end of anything nor a step toward your martyrdom. No one is going to lock you in a tiny closet for being what you are. No one is going to tell you you're sick and depraved, not Julian, not Tain, not anyone. And. While we're at it. You are going to stop talking to yourself in the mirror, because you're not going to convince anyone of your sanity this way, and if Julian could see you now, he would have a good laugh at your expense and possibly suggest medication."

~*~

He's actually early. He has a good twenty minutes to kill before he is supposed to be there. Julian picks up his box of chocolates and just hangs onto them so he doesn't forget them, then looks in the mirror again, looks at his teeth, sits back down on the side of his bed and fidgets. He wonders if he should try to get off before he goes. He's flaming hot again, large and heavy, and he spreads his legs a little as he sits. The action frees up a little more room between his thighs, (which, a little moist, stick together in an unconventional way now that there is no natural coverage) but it also stretches the material of his trousers tight in the crotch, pinning his cock back against his belly and putting pressure on his balls. He groans just a little and rubs at himself through his pants. It would be nice to go there with a clear head. But he isn't certain that he could get off in the amount of time he has, especially without breaking a significant sweat and necessitating a fourth shower in two days. The other consideration is later on tonight. He isn't worried that he won't be able to get it back up, that's never been a problem for him, but he isn't sure he'll be able to come again. Historically, he is a once-a-day kind of guy. And while not coming wouldn't be the worst outcome of those possible, he'd like to end the night without any embarrassing explanations fouling it up or unsatisfying conclusions. Tonight needs to be perfect. Besides, he kind of likes to delay gratification, when he is reasonably certain that gratification will in fact be coming eventually.
Julian decides to walk it off and leaves his quarters. He strolls to the promenade, gets almost as far as Quark's when he realizes he doesn't want to be there. He doesn't want to be seen right now, in civilian clothing, carrying a box of chocolates. People will ask questions, possibly even tie him up and make him late. He doesn't want the female compliment of the infirmary fawning over him and treating him like the young man out on his first date, or even their superior out on a first date. Just, no. So Julian turns on his heels and heads back sweaty-palmed and nervous toward the habitat ring. He wanders around, walking briskly through the empty halls, up a floor, down a floor, until he is feeling energised and good. The walking clears his head quite a bit, and he mentally congratulates himself on the idea. It's as he meanders back toward Elim's door that he notices something odd again, something not quite perfect with the way he feels as it had so nearly been just a moment before. It feels like he's been carrying the chocolates for ages, and they smell really good; he's getting hungry. He realises he hasn't eaten since breakfast, he's been so preoccupied. Julian looks down at the little box in his hand and realizes something else. He scowls. He doesn't have to open the box, he can tell by the smudge on his fingers, he's been warming them in his hot hand for a long time now, (plus he left them on his warm computer console for quite a while before that, he recalls with internal chagrin) time enough for them to start melting and oozing out of the corner of the box. He doesn't have to look, but he does, to inspect the damage, to see if they're salvageable or if they have turned completely to goo. He pulls the lid open and doesn't even get the chance to look at them when his hands and their contents are jammed roughly into his own chest.
Jadzia yelps and bounces back. "Julian!" She gapes a second. Julian freezes with a frown on his face and his mess clutched to his chest, his shirt. He peels it away a second later, and Jadzia stifles it for another second or two before she starts laughing. Just a titter that she squelches between pressed lips at first, but he can tell by her face there is more where that came from. He looks her in the face, sees smiling eyes at odds with the forced frown. "I'm sorry," she squeaks. "I didn't see you there. I was looking at my..." She gestures with a stack of padds in her hands. "Are you off somewhere? Oh! You were on your way to your date weren't you?" She gapes some more. He doesn't need to say anything apparently, but he feels he should.
"Yes."
The laughter is bubbling out now and she covers her mouth. "Look at you," she says through laughter and a hand. He is covered in chocolate. It almost looks intentional there is so much of it. She recovers herself, mostly, then says, "Julian, I'm so sorry. Why don't you come with me, we can try to find you something of Worf's to wear. Maybe he has something that won't be too big - or maybe he has something of Alexander's around. Or if it comes down to it, you could wear something of mine. I must have something that wouldn't be too feminine."
"He's already shaking his head. "No, no, that's ok. I'll just go back to my quarters and change."
"Are you sure? Our quarters are a lot closer than yours," she says, but she is already backing down the hallway.
"No, that's fine. It's alright."
"It could have been worse," she calls. "That could have been an entire bottle of red wine." She's giggling a little again as she tiptoes backwards. "Oh, Julian. I wanted to talk to you about something. Can we meet up some time this weekend?" Julian winces and raises a chocolate-covered hand at her a second before she backs into a Bajoran woman coming around the next corner. Jadzia spills apologies to the woman, then stifles her laughter again, pink-faced, as she waves and disappears, her question forgotten and unanswered.
Garak's door looms over him and he looks down at the mess that is Julian Bashir. He's already here. And it's 21:00 on the dot now. One way or another he should get out of the hallway at least so he doesn't attract swarms of chocoholic children. He carefully rings the chime on Elim's door, trying not to touch anything with the sticky fingers.
The door opens immediately and Julian looks up in surprise.
"Julian," Garak says softly, with a smile, and in another blink sees his odd posture, then notices the out-of-place splotch of brown on the blue of his shirt, the slightly crumpled box in his hand with the melted stuff oozing from the corners. He opens his mouth but thinks it is probably Julian's turn to say something.
"Hi. Um. I brought dessert."
Garak can't suppress a little snicker. "So nice to see you. Won't you come in?" His grin is turning a little evil and Julian is half-smiling now, wryly. If Elim can laugh so can he.
"Actually. I was right here, so I thought I would just ring and tell you that I was going to be a little late, and let my shirt do the rest of the explaining, and then I was going to go back to my quarters to change and try not to blame Jadzia for this."
"Ah. She did this, then?"
"Yes."
"Well. There is no sense in you going all the way back to your quarters. I'm sure I have something you can wear."
Julian reluctantly steps inside and feels sort of unkempt as the material sticks to his skin a little in the front where the chocolate is soaking through. He hopes it isn't dripping anywhere.
"Here. I'll take that," he says and Julian hands over the box of half-melted chocolate. "You can get cleaned up in the bathroom."
Julian wanders in that direction, sparing a glance at the table. Candles, red satin table cloth and place mats. Far nicer than anything Julian ever prepared for them in his quarters.
The box has disappeared and Elim is coming back with a small dish and salt and pepper for the table.
Julian sees Elim's soft chair in the corner and is swept with a wave of heat that keeps him frozen to the floor for a few seconds, even as Elim looks at him with a small measure of curiosity. "I'm sorry I ruined one of your shirts, Elim," he says when he recovers, because it is doubtful that he wouldn't have noticed. Elim puts the things on the table and looks a little caught-off-guard when he turns back to Julian, looking him up and down. Maybe he didn't notice.
Elim approaches hesitantly. "Well. It's hard to say now that it is has been redyed - and a very becoming color you've chosen I must say, but...I don't think this is one of mine." Julian is feeling hot and cold now and Elim approaches him very close. He can feel his breath on his face, can smell him above the overwhelming sweetness of his own perfume. His hand comes up, nothing hesitant about it, and goes up behind his neck. Julian's eyes almost slip closed as Elim's fingers find skin, but he is shaken from it by the busy ministrations of those fingers. Then there is a gentle pull and Elim's head is tilted and he is looking down his nose at the tag on the back of Julian's shirt. Julian knows already, he is already well on his way to mortification, but Elim's cool response seals the deal sharply. "Nnno," he says. "This is from Del Floria's." Elim tucks it back in and smiles at him. "Would you like something to drink?" Julian feels his blush creep hotly up his face. Yes. A very stiff drink would be very good right now, but no.
Julian washes the chocolate off of himself in the bathroom and tries not to let it get anywhere else. He wipes the sink down when he is done. All he needs is to smear some more embarrassment all over Elim's quarters to make the night complete. And he just got here. He tosses the shirt in the laundry receiver and it disappears into chocolaty oblivion. It will find its way back to his quarters eventually though it will probably take a while to get it replicatively cleaned.
He comes out of the bathroom, damp, shirtless, and self-conscious. Elim smiles at him mildly, and never loses eye contact. He recognises this Elim. He hasn't seen him in a while. This is Mr. Garak, the tailor. Julian relaxes a little. For once he is glad Elim can just switch himself on and off like that. Most of the time he would rather be with Elim, but right now, he isn't sure he could take him. "Let's find you something to wear," he says, standing in the bedroom door.
Julian steps in the dark room from the adjacent bathroom. It's warm but he is having trouble not trembling a little. Elim goes to the closet and opens it, turns the light on.
Julian was struck by the size of Elim's bedroom the first time he saw it. Small, with a large bed. He wasn't sure if the large bed just made the room seem smaller or if it actually was. Now he knows. Garak made this room smaller so he could make the closet bigger. Before them is the most comprehensive and orderly collection of attire Julian has ever seen. Organised by color and style, and every centimeter of space utilized for efficiency. By necessity really, the sheer volume wouldn't fit in this space, large though it is, if it weren't well-ordered. Julian looks around in amazement and Elim begins pawing through a row.
Julian finds his voice and laughs, and his trepidation is momentarily forgotten. "That's some closet, Garak."
Elim looks over his shoulder at him and shrugs. "Tailor."
"You know I don't think I've ever seen you wear most of these things," he says fingering some stiff brown shirt with a wide collar.
Elim's fingers pass over a number of things that might work in a pinch, some smaller things that don't exactly fit him anymore, but he skips over much of the traditional Cardassian garb and goes for a funny white linen shirt, the origin of which he does not know. "How about this?"
"Thank you," Julian says without inspecting it. He's really thanking him for ignoring what an ass he has made of himself so far tonight, but he takes the shirt with those words, and Elim leaves him in the glow of the massive closet. Julian watches him go and releases a pent up breath. He throws the shirt on in a hurry then, looks at himself briefly in the mirror, then hits the closet light and joins Elim at the table.
He looks up at him as he lights the tall red tapers. Elim approaches him again closely, though his grey eyes sparkle blue a little now in the candlelight and his voice drops a note or two. He hums deliberation and picks gingerly at Julian's collar, fluffs one long sleeve, then the other, straightens the shoulder line and lays a small lapel flat with the brush of his fingertips.
"Looks better on you than it ever did on me," Garak sighs. The truth is Julian's skin turns coffee brown against the white, absolutely stunning, and the small slit in the front, a little too revealing for Garak himself without something worn under it, shows off a sliver of that dark brown on his chest, sprinkled with a little hair. He thinks he chose well for him, but it's going to be hard to keep his hands to himself during dinner, especially if they open that wine.
Elim has set out an unusual banquet for them. Zabu stew, one of his favorites as Julian recalls, gespar, Bajoran northern shrimp, and, to Julian's surprise, a baked potato. They sit, and Elim makes a motion toward his own plate. "I've never had a baked potato before. Thought I might try it tonight."
Julian smiles brightly. "It's pretty bland. I doubt you'll love it."
"How can eight billion humans be wrong?"
Julian laughs and looks over the sweet curl of Elim's smile. He wants to kiss it. More tempting than chocolate. "We've done it before," he says instead.
Julian is starving still and the food smells wonderful though he is trying not to let it tear his attention from Elim until they are both ready to eat. "Would you like some wine?" Elim asks him, and Julian's eyes dart to the plain green bottle to Elim's right. It would relax him, yes, but he is so hungry now it could make him sick or just instantly abandon all inhibition. Wine right now would be a disaster, and Elim hasn't opened the bottle yet, so he doesn't feel bad shrugging and declining politely. Elim smiles at him again and begins eating.
Despite how hungry he was, Julian only manages to eat about half of his dinner. The potato is good, replicated, but good, comfort food. That was probably Elim's real reason for choosing it. Which, frankly, is just odd. This whole evening has been strange, and Julian realizes why, now. This is a Cardassian sitting across from him. He has to work that one out. Elim is not a stereotypical Cardassian, but he is a Cardassian. The discrepancy between that status and his behavior today and the past few weeks is a puzzle. Not what Julian was expecting. It seems like the moment their relationship shifted in this direction, that was where he split from the norm. With a human or most other species he might find himself on a date with, he could show up at their door wearing a faux pas and dunce cap and they could have a good laugh, and it would end at the very least in an enjoyable evening. But Elim is a Cardassian. Julian had forgotten at some point, but he was really expecting the verbal abuse to have started by now. He certainly gave Elim plenty of opportunities.
"How was the potato?" Julian asks him because here is one more. Earth food must be odd to him. Certainly he could compare it to the Cardassian bickt root and it wouldn't be comparing apples and oranges, but he would surely find his own superior, and would have multiple reasons why.
Elim swallows another bite. "Starchy, but not bad," he says thoughtfully and Julian grins because it is getting absurd. Elim brings his napkin to his mouth and then seems to look Julian over, head to table. "Are you finished?"
"I think so."
"Really? You didn't eat much. Is there something else you'd like instead?"
Julian laughs out loud but Elim just seems puzzled. "No, no thank you, I'm fine."
Elim is still staring at him, wide-eyed, and Julian is still grinning, and he can see the two of them trapped in this moment as in a holoimage. Each trying to work out what the other is thinking until the end of time.
"Did I miss something?" Garak hopes not.

"No, no."

"I feel like I did."

Julian is feeling the pressure to come clean. "I guess, I just had different expectations about what was going to happen tonight."

Garak's face falls a little. "What do you mean?"
He half shrugs, sheepishly. "You don't behave like other Cardassians."

"I don't?" Julian realizes that this may not exactly be a compliment to Elim's ears.

"No. I mean. Well I guess I mean, with me." He's blushing again, can't help it. This is the first time they're openly talking about it, well semi-openly. The first time they're acknowledging the pursuit. It feels shy. "Cardassians...are known for aggressive and confrontational ways of..."

Elim hums slight amusement. "Yes, we are. Which is unfortunate for those individuals who do not approach it in that way, for their intentions are occasionally missed or misinterpreted. Those aggressive tactics are what is expected of us on Cardassia. It is a cultural construct. Any Cardassian looking for a mate within a group of strangers will act that way because it is the only universally recognised signal."

"So you don't all do that?"

"I personally find the practice repellent."

"Oh."

"I don't mean to sound bitter. I just find it silly and cruel even. All the posturing. The blatantly rough handling. It can get dangerous at times. Cardassians have a certain amount of natural pack-animal mentality in us. We engage in social power struggles on a daily basis, but in the context of mature people looking for companionship, it just seems like a waste of time to me. Who wants to start a relationship with a pretense that in no way reflects reality?"

"I feel the same way about human dating rituals, actually."
"Do you?" Elim sounds genuinely surprised. "I admit your way sounds a little bland to me, but it seemed like a better start than we allow couples of our own species."
"No, I don't think it's any better really. We put on a mask, too. We show our prospective partners our best clothes and brightest smiles. We take them to expensive restaurants and throw gifts at them."
Elim smiles. "You can lavish me with gifts whenever you feel like it, my dear."
Julian laughs, and something unexpected sneaks out of his mouth directly after. "And you can handle me roughly whenever you like." He presses his lips together and wonders where he picked up a surplus measure of audacity in the past few days. He clears his throat and tries to pretend he didn't say anything. Elim doesn't pretend, but doesn't take advantage either. "At any rate, it opens the door for severe disappointment at the least. Or you find out after a few months of sharing your time with someone that they're not who you thought they were, that you don't even know what to do with them now that you have them."
"That does sound rather depressing."
"I'm glad," Julian begins, and finds the bravery to look him in the eye as he says it, "that that didn't happen to us."
"The fact that we have been friends for so long is probably the only reason that this has happened. You realize this?"
"Well, yes. I doubt that had we just met last week that we would be sitting here now. It would probably take another six years."
"Do you think we're trading those six years in for something else?"
"That's ridiculous."
"Is it? If this ended now would we still be friends?"
Julian rubs his own elbow self-consciously and wonders for a moment if Elim isn't trying out some Cardassian courtship tactics. He also wonders if that isn't what he has been up to the entire time, but dismisses it. The questioning on his face is too sincere. "Relationships aren't just on and off, Garak. They change and evolve too. The chief and I went through all sorts of different levels of friendship. Dax and I too. Leeta and I are still friends."
"But you didn't start out as friends."
"No, I suppose not. Look, Garak. I think you're asking the wrong question. You want to know if this doesn't work out in the end if we can become friends again, and I say, we won't have to, because we're not going to stop being friends. I won't let it happen. I still want to do all the things we have always done together. I still want to talk politics and philosophy with you and argue about books and plays. And dresses," he chuckles bravely. "You can still join me in the holosuite. I still want to go to lunch."
Now they are both looking a little sheepish, Elim, presumably because of what happened the last time they 'went to lunch', and Julian because of the things his imagination has begun feeding him since the idea of the holosuite popped in his head.

Elim scratches the back of his head. "I haven't done this in a long time Julian. I thought I probably wouldn't ever do it again."

Julian's heart is beating erratically, but it hurts a little at the same time to imagine Elim resigned to loneliness for the rest of his life. He also suspects that he might be resigned to exile at this point too. "It's kind of scary, isn't it," he says, though he wonders if Elim thinks so, and if he does, if they're even scared for the same reasons.

Then he smiles, warm as that reptilian face can. "I'm terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought."

Julian laughs. "You seem to be doing ok."

"All a disguise, my dear. I'm a tailor, remember?"

Julian's grin fades away like a summer sunset, slow and easy in the silence of the evening. The quiet is nice, and they sit comfortably enough in it with the experience to do so of six years acquaintance, but Garak thinks he could possibly improve upon it. "Shall I put on some music?" he asks, and watches Julian swallow hard before meeting his eyes and smiling softly again. It is intoxicating to see this beautiful creature respond to everything he does and says with so much emotion. Most people don't pay him half that much attention, which has both a cause and effect relationship with his profession, but it leaves him so barren. Then this human comes along and worms his way in like some sort of fiendishly beautiful brain parasite. It is somehow both remarkably wonderful and annoying. "And...would you like some wine now? I think I would," he says with raised and meaningful eye ridges.

Julian pauses a second, then nods. "Sure."

"If you'd like to open the bottle, my dear, I'll be right back." Garak excuses himself and gets up from the table to go to the computer.

Julian looks around him and sees an opportunity to perhaps begin to redeem himself after the last hour of blunders, and after popping open the wine and setting the cork on a separate plate, he begins clearing the table. The room is filled, then, with a soft Cardassian concerto. It's a nice piece, Julian is sure he has heard it once before, probably in his own quarters during a similar, less important dinner, but tonight everything has significance and each note has a certain heat in it. The light tinkling piano, a Cardassian instrument almost identical to the Earth variety, reminds him of home enough to relax him, but is played in a way alien enough to chill his spine once or twice. He smiles and starts taking dishes back to the replicator. He touches the 'receive' button and it is just as he does that he feels, maybe even tastes, Elim standing behind him. He can just feel his presence, though he never heard him reapproach, never saw him in his peripheral vision. Elim isn't aiming to startle him, obviously, as he isn't doing anything but standing there quietly, approaching with caution, though not advertising either. Julian stops where he is, letting Elim know he is aware of him. He wonders a split second later if perhaps he should have kept that to himself a moment longer, to force him to back off rather than be the perpetrator. It would have been a lie, but Julian is so nervous now he doesn't think he would have noticed any guilt.

Even before he lays his hands on Julian's shoulders, they burn because he knows it is going to happen, like a hot blue charge of St. Elmo's fire before lightning strikes. Then the heat crawls up Julian's neck until he is sure he is turning red, and the touch manifests as heat, then weight, then light pressure on his frame. Elim floats to him, doesn't touch him much, and with just a centimeter of air between them in most places, Julian can feel him there, but not feel him. Then his exhale into Julian's hair exorcises a chill that zips up his spine, curls over his scalp and ears and vanishes into the air. Elim's face is at the back of his head, and he breathes lightly into his hair a few more times before applying a gentle twist to his hands that urges Julian around. Everything in him clenches, thrums with excitement and fear and lust all at once as he turns and meets Elim's eyes. Those hands come up, surprisingly warm, one takes Julian's right hand, and the other scoops around the back of his neck. His weight shifts to his left. Julian smiles and places his free hand under Elim's shoulder. The piano is joined by the orchestra.

"Are we going dancing now?"

"No," he purrs sadly. "I'm not wearing the proper shoes."

"Nor the dress," Julian quips with a cute smile. Garak wants to be closer to that radiant face, like a moon wants to be closer to its planet, and he gets sucked in right then, his forehead bumping Julian's just gently.

He looks toward their barely shuffling feet. "Nor do you want me to, I assure you." Garak realizes that this is it. They are going to take the single step forward that begins this, and he wants to delay it just a little longer because he already knows the conclusion, and it is the anticipation that he savors in memory. However, Julian makes it difficult with the tiny movements of his head, the hesitation and want warring within him, and his drowsy eyes and parted lips that hedge near his own close enough that he can feel his breath on his chin.

"I'm not sure you have the hips for it," Julian replies.

A tremor in his breath, Garak plays along. "You could pull it off with a little padding."

Julian smirks. "I hope that's not what you're planning," he says low and raspy.

Garak doesn't smile, and he stops their gentle swaying. "No. I was not planning on clothing you today, Doctor." He can see Julian's cheeks rise in a grin. "Quite. The. Opposite."

Julian pulls their faces apart and looks Elim in the eyes. "No more waiting?"

"No."

"No more running away from this?"

Elim seems to think about it for the briefest pause. "I don't think so, he says, but then takes a half-step backwards.

"No more dancing?"

Elim takes the other half-step back and seems to pull Julian with him using nothing more than gravity as his leash.

lj break

The bedroom is lit only by diffuse amber light coming from the adjacent bathroom. It is enough for them to see each other clearly, but the room itself, decorated in mostly dark hues, fades away outside of the small space they occupy.

There is a moment in which time slows and Julian finds himself studying Elim's face like a painting. "I've had five lovers before you," Elim says, and Julian feels suddenly hot. It sounds so imminent. Before you. It's really going to happen. Now. "Three Cardassians, A Deltan, and a Bajoran." The last two in his list almost shock Julian completely away from the fact again. He tries to regain his mental balance but he is torn between the concern of here and now, and the idea of Elim and a Bajoran, or a Deltan. For the first, he has to wonder if it is anyone he knows, and the other - he doesn't know many people who can claim that. "None of whom I think you would be familiar with," Elim adds. It is a bit of a relief, but only in as much as life is predictable, and the probability of that Bajoran being of both their acquaintance is low. He can't even speculate right now.

Julian realizes Elim is waiting for a similar statement from him and blushes. "Um. Ten," he says, and watches as a reaction develops slowly on Elim's face then stalls, waits for him to finish before completing the transaction. "All human except for one Elaysian and one Bajoran, who you know, the rest, I think you don't." Finally, that strange expression on Elim's face develops into mild amusement and Julian tries not to smile nervously. "I was pretty...um...active, at the academy."

"I see." Elim is still smiling and it makes Julian feel on the verge of petulance. He squirms internally.

Julian stands there trying to keep his breathing slow and quiet, and feeling hot and shaky as Elim's hands on his arms are burning him and his icy eyes freezing him at the same time.

"There is something else I want to tell you," Elim begins again, slowly. There's more? he thinks and clamps down on some nervous laughter with his teeth. "Despite what I've said about what I need, what I want from you, I don't have any expectations that you should feel you must fulfill, or any ideal you need to live up to."

Julian smiles bashfully. "I appreciate that. I...don't really know what I'm doing. At all. Not a state I'm used to either. I usually make it my business to know what I'm doing all the time, I just didn't get very far with this yet-" He feels like he's blabbering, and he is glad when Elim cuts him off.

"Don't sell yourself short, my love. The fact that you're trying is all the evidence I need that you are in the proper mindset to handle this, that you can run with this the way you do with everything. I have every confidence in you, I just don't want you to think I have a checklist or...some sort of rubric stuffed under my pillow." That nervous laughter escapes. "Like I said. Slow as you want. Having you here is enough for me tonight, or any night."

"Now you're selling yourself short."

"Well." Elim shrugs.

Julian takes a hand in his. He means to do something, he just doesn't know what or where to start suddenly, and he hangs his head and grins like an idiot.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Elim!" Julian shakes his head and laughs again, on the edge of hysterics. Something is really going to have to give soon, or he is going to implode.

"Just asking," he says and sighs, and Julian feels some sort of high as Elim closes in, and wraps him up in his arms. He presses the side of his face to Julian's for a moment, then up, then down, prodding his nose into Julian's cheek, which swells in response as he grins again. The very idea of a Cardassian nuzzling his face is one he would not have considered even a month ago, but here it is.

Elim's lips finally find his, softly. Gentle and warm, and yet again so unlike Julian's expectations, he wonders why he tries to anticipate anything anymore. His mouth is wet and sweet, and strange despite how many times he has tasted it before now, the hours they spent at this very activity in Elim's living room. Elim's hands come up and capture his face, and Julian's go to Elim's clothes. They can't do what they want though, because Elim's hands are stronger, and they begin pulling at the white shirt he just put on an hour or so ago. Up over his head, and Elim's mouth is latched to his, and his breath comes fast over Julian's upper lip. Only a tailor could make such quick work of the fastening's on another man's pants, at least he hopes, and before long Julian is once again naked in a room with a fully clothed Cardassian.

Julian blushes and Elim looks down, then up, then down again. "I've been doing some reading...thought you might be more comfortable." Julian digs his toes into the carpet.

Garak is smiling at him in a way that seems to completely obscure his immediate intention. He could be thinking about kissing him, biting him, throwing him on the floor and fucking him, or maybe all of those things. Julian can't tell. "Thank you," he says, and another possibility that Julian hadn't considered before presents itself as Garak leaves him, and begins lighting candles. There are a few about the room in inconspicuous places. Elim lights these and pulls a short pair from the nightstand drawer, places them side by side on one nightstand and lights them as well. Julian tries to set all of these ideas to the back of his mind for now.

Garak kisses him again upon his return, and then lets his mouth go. Though he wants to keep kissing it, there are so many other places to see and feel. He will come back to the mouth, he promises his lips, and guides them down Julian's neck. It's hot and alive, and he mouths it down the sensitive line between tendon and throat, feels as his Adam's apple bobs up, then down, and listens to his breath gusting through him. His hands are not yet brave enough for this, and stay at the back of his neck, rubbing the two strong tendons there where they disappear into his hair. His mouth moves lower to his collar and rejoices at the discovery of this new territory. It is all he can do to keep from biting. Soon, he assures himself.

Julian's shoulders rise and fall quickly, and his knees want to collapse under him. A moan escapes his lips, because this isn't enough. He loves to be touched and kissed and adored by Elim, his hands, his lips, it feels wonderful, but it isn't enough. "Elim," he says weakly. "Please. I need to touch you."

Elim pauses, looks him in the face for that small instant, and pulls off his own shirts, two layers, quickly over his head as if it were a painful sliver that needed to be yanked out, mussing his hair. He grabs Julian again, and Julian's hands go flat and open against his chest. He looks down at them pressed together as Elim's mouth goes to his ear, kissing loudly there, sucking, running the edges of teeth over the ridge. His own brown skin looks as it always does, but this thing he is pressed against is something completely new. When he looks at Elim's face, he sees just a face. He sees the ridges and strange scale markings, but it's like they aren't real sometimes. His hands could pass for human if not for the color. His chest is the key to the mystery. He can see for the first time the way the architecture of his face melds with his body with logic and beauty. The wide neck swoops downward over his shoulders like a cape. It fades away there to only hints of ridge and scale down the front and back of his upper arms, two lines like seams in a garment that swirl together over his elbow and become one that runs down his forearms to the back of his wrists to disappear at the heel. These new kinds of ridges Julian has discovered also define his pectorals, with large flat scales webbing up but not quite reaching the ones on his neck. A long, graceful collarbone divides them.

Julian can feel Elim's heartbeat under his hands, and he slides them up, slowly, for the first time feeling this strange new surface. It isn't rough or flaky as so many people assume, nor is it slimy like Bajoran children are sometimes heard to claim. His skin is perfectly smooth and dry, each scale reminding him of the waxy leaves of a succulent jade plant, overlapped in some places, and separated by pale, fragile-looking skin in others. Julian runs a fingertip over one of those tiny strips of flesh and thinks he detects a shiver within Elim even as he lavishes Julian's neck with determined attention.

And there, between their breasts as they press together, is the most curious thing. The match to the structure on his forehead, the rebec on his chest is a little larger, but not as defined and dramatic. It seems to be built out of the surrounding scale pattern, like it arose naturally when some Cardassian deity was busy creating them and tiling their flesh with scales; and when this being saw this shape emerge, they liked it so much they decided it was worth mentioning again, and emblazoned it on their heads as well.

Julian's fingers move down to the hollow between their chests and find the bottom of the shape, and Garak stops with his nose and mouth buried in Julian's sweat-damp hair. His thumb traces it up, doesn't push in the middle as he fears he would be tempted to do, but just caresses the edge of it, around the top and back down. GArak concentrates on breathing and getting anything at all to work again after that. It's a singular miracle in itself to be touched like this again, but the fact that it's Julian touching him is starting to make him a little drunk with astonishment. Julian takes him by the shoulders easily now, and pushes him back.

Julian looks him over unabashedly with studious interest, not obvious appraisal. He runs the backs of his fingers down one of Elim's flanks. The scales from his chest downward are smoother, thinner, and appear flexible down to the line of his hips peaking out above the waist of his trousers where they thicken again and grow smaller, shiny, and dark.

He is beautiful, his scales almost perfectly symmetrical, but he imagines that would be the norm within a perfectionist species. Julian wonders what his back looks like, and runs a hand over his hip and around to try to feel what he can't yet see.

Elim swallows and kisses him once more. Julian takes that as a signal, and thumbs the clasp on Elim's pants. His heart is racing again and it feels so strange to be doing this, like it still isn't permitted though Elim says and does nothing to stop it. The trousers come down, and Elim is wearing a sort of low waisted underwear unlike anything Julian has any personal experience with. The sight doesn't agree with the basic ideas Julian has in his head of male and female, what is associated with what. Elim is male, and despite what he knows about Cardassian anatomy, it is still odd to see the lack of outward definition there. It crosses some line between those male and female descriptions, and his mind flip-flops on it for a few seconds. Then Elim takes his own undergarments down with a quick slide of his large hands, and Julian tries not to stare, but he is wet, absolutely covered in glossy moisture. He can see it clearly as he pulls the garment down, see the trace on it as it hits the floor, and see how some of the shine to his skin in that area is not just from shiny, healthy scales but from arousal. The fine scales covering the slit look like they would be heavenly soft to the touch, like graphite sand, and Julian is still wobbling on how to fit this into his head. This is a man, but he has this part of him that, in no uncertain human terms, looks female - for another three seconds.

Garak contracts his stomach muscles gently and it emerges from his opening without a sound, points down at the floor as it slicks out with just a taste of delicious friction, drips twice onto his pants on the floor, then bobs up sharply and locks into place between stretched tight cords. He almost laughs because Julian's mouth goes slack and his eyes go wider than he has probably ever seen them.

The most shocking thing, is that it is pink. Pink like the inner flesh of most oxygen-breathing beings. It shouldn't be all that surprising. Elim's mouth is pink. His tongue is not black and forked or blue and acidic. He is not so different really, on the inside, but nothing Julian saw or read mentioned the color, and he imagined it would be grey like the rest of him, not this bright pink glossy helmeted thing that looks so much like his own they could be cousins.

"I take it you've never seen this before," Elim says with a note of amusement in his voice.

Julian has the decency to blush a little when he realizes he's staring. "No, not exactly. I mean. Not um."

"I understand." Julian doesn't look well, and Garak has a sudden thought. "Have you ever seen another man's penis?"

"I'm a doctor," he says. Of course he has.

"In context."

Julian was afraid of this.He knew it was unlikely he would be able to just pretend and learn as he went, but he couldn't think of a good way to broach the subject. Julian blinks over and over rapidly the way he does in tandem with his mouth when he doesn't know what to say. Like an ocular stammer and stutter. He knows he does it, just can't help it most of the time.

"Ok," Garak says calmly. What he thinks is something else entirely. He thinks Julian is insane for wanting to be in this room with him with no experience whatsoever in the role he is about to play. He did mention earlier that he had no idea what he was doing. Garak didn't infer the correct depth to that statement it seems. Looking at him now, he thinks that maybe Julian is having the same idea. "Are you alright?"

"I think I might...be...panicking...a little," he says in paired words, his lungs demanding either and inhale or and exhale between each two.

"Panicking?" Elim says as if he disbelieves, though his smile is bright and wry and a little sinister. "Why do people always remark how smart you are, Julian?" He knows he is joking now of course, but the sudden topic change is disorienting. It derails the panic for a moment actually, and he is left with simple embarrassment. "A smart man would have panicked long before now. Preemptive panicking is really the only logical, considerate way to approach potentially traumatic situations. It frees you to indulge in a good panic without having to cut it short in favor of real action. I did my panicking well in advance of this evening. I even had a small re-panic earlier today just to be sure it was done thoroughly, and I'm afraid I must insist that you refrain from this kind of procrastination in the future, my love."

Julian laughs and covers his face, as if that was the most embarrassing part of him right now. He is actually a little more at ease now that Elim knows, but as soon as he moves, as soon as he comes near him again, runs his fingers down his arms, he flies high with fear again.

Garak is quiet, sees Julian warring with it, and lets him for a moment. He may yet regain himself without help.

Julian realises absently that he is parched and backs away from Elim to the bathroom to drink from the sink without a word. His hands shake badly as he does and he is absurdly aware of his nakedness even though he doesn't think Elim is really watching him.

Garak backs away then too, and sits on the corner of the bed. Seems like they're taking a time out. Julian looked like he could use it. He glances in his direction and sees him bent over the sink, and as if he had eyes back there, he sees his hind quarters flex self-consciously. Garak smirks slightly and looks away.

Julian dries his hands and face and hurries back to the dark bedroom, looking like he regrets ever leaving, like it was somehow inappropriate, fueled forward by stumbling robotic locomotion, gears stuck with sand and joints frozen. He is just shaking all over, and Garak, for perhaps the first time in memory, feels pity.

"Julian," Elim says, low and soft. He is sitting there, naked as himself, though the evidence of arousal is hidden again, secreted away without Julian even seeing it depart. "Would I let you come to harm?"

Elim offers his hand. Julian takes it on faith and it actually feels warm compared to his own now. Elim crawls up onto the bed, Julian's hand still in his, and he leaves plenty of room for him on the opposite side. Elim pulls the covers back with his free hand and Julian can do nothing but climb in without seeming childishly shy. It wasn't so long ago that he lead them both to this very bed. Elim covers them up to the hips, and Julian instantly comes down a notch. Something about just not being utterly uncovered seems to keep him calmer, but he is still trying to conceal a nervous breathing pattern.

To Garak's surprise, Julian ventures to speak, but he looks timidly around and down as he does. He clears his throat and mutters, "Shouldn't we...have a signal. A word," he shrugs a little.

Garak smiles easily. "Is that what has you so worked up? My dear, I assure you we will not be doing anything tonight that would even make me consider a safe word possibly warranted. If something isn't right, 'stop' would be sufficient." Garak teases at Julian's fingers with his own. Unsurprisingly, Julian doesn't look reassured by this. He can tell by the look on his face that what is going through his mind is bent toward the idea that Garak should have granted a safe word. Garak also knows that had he done it, Julian's mind would have supplied enough fear of what they might be about to do that he would need a safe word tonight.
"Lie on your stomach," Garak suggests with no force. Julian complies easily, but the wideness of his eyes is killing Garak slowly. As he turns over, Garak runs a hand over his shoulder and back, down his flank, then back up, rubbing a little with his thumb, squeezing at the shoulder in a way that should feel good. "You might be more comfortable if you put the pillow under your shoulders."
Julian does this too, shifts a few times, then settles with his chin on the mattress, elbows bent, hands poised by his shoulders next to the pillow ends. He could push himself up in half a second. That needs to change.
Elim sits up in the bed a little more, and the covers slip from his hips. Julian can see his naked body in his peripheral vision, just a blur there, but obvious. "Look at me?" he asks. Julian lifts his head and looks up at his face. It is hard to do in that position, looking up at him, holding his head up and back at such an angle. "What are you thinking about?" he asks then, and Julian has to think of something because he wasn't thinking about anything really, and he can't say 'nothing.'
"I guess...I was thinking about the candles."
No no no. Julian, come inside. "What about them?" Garak continues rolling his hands soothingly over Julian's back.
Julian tries to shrug. Again, hard with his neck muscles already hurting from keeping his head up to look Elim in the face. "They're nice. I've always liked watching the smoke fly away," he says. Then he shifts uncomfortably because he needs to do something else with his head. He puts his chin back down on the mattress but his neck still hurts, cramped from that odd exercise. Elim runs a hand up his whole back, then, watching him closely, stops, lets his hands rest where they lay. He sits like an idol, perfectly still except for the minuscule movement of his chest with his breathing. Julian watches as the scales separate almost imperceptibly to accommodate the expansion of his ribs as he breathes.
"Hey," Elim says, a touch of laughter in his voice. Julian has no choice but to raise his head again to look at him. He winces a little as he does and Elim strokes a hand through his hair. "Are you still thinking about candles?"
Julian smirks a little. "No."
"What are you thinking about then?"
"I don't know," he says hesitantly. Garak strokes his hair again and shifts to let his body slide down in the bed, all the way down under the covers. He pushes his own pillow up out of the way and lays his head on the mattress. Julian does the same and Garak smiles with mute satisfaction.
"Perhaps you should just let your mind think what it wants to for now."
Julian retorts with too much smile and bravado. It's not believable considering his body language screaming flight. "That's what I usually do. And look where it got me."
Garak only smiles mildly. He reaches over, then, sideways gravity making his arm bob a little, and runs fingers through his hair again until he closes his eyes. Then Garak sits up, crawls with steady sloth over him, and watches as his eyes open again and look toward the window. Garak slides a knee down on either side of Julian's, and runs his hands up his back a little ways, softly, then back down as he lets his weight come to rest on his thighs, low enough, he hopes, to prevent too much unease for now. His hands rub up again, rolling the muscle under the skin and the skin beneath his fingertips. He watches a straining artery in his neck pulse fast and hard.
This isn't the behavior of someone who enjoys this kind of thing, he thinks, but he has also never initiated anyone before. Garak wants this so much, but he is lucid enough to know that if he can't turn this around in the next few minutes, they're done. If Julian can't be in this place with him and not succumb to fear, they will never get any farther than this. Julian will protest, and he will be angry for a long time. His insides knot at the thought. He doesn't want to end this, but it's no good if he is going to fake it to be here. The thought is nice, that he would be willing to try to change who he is just to be with him, but they can't live like that. Julian. Please. Show me you can do this.
"Are you sure you're not thinking about candles anymore?"
"No. No I don't think so. But it's hard to not think about candles when someone asks you if you're thinking about candles."
"Then I won't mention them again, my dear," he rumbles from above him. Julian's muscles are tense but they can't stay that way under Garak's hands. He has that victory at least. He rubs and smooths over his skin until Julian's eyes close again, and then for some time after that as well. Then he runs gentle fingertips down the length of his folded arms and takes each wrist in them. He doesn't confine them, just grasps them, and slides his flat hands up and away from his face. He leaves them loosely spread below the headboard then lets his hands slither back down to warm shoulders and rubs some more, this time with more friction, more weight. Julian's eyes are open again and looking at the few easily viewed objects in his perspective, Garak can see. They dart from the floor to the window and back.
"Love," Garak ventures.
Julian acknowledges the address with a flick of his eyes, and Garak smiles a little, rubs a thumb tenderly over his spine.
"I'd like to feel you beneath me," he murmurs. There is an instant response like electricity under his hands. Maybe it's his own hands imagining it, but it feels like it is coming from Julian. "Is that all right?"
Julian nods immediately.
"Nothing but me," he whispers, and lets his organ emerge again. It touches Julian's rear end, hot and wet and he jumps a little. "Just me." Julian swallows. "It's alright. I'm not planning anything, Love, just relax."
Elim moves forward, shifts and lets his hands lead the way in a diving pose on his back. He slinks in slow motion across Julian's skin, cold and hot at the same time, and then they split at his shoulders and each snakes up an arm until Elim is suspended over him. His cock is wet heat and weight lying between the swells of his ass. Julian reflexively tightens it but Elim seems to take no notice. Then his trunk moves up as well, and the weight shifts from his hips to his hands. Julian's wrists are gradually pinned to the bed. Julian is on fire and he can't quite breathe in a steady manner.
No no no no no. Julian what are you doing. I can't take Julian. I need you to understand. I don't need you to do anything else but understand that. You remember, I know you do. Just take this from me and come inside with me. Be here with me, not somewhere else. Feel this. This is you.
Garak presses his wrists down until he can feel the rabbit pulse in each hand, then he wraps his ankles over the backs of Julian's knees. Slowly, and with a delicious pressure that he does not have the freedom to enjoy right now, he presses his hips down into Julian, sliding his cock through his buttocks and over his hard tailbone.
Julian gasps and his fear is palpable.
"Dammit, Julian. Why does this have to be so difficult? Why does this always have to walk the line between working and falling apart?" Garak darts his face toward Julian's, his lips coming to rest at his neck. He whispers into his ear, "Can I trust you Julian?" He stops looking afraid for a split second, confusion added to the mix, blinks.
"...Yes," he whispers, and Garak doesn't think he is lying.
Garak sinks his teeth into the back of Julian's neck, slowly enough not to panic, but hard enough to make Julian suck in a sharp breath and then keep trying to inhale after that as he increases the pressure with his jaw. Garak levers himself down at the same time. He lifts Julian's wrists the short distance from the mattress to the headboard and presses them there, letting his weight come down on top of Julian, forcing the air out of his lungs and denying him that resistance to the pain of the bite. He keeps trying to gasp, but his breath can be only shallow with Garak's whole body flattening him. It all happens over just a few seconds, eternally long though they are for both of them. But then, just as time had slowed to a crawl as Julian's body vibrates below him with warring impulses, time utterly stops as Julian reaches a peak, and falls.
Garak almost can't believe what he feels. Julian. His Julian is pliant beneath him. His pulse is still fast, he can taste it in his mouth, juicy now over his salty skin, but it levels out, and his body is lax under him, his eyes slip closed even as Garak tightens his jaw more, leaving marks undoubtedly. He watches with astonishment as his lips part and a small aching sound escapes them.
You beautiful brilliant man.
Garak drags his teeth over his skin as he releases him, and sucks away all of the saliva leaving only a damp spot over purple-red tooth marks. Then he says with the most deliberately slow and deeply appreciative voice, "Good...Boy."
Julian titters a little, in some sort of bashful state of bliss. Elim releases him and flips him over underneath him like he was made of rags and stuffed with hay. He pins him again, this time front to front and Julian shivers at the feeling of so much strange and beautiful anatomy above him. Elim kisses him fiercely and Julian's arms come up around him weak but purposeful. He isn't quite sure what just happened but it hurt and felt good, and even Elim's words feel good now, as if they were just another part of his body licking at his skin.
"You are amazing," he says when he finally sits up. Julian only smiles up at him looking a little bewildered. Garak doesn't completely buy it. He thinks he at least has an idea of what is going on, if not a previous experience. But as he looks at him he can't help but think, that there are probably lots of other people out there who would spark hot and hard for Garak with just the drop of their name from his lips, people who have nothing to learn, and there are probably people who would trust him instantly, frightening, dangerous people, and there are probably people with even more seductively beautiful skin and dark eyes, but he doesn't think he's seen a single one, and there are probably lots of other people who wouldn't give him so much grief for the pleasure of one little bite, but he has no desire to meet any of them. If he did now, he wouldn't even notice them for the blinding brilliance of Julian in his vision.
Garak strokes his own cock once because he needs to. "I'm going to touch and taste every part of you now," he says.
Julian's cock twitches and actually bumps into Garak's. His eyes go wide and Garak grins and gets to work. His hands have been longing for this, the permission to touch all of this without impropriety or self-imposed restrictions in the way. He runs his hands up and down his slim body, all that glorious smooth skin, something Garak has only in small patches himself, all the hair all over, thick here, thin there, light and fuzzy in one place, fistfuls in others. He skin is piquant with salt, in some places more than others, shimmering with hints of moisture and heat, two things that, in Garak's mind, go very well together, and would be especially pleasing if he could but surround some part of him with it. He sweats a dewy sheen over his chest and legs in the heat of Garak's warm bedroom, and under his hands. He licks it off of his sternum, his bald scrotum and all around it where he smells strongly of salt and sex, he tastes quickly the precum dribbling from his cock, and sucks on his chin and toes. He pinches here, and bites there, and Julian gasps when he does this in certain places, his neck, his nipples, (his nipples are something Garak has decided are going to require further intensive study at a later date) the backs of his knees.

When he turns him over on his side, runs hands on the ends of stiff arms up his hip and flank, pushing his arm up out of range and bites down hard on his buttock, Julian yelps just a little, and then begins laughing. In fact, the laughing lasts much longer than it should, and Garak stops and looks at him.
"What is it?"
"I didn't know you had one there, too," he continues laughing through squinted eyes and Garak realizes that while he has been paying attention to Julian's rear end, Julian has been looking at his. The coccygeal rebec is tiny but unmistakably related to the other two. It is the consequence of this irritating feature of their anatomy that Cardassians never use spoons smaller than three centimeters.
Garak bites him again.
Julian wraps his arms around him and pulls him up forcefully, yanking his own skin from between his teeth resulting in a hard pinch and a clack from Elim's jaw. Julian is breathing like a distance runner when he captures Elim's mouth and tongue. Elim is straddling him, his cock dangling there between his legs, and Julian, liberated and smiling, pushes him up after some toothy kisses, away so he can see what he is doing, and reaches up and grabs hold of Elim's cock in his right hand.
His hand is wet but suddenly empty, and Elim is making a face of severe concentration, eyes closed, breathing stopped, and Julian stops too, eyes wide and scared. Elim exhales on a groan and lowers himself to the mattress. Julian can only gape.
"My God. I know it's sensitive, but I thought if you..."
"No, it...it didn't hurt. Well, it did, when it...retracts, that hurts quite a lot, but." He thinks and recovers a moment. "Touch your armpit."
"What?"
"Touch your armpit."
Julian hesitates, but then raises his arm and puts a finger to his armpit.
"Ok. Now I'm going to touch your armpit." And he reaches over with a fast hand and Julian skitters away with a laugh that comes out of nowhere.
"Ok ok, I get it. But how..."
"It just takes time to overcome the reflex. Someday I'm sure I'll be able to touch your underarm without a fight-"
"Don't count on it."
"-and you'll be able to grab my cock and I won't even flinch." Julian blushes. He's never heard him talk like that.
"What do we do till then?" he asks, feeling stupid again.
Garak laughs. "I'm sure we'll think of something. Just you let me worry about my own cock for now."
Julian isn't quite satisfied with that. He had only just developed the aplomb to make that plunge, he didn't count on being told 'no.'
Elim emerges again with a sigh, and Julian watches with fascination, and a little worry. He tries to look, to make sure he didn't damage anything, but without touching it. "I'm fine," Elim says. "You just startled me. I didn't expect you to get so brave so quickly." Julian smiles on one side of his face, and Elim bends down and kisses it.
Julian lays back down the rest of the way and Elim crawls up to cover him. Julian's heart starts to race again, or maybe just more, as Elim lets himself down slowly into the void between them until there isn't one. Pressed inch for inch for the first time, Julian's eyes slip closed. His arms come back up to keep him there as if he thought he might leave. All those scales, they feel leathery to his naked forearms, but like cool porcelain against his chest and legs. Their cocks are pressed together uncomfortably, but the quality doesn't seem to matter. When Elim lifts himself up a little again it's just the sight of the two bright pink heads between their bellies that makes Julian fidget and whine under Elim's weight.
Garak urges his knees up with his own and Julian is breathing hard again. "Shh," he says in his ear, but he only seems to breath faster in response.
"Can I move?" he asks. He wants to roll against him, anything to relieve this pressure, anything to come now, but he fights it because he just doesn't yet understand where the boundary lies. If he can't touch his cock without hurting him, he isn't sure what to do.
"Allow me." Garak sits up then and Julian digs fingernails between the scales on his legs. Garak hums in pleasure and grasps both of their cocks in his hands, aligning the undersides. He strokes a hand over the heads and Julian whimpers a little. He can see he is struggling not to move and it's beautiful. Garak begins rolling his hips and sliding his hands in tandem creating a nonsensical combination of friction planes on both their cocks. He loves this, personally. It's confusing to feel the hands go up and the cock go down, and then the cock go up while the hands go down, but it's so easy to do. Garak's cock is soaking wet, dripping on the sheets, coating himself and Julian. He can't remember the last time he was turned on to such a degree, and all of this wetness slicks up his fingers so he can barley hang on to Julian.
Julian smiles a little to himself. Now this. This is primitive you scholarly Cardassian bastard. Primitive and glorious, Julian thinks. He gives in a few times and thrusts his hips upward when hanging onto him isn't enough, but quickly locks himself down again when Elim grunts. So much wet friction, so much want so long built up, this isn't going to last long, but he's pretty sure Elim is prepared for that as well. He's been prepared for every other obstacle thus far. The sounds escaping his mouth right now don't even sound like him. They're high and needy, and vibrato with fatigue that he can't yet feel. Every time Elim's cock slides up his own shaft it's like, well, it's like a long awaited fuck finally coming to fruition. His head is spinning, and it goes absolutely haywire when one of Elim's hands periodically comes up and over and grabs both of their heads and gives them a squeeze.
Julian is close and starts breathing hard and fast, moaning and trying to hold it back with a fist in his mouth. He is still watching, he won't close his eyes and just let go and Garak appreciates that more than anything. He decides now is a good time. Garak lets go of Julian's cock completely and he looks almost mortified at the sudden loss. He whines a little again, and Garak shifts closer, Julian's balls pressed up against him, and takes Julian's cock in his left hand, pressing hard with his thumb on the place below the head, pushing it down and away from his own cock. He takes his own in his right hand and jerks at it rapidly. Julian is gasping for breath now as he watches, his eyes want to shut, and he wants to let them, Garak can tell, he wants to let go and come, but he's not. Garak didn't even have to tell him to wait. He bites his lip because he loves this man and he can't believe he ever had a doubt, and as tainted as a sentiment like that can be in throes of passion, he thinks it will persist. Garak's own eyes close for a half moment, because he can't keep them open when he first starts to come. He just can't. It builds like a drum roll until it crashes like cymbals, and maybe that's just the music he still has playing out in the living room, but he doesn't think so, because when he opens his eyes again it's as moving as an entire choir singing in his ear to see his come splash violently across Julian's dick. He moans between clenched teeth and watches the second and third bursts collide with his shaft and get swept up in the motions of his hands. It rolls over the fingers of his right hand as it pumps away at his own cock, and completely covers his left hand wrapped tightly around Julian's and smearing it up and down. Julian is gaping and his face is contorted bizarrely. He's still trying to watch, he doesn't want to miss an instant of this it seems, but as his abdomen pulls in and he starts to jerk, they close to tight sweat-shiny wrinkles, and his own come comes pouring out over Garak's hand and Julian's belly.
Julian hears himself crying out pathetically over Elim's harsh breathing as pleasure rips up his spine over and over like a long string of shock waves that ebb all too quickly, but leave behind a wash of relaxation akin to none other. Elim's fingers coated in come rub up and down slowly now on his shaft, gently, squeezing the last dribbles from him as he convulses just a little from their bite at the head. At length, he feels Elim's weight shift and roll away next to him.
Julian startles awake and realizes he had drifted off while Elim was gone to the bathroom. His touch on Julian's skin woke him and now Elim is smirking a little, amused and a little smug perhaps. He wipes Julian's belly with a warm damp cloth, once, then folds it and leaves it for Julian to do the rest. Elim leaves a glass of water on the nightstand and climbs back into the bed to lay face up atop the covers for a restful moment. Julian has a few gulps of water, then curls up and turns over modestly on his front and struggles against heavy eyelids. Elim is on his side now and looking at him, he can see from the corner of his eye. The candles are out now, replaced by the nightstand light. Salty smoke finds his nose, and his heart, despite its still rapid pounding, slows and clenches once in anticipation or worry. He isn't sure what the feeling is really, but he knows the source is right next to him.
Elim chuckles softly. "I had heard about the human male's tendency to fall asleep in this situation, immediately....but I really didn't believe it." Julian smiles and then turns his face into the pillow. He isn't really embarrassed, but laying like this, feeling like this, weak and comfortable and washed over with worn excitement, frayed and soft like wind-whipped sheets, it's so easy to betray even the slightest sway of his emotions in his face and body. Elim turns back over and lays on his back, looking up at the ceiling. Julian wonders what to do now. Yet another thing he didn't consider when trying to satisfy the curiosity of lust. What do Cardassians do after. But then he thinks, that maybe it doesn't matter so much what other people do. Elim is hardly other people, neither is Julian.
It's late and Julian is wiped out. He imagines he looks it too.
"Are you planning on going back to your quarters tonight, or would you like to stay? You are welcome of course," Elim says plainly, softly. Julian grins again into the pillow. Elim chuckles and he knows he's watching him again, enjoying the flustered blush on his ears. He reaches over and runs fingers over Julian's hair, down to his neck. The touch makes Julian actually whimper a little, unintentionally. He feels it then as Elim shifts in the bed, the blankets pull and flutter. "Come." Elim says and Julian looks and sees he has the blanket up inviting him in. Julian is a little surprised, suspicious even. He wonders if this is unusual, if it is solely for his benefit, solely for now. He doesn't want that. Doesn't want to get used to something that might not be around later. But not accepting now certainly isn't going to get him any points. He moves in a little closer, under the blanket. It feels scratchy and strange on his skin and he shivers. Elim pulls him in easily. "Come," he says again. "I wouldn't deny you anything you're willing to give to me, my dear."
"What do you mean?" Julian asks into his neck.
"I'm not the only one who unravels a little. And I won't pretend I don't enjoy it either, as long as you don't." Julian finds himself shivering again as Elim's arms tighten around him. Understanding starts to creep in a little more forcefully, and Julian grabs onto Elim's shoulders and rolls his body against him. Suddenly, there is nothing that could tear him away from Elim, and he is laughing a little under his breath because a few seconds ago, he wasn't sure he wanted this embrace.

Elim gets up again after a short while, after Julian's grip on him loosens and the tremor dies. Julian is woken by this movement from the half sleep he had surrendered to in the comfort of Elim's embrace. He is still high on this unaccustomed intimacy, and though physically satisfied for the moment, the loss of his presence leaves Julian oddly lonely. He doesn't say anything when he gets up, just throws a robe over his shoulders and walks away. Julian sits up and watches him out the door as far as he can and wonders what it means. In only a moment, he knows. Elim is back, smiling mildly, and holding the untouched bottle of wine and the re-solidified, slightly mashed box of chocolate. "We forgot about dessert." Julian chuckles and invites him back under the covers with concealed relief. Elim props himself up against the headboard with both pillows behind his back.

Julian is struck by two things. Something about being invited to lay against him, implicitly, because Elim didn't leave him a pillow, then further when Elim waits as Julian looks at him, the blanket lifted to expose him again to Julian's eyes. He can't move for a moment. Elim then unties his robe and lays the flaps open baring the rest of his skin, the place at the junction of his legs just slightly wet-looking. He still has that sanguine smile, inviting, unassuming, and Julian turns and lays back against him, amazed at the pleasure and heat that simple act brings. The other thing he notices is that Elim didn't bring any glasses. The bottle tips up by Julian's head, then down again and is passed in front of him, proffered. Julian grins to himself and cautiously takes the bottle from Elim, tips it to his own lips. Never in a million years would he have thought Elim capable of laying in bed drinking wine from the bottle. He laughs under his breath a little, hiding it as much as he can from the man behind him.
"Well, this doesn't seem too bad. Some of this looks ok." Elim has opened the mangled box and is breaking off a small chunk from the fused candy. He hands a piece to Julian and behind him, Julian hears him lick his fingers then make an appreciative hum. "Are these Rigelian?"
Julian grins to himself again and hands the bottle back up behind him. "I think so."

"Very smooth. Good idea. I don't like chocolate often, don't have much of a sweet tooth, as you say, but in the right company..." He has easy access to Julian's right hand, his arm up and fingers resting on the bottle, and Elim takes those fingers to his mouth, bites one gently.
Julian's head tilts up to watch his knuckle suffer the gentle bite.
Garak pulls the blanket up a bit higher on them both and strokes a hand down Julian's chest and says nothing. The bottle sloshes as they make their way through it slowly, the parts of the chocolate that were not stuck permanently to the box are gone.
Elim is a comfortable lump beneath him, and he's been half hard for an hour or so now, his body and his mind yo-yoing between aroused and sleepy over and over. The light on the nightstand is the only thing keeping him from sinking down and surrendering again to sleep. The wine doesn't seem to change that but to make the slip between easier, dizzier.
Garak, far from perfectly content, absolutely roiling inside with heat and want in his belly, is doing everything he can to keep the appearance of calm satisfaction. His arousal isn't as obvious as Julian's rather amusing display beneath the thin blanket, bobbing like a puppet, but if Julian knew how the past few hours have whet his appetite for real sex, for the kind of deep ache he wants to knead into his new love, the way he wants to crush him in his arms, bite down and hold on, fill him up, if he had any idea of the slobbering beast clawing at Garak's insides right now, he'd probably put some clothes on, and a chastity belt. Garak smiles to himself, out of view of Julian's clever eyes. He can wait. He can wait. Julian isn't saying much, but his body language is promising enough. He is tense laying across his thigh and chest. He isn't letting the full weight of his head lay on Garak's breast and when he strokes his fingers over Julian's neck, as he does, seemingly idly, he can feel the tendons tighten. A few moments ago he was on the edge of sleep, and now he is strung taught as a violin. Garak wonders if Julian can just sense it coming from his own skin like a charge building or if he has his own charge warring against Garak's. Either way the anticipation slowly seeping into the room is enjoyable. He wonders how long he can maintain it, if it will last through the rest of the night or if it will find release before morning. He is also not sure which he would prefer. He'll let Julian decide, perhaps.

Garak stews on that for a time and then places the bottle back in front of Julian, tilting and lifting it to his lips. He glances up with a little smile and accepts a mouthful. Either way it goes more wine is better. He'll either lose the inhibition making him hesitate and drift away from him, or he'll fall asleep. Garak has another small bit of chocolate from the tip of his finger and thinks silently.

"Do you wish...that I was Jadzia?"

Julian is surprised to hear it, but he is so relaxed, his thoughts so far from that puzzle, it hardly bothers him whereas a few hours ago he would have been trembling at the thought of facing this right now. He is afraid a lie will escape his lips, or that anything he says will feel like a lie, be perceived as a lie. He isn't sure there is a right answer to this question until he turns his gaze away from Elim's icy blue eyes and thinks a moment. Right here, right now, he sees smooth scales the color of wet clay over a strong chest and arms. Those arms hold him in a warm fortress-like circle that he can not compare to anything he has ever felt before. No woman could make him feel like this, not any more. He can not even recall ever being held so closely by his father.

"No," he says softly, but emphatically.

"Why not? You love her," he says plainly and without accusation, and it's useless to deny it. "Do you want her?"

Julian smiles sleepily. "I wouldn't know what to do with her."

Garak thinks that probably isn't entirely true, but he also can't think of an answer Julian could have given that would have been better than that. Poetic little scamp. Garak snuffs a little laugh and kisses the top of his head. Wasn't exactly a fair question anyway.

Julian does start to melt eventually. He shifts once or twice, drapes a leg over Elim's, then later takes it back, turns slightly into the void of Elim's arm. He relaxes there, but doesn't sleep, just remains extremely still, and he sweats where his skin touches Elim. The silence is strange but appropriate somehow. The light still on from the bed-side table probably wouldn't keep them awake if they intended to sleep, and the wine wouldn't put them to sleep if they had designs for activity, so they remain in between for a long time. Julian shifts from time to time, even turns on his side at some point to put his head down on Elim's shoulder, half propped up, hand timidly brushing Elim's flank. Elim reaches over at a point when Julian had though he was asleep or just oblivious to his presence, and takes his fingers back. The heat rises in Julian then, wild fire across his skin, and with the combination of Elim's love of ambient heat and the wine, and just bottomless arousal, he is sweating all over again. The small movements of their breathing makes skin in places press and peel together and apart, tickling, irritating to Julian in an unsubstantial way. It was the sweat trickling down his back that was more annoying. He wants to move and wipe it away but he feels like he is squirming, wiggling around too much. Some other strange feeling, a mental itch, makes him want to move, to twist and disturb Elim. He is far too quiet and still beneath him now that he knows he is still awake. He kind of wants to get his attention in some way, though he's held back by the idea of that initiative backfiring on him. Elim has his fingers, and idly touches them, strokes his own over them, and they stutter and slick because every part of him now is sticky wet.
"It's amazing," Elim says out of nowhere, low and soft as the reading light, "How it just appears on your skin." Elim places the web of his thumb and forefinger down on Julian's inner elbow, commanding his arm as if he were a mannequin, and strigilates downward, pushing a thin film of moisture from his skin and hair. Julian watches as he takes his hand to his mouth then and licks the sweat away. "You taste like the ocean."

Julian half smiles. "Do you like the ocean?"

"I once lived by the ocean. On Cardassia." Elim turns under him then, leaving him to lay solely on the mattress and his wadded robe. He stretches out stealthily on his side and brings his mouth to Julian's neck and tastes. "You remind me of home." Elim keeps going, tasting his way down Julian's chest until he gets to a nipple and sucks gently. Julian's eyes slip closed and he drifts away as Elim's mouth finds new places to lick and suck and bite. Julian lets it all pass through him, absorbing the little pinch of teeth, the prickle of suction, and the cool rubbery lick all passively like a bystander to beauty.

"Are you alright?" Elim asks quietly after a time.

Julian looks into the sparkle that represents Elim's eyes in his dim, fuzzy vision and nods. "Yes."

"You haven't made a sound in twenty minutes."
"Oh," he whispers and smiles. "I'm sorry." Then reaches up to thumb a strand of his hair. "This is...." he begins, and Elim is silent, hanging, "...a unique experience." Elim doesn't say anything in reply, doesn't even stop holding his breath, and Julian realizes how that must have sounded and chuckles bashfully. "Sorry. I don't know what to say."

"Don't think about it so hard." He runs a hand up Julian's flank and keeps his nerves properly overloaded even as they talk. "I would simply like to know..." Elim says and kisses his shoulder, "If something feels good, or if something feels bad."

"None of it feels bad, Elim."

"Well then how about you tell me if something feels better or worse." Julian grins a little and Elim corrects himself. "How about more better or less better."

Julian laughs. "I'm afraid it goes against everything I know about you to use poor grammar in your presence."

Garak moves up closer to his face so they are nearly nose to nose and pauses, thinks. He is not going to be able to coax him out, so he will have to make a formal request it seems. "Love, earlier tonight, when you were afraid, so afraid you were shaking," he begins, and the mirth leaves Julian's face, "Do you remember how you felt then?"

Julian blinks several times, on the denial fence. "Yes."

"At that point, you were Outside. And do you remember how you felt a minute ago when you had your eyes closed?"

"Yes."

"You were Inside then. And do you remember when I bit you, and when we came together?"

Julian smirks a little. No, he forgot. "Yes." Elim's mouth turns up just a bit in response.

"Then, we were Inside Together. Each other. Do you understand? We joined like two links of a chain, part of me in you and part of you in me." It sounds a little fanciful but Julian thinks he knows what he's getting at. "That is where I want to be. We can't be like that every minute of every day, but trust me when I tell you, it's a wonderful place to be, for both of us. And we don't have to be in bed to be there. It's just that being in that place, whatever you want to call it, joined, interconnected-"

"Symbiotic?" Julian suggests and Elim stops and then nods.

"If you want to get the most out of this, that is where you will reap the greatest rewards."

Julian looks into his steady blue eyes and nods slowly. Elim kisses his chest again. "So now, will you tell me what you like and what you don't?"

"Ok."

Garak starts with the nipple since he's already there, and gives it a gentle bite. He looks up at Julian who can only grin shyly. "Good or bad?"

"Good," he intimates.

Then onto his ribs for three wet mouthfuls capped with a pinching bite at the end of each. Julian lets out a held breath when he stops and looks at him again. "Good?"

"Yes," he breathes.

Onward. Garak takes this further than the teasing nips and squeezes of earlier in the night. He worries he may be rushing this, but he's doing well, and he just tastes so good. He isn't certain he can resist. He slides his hands under the rounds of his bottom and holds onto him there for a while, kneading and squeezing as he digs teeth into his shoulder from neck to arm, scraping them across his wet skin, then down to the other nipple that he tongues and bites at the same time, down further still across ribs to his hip bone which he gnaws on a little, making him squirm. He digs his fingertips into unresisting muscle and looks up at him again. He is panting and running feeble fingers through Garak's hair. "Good?"

Julian nods with a slack face.

But once again he slips away. Garak feels it as he goes beyond relaxed to limp in his arms, and biting him in some tender place does not bring him back. "Julian," he sing-songs his name and he wakes from his half-trance one-eyed with a little smile. He hums a note of amusement. "You have an extraordinary ability to retreat within your mind, my love, but you don't need to go away. I'm not torturing you, am I?"

"No."

"Then why leave your body behind while I am worshiping it, hm?"

Julian grins. "It's two AM."

"Oh, well, don't let me keep you awake. I'll just-" Elim turns over away from him and begins to settle himself under the covers.

"No! I'm awake! I'm awake!" Julian tries to pull him back around by his shoulder.

Garak lets him for the most part. "Are you really tired? We can go to sleep if you want."

"No. I'm not tired."

"You look tired."

"I'm not. I was enjoying what we were doing. It was relaxing, sort of."

"I think you're tired."

Julian sighs and falls back to the sheets, defeated. Elim rolls over and runs a thumb over a tender nipple and watches as Julian's cock jumps up from his belly. Julian laughs as Elim's brow goes up in response. "See, I'm only tired from the neck up."

"All right," he says and decides to humor him for a while longer, at least until he falls asleep. He continues where he left off, at Julian's hips, licking at the ultra soft joint of leg and torso while Julian squirms in his grip and his teeth chatter from the exertion of restraining his reflexes. He tries not to ball up around Garak as he touches and bites him there and Garak is extremely happy to have found such a sensitive spot. He keeps Julian pinned fairly well and Julian, to his credit, is doing his best not to wriggle away too. Between the two of them he is able to spend a good ten minutes on each side of his groin, licking, tasting, teasing, right on that line, the hollow of his hip, and Julian just shakes and pants and moans and grapples with himself and Garak's hands. When he finally leaves that spot Julian gulps at the air. Garak takes this opportunity to lift his legs up and lodge a doubled pillow under his hips. He rolls him over to one side.

Julian isn't sure what is going on. He is still trying to catch his breath but he can see and feel Elim slink down on the bed to the lower half. His hands are there on his rear end again, nothing new now, and Julian is beginning to think he rather likes that part of him. That opinion shifts to the left however when he feels Elim's breath on him.

Oh my God.

His thumbs pull him apart and the empty air there is a strange sensation, second only to the sensation of Elim's tongue. Julian hears himself whimper as he stamps down the impulse to flee, and then groan. That tongue which can do so much damage to his composition, can reduce him to a panting wreck when applied to his cock, a willing and hungry participant with his mouth, seems to have just as much impact here. It's slick and strange and Julian closes his eyes hard against it. For a moment it's just too weird. Wriggling and wet, and he can't accept it, likes it, loves it, no no no, yes. He didn't even consider this in his predictions for this evening, or any evening. The very idea is scary in a tantalizing way, but it's no longer just an idea. Elim punctuates that by licking a thick stripe from balls to tailbone and then back, and then digs in with a pointed tongue. Julian shivers, then moans again, and is all at once embarrassed by what he doesn't know for sure is going on down there. There are lots of nerves telling him he is being lavished with delicate attention, but he has no idea what his body is doing in response. All he can do is shut his eyes tight and wait for it to end - then mourn it when it does.

Elim is smiling evilly as he yanks the pillow out from under him, brings his legs back down to either side of his own. Julian wonders if he is going to kiss him now. That worry is probably written on his face.

He does. Elim wipes his face on his robe and than lays down on top of him again. Julian is wide eyed as Elim kisses him, gently licks his lips. Nothing. He just tastes like Elim, nothing more, and Julian tries to relax again. Elim's smile widens and then he laughs. "It's all in your head," he says. Julian wonders if he means this entire experience or just the part where he was licking his ass. He isn't that imaginative. "How do you feel?"

Julian's head sort of lolls a little, and he smiles. "Good."

"Good. Then I'll keep going shall I?" he says with a smile and slinks down again. Julian swallows.

He flips him over onto his stomach and runs his hands up and down his back and legs, then scratches gently from shoulders to feet, leaving pink lines in sets of four down each side. Julian moans delightfully each time until his back is full of red stripes. Not the shiny welts he looks forward to seeing, but nice just the same. Then Garak starts to bite again. His jaw is getting tired but the sounds he makes with each bite makes it worth it. He chomps down on the skin under his shoulder blade a few times where it is easier to get a mouthful on such a thin man, and listens to his voice stutter and start. He stops periodically and asks him, "Good?" Each time he does, the lapse between question and answer grows, and when he does say yes, his voice is more and more broken with strain. Garak is having a hard time convincing himself not to try to fuck him, he sounds so good, looks so good.

Finally though, Julian is silently biting the pillow in his grip and his back and ass is covered with round bite marks, and when he asks Julian if it still feels good, he doesn't reply.

Garak crawls up to lay next to him again. He pulls the covers up, first the twisted sheet, then the light blanket, and shuts out the light. It is difficult to pry him from his pillow, to pull his stiffened body to him and roll him over. Eventually though, with enough gentle tugging, Julian acquiesces and curls up into his arms. He's shivering again and Garak smiles and strokes his hair. He's abominably horny still but so tired it's not going to keep him awake any longer than he needs to be awake. And he only needs to be awake as long as Julian is.

"Why did you stop?" he murmurs from the cavern of Garak's arms.

"Because you've had enough. And so have I," he says through a short chuckle and a long yawn.

Julian wishes as the night wanes and the morning waxes, that there was a dawn on the station, and that they might soon hear birds waking as the sky would go from twinkling blackness to stark and depthless blue, their activity increasing just outside the window, flinging little seeds from the feeder at the window. He smiles, remembering the sound from some time long ago. He easily imagines it outside the window now as the prelude to a dream, that even as the birds begin their day, they would stay where they were, defiant of the morning.

Julian drifts off quickly, and so does Garak, though they both wake repeatedly during the night. Garak isn't used to having someone in his bed, and though his mind never completely forgets he is there, he remains still enough that Garak can sleep for a while, thinly. Every time Julian moves, that slobbering monster in him claws him awake, picks up his head and pries his eyelids open. His body betrays his tired mind, finds this delicious thing beneath his arm and has to touch him and marvel again, has to kiss him and feel the heat rush through him. And it only takes the stroke of his hand down Julian's flank or a kiss to one of the fading crescent marks on his neck to wake him, though he tries to keep himself from doing it, tries to let him sleep too. But inevitably, he catches Garak's eyes open in the darkness, and then his lips. Then they're rutting against each other again, straining and working so hard for it. Julian comes again with difficulty, exhaustion in his eyes and cracked voice. Garak appreciates it so much though, the fact that he doesn't just go back to sleep when he can feel Garak wanting. He kisses his lips softly and gets him some more water.

It is six in the morning before they know it and they're lazily touching and rubbing against each other between nods. They've only slept in snatches, but morning has a way of keeping you up once you're up, no matter how little sleep you got, nor how you spent the night before.

Nature coaxes them both out of bed eventually, wearily. Julian regrets the wine a little. They didn't finish the bottle and they weren't drunk by any means, but it left a strange funk in his mouth. Julian shuffles to the computer, checks his messages, stares a moment out the starlit window, and by the time he comes back, Elim has taken a quick shower and is setting out a towel and toothbrush for Julian. He smiles groggily and gets in the shower himself, and Elim, once again ahead of the game somehow despite no sleep, has breakfast on a tray on the bed, and the bed covered in fresh sheets by the time he gets out.

Julian smiles, drops his towel, and crawls back under the covers, skin still damp and hair still dripping. Elim lifts the tray to let him in and offers himself as a pillow again. Julian's gut warms and tightens as he snugs himself under his arm. Elim feeds him waffles with strawberries between bites of his own breakfast, something Julian can't identify. Julian is absently glad that he didn't get warm fish juice for breakfast, considering the mildly unsettling effect that both it and wine have on his stomach. The combination could have resulted in some discomfort, he thinks, and from that thought jumps to the realization that they haven't said a word to each other yet this morning.

Might as well. "You're really warm," he sighs and turns a little to press a bit more of himself against Elim. Elim holds the tray steady.

"Hot shower."
"But you're still really warm. Really warm."

"Really hot shower. Fifty degrees, sometimes hotter."

"Fifty!?"

Elim feeds him a strawberry and does not defend.

"You seriously like them that hot? That would boil me. And you showered a while ago. You feel like you're still about forty degrees or so." He pats at his chest to gauge his temperature.

"We reptiles are very economical with our heat. Though..." he trails off in thought for a moment, chewing a bite of his mysterious breakfast. "That said, I don't know why more Cardassians don't seek out warm-blooded lovers." Julian smiles. "So many warm Bajorans, Vulcans, Klingons, and Humans out there. Exothermic people really are a minority, it's not like you hot people are hard to come by. And you're just so....warm," he purrs, and kiss-licks his neck. "And...absolutely delectable. And this." Elim slides a hand under the blanket and strokes it over Julian's semi-soft prick. "I can touch you right now. It won't take weeks to build up enough trust to stamp down the physical reflex to retract. I can show you right now that I want you to feel good, and take nothing for myself besides the pleasure of seeing you under my hands," he murmurs into Julian's hair. Julian is hard before he finishes his sentence and is interfering with their breakfast tray. He leans back sleepy-eyed and offers his face to him without hesitation, the shyness of hours ago vanquished by familiarity. They kiss, and Julian grins and recognises Elim's breakfast as breaded mushrooms with hints of something tangy in it he still can't name.

Though the natural rhythms of habit may keep even the physically exhausted awake, there is little that impractical insomnia can do to defend itself against waffles, milk, and a comfortable bed. Julian sinks slowly against Garak, eventually turning and laying cheek against Garak's chest. Similarly, sleep needs no more allies than breaded mushrooms, scallions, and pickled liver for Garak, and as the silence in the room grows thickened by Julian drifting off, Garak tries to move as little as possible and puts the tray on the floor, covers them up, and closes his eyes.

~*~

Julian dreams fitful and calm, rotating images and feelings, sweat in snatches, cycled with a repeating swirl of glittering dust on the closed top of a black piano. When he wakes he has to stop and think a moment. At first he isn't sure what day it is. All the days and hours up to now have run together in his sleep, and he isn't sure if he is on duty now, tomorrow, or the next day at first.
Julian rubs his eyes and looks at him. He knows he is going to see him there before he opens his eyes, and isn't surprised at all to see him asleep. He is so still, Julian wonders how he could feel him there at all, in his sleep, but he did. He knew he was there the whole time, and he can tell by the position of the stars out the window that he has been asleep for hours. It's the look on his face that is more surprising to Julian. Eyes lightly shut, almost posed there with a hand lightly curled beneath his jaw.
He feels absorbed by him, magnetized, hazily. He isn't sure he could look at him now and not be sucked in. Maybe it was foolish to think that he could. You can't ignore a hurt like that. If Elim changes his mind, Julian isn't going to be able to just smile and let it drop. Not now. He feels like an idiot for thinking it was even possible, that he wouldn't get this attached - and it happened so quickly. This went from an improbable fantasy to a very real, very life-changing endeavor in one night. No, not one night because he's felt like this for close to a month now. That night that Elim came over for dinner, it lit him up and he's been burning crazily like this ever since. It went from dream to reality so fast, and now he's afraid to let it go. Afraid he will have to. But he will have to. Eventually.
Elim sighs, stretches in place just a little. "You think very loudly, you know." he mutters, never opening his eyes. "No sense worrying about it now." It's a surprise to hear his voice, but a welcome one, a relief from his own thoughts. Julian remains silent a moment, not sure if he wants to smile or frown, worry anyway or just give in.
"Did I wake you with my thinking?" he asks when he
"Yes," Garak says with the hint of a sleepy smile.
"Should I let sleeping Cardassians lie?" Julian asks with his own hint in his voice.
The smile on Garak's face broadens and warms a degree. "Once in a while."
"I suppose it is simply in your nature."
"Is that all I am? An instrument of nature?"
"When did you really wake up?"
"I believe...only a moment after you."
"After me. How do you know then? How do you know I ever slept at all? That I haven't been watching you all day?"
"Because I woke up about an hour ago as well and you were drooling on me."
A little laugh escapes Julian's lips but he ties it back down because an apology loses something when said through a laugh. "I'm sorry." Elim leans forward and gives forgiveness to Julian's lips. "What time is it?"
Elim twists a little to look at the clock. "About sixteen hundred."
Julian groans. "We slept the day away." His heart clenches at the thought, and a surge of desperation tightens his shoulders, then slowly drains away again, mostly. He keeps thinking this is going to end at some point. He felt last night that that was the end, like some holosuite game. You reach the end of the day, the end of your reserved time, and that's the end of the game whether you've achieved your objectives or not. Then Elim gave him an extension, invited him to stay and play a little longer. He isn't sure though how long his welcome really is, and his imagination is supplying him with the idea that once he's out of that door the game will reset, the fantasy over. He knows it isn't true - doesn't think it's true, but the fear is realer than logic right now while he's still sleepy.
"What's wrong?"
Julian snaps out of it and rubs his face. "Nothing. Um."
"I thought we agreed you wouldn't worry about it."
"What?"
"Whatever you're stewing about, there is no sense in it."
"Oh. No, I'm...just thinking that I should probably go and get some work done."
"My dear, correct me if I'm wrong but don't you have today and tomorrow off?"
"Yes."
Garak doesn't say anything at first, just lets the natural conclusion hang unspoken in the air. "You don't have to stay if you'd rather not," he says softly from the pillow. "I just thought it would be nice to spend a couple of days away from the rest of the world. Face it later when we have to, and not a moment sooner. Sounded like a good idea to me anyway."
Julian smiles a little. He can certainly understand the sentiment. It was exactly what he wanted as well, this perfect lazy morning-cum-afternoon stretched out indefinitely, but he thought he was being responsible and prudent trying to end it himself rather than wearing out his welcome or assuming too much. But what would he assume?
"When I said you're welcome to stay, I meant you're welcome to stay whenever you want."
He didn't want to assume that there was a commitment here. Then he realizes, and he can feel it expressed on his face, that it has already been implied. Now that sleep is retreating it starts to make a little more sense. They're middle-aged men, not academy kids. Middle-aged men don't have one night stands with their friends, put a notch in their belts and move on to the next or pretend it didn't happen. They've already had this discussion. Love. That's what they said, both of them. It wasn't one sided, but somehow the insecurity rises anyway. And now Julian feels guilty because he promised he wouldn't change his mind.
"Julian, are you alright?" Elim's face has knitted with concern in a way he's seldom seen. Elim doesn't show his feelings on his face.
Julian laughs nervously. "I think I just had a mini-panic."
"Oh?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"I don't know," he chuckles.
"Second thoughts?"
Julian concentrates hard and tries to hammer the feeling into words. "No, just, I don't know."
Elim seems to sink into his own thoughts for a time before he speaks again. "Just because last night is over and done with doesn't mean that we're supposed to be over the hard part. I'm still scared out of my mind, I don't know about you, and I think I'm going to be for some time yet. If you are too, well, then I feel a little better."
Julian half-smirks. "When did you start reading my mind?"
"I've been taking supplements to improve my eyesight. I can see straight through your skull right now."
Captain Boday flashes a wide-mouthed grin at Julian from inside that skull, though he doesn't think Elim catches it, and he tries to shake it off.
"Well, rather than lying here being terrified of each other, why don't we go do something?" Elim says and takes his fingers between his own. His touch, even just this familiar little caress is intoxicating and he feels himself smile stupidly. Another hand comes up and rakes gently through his hair, down and around the back of his neck. He can't hold his eyes open against that. He hears Elim hum warm amusement. "Or we could stay here."
Julian can't resist any more and scoots closer to him. His hands invite him in and he forgets that just a moment ago was worried he had overstayed, forgets that he foresaw some imminent end to this, because it is suddenly warm and new all over again. Elim's skin is cool except for a place here and there where he was touching Julian while they slept, but his mouth is warm inside, and he tastes fresh and mild.
Kisses pass left and right between them, over their faces, but it is hard to kiss and smile at the same time. Julian's grin prevents it eventually and he stops and wipes his wet mouth. Elim pecks at his neck.
"I think," he starts and waits for Elim's attention, "That it's my turn now."
"Oh?" Elim replies with no small surprise in his voice.
"Yes." Julian hoists himself up and over Garak, turning him slightly by suggestion and straddling his legs with hips cocked forward. He runs his hands up Garak's chest, but Garak hardly notices that. Rather he gets what feels like a strange smirk on his face as Julian's balls drop between his legs and rest just there. Julian chuckles a little but seems to have no intention of moving them. If Garak wasn't such a gentleman, he could make Julian very uncomfortable right now if he wished. But, that is two if's in one thought, which tells him he should probably reserve such a thing for later when he has more positive information. There is just so much ahead of them, it feels like being young again.
Julian lays down on top of him, knees up by Elim's hips to keep some of the weight off of him, and starts kissing his way over his jaw, down his neck. Elim sighs and strokes two lazy hands down Julian's back.
"What does this feel like?" Elim opens his eyes again to gauge the intent of the question. Julian is lightly rubbing the flat middle of a large scale on Elim's chest.
"Like I have seventy kilograms of warm human pinning me down."
"No, this. Does that feel like anything?"
"I can feel it. But the scales don't have any feeling themselves. I can feel with the skin beneath them though. Just like you can feel something beneath your fingernails."
"What about this?" Julian runs his finger tip up and down a tiny strip of flesh peeking between the scales.
"I can feel that."
"Better than the scales?"
"Loud and clear."
"Interesting. Does this..." he strokes that little patch again, "...feel the same as this?" Then he touches Elim's ear in the same way.
"Not exactly."
"What about this?" He runs the side of his thumb around the edge of his forehead rebec with one hand and another little stripe of pale skin on his abdomen with the other, lifting the bottom of the scale ever so slightly with just the pressure and pull of his fingertip. Garak can feel the skin slip minutely over his rib, and the stiff scale remain rigid and pull away from the skin. Immaterial, a natural function of his skin, but delightful to imagine in Julian's hands. He doesn't even have to see it to appreciate it, and the shrill singing of his skin on his face gets transported to that innocuous spot on his ribs where Julian is stroking him. He smiles a little and closes his eyes.
"Or...here?" Julian skims the palm of his hand down Garak's left arm, then slows and runs delicate fingers over his inner elbow, and at the same time dips down to put his mouth to his chest. He licks at his collarbone, then as he trails his fingers lower, his mouth tastes down his sternum to the shape on his chest. Garak moans softly, a hum of appreciation as Julian's tongue makes its way around the shape over and over, and his fingers tickle at his wrist. Into the dip goes that hot wet muscle and Garak finds himself with his back arched, hips cocked up to press against Julian, and his breathing hissing through his teeth. Julian sits back up and grins while Garak looks back at him with accusation in his eyes.
"Do you have some nefarious plan I should be aware of?" he asks him.
"No, none you should be aware of."
"Then why are you trying to create associations my dear? I can think of no innocent reason for you to want me to writhe in pleasure with a touch to my hand."
Julian sighs and rolls his eyes. "Can't you just enjoy it without questioning my motives and analysing it to death?"
Garak puts up his hands and smiles. Julian leans back over and kisses him, moves down his chin, jaw, then neck, and as he mouths over that strange web of thick skin and scale, licking stripes across the sensitive membranes between the scales, he digs his thumb into Garak's hip. Garak growls and curls up like an armored beast, lifting Julian up with him, folding him awkwardly. Julian holds on and wraps his arms around him, feels the flat back of his neck and the strange transition from scales to hair.
It's exhilarating to be so casually manipulated, strange and lovely to feel powerless, but this isn't what he wants. He wanted to ply him with attention and make him as weak as he makes Julian with his touch. He's being so easily defeated though. Elim's mouth on his again, he just takes over. Kiss so hot and heady, the brush of his hard nose against Julian's soft, the same at his chin. Elim's body is hard against him, startlingly strong, but Julian can regain his head. He enjoys it a moment longer as Elim bends him back until his spine hurts, but then twists. He is lithe enough to escape his grasp, and Elim doesn't yet trust his hands on him, Julian knows, can feel the hesitation in them. He lets go before allowing Julian to hurt himself twisting in his grip.
Garak lets go, accepting Julian's initiative, reining himself in again to see where it goes, as long as it isn't too far away. Which it isn't. Julian pushes him back down to the mattress as much as he can. Garak props himself up with stiff arms behind him and watches as Julian kisses and tastes down his abdomen. The human cock is purple now, not just hard. Garak takes that to mean he is pushing the right buttons still. He's being brave again, and moves in over Garak's hips, hesitates only a moment and then pushes his legs apart and puts his mouth down. He just kisses, and smells. Garak can feel his breath on him there where the scales are small, dark, and fine.
Julian pauses and looks up at him. "Is this alright?"
"Do with me as you please my dear."
"Until you tell me I can't," he jabs playfully.
"Am I going to need a safe word?"
"Maybe. Now is your chance."
"No, I think I can trust you to know when to stop." Julian hesitates again on that note and grins.
He smells...Julian wants to put a word to it in his head because words define things, make them real. He could call it musky, that's what men are supposed to smell like, salty and smoky, a stronger version of Elim's usual scent, but that wouldn't really do it. He almost smells...dry. He isn't. That slick moisture evident in the slit, but it is a dry smell in the way that vodka is dry. Liquid, room temperature, but to all your other senses, hot, dry, dizzying, intoxicating. He was afraid of what Elim would taste and smell like. Most mammals are highly influenced by those senses, and Julian no more than most, he supposes, but he was afraid he wouldn't like it, because he wants to. He was petrified that he would be strange and wouldn't like the way girls taste, and didn't really at first, until the first time he fell in love and it didn't matter what his senses told him. Didn't matter what she wore or if she caught a cold and her voice turned raspy when she laughed, because he just wanted to make her feel good. He was worried about this with Elim too. He should be more worried he supposes. While countless men have learned and love the flavor of a woman, it's possible he is the first human to have this experience with a Cardassian. Untested. And perhaps if he wasn't in love, Elim wouldn't smell good to him, or, the other way around. Hardly matters. Julian just wants to make him feel good.
Of course the reptilian bastard isn't going to make it easy. Julian glides a thumb up the wet slit, watching Elim's eyes staring back at him. He has to glance down though, see what causes the incongruity between imagination and the tangible surface beneath his hand. It's nothing like a woman. It's tough rather than fleshy, like the rest of him. Close in thickness to the cords of his neck, but covered in thin skin like a cloth of glass beads. He places the palm of his hand gently, cautiously over it, a little pressure just to test, to see what he does. Elim only smiles a little, face changing by minute degrees as he looks him in the eyes unblinking, innocent enough, though Julian knows he conceals a lot more anxious want than he shows. Julian bends down and kisses him where his belly wrinkles a little in the inside curve of his torso, then down, and down again. His pulse races as his open mouth finds matching warmth and wetness. He closes his eyes. Flavorless like vodka too, for the most part, but the scent in his nose is thick and male. A raspy moan almost too small to hear escapes his throat. Elim does the same and he wants to rejoice in success. Those cords are tight, tough. With a glance up at Elim's face, eyes shut, face skyward, he pushes and just barely gets the tip of his tongue between them. The cords feel like two fingers, with a little more give, the outside textured finely with the smallest hard round scales, and inside, silken skin tight and warm. Elim hums appreciatively. Julian laps at him then, flat tongue moving slow up and over to let Elim feel the heat of it, as long as he can make it, and Elim grins at him and his hips pivot a little. Julian returns the smile halfway and then lifts up, crawls up Elim to burden his arms again with both their weight, kiss him hard and press his cock against the wetness he left there, grind, hard into him and whimper into his mouth when the heat rushes over him. "I want you," he says just above a whisper.
Garak sighs harshly. "Julian," he breathes.
"Please."
Garak chuckles light and high. "Julian how do you expect me to resist that?"
A smile spreads across his face like butter. "I don't."
Garak lifts him up again, with no help from his hands and Julian is shocked again at how strong he is as compared with how gentile he can be. He supports Julian's back and lays him down so they are the wrong way on the bed. He digs into Julian's neck, then, taking big juicy bites that make him a little helpless. He will never tire of that unpredictable mouth.
Garak is never going to get tired of his skin. He's been devouring him for nearly a full day straight now and he is still not satisfied. He kisses and nips at his face and jaw and slides down to lie between Julian's legs and notch his hips against his, thread his hands under Julian's shoulders and brace him down. "Anything you want I will do."
Julian moans a little and scratches nails down Elim's back. He wants. He wants a lot. What, specifically, he isn't sure. He could name a few possibilities but he doesn't want to fill in a blank check like that with just anything. Most of the possibilities seem a little scary.
"What do you want me to do?"
Julian grins. "I don't know."
Garak's cock emerges and slides up wetly in the small space between them. Julian groans, his eyes flutter shut, and he writhes a little in Elim's grasp. "Well, I'd say you wanted that. What else?"
Julian is trying to rock his hips and get some of that delicious smooth cock against his own, heedless of sensitivity in a brief, uncontrolled fugue, and Garak has to lift up off of him until he settles down. Julian whines and tries to tempt him back down with kisses and tongue. "Alright, alright," he coos to him as if giving in, promising to give in. He sits back on his heels and has to push Julian down in the middle of his chest to keep him there. "I think it's time."
"Time for what?" he asks, propped up on his elbows. His mind whispers the answer to him and goes numb with disbelief, taking half of his body with it. Elim doesn't reply except to turn and stretch his long beautiful body, twist around and reach into the nightstand drawer. He pulls out a small bottle, the sight of which makes Julian's ears burn, then squeezes out a little clear gel onto his fingers and turns his gaze to Julian's eyes.
Julian becomes very still, then swallows. Garak looks at him with a hint of questioning in hie eyes, though not much, more sort of patient appraisal. He is waiting for some signal from Julian indicating that he understands an accepts, but he may not wait for long, may proceed even if Julian makes no signal to that effect.
No response comes. He just lays there mutely as if he thinks if he stays still enough, Garak won't be able to see him.
The pause is over though, and Garak takes Julian's right leg and puts it over his shoulder, then the same with the other. His fingers coated in cold gel, he smooths it over Julian eliciting a sharp gasp from him that jump-starts his breathing. He rubs it between his cheeks gently. "Shh. Just relax. You're a doctor, you know how this goes."
Julian swallows hard, trying not to hyperventilate. "What? Doctors never do digital rectal exams anymore, Elim. What century do you live in? They're completely unnecessary in almost any circumstance. Plus they're just traumatic," he says with his voice flying just a little higher than normal, then swallows hard again and continues his harsh breathing where he left off.
"Oh I don't know about that," Elim says, and with that, stiffens one finger and pushes.
Julian gasps, then gasps some more even before letting out the first one, stiffens through his whole body and shuts his eyes tight. He just sits there a moment, then the fingers of Elim's other hand smooths Julian's chest, then down one arm, and takes a hand that he had curled into a fist. Julian hears a soft chuckle come from him.
"Julian, relax."
He lets out the gasps finally and replaces them. "Uh huh," he squeaks.
He chuckles again and then moves. A little deeper, and Julian is flinching, all of his muscles trying to leap away all at once, though he manages to catch them for now. Then he can feel Elim's other fingers pressed against his rear end. He knows that's as far as it goes and cautiously lets out another long loud breath.
"Good boy," Garak coos, pauses, twists, and pulls back. Julian makes a shaky noise, a whimper through pressed lips and tries to keep breathing. It doesn't hurt badly, strange and sensitive, yes, and tender. It just feels...highly unconventional.
Garak gives him a moment with just one knuckle intruding, then pushes back into that ultra soft heat and Julian starts panting in a way that makes Garak's cock throb inside and ache to come out again.
A few more slow and gentile strokes and Julian is shaking but no longer panicky. It does hurt now, just a little too sensitive for rough fingers, but it isn't hell, yet. He recognises though that it is likely to get sore quickly from here on. He wonders if this is what it always feels like, and if so, if he is going to be able to do it, to get used to it. That is the overriding fear.
Garak takes a wet thumb and starts to prod and massage in that area. Rubs up and down, above and below. Julian actually seems to enjoy that. Has probably done this much himself. He hums a little as he rubs his perineum. He tries to gently introduce him to the idea of pressure here, and moves his finger in tiny circles to enhance the illusion. Julian doesn't seem to mind at all though his eyes are closed and he isn't making a sound. Garak removes his middle finger, gets some more gel, and places two fingers there, and then in.
Julian knows what is happening and tenses all over, but for some reason two is no worse than the one. It hurts a little though he has always wondered why it should. Why should a finger which is typically smaller than what normally passes through there, cause so much discomfort? Even two shouldn't be a stretch, but it feels like one. Elim pushes them in slowly, so slowly, and Julian breathes deeply, in through his nose, out through his mouth. It's amazing how much he can feel of it, but he can distinguish each knuckle, each wrinkle of skin, and is suddenly very aware of his vulnerability, how exposed he is lying like this. Elim's face is natural and open, there is no enjoyment or admonishment in his eyes, only careful observation, as if he were playing Julian like an instrument. Then Elim strokes soothingly down his stomach once and twists the other hand again to turn his palm upward. A funny startled noise escapes Julian's throat. Then another strange feeling that Julian eventually realizes is Elim's fingers separating within him a few times. There is a stretch that isn't altogether unpleasant though it is very, very strange, and the movement inside his body is unsettling, like a living thinking thing invading him, unconventional in the same way that everything right now feels from head to toe. Elim pushes a little more. There is no more room, but he pushes and Julian tries to just remain lax and let him push because it hurts the most when he clenches. He understands that, but his body doesn't always listen to his head, and suddenly he can't help it and he yelps and bucks as Elim's fingers find his prostate and rub. Julian gulps at the air sharply, then lets it out in a garbled moan as Elim pulls out of him completely. Julian shudders from the very middle of his body outward. It felt good, odd, hot, but it was just so strong. He glares up at Elim when he sees a tiny smirk on his face betraying his satisfaction. Julian puts his legs down and grasps his cock which is hard purple and hurting.
He catches his breath and watches as Elim puts more gel on his hand. Then Elim sits there, again with the questioning in his eyes, but his cock is out and waiting, bobbing this time. Julian hadn't noticed before but it has a slight upward curl to it. "Ready?" he asks this time, and begins to lift Julian's legs again.
"Um," he says and swallows. "Um. Are you sure. I mean, that I'm..."
Elim looks him in the eyes plainly, no humour, no malice. "You're as ready as you will ever be, Love." Julian says nothing, and he feels his hand spread more lubricant on him, shivers at the feel of a finger slip inside him once more, easily this time, a little burn, then pull on him. His ears are burning again too. The whole room is on fire, but silent, absolutely nothing to distract from the interaction in the inches between them. Then his cock is there, rubbing through the wetness from the lube and Elim's own natural contribution. Julian watches as his body rocks rhythmically over him, feels the charge in the room, tries to just breathe and stay calm, or at least appear calm. Elim stops and leans in, forward, and down. It folds Julian in half, but he gets a long sweet kiss out of it. Elim maneuvers a hand up over Julian's knees and strokes through his hair. "This is going to hurt," he whispers against Julian's lips.
Julian lets out an unsteady breath. "I thought you wanted it to hurt."
"No. Not this. Not the first time. It's almost inevitable that it will, but it isn't my intention. If the first time I kissed you I bit you till you bled would you let me kiss you again?"
"The first time?" Julian says breathily, trembling. "I kissed you," he corrects, and Elim smiles.
"Regardless. I'm not going to hurt you any more than I must right now. I want you to know that." Elim is nose to nose with him again, he nuzzles up one cheek and then and speaks softly to his left ear. "Just. Tell me if you need to stop. I already know how brave you are. You don't need to prove it to me with this. It's going to hurt but it gets better. I promise." Then Elim kisses him deeply again, slow and languorous, and his other hand moves down. Julian feels it, and almost doesn't believe it will happen, doesn't seem possible at all, this arrangement of tangled limbs, the idea of anything being inside of him except he himself, but then there is pressure, and he can feel Elim's fingers guiding it, concentrating it until it blossoms into a sharp sequence of sensation like freezing cold that swings to burning hot in the space of a second, followed by pain so intense and centered within his core it is utterly humbling and immovable.
Julian is gasping again, breathing heavily as Garak tries to divert his attention to his mouth. It doesn't work at all, and Julian turns his head to breathe through bared clenched teeth. Garak can't really even feel him around his cock yet. He has to be viciously tight and hot, but he isn't going to get to enjoy it right now. Sometimes you have to sacrifice a little pleasure now to reap greater pleasure later. Julian keeps breathing like that, hyperventilating, but it doesn't appear to be enough. He soon starts trying to hold his breath, and veins pop out in his neck. When he releases the breath next it is with a painful keening sound that, under different circumstances, would be music to Garak's ears. Right now though, he isn't able to take pleasure from it. Not while Julian is so far away from him.
"Julian," he says softly and kisses his neck. "Relax, Love. It goes away if you relax."
Julian knows that, any doctor knows that, but somehow it's infuriating to be reminded of it now when it is so much more easily said than done. Anger doesn't hold up any better than logic, though. The pain is too much and he feels too helpless, pinned down and wounded, to be angry.
"Can't," is all he can grate out. He hears himself making this stuttering noises, his breath stopping in his lungs on the way in and out that sounds like sobbing, but he isn't. He just can't remember the last time he felt pain like this and he feels so pathetic for not being able to stop it. He knows how to handle pain, but this is different somehow. He wants to do this for Elim. He has wanted to from the beginning, knew it was going to happen, but he never really tried to prepare himself. He knew how, but he just wasn't brave enough to try. Elim is a fool if he thinks he's brave, unless this just isn't normal. He doesn't know, and he feels even more pathetic for not knowing. "Is it supposed to hurt this much?" he finally gets out, voice shaky and insincere, almost breaking down, and then holds his breath again.
Garak remembers the first time. It hurts. There is nothing that can prepare you for it besides doing it. And doing it yourself, it still hurts. The pain, the fear, the fear of the pain is so much harder by yourself. It's difficult to be the cause of it for Julian, but he is glad he can help him with it, even if it means a little bit longer wait until they can just enjoy it. Garak runs fingers through his hair once more and then slides deeper into him.
Julian yelps and his body spasms in fear, though it doesn't hurt any more than it did a moment ago. Just the movement, the change in pressure is unsettling, and the feeling that the pain is never going to end seems more concrete the deeper he goes.
"Love," Elim says from just a few inches above him. He can feel his breath on him though his eyes are shut tight. "There are things you can feel within Us. Things that go beyond the boundary of you or me, to reach where we become Us. Inside Us. It's not always easy to get there, Julian, but if you trust, and let the things you feel Outside to come in, and then come in to Us, you will see them for what they really are. You will see that the things you feel come from within you and nowhere else, and that you can make them be anything you want."
Julian is listening, but what he is saying isn't making much sense. He still doesn't know if he was expecting Julian to be in this much pain and his body keeps screaming at him that this is dangerous, that he is being harmed and yet Elim doesn't seem to notice.
He is frustrated and hurting, and he can't get past it at this point, it is clear. Garak doesn't want to hurt him like this any more, though it has only been a moment. Julian is in a kind of lonely agony that Garak can appreciate. He has been there himself and he knows how desperate it feels. Garak clenches his own teeth and withdraws slowly. That sweet drag on his cock, the low pressure and heat inside his body, the unbelievable grip around the head, it's just so hard to let go of him when he knows if he could steer Julian's brain off course just a degree, he would be ok, and this would be a beautiful evening. But he can't, so he does, pulls away and squeezes his own cock head once it is free to ground himself. There is a trace of blood on his hand. Garak lets Julian's legs down gently and listens as he starts breathing again in arrhythmic bursts. He lays down next to him and runs the back of his hand down his chest.
Julian can't believe how much it hurts, even now minutes after it is gone. He expected the pain to melt away after, but it didn't, it feels like he is still there. Julian imagines that this is probably a bit what it feels like to be stabbed, and squeezes his eyes tight again. Elim is stroking his hair and neck as he pants and the pain does start to ebb away finally, such that he can release the pressure in his jaw at least. In a moment or two though, Elim gets up, goes to the bathroom and returns with something in his hand. Julian knows what it is at first glance and whimpers into the mattress with the remnants of the pain and a mortified sorrow in his voice. Even his throat is starting to hurt now. He didn't want this. He wanted this to be perfect.
Elim lays down again and with a murmur and a pat to his hip, urges Julian to roll over. He does, and frowns hard into a wrinkle of the blanket, biting back disappointed and embarrassed tears. Elim spreads him apart, and it's done in a moment, the minuscule tear healed by the beam of the dermal regenerator, but Julian doesn't move, doesn't pick up his head, doesn't say a word.
Garak puts the regenerator away, turns the lights down and comes back to bed. He pulls the extra blanket off the foot of the bed and covers them with it to the waist. He is calming now as well, now that Julian's pain is abating and he caught a glimpse of his slack face on his way back. He props himself up next to him on an elbow and runs his fingers over Julian's back. Up and down, gently, randomly. He draws nonsensical shapes and swirls there over his spine and flanks, extending them out over his shoulders and arms, invisible knots and vines. Julian never moves except to cough once.
There was a poem he remembers reading when he was living on Cardassia. He thought it was beautiful when he read it, but he never really had an application for it before. Perhaps he doesn't even yet, but he feels that soon, soon it will be true. Someday soon he could say these words to Julian and not only would Garak hear the beauty of their truth, but Julian will as well. Garak pauses, recalls the meaning first, then the words, then takes his third and fourth fingers and brushes each character in Kardassi across Julian's back in slow, large letters.
I make you feel pain
So no one can hurt you.
I make you feel shame
So no one can shame you.
I take away what you need
So no one can deprive you.
I am
So I may love you.
Julian gets up eventually, long after Garak has brushed his poem across his skin many times and left soft kisses here and there to stand in for punctuation. When he is ready he pushes himself up slowly, without facing Garak, and walks silently to the bathroom and shuts the door. Garak understands, he does, but it may be a while before Julian accepts it.
And they call Cardassians perfectionists.

Garak straightens out the sheets and blankets while his is gone. He is about to get back in bed but then changes his mind and trots off to the replicator. He could use a bite, and imagines after recent events, Julian should be hungry, even if he doesn't want to be. He isn't really up on his human cuisine though, and beyond potatoes, he isn't sure what other foods soothe the human psyche. He supposes it would be largely up to individual taste. So he falls back to the only other food he can think of right now that he knows almost all humans seem to like. Garak brings the single plate back to bed with two forks, and arranges himself back at the head of the bed with one pillow behind him, the other propped up on Julian's side.

Huh. Garak smiles to himself. Julian has his own side, suddenly.

Julian comes out of the bathroom looking a little haggard, but perhaps fresher and a bit more alert. He looks at Garak, then at the pillows, then the food.

"Apple pie?" he asks but his face doesn't change or brighten at all.

"Do you like apple pie?"

He shrugs. "Sure."

Garak smiles and lifts the corner of the covers. Julian gets in and just sits there on his side of the bed for a moment. Garak waits. After six years he's used to it. A moment more added to the end won't kill him.

Julian isn't sure what to do with himself now. He feels just sort of empty and wasted, though he knows it's stupid. He turns and looks at Elim again. He wants to know what he is supposed to do now, looks to him for a clue. All Elim does is return his regard, and Julian crumples under it in short order. His face is a moue as he pushes at his own pillow until Elim sits forward and accepts it behind his back, that's where it belongs, then he takes Elim's elbow and lifts it until he lets Julian under to lay against him.

Garak's heart is pattering happiness and sympathy at the same time right now. He has a plate of apple pie in his hand though and so does the best he can with one arm and a kiss to soothe that look from Julian's face. Julian seems content to just lay there holding onto him, so he leaves him be for the most part and has a few bites of the pie. Elim hears a plaintive sigh escape him, and then frowns and sighs himself. "Julian," he entreats softly.
"I'm sorry. I really wanted this to be perfect."
"Love, it was. I told you just a few hours ago what my expectations were. Have you forgotten already?"
"Low standards don't make the outcome any better, Garak. They just...shrink the scope."
"Well I have to disagree with both that idea and with the idea that the relative or absolute 'goodness' was anything less than acceptable."
Julian is unmoved and lays there with his eyelashes brushing Garak's chest. "I just wanted to be..."

"Have some pie."

Julian accepts a bite and chews under Garak's chin. "It's like...I'm losing the battle for my own self-respect lately. Like whatever I try to do to make this the best it can be just backfires. I'm a constant disappointment to myself. I can only imagine how I must seem to you."

Garak thinks that is particularly ridiculous, and if Julian wasn't so depressed he might point that out in more bold terms.

Elim hums in response, neither an affirmative nor a negative. "And you're usually so brutish and butch, too," he adds. Julian still doesn't know if he agrees or disagrees, he can't even tell now if Elim is being sarcastic or facetious. It clearly isn't real, but he can't tell if he is angry or just disappointed. Julian isn't sure about himself either.

Garak takes a final bite of pie, places it on the nightstand and lifts himself up briskly, flipping Julian off of him, and hopefully off of his mood as well. He crawls on top of the now supine and surprised human, swallows his bite, and dives for his neck with teasing nipping teeth and sweet sticky lips. Julian is very quickly reduced to squirming and petulant laughter, and now that Garak knows it is possible, which he had no doubt before the attack that he would be ticklish all over if properly surprised, he digs delicately into his ribs and stomach until Julian begs him to stop an instant later. So much for distraction.

Julian urges him back to the pillows and situates himself back to the agreeable position half laying on him, half tucked under his arm and leg.

Garak picks up where he left off on the pie and offers Julian the last stray sugar-coated apple, puts the empty plate back down on the nightstand.

Julian chews, sighs, stubbornly morose, and Garak chuckles. "Why are you beating yourself up about this?"
Julian sighs again. "I guess I'm just used to being at the head of the class."
Garak grumbles wordless commiserations as he pulls Julian a little more squarely on top of him and holds him gently under his butt with both hands. Julian crumples against him, face into the web of his neck. "With the curve you'll end up with an A minus at least. Don't worry about it."
Julian snorts into his neck. "What about you? How did you do?"
"Me?...Well...It's been a while since I took Anal one-oh-one but I think I still have my notes."
Julian is laughing and shaking the whole bed as he does so. "Your closet says otherwise, Garak. Arranged by color? You're a professor emeritus at least."
"By color is the most logical way to arrange a closet," he defends emphatically. "Most items when hung in a closet have similar profiles, and the only way to find what you're looking for in a large wardrobe is to search by color. That is much easier to do if you keep things grouped by color." Julian is still laughing. "Anyway we weren't talking about my closet."
"No," Julian agrees as the laughter in his lungs fizzles.
"Did you really think you'd be able to just ignore the pain and do it the first try?"
"I read up on it."
"Easier read than done, my dear."
Julian lifts his head and digs his blunt chin into Elim's chest, but he doesn't complain. "Well," he starts. "We could..."
A smile creeps up one half of Garak's face as he peers down at him. Julian looks a little bashful, but hopeful, beautiful. "One thing at a time, my love. One thing at a time."

Julian thinks that doesn't exactly sound fair nor logically derived, but it hardly seems important right now. There is something else gnawing at him. "When...do you think? I mean. How long is it going to take? A month, two months?"

"Tomorrow."

A shock goes up Julian's spine. "Tomorrow? But-"

"You'll be ready tomorrow night. It will still hurt some, but you'll be able to do it, and enjoy it tomorrow."

Garak can feel him blinking over and over, eyelashes tickling his neck. He wants to laugh from the tickle and from the face he knows Julian is making there, his eyes talking when his mouth doesn't know what to say. Holds it back though.

"What if I'm not?"

Garak shrugs and stretches. "Another day then. I told you, as slow as you want, but I think you'll be fine tomorrow." Julian's backside doesn't agree, though bizarrely his cock doesn't seem to care how much it hurt.

They lay there a while, Garak continues drawing shapeless pictures on his back until his fingertips go numb and Julian seems to grow into him like a tree into a rock over a hundred years. Garak's body grows warm against him, absorbing all that radiating heat into himself for safe keeping. Julian feels like just another part of him, but he touches him with far more pleasure. He isn't asleep, but could be on the edge. "Are you tired?" he asks him.

Julian shakes his head.

"Did you want to go to the Gratitude festival tomorrow?"

Julian shakes his head again and Garak chuckles a little.

"Good," he says. "I don't think I can be in your presence and not want to eat you alive, crowds of observers or no." Garak squeezes him a little and kisses the top of his head.

"I don't want to do anything tomorrow," Julian says sullenly and creeps upward to press his lips to Elim's.

Garak smiles brightly. "That's the spirit," he quips and returns the kiss. Julian crawls up on him further, higher, sits on his lap and Garak pulls the blanket up over his shoulders which feel cool in the air. Julian attaches himself to Garak's face and kisses, and kisses, and kisses some more. He tastes his lips and tongue over and over, and it drowns out the nattering of his mind far better than any water shower.

Garak loves every minute of it, but decides to reach for a little more and squeezes Julian to him, pressing his cock between their bellies, a hard squeeze between pelvic bones. He sits up and lays Julian down again, just like earlier in the day. Julian's breath quickens as their lips come apart and Garak coos to him, tells him they're done for today. There is nothing to fear. Garak puts a pillow under his head, holds both of his hands with each of his own, and positions himself between Julian's legs.
Julian is long and thick, probably a bit larger than the average human. Garak considers the possibility that Julian was augmented not just mentally, but in other ways as well, but shakes the silly thought away. For some reason, considering his size did not even occur to Garak the first time he encountered Julian in the nude. He noticed, of course, how could he not with it pulsing in his throat, but that day he was far from the mind-set that he is in now. That day he was only concerned with surviving that day, escaping that situation without hurting him. Today, he can look on that beautiful straining phallus with greed again, but with less of that metallic tang of fear on his palate. Because Julian already knows what he is thinking about. Or, at least has an idea. He can look on him and know that his thoughts are not reprehensible to him, and he can imagine what it will feel like to fuck him into a raw and bruised, helpless rag doll, and also, one day, when Julian fucks him. Garak feels heat flush to his face though he knows Julian can't tell. The fact that he can look that far ahead and know that they will get there - that is the largest dream he has had in years, the most hope he has dared hold in his heart. Yes, sex is perhaps a shallow hope to string one's heart upon, but it is shallow only because it is the exquisite skin of a beautiful fantasy that seems to be unfolding before his eyes.

Garak kisses some of that exquisite skin and breathes in the hot scent of him. The heat is pouring off of his trunk and groin, though he shivers when Garak kisses his thigh. He kisses his way up perfunctorily, just to let him know he is approaching. Still, Julian flinches and moans when he pokes his nose in the hot and fragrant joint of his hip, nuzzles the strange wrinkled skin at the base of his cock. He licks up one testicle then the other and chuckles at the way they shy away from him seemingly of their own accord. Garak's genitals aren't that talented. Garak gets brave soon after and takes one into his mouth earning him a nervous sounding sigh from Julian. He watches his stomach muscles contract into a hill on his belly, then slowly erode away with relaxation. Repeat.

Then he is on his way up, teasing at the base, or whatever counts as the base in this organ that disappears into fleshy folds instead of stark lines and cords. It's funny how everything with humans is so subjective. He mouths Julian's organ up and up, and Julian groans with relief when he finally reaches the head, licks all around and slides down upon it. Julian's head comes up and his eyes, glassy and tired meet Garak's from under anxious brows. His slack mouth tells another story, and the pulse of his cock against Garak's tongue drives him down to swallow him. Julian's head goes back to the mattress sharply and he moans and arches up. Garak gives him eight or nine slow and deep strokes with his mouth and then comes up for air.

"You taste wonderful, Love." Julian whimpers as if the compliment felt as good as the head. Or maybe he just wants him to shut up. Garak doesn't really want to though. "Come here," he says and Julian cracks open his eyes to see what Garak wants of him. He motions toward himself and Julian obeys and sits up. Garak puts a hand on his back and one on his chest and spreads his fingers wide. "Now lean back." Julian's weight shifts to his back hand a little and Garak turns him, pushes him slowly and carefully back down off the side of the bed. Julian hesitates, looks behind him, but Garak grasps both of his arms tightly and lowers him down so that most of his torso is curving down, falling to the floor. Julian's head is inches from the carpet and Garak lets one arm go, which instinctively goes to the floor to suspend him on spidered fingers, then the other to share the weight.

Garak pulls him by the legs then, just a little, to balance him a little more gently on the bed, secure him safely, and then swallows his cock again.

Julian groans loudly. His cock grew cold in the air with Elim's saliva drying on it, and to be swallowed again so suddenly, it feels hot, and the return to that sweet silken warmth is just so good. Blood is rushing to his head in this position. He isn't really sure why Elim wants him like this. He feels dizzy and stretched and dull. Elim's ministrations on him, while still exquisite, are competing with the sound of his own pulse in his ears and the feeling of all his veins popping out all over his upper body. Elim licks and sucks at him and the closer he gets the more he starts to worry that when he comes he's going to lose control and fall on his head, and suddenly he isn't close anymore.

Oh. That's why Elim wants him like this.

Julian pants for a moment, his cock strains in Garak's mouth, feels so good, so thick, and then his moment fades away again. Garak hums satisfaction and changes what he does, licks up and around, over the head, sucks, then viciously bobs up and down taking him deep into his throat until his lips go numb. Five more times Julian comes close to the end and then shies away from it before he is whining and groaning and twisting in Garak's grasp, dying to just come, no longer able to pull himself up to safety, barely able to hold himself up off the floor, but unwilling to lose Garak's mouth on him.

When he finally comes he sounds like he is sobbing from the floor. Garak pulls off and lets him spill down his belly and chest, and then grabs his legs and holds him tightly as his arms give out beneath his head. In only a moment a desperate hand comes flailing upwards and Garak takes it, pulls him up by his forearm, holds him steady as he regains his balance. His face is red, the corners of his eyes touched with tears of strain. Garak guides him to lie back on the pillow and straightens his tangled legs before him.

Julian catches his breath over a minute or two, wipes his eyes and watches as Garak silently continues to bathe him in affection. He licks gently up his oversensitive cock, taking away the stickiness and making Julian flinch a little, then moves up his heaving body to lap up the two long, asymmetrical stripes on his torso.

Garak reaches his collar bone and Julian takes hold of his wrists with stealth and strength that takes Garak by surprise. He thought he would be too wiped out to surprise him now. "What about you?" he asks.

Garak smiles sweetly and shrugs. "I'm fine."

Julian sighs heavily. "Elim please."

Garak kisses him softly. "We have plenty of time."

Julian's limbs still feel like gelatin but he props himself up to force Elim back. He gets up as if to flip them both over, to take Garak's current position, but only succeeds half way before collapsing on his side. He whimpers a little. Just feels so weak, but the desire to touch him is so strong, he can't help but try.

Garak reaches up and turns out the room lights. It's a little early to be going to bed - they never left it - but who cares. He leaves the lights on the computer panel above the bed. They have a pleasant glow that he doesn't mind, and he can still see him, the end of his nose, the gloss of his eyes, a copper blush over his chest. Julian muffles though, and scoots down, down down, almost out of reach. He is having trouble, Garak can tell, his arms and hands fumble, but he urges Garak's leg up and situates himself there with enough difficulty, Garak can't help but be impressed and helpful. Julian can't keep his head lifted enough and tries to put a hand under it. Even the hand won't obey though, so Garak turns a little, lift's Julian's head for him and places it on his thigh. Gods and Prophets he can imagine shoving his face there some day. Can't wait for that, but for now, he is more than willing to help Julian accomplish what he wants. Julian coaxes his cock head out with unsurprising felicity. After just once attempting this and learning what Garak responds to, he has advanced to the level that Garak can restrain his reflex enough to allow this. My brilliant Julian. Just the head for now, but when Julian looks up at him from the darkness, looking for permission, and then ducks down and takes it between his lips, Garak thinks he might be in trouble. Nothing should feel that good.

Julian licks and sucks gently on him the best he knows how, which really only comes from his experience on the receiving end of this maneuver. The head is harder than his, less of that rubbery flesh and more stiffness covered by a thin wet pad. He tastes the same as before, like warm skin, slippery and inviting, no really distinct flavor over the smell of him. Elim breathes harshly and grabs at his own skin near his groin. Julian watches as he digs his fingers in and grips the tendon between groin and leg. His other hand hesitates and trembles in Julian's hair. He flinches periodically while Julian licks and sucks, gasps a little now and then.

"Careful dear," Julian hears him say then swallow and keep panting.

Julian stops and looks nervously to his dark face. "I thought I was being careful."

Elim grins without opening his eyes. "Just watch the teeth."

"I haven't touched you with my teeth."

"Trust me, you have."

"I have?"

"Yes. Just barely. But its enough to make me nervous."

"I'm sorry Elim, I wasn't trying to. I couldn't even tell."

"I know."

"Do you want me to stop?"

"No, Love. Continue as long as you want." He grins again and Julian's mouth turns up sympathetically. "It's just difficult to stay unsheathed when the reflex is triggered by unexpected contact." Julian slowly and cautiously licks him again and Elim sighs in obvious pleasure.

He gets nervous as the question forms in his mind. He feels like he's ten again and not sure how to ask someone about something adult. He brushes his lips across Elim's cock head. "Can you come?" he asks just above a whisper.

Elim's eyes open to sparkling slits. "If you want," he replies, and Julian double-takes, looks at him funny and then laughs.

"Do you want?" Seems like that is what he was asking before.

"It doesn't matter to me. I'm fine either way." This earns him another look.

Julian sighs and wills the courage to make the decision. "Will you come for me?" he says finally, and he is glad it is dark.

"Yes," comes the reply, simple and undemanding. "On... myself? Or on you?"

The bashful laugh from Julian tells Garak what the young man was hoping for and he touches his face and hair in response, in thanks. Thanks for wanting it. He shifts a little and emerges fully then in front of Julian, inches from his face, and then reaches up and turns a small light back on so he can see this. He scoots in closer to place his hip against Julian's arm and holds his cock out over his body and strokes.

Fire rises hot in Julian again though he isn't sure how it's possible considering the number of times he has come in the past few days. How he can want more he doesn't know. Elim strokes slow and gentle up and down his cock, his fingers making sticky noises at the head and base. Julian isn't sure when he is going to come and he doesn't know what Elim expects him to do. His gut tells him to open his mouth. He does so, briefly, and then feels odd doing it and shuts it again. Elim stops.

"What is it, Love?"

Julian stammers a second. "Nothing."

"You looked like you were going to say something."

That startles a little chuckle from him. "No."

Elim pulls on his cock again, slowly, twists his wrist up at the head and Julian thinks that that looks really good. He takes his own cock in hand and strokes to match Elim as he resumes his moderate pace, closes his eyes and relaxes into the motion once again. Julian can only watch in amazement at the clear fluid that collects on Elim's fingers from nowhere. He wonders if Elim equates the sweat that appears on Julian's skin with this phenomenon. Julian thinks a second, hazily. Thinks about Elim licking the sweat off of him, and his own half-hard cock weeps in his hand

"Can I?" he asks him, looking up into his eyes.

Elim smirks a little. "Stick out your tongue." Julian does, then longer, pushes it out but it wiggles of its own accord so he bites down on it and holds it stiff. Elim moves in, and places his cock on Julian's tongue, moves back and forth, circles it, then relaxes back. Julian relaxes too, swallows. "Well. Was it as good for you as it was for me?" Elim asks and Julian laughs out loud and thinks about trying to get his tongue in there again. He wants to get his whole mouth around it but guess that that isn't going to happen. Elim strokes and groans softly.

"Where do you want it?" Julian doesn't know. The obvious place he doesn't dare mention but he grows hot in the cheeks at the thought. He has tasted his own come, on the lips of a number of extremely generous girls, and on his own, when the curiosity was too much to bear. But never another man's. He supposes it's silly at this point to be afraid of it. Elim is panting quietly, eyes half- lidded and glossy. "Open up," he intones lowly and Julian does so without thinking. "Wider." He does that too. Elim scoots up on the bed with a touch of urgency, rattles Julian though his whole body is stiff. He closes his mouth and swallows, then opens it again and feels silly. Elim groans and a dot of white appears at the tip of his cock. Julian shuts his eyes in a last instant of sensibility. He has seen what Elim can do with it. The warmth in small patches hits his tongue, and he flinches, holds his breath, afraid of it going down his windpipe. He resists his sense of taste. It hits his lips, down his chin. He's afraid it will go up his nose, too. More in his mouth and a bitter tang zips up the side of his tongue. Elim is breathing raggedly and huffing with each pulse and then slows and stops, but Julian can feel him in front of him, still on top of him. He keeps his eyes closed. There is a moment of nothing, but then he feels the anterior plane of Elim's index finger as it goes to his lower lip and wipes the cum from it into his mouth, then the slick and unmistakable cock head is there at his lips, and it too delivers a final drip onto his lower lip. Julian's mouth is filling with saliva and it feels like he is never going to be able to swallow again, his mouth is frozen this way in permanent nervous rejection.

Elim slinks back down to a more comfortable position and his fingers return and scrape up his chin to push the spilled drops into Julian's mouth , every last bit, then gently touch his lips and face, stroke as his facial muscles start to relax. He can't hold them like that forever.

Julian closes his mouth and holds the cavity open with a sunken tongue. He can feel the shape of the mass in his mouth in the well of his tongue. It takes six or seven psyche ups, false starts, but he extends his neck and swallows. It goes down like mostly air and spit, but with this funny burn after it, a tingle he wasn't expecting. It coats the inside of his mouth. It is all he can taste, all he can smell, fiery, salty. Elim pulls him to him and kisses him, licks away the remnants of stickiness on his face, sucks on his chin and lips and tongue until Julian is reduced to fightless semi-consciousness.

"Perfect," Elim whispers to him and turns out the light.