Title: Black Bottle: Chapter 4: In Trust
Author: Hermit
Fandom: Star Trek:DS9
Pairing: Garak/Bashir
Rating: PG-13 to be safe
Yadda: Not my characters, made up, just for fun etc.
A/N: Takes place during "In the Pale Moonlight." it wouldn't do owed to shaenie, the foundation upon which all pron is written. Belated thanks to ilianaghemor for the beta on the past two parts. Somehow she didn't end up in the credits.
IV. In Trust
"No really, I'm good at this. I almost became a counselor instead of a nurse back at the academy."
"Why didn't you?"
"Guts are so interesting."
Garak raises his eye ridges. "I see."
"So what seems to be the problem?"
Garak hasn't lowered his ridges.
"Well?"
"You're not going to eviscerate me are you?"
Marcia laughs bright and loud, like a little steaming kettle in a blue uniform and red hair. "No, no. Come on. What's eatin' ya?"
"Pardon?"
"Why are you here, Mr. Garak?" Her voice is unlike any other human's he has met. The accent, Southern, as they seem to call it, sounds like sloshing and bright trumpets.
"Well I'm quite certain that my purpose is to serve the state and honor my Cardassian heritage, but that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."
"I see...evading. Let me guess, trust issues?"
"Well-" Garak clips it off. "No. I wanted to talk to you about Julian."
Marcia wiggles, sort of, seems to snuggle into the comfort of her own skin and smug wisdom with a patently disinterested look on her face. False, of course, but theatrical and endearing. "I can't help you with Julian. If Julian wants counselling too he'll have to come to me at another time."
Garak sighs. "I can see this is going to be a difficult conversation."
Marcia folds her arms across her chest slowly, defiantly.
Garak says nothing at first, but then decides to make a stab at it, quickly, before she can cut him off. "Julian seems to be under the impression that I am not fully truthful with him at times and I don't think he'll be satisfied with me reasserting that I am truthful with him for much longer."
Marcia just sits there a moment. Then she says in a low crisp voice that reminds him of Julian actually, "Garak. Do something for me. Close your eyes."
Garak sits there a second then raises his ridges at her again.
She scowls intensely, so he sits back in his chair and closes his eyes.
"Now. What is something of yours, something important to you, a personal possession that you are really fond of. Anything."
Garak thinks about it a few seconds. "My embroidery tool."
"Perfect. Now, who is someone that you trust."
"Julian," he says automatically with a little nod.
"Well I was hoping you'd pick a more neutral person, but..."
"Neutral?" Garak cracks an eye open. "Are you implying something, my dear?"
"Not me."
"If you are suggesting that Julian is not trustworthy in some way I can assure you you are mistaken." Hey, look over there! Garak thinks to himself. His talent for distraction is probably more precious to him than anything in his shop.
"I wasn't implying a thing, Garak, now close your eyes." He does. "Now, let's say that you're...having lunch, or you're off ...exercising in the holosuites or something," Garak can't completely repress a tiny smile at the corner of his mouth, "You're away from your shop. And Julian comes along, sees that you're gone and decides to wait for you, wander around your shop a bit. He sees the embroidery tool laying around, can you picture it? Can you see the tool?"
"Yes."
"Good. Now lets say Julian picks it up and starts fiddling with it. He uses that amazing brain of his and decides with just a few minor adjustments he could make it ten times more accurate and efficient So he starts tweaking it, and then what do you know, he breaks it."
"He wouldn't do that."
"This is pretend Garak, yes he would. Use your imagination a little. What do you do?"
"Replicate a new one."
Marcia sighs. "What if...that pattern was erased from the station's memory?"
"Well that seems highly unlikely. The moment my embroidery tool breaks the memory bank and all the backups on the station fail specifically in the area of memory containing the pattern of my one specific embroidery tool?"
"Garak."
He sighs heavily. "Very well. I'll imagine that it is broken. I thought you said you were good at this."
"I am good at it, you're being difficult. So what would you do?"
Garak opens his eyes and shrugs a little.
"I thought you said that embroidery tool was important to you," she says suggestively.
"I lied."
Marcia blinks at him a moment. "Well congratulations Mr. Garak. You are so mistrustful that you won't even trust me with your imaginary possessions."
A sly smile spreads across Garak's face and he leans forward on the table toward Marcia who just looks a little exasperated.
"My point is, and maybe I should have just skipped the demonstration, people you trust, people you care about and trust, even they are going to let you down from time to time. And you are going to let them down now and then too. Sometimes it's an accident, sometimes it's just a bad decision, sometimes it's necessary, but you can't just stop trusting people altogether. That won't protect you entirely, and it definitely won't keep the bed warm."
"I beg your pardon."
"It's just an expression Garak. And it won't protect you from the rest of the world compromising you. Random people crossing your path can hurt you just as easily as someone you know. And you can't hold onto friends if you won't trust them. Having a friend means occasionally letting them take responsibility for safeguarding some of your most valuable and vital things whether it's something tangible or not, and it goes the other way too. Someday they'll ask the same of you. If you won't take the job, they might go find another friend."
Garak sits in silence a moment. "Now about Julian. Human psychology is so tediously complicated. He has the most severe case of tunnel vision I think I have ever seen and yet he also insists that I am lying to him constantly. It's not even tunnel vision it's a brick wall in front of his face I think."
Marcia rolls her eyes and sighs. "Can I ask you something, Garak?"
He smiles warmly. "By all means."
"Why did you want to go to lunch with me?"
"Why not?"
"It's not like we just happened to land at the same table, or even the same end of the replimat at the same time, Garak. You came to the infirmary and asked me if I wanted to go." Then she adds as an aside, "Like maybe....you have...an agenda, perhaps," she coos lightly.
Garak's smile widens. "You've pointed out the reason perfectly, my dear. You have a gift." Marcia raises a single eyebrow at him, menacingly too. "Post-Probosctic Perception, I like to call it." Marcia looks unamused.
"I can see past my own nose?"
"Precisely."
"So why does that make you want to have lunch with me? Aren't you afraid I'll perceive something I'm not supposed to?"
He heaves a sigh. "My own pittance of this quality, already short, seems to evaporate at times. And...it's just nice to spend some time with someone who hasn't lost it. I feel like the association may somehow rekindle my own ability."
Marcia crosses her arms again. "I think your perception is working just fine, Garak. You just don't want to listen to it."
~*~
Four days he hasn't seen him. Not just not spending any time together; close, personal, quality time, as his whole body is incessantly demanding. No, he hasn't seen him at all. It isn't that they haven't had time. Casualties come, as you would expect, in waves. This is a decided trough. And when there are no Starfleet or Klingon ships cresting, docking for repairs and medical aide, there are precious few people prowling the promenade. Garak can't be busy, either. Julian himself makes up most of the crowd the past few days with his constant and unnecessary passes by the shop. Nevertheless, Garak is managing to stay completely out of reach and off Julian's radar. All he has is a sense of him. As if he is not here because he is everywhere right now. That combined with the unprecedented cloak and dagger milieu invading the station of late Julian is left with a distinct impression that the works of his Cardassian friend are definitely in evidence, even if the man himself can not be seen. He goes so far as to ask the computer where Garak is this afternoon. He doesn't care if it's paranoid. He can't keep his mind focused on anything else. He wasn't entirely sure Garak was even on the station. But today there he is, in his shop, standing at the counter as if he had always been there.
"Where have you been?" is the first thing out of Julian's mouth.
"Doctor, so good to see you!" he says and it's fake. It's so obviously fake and Julian is instantly ramped with adrenaline and blood to his face.
It's the same as it ever was, Julian realizes. They're still doing this dance. They have a period of intimate companionship followed by a shaken retreat by Elim and a bruised faith for Julian. Then nothing until they've been pining for each other so, that the memory of the hurt is buried by a thin coating of time and acceptance. It's no different, just deeper. There's more chance for real damage in this place. And the cycle is running faster, a wicked whirlpool. The hunger tramples the memory of confusion and pain, makes him forget that there is something wrong. Well this is the end of it. He's not waiting until he can't see straight anymore.
"It's been four days Garak. I haven't seen a scrap of you," he says low and rough. "And why-"
"How is everything? The infirmary is quiet I trust?" Garak makes an unsubtle head motion in the direction of the red patterned curtain to his left. Julian looks and sees it sway gently and boils inside at the inconvenience. Julian just stands, looking daggers first at the curtain, then at Garak and back.
"So is your visit today business or pleasure?" Garak tries again, salve in his voice.
Julian clenches his teeth together. "Pleasure," he says, none too gently. Then he places both forearms on Garak's counter and leans in close to the tailor. "I haven't so much as seen your face in four days, Garak. Where have you been? And why is Sisko asking me for eighty-five liters of biomemetic gel?" he hisses.
"I see. And how is your young nurse, Marcia, I believe her name was," Garak says to the room and then leans in to whisper back. "I make it three, actually, not counting today which is not yet over and which marks the end of the lapse. And, I'm afraid that your two questions are not exactly related topics, my dear. I think we aught to deal with one at a time," he says as quickly and as softly as he can.
"Fine." Julian replies to both.
"Good," Garak coos. "You know I just received a new shipment in. Would you like to see any of it? Firstly, I have only the most tangential connection to the movement of the gel. The captain needed something from the buyer of the gel. The gel was the price demanded. That is all I can say on the subject. My involvement was only in the delivery of messages. A mere, thread, in the cloth, Doctor."
The curtain to the left ripples and gains structure for an instant as a limb connects with it, then tucks back in. The occupant of the changing room had been making odd little noises as she tried, vainly, to slink into a dress that normally takes four hands to assemble on a mannequin, never mind a strangely proportioned Earth woman in a cramped closet. This has ceased however, and she has become oddly quiet, which Garak hopes Julian will not notice.
"Is that so." Julian says flatly.
"Yes. Can I interest you in some new sleepwear? This has to be the most comfortable and soothing material I've ever sold. It's normally used on Vulcan as swaddling for infants but I think it would make a gorgeous set of pajamas."
Julian scowls and leans in again. "And the fight in the bar? Quark didn't press charges, you know. Does that sound like Quark to you? Would one of the most self-centered beings in the Alpha Quadrant not press charges after his attempted murder by a drunken patron unless he was otherwise compensated?" Julian stands up straight again. "I don't think so."
Garak cowers a little inside. "Perhaps a new racquetball suit? No? More pants?" A silence hangs between them that Julian fills with an angry stare. These questions are confused. He is upset about one thing, and asking about another, Garak thinks. Garak searches Julian's hard face, looking for the answer that will take that look away. He wishes he could banish it forever, really. That remorse creeping into his brow and the corners of his mouth. "I'm sorry, Julian. How thoughtless of me. Here you are paying me a social visit and I'm pushing my wares on you. You'll forgive me, but business just hasn't been the best lately."
That wasn't it. Julian's lip curls a little. "So you've resorted to trading in biogenic weapons?" he hisses.
"I think we should slow down," Garak rumbles low in his chest, trying to keep his face from knitting.
Julian looks fit to explode. "Slow-"
"Oh I know. How about this?" Garak pipes in like a whistle and slinks the back of his fingers down half the length of a marvel of a green and burgundy silk dress. "For that special someone in your life?"
Luckily, Julian doesn't burst, but simply stands there, bewildered, shakes his head even, just a little, then huffs a little exasperated laugh and leans back in toward the tailor. "Are you saying you want me to buy you a dress, Garak?" Julian asks very quietly.
Garak lets a real smile spread across his face. Julian deflates before his eyes, anger seeping away to weariness.
Julian stands there a while, trying to think of something to say out loud for the benefit of whomever was in the fitting room but he can't remember what that conversation was about nor can he think of anything clothing-related to add. "No, thank you," he says and sighs. "I'm sorry Garak. I didn't mean to push you into this faster than you wanted. If that's how you feel. It wasn't my intention."
Oh, Julian. Not what he meant at all, but Garak is still touched. He knows though, if he said so it would sound sarcastic. He might even be tempted to use its timbre to keep the lovely creature at bay a little longer. But he just can't. It really wouldn't do to have Julian slug him today, too. His mouth still hurts from a few hours ago. He leans closer and kisses Julian over the counter, quickly, softly.
Julian's eyes open again slowly to reveal Garak's familiar face intent upon his own. He still has questions though. The time and place is wrong, but he needs an answer. If only a temporary one. "Garak," he begins. "The Romulans."
Garak sighs inaudibly. "A tailor's work is never done. No matter how tightly I sew the seams, there will always be mending to do. Alterations." Julian closes his eyes against it. He was hoping his involvement there would also be tertiary. He realizes then that if the highest hope he dares allow himself is Garak's semi-complicity, he should probably get used to the idea of it being much worse on a regular basis. That isn't going to be easy. Could be impossible.
Garak whispers, "That is part of the reason I think we should slow down. So in a way, you are correct to connect my absence with recent events. But it is only a part. You know who I am, what I am. I just don't want you to relegate that to the past, because I will never fully escape it."
Julian knows what he isn't saying. It is inescapable for Julian as well if this goes further. "Can I see you tonight Elim?"
Garak's eyes half close, and he nods. Julian turns to leave but Elim calls him back. "Julian." He looks back from the doorway. "I need to know I can trust you. That you won't...forget."
"Forget?"
"How important you are. To everyone.
"He shrugs a little. "I'm just a doctor, Garak."
~*~
Julian wants to glove his hands in Garak's thick hair, just grab him and latch on, but Garak has a figmental wall in front of him. He is resisting with his posture but his eyes and hands, the expressive tools of his body are reaching out. Julian settles for the moment, for moving in close to him, a deceptive slouch in his spine keeping him just below Garak's height, and his eyes turned down. He hopes Garak doesn't realize what he is doing, but at the same time hopes he appreciates it. Julian really isn't very good at playing coy or unsure when he isn't, but if he is ever going to get inside that head, he needs to lure him in closer, needs him to trust. Nearly chest to chest, Julian lets the ghost of his breath and senses roll over Garak's collar and neck, filling his lungs with air and moving in on him to notch their bodies together. Then he smiles at him, looks him in the eye and postures up, keeping their eyes locked even when they get too close to see. As Julian carves out a minute rhythmic dance against the Cardassian, Elim responds similarly, as if his resistance is bending, splintering, making it feel almost like a chase, a game of tag on half a meter of carpet. Julian keeps rising, twisting up and over Elim and Elim seems to wilt down and then under. Their hands touch and flinch, over and over as startled whiskers in the dark. Finally, Julian's palms yield and allow Garak's fingers to posses them, hard, squeezing the blood to his fingertips. It doesn't bother him though. He lets them go limp as he eels back down and his lips find by breathy sonar the hard cord of Elim's neck and the subtle hollow where the ridge meets his shoulder. Julian's mouth is wet and ready, humid even in the Cardassian's lair, and he can hear Elim's breathing hitch and stutter, fly high in tempo and volume until he brings his mouth down into that vulnerable spot and tastes.
Garak gasps in long arrhythmic cataracts of air down his throat and his spine stiffens to old wood. Julian's hot mouth there in that web shouldn't make him burn like this. He has an alcoholic flame crawling up that whole side of him, singeing his face. A wicked tongue of fire inside bores into him and then moves on as the lips crawl upwards with kisses. At the same time that Garak's body forces him to exhale on a low breathy moan, he hears a whimper, beautiful and dangerous, from that mouth now so near his ear. The sound registers in his ears followed by his hands which grip tightly to the bony mush of Julian's, and claw forward cruelly. A tremor rocks him and he shakes free of Julian, letting his hands go and ripping away from their tangled fingers and sticky skin. Garak watches Julian's fingers curl unsteadily in toward his palms and then looks the doctor in the eyes, searching for distress.
They're both breathing hard and fast. Julian knows why he is, but there is now some doubt as to Garak's reason. He thought he was enjoying himself. Or at least enjoying him.
"Perhaps, Doctor," Garak says, "Now would be a good time to discuss that slowing down I mentioned earlier."
A smile peeks out at the corner of Julian's mouth because it's really quite obvious that neither of them want to slow down. And he sort of thought they were slowing down. Compared to a few days ago. "Ok," he says softly, guardedly. "Are you feeling alright?" Because that would be the simplest explanation and perhaps the simplest fix too.
Garak smiles fondly, clutching his hands together in front of him. Julian wonders if perhaps that was a slightly cliché thing to ask.
"I'm fine," Garak says and the smile falls, knitting his brow a little. "Are you?"
"I'm...fine. I'm great," Julian says with a shrug and a small shake of his head.
Garak nods. "I just...had the thought that there's no reason for us to rush into anything."
That knots Julian's gut ever so slightly. That's not the same as slowing down. And it's definitely not what he was expecting Garak to come up with after his earlier performance, even if it was strange and abrupt. It was still good.
"Ok," Julian says again and offers him a small sanguine smile though his head is muddied by arousal, proximity and that hot heady thing that accompanies the anticipation of every second lately.
Garak is searching for words, staring off to the floor. He swallows. "Can't do this," Garak whispers even as he gets closer to Julian again, takes his elbows in his hands. It takes a moment, and Julian blinks awake out of the tactile dream as he feels the hands pinchsqueeze and begin a slow release.
"What?"
"I can't."
"What's wrong?"
"You've done nothing wrong, my dear. It's-"
"Don't give me that. Garak I don't understand. I mean...." Julian makes a frustrated noise.
Garak's hands are back on him and he looses focus again. The gentle fingers thread through his hair and grasp his neck while the blue-grey eyes, painful and wanting search his face. "Because what I want from you. What I want with you, I can not take. You have to understand that, even if it does not seem to make sense, please try."
"Why can't you take it? Garak, don't you understand? I'm giving myself to you." The moment he says it he feels it is true, but the weight of it is a shocking vibration in his hands.
Garak sighs and touches down his face to bring his hands to Julian's shoulders and squeeze.
"No," he simply says.
"What is it you want, that you can't take, Elim?" he pleads. "What is it I need to give you? And why can't you just ask?"
Garak is kneading him, and Julian's eyes are heavy with the pleasure of it and the heat in his stomach. It's all completely at odds with the dread in his mind, but then everything about Elim is paradoxical. Garak's lips are there by his temple, he can feel his breath in his hair as it stands on end like every nerve in his body. Garak is a warm wall in front of him. "I want...." Garak whispers, "I want to hurt you."
Julian shivers and his breath comes short and fast through his open mouth. Garak's hands slide lower and turn to point his fingers downward as he moves his flat hands stiffly down Julian's back, pressing him full length to Garak's body. He thinks he can feel the edges of scales through their clothes.
"I want..." Garak's mouth brushes Julian's neck. "To bite you." He doesn't. He digs his fingers into Julian's lower back instead. "I want to scratch you. I want to hit you. With my hands," he whispers in Julian's ear and those hands travel back up his trembling form to frame his face again. "I want to see what it does to you. I want to see it in your face, and hear it in your voice. I want to know you inside and out. And. As much as I may want this, as much as I want you, I don't think anything less than all of it will ever satisfy me, Julian. I can't do those things just because I want them."
Julian is dumbstruck, drowsey-eyed and minded. Everything seems to fade in and out a little. Somehow he just never expected to hear him say this, despite all he knows about him. Garak is still before him, though his hands are nothing more than a tether at the nape of Julian's neck. He stands there for long minutes in silence before speaking again. "When we first met," he starts and then hesitates. Julian admits with his eyes that he fears now what Garak is about to reveal. He speaks slowly but with a near conversational tone. "I would fantasize about you. I thought about your skin and your muscle, and I thought about what it would feel like to break you. Because, you served a purpose then. We didn't really know each other. We weren't friends, real friends, for some time. My friends, the people I really care about, few though they are, I don't want to hurt them for any reason. My desire to cause pain comes from lust. They are nearly the same thing for me and also nearly inextricable as far as I know. One needs the other."
Garak pauses a moment again and just looks at Julian, watching for a change that doesn't come. "Occasionally, rarely, I should say, I would run across a person with a complimentary need, and that would suffice and it's better than spending my time dreaming of something I can't have. But then. We did become friends. You became...very dear to me. And it only got bigger, brighter as time went on. It was so confusing, Julian. Id' never felt that mixed up before. I've been in love before. Once, with a woman, a Cardassian." He shakes his head a little, slowly. "But I never wanted that with her. Maybe...maybe she came before it, I don't know exactly. And other people I've loved, close friends, I never wanted to hurt them. Not Odo, not anyone. Hurting Odo the way I did, it never felt like that before. Not when I worked for the Order, not with any of my...aquaintances. It was horrible and I actually thought, hoped, that the experience might have cured me of it." He looks then to see if Julian has a reaction to that but he just stands close to him, quiet and patient. "But time went by and it came back, this thing inside of me. And now. I don't know what to do. I've never loved so deeply and lusted so fiercly at the same time for the same person. You'd think with a combination like that it would be simple, but it isn't. It was easier when I could split it up. Keep my emotions compartmentalized so that no one person knew everything. It felt safer. But now it's all mixed in together and...clashing. The part that loves keeps telling me that I can't do that to someone I love and expect them to still love me, and the part of me that burns tells me that you wouldn't let me anyway, that even this confession is likely to turn you away from me forever, which, I have to admit, would probably be in your best interest which is why I can even bear to say it."
Julian blinks dazedly for a moment and trades breath with the Cardassian so close to him. He thinks he might be shaking a little. He swallows and then tries to make his mouth say what he thinks he understands. It is surprisingly difficult. "You can love without lust. You can lust without love. But not with me."
"This is not a passing fancy, Doctor. It is something I need, and you, are right. You fit where no one else ever has, here," and Garak moves almost imperceptably closer to Julian and runs his large hands down his back again, breathing quickly through his mouth. "Whether I fit with you is something you have to decide, but if you say I may love you but not possess you, I can not accept, because I know one day I will not be able to stop myself. If you say I can have your body but that you could never love or respect someone with such a desire, I have to decline because you will break my heart. And if," Garak starts to shake a little. "If you lie and say I can have both and then take them both away from me-" His body quakes and his eyes seem to lose focus, darting everywhere, away from one imagined act to another before his hands come away from Julian's body again and he shakes them out to his sides, removing an unseen filth with a flash of mortification apparent on his face. "I don't know what I would do," he mumbles.
Julian takes hold of him tightly by the shoulders and squeezes hard. "Shh." He redirects Garak's gaze to his own face and moves his squeezing hands down his arms eliciting a mild sigh from Elim though he still shakes slightly. "Shh," he says again. "I would never do that." He runs his hands over Garaks face and through his hair until his eyes close and he grounds himself again with hands to Julian's hips. Julian lets a low note of mirth slip into his voice as he coos to Garak. "Just relax now. Reptiles aren't made for this kind of stress." Garak half smiles a little though his eyes are still lightly shut.
"I'm a Cardassian, not a reptile." He sighs heavily then. "But I suppose I am no longer stalwart enough for it either."
Julian exhales a little laugh at Garak's flair for archaic language and watches as Garak's eyes reopen, lovely and sad. They becon him, half lidded and fluttering coded messages of sleep and warmth and skin. Julian can't resist the temptation to move into his space even closer, gently bumping his head to Garaks and leaning forward to take a soft kiss.
Garak licks his lips and then pulls away a little, enough to see Julian, though he just looks down. "Um. Doctor." he says, looking at his shoes. This is just plain and simple Garak speaking now. The other person Garak has been hiding beneath his grey eyes is gone for the moment, stuffed away because his methods, though direct and to the point, are harsh and lack that finesse that the public Garak has mastered. He says it in the way you would notify someone that they were standing on your foot. "You haven't said 'no' yet."
A silly half smile crosses Julian's mouth. "No, I..." Garak seems to shrug with his eyes. "I'm just a little ...shocked."
"I understand."
"Can I....ask you a question?"
"Of course."
Julian feels like a glass full beyond the brim, something staining, ever changing glimmering at the dome top. "I've never done anything like this Garak. None of my previous partners had any interest...I just want to know...what do I have to do?"
Garak just stands there slack-jawed for a moment. Julian opens his mouth to speak again but Garak beats him to it. "No I understand, this isn't a committal. I'm just astounded that we're still speaking, that's all."
Julian squeezes his fists nervously, looking away as if concentrating on a puzzle. Searching for a word. "Can we go slowly?" he asks finally.
The decision in Julian's eyes is clear, Garak just can't believe it. "As a Breen prison sentence," he mumbles without so much as an inflection above his faint panting.
Julian nods. "Can I ask another question?"
"As many as you like."
"What will happen?"
"I can't tell you that until I know myself. I never planned beyond this point. Or rather the point where you leave my life forever at the suggestion." Garak's fingers squeeze subtlely around Julian's hips. "But then once again I try to anticipate you and fail completely. We'd... make it up as we went along."
"And how far does it go?"
"As far as we can take it."
"And after?"
"After?"
"What happens after...."
"The pain?"
Julian nods.
Garak pauses. "I'm not certain there is an after. I don't think it's meant to end. It can only end one way.... After....It changes things. Changes everything. It would mark the beginning of a cycle. Something we would maintain together. It would mean pain for as long as you stay with me. When we're together, I would want to hurt you, when we're apart, I would find ways then as well. When we make love...." Garak is breathing audibly as he speaks now and he watches, enraptured, as Julian's shoulders rise and fall as quickly as his own. "I will make you scream," he whispers. "You'll scream until you can't anymore. You'll cry and you'll beg me to stop. But I won't. I won't stop until you can't take it anymore, no matter what you say. I know how to make you hurt. And I know how far is far enough. Because it's not me Julian. People think that it's me in control, but it isn't. It's you. That's why I can't take it from you. You have to take it from me," Garak whispers painfully. "You have to take all of this that I feel and absorb it, Julian. There is so much. I can't ask you to take it. Not when I know how dangerous it is. I love you too much to be that selfish." Garak is shaking again, slightly, and Julian holds him steady as he listens. He stops a moment, centers himself after nearly teetering off the spindle point of his nerves, and returns to the original question. "After. I would take care of you. That's what happens after. I would be gentle with you, and rub the pain away, clean the sweat and the tears from your face." Garak's voice falls to the cadence of distant bird song. "You'd sleep in my arms. I'd take care of you." His chin trembles a little.
Julian rubs his shoulders. "And I'll take care of you."
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