Work Text:
“There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
We must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.”
-Julius Caesar (Act 4, Scene 3)
When Enabran Tain had made his fateful offer, dangling the prospect of Cardassia before him like rokassa fruit in the desert oases of the Northern Continent, he hadn’t given his life on Deep Space 9 even a passing thought. It was hardly what he’d call a life, after all. But if he had paused to consider it, then it might have pleased him to think that the ruins of his shop would be someone else’s problem.
“How long is it going to take to rebuild?”
“I don’t know. I plan to discuss it with Chief O’Brien tomorrow. Though it’s not the rebuilding I’m concerned about, it’s the restocking.”
Dr. Bashir nudged the tattered remains of a Triaxian silk gown with his foot. “Is anything salvageable?”
Garak fought back the urge to laugh. Oh, his wares were easy enough to replace – he almost looked forward to burying himself in the minutiae of threads and fabrics – but what about his real life, the one he’d never quite thought of as over, the one he’d always hoped would still be waiting for him when he returned from exile? Deep down, he’d never really believed that Tain could leave him here indefinitely, whatever he said to the contrary.
No, my dear Doctor, nothing is salvageable. Nothing that matters. “Not much, I’m afraid. There are a few things in storage that are relatively unscathed.”
Something of his mood must have seeped into his tone, because Bashir shot him a worried glance and then carefully picked his way through the rubble back to where Garak was standing. He put a hand on Garak’s shoulder and squeezed. The gesture bordered on inappropriate for polite society on Cardassia, though Garak had no intention of informing him of this. (That might make him stop, and Garak wasn’t about to relinquish any of his limited physical comforts now.)
If, in that moment of catastrophic decision, he had paused to consider his life on DS9, he might have felt a fleeting sting of regret for the loss of Dr. Bashir. If he had returned to Cardassia, then in all likelihood he would never have seen him again. It was a great pity that Bashir was unlikely to appreciate Cardassia, and that Cardassia was equally unlikely to appreciate Bashir. He would have liked to take him to the museums of Lakarian City and turn him loose on the docents.
Not that Tain would have ever let him get away with such a thing. It would have looked too much like an attachment, and Tain disapproved of those as a matter of principle, at least where his operatives were concerned (at least where Garak was concerned).
But Tain was dead, and all the grand museums of Cardassia Prime were closed to him. All he had left to share of Cardassia was her books, and the only other person on this station inclined to read them didn’t like them much. But he did seem to like Garak, which, he supposed, was something. And Garak liked him, probably more than he should, and that was something else, probably something unwise.
“Are you going to be alright?”
Such a vacuous, fatuous question – so very Federation. Garak couldn’t remember ever expecting that he was going to be alright. He expected to succeed in an appointed task, and sometimes he expected to fail, and he usually expected to survive, but being alright was a meaningless concept.
“I’m sure in a few months you won’t even notice the difference.”
“I’m not talking about the shop.”
“If I said that I was not going to be alright,” he snapped, “what exactly do you think you can do about it, Doctor?”
Bashir didn’t even flinch. “Maybe there isn’t much I can do for you. But I’m willing to be there for you in whatever way I can. Whatever way you need.”
As irksome as Bashir’s earnest sympathy was, Garak knew better than to dismiss it as mere sanctimonious condescension. He meant what he said and would try his utmost to follow through with it. It wasn’t something Garak could understand or fully trust, but he did take it seriously.
“Right now, the best thing you can do for me is leave. I would prefer to be alone.”
“I understand. But if you change your mind about wanting company, all you need to do is ask.”
Garak did not change his mind about wanting company, but unfortunately his last bottle of kanar had exploded along with his shop (a tragic oversight). So, he picked out the most shadowy corner he could find in Quark’s and tried to avoid eye-contact with anyone who might be inclined to say hello. Luckily, that list was short.
Odo nodded at him from across the room but did not approach. They were having breakfast together tomorrow morning (or rather, Odo was going to watch him eat breakfast), and he hoped that by then he would be able to tamp down the lingering guilt he felt whenever he thought of the constable. It should have been easy. Guilt was the first thing the Order had taught him to push aside. Tain had been right to doubt him: this exile was blunting all his edges and eroding all his armor, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
After the first bottle of kanar, he decided that Tain was the last thing he wanted to think about. Nor did he want to think about the Obsidian Order, his own guilt, the Founders, the Tal Shiar, his inability to suppress his own guilt, or Cardassia. Especially not Cardassia.
When he started on the second bottle, he decided that he wanted to think about Dr. Bashir. At least that problem was near at hand, and had the advantage of being harder to define. Halfway through the bottle he determined that everything had been much simpler in the first months of their acquaintance, when he’d viewed Bashir merely as a potentially useful contact with Starfleet, and spent the better part of their lunches entertaining fantasies about bending him over the table and fucking him senseless, if only to see if that would finally shut him up.
(Three years later, the idea of fucking him senseless still held an undeniable appeal, but Garak no longer cared if it shut him up. In fact, he rather hoped it wouldn’t.)
He was well into the third bottle before it occurred to him to wonder how Bashir felt about him. Most of the time he regarded Bashir as an open book, his emotions parading across his face for all the world to see. That he had failed to take note of something which suddenly seemed so essential was an intolerable lapse in his otherwise astute powers of observation.
On those occasions when he’d seriously considered persuading Bashir to engage in acts of carnal indecency with him, he’d never regarded Bashir’s intrinsic interest or lack thereof as a particularly meaningful obstacle. It was merely a condition to be factored into his strategy. If Bashir was not attracted to him (and he was willing to concede that he was far from Bashir’s usual type), then so much the better, since it made for a more interesting challenge.
This attitude struck him now as more than a little arrogant.
By the time the third bottle was empty, he’d catalogued every smile, every touch, every stare, every chuckle, every batted eyelash, every provocative remark… He reviewed every response he’d ever received to every flirtation, whether subtle or overt, whether human or Cardassian in style. (Every teacher of his youth who had helped to hone and train his eidetic memory would be scandalized at the use he had found for it.)
The evidence was compelling, but inconclusive.
Quark had the audacity to cut him off at that point, refusing point blank to bring him a fourth bottle. “As much as I hate turning down a customer, I don’t want a repeat of the last time. I’d think that you of all people would prefer to walk home on your own two feet.”
Garak did just that, perhaps a trifle unsteadily. But he didn’t return to his quarters.
The door slid open to reveal Dr. Bashir, sleep tousled and wearing the most hideous turquoise pajamas Garak had ever seen.
“My dear Doctor, I hope I’m not disturbing you,” he said, stumbling a little as he pushed his way into the room.
Bashir automatically reached out to steady him, his expression flashing from confusion to irritation to concern in quick succession. “Garak! What are you—Are you drunk?”
“Extremely drunk. Hammered. Plastered, even. Why does your language equate inebriation with ancient construction techniques?” He was dimly aware that his diction was not as sharp as he would have preferred, but he was a Cardassian, and he wasn’t going to let a thing like incipient alcohol poisoning get in the way of his natural verbosity.
“I wouldn’t know. Garak, what are you doing here?”
“I’m here to test a hypothesis.”
“Really. And just what sort of—”
Garak pushed him up against the wall. “You offered to keep me company, earlier. I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate that.”
Bashir looked down at Garak’s palm planted in the middle of his chest, and then back up at Garak’s face. “I—er, you’re welcome. Though I’m not sure why you felt the need to tell me this at 0200.”
“Oh, that’s not why I’m here. I just thought I’d mention it. I’m afraid I was rude to you earlier, and I don’t want you to take offense.”
“I wasn’t offended,” said Bashir, quickly. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone, the low collar exposing far more of that smooth brown human neck of his than his uniform did. “Uh, Garak.” His eyes snapped back to Bashir’s face, now exquisitely flushed. “You said you’re here to test a hypothesis.”
“That’s right.”
“In my experience, alcohol and science are a bad combination.” So far, he had made no move to extract himself, even though Garak was not exerting anywhere near enough pressure to restrain him.
“Ah, but the hypothesis is about you, and you’re perfectly sober.” The enunciation of the word ‘hypothesis’ required a great deal of concentration. “You see, I think that you want me to kiss you.”
Bashir’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure you haven’t got that the wrong way around?”
“They’re not mutually exclusive.” With slow deliberation, he slid his hand from Bashir’s chest up to the side of his neck, liking the way his friend twitched at the contact. Human skin was so terribly sensitive. The reaction brought to mind a long-winded explanation about the involuntary responses of the human nervous system he’d once received when he’d asked what he thought was an innocuous question about what is meant to be ‘ticklish.’
“Garak, look,” Bashir’s voice cracked a little, “it’s not that I’ve never—I mean, the idea might have crossed my mind—”
Garak kissed him. It was an inelegant approach – surely there should have been more preamble, like a really heated argument, or at least a round of token bickering. Then again, Bashir was human, and unlikely to appreciate the subtleties of Cardassian courtship. He felt Bashir swallow down a small, startled gasp, and for a few blissful seconds the lips pressed against his were soft and pliant and responsive. Then he was being pushed gently but firmly away.
“Garak, stop.” Garak hated the glimmer of emotion he saw in Bashir’s eyes. It looked almost like pity. “We are not going to do this while you’re drunk.”
“Oh, please, spare me the tedious Federation lecture on sexual ethics.”
“Fine. As long as you understand that I’m not going to do anything with you unless you’re in full possession of your faculties.”
Garak was pleased to note that he seemed a bit breathless. The swift rise and fall of his chest was strangely mesmerizing. Was it his imagination, or was the hideous pattern in that hideous fabric starting to move? Or was he starting to sway? Maybe he was farther gone than he’d thought. Perhaps it was time to retreat, since Bashir was too self-righteous to humor him, anyway.
“How noble of you,” he said, with as much acerbity as he could muster. “Well, if you’re not really interested in keeping me company, my dear…”
“Wait,” said Bashir, maneuvering himself in front of the door. “You’re clearly in no condition to be wandering around the station at this time of night. C’mon.”
He was forcibly guided over to Bashir’s couch and then pushed onto it. He would have protested, but he was too distracted by the warm hands on his arm, his back, his shoulder… Humans seemed to radiate heat. He wondered if he could convince Bashir just to lie down next to him so he could bask in his elevated body temperature—no, he would probably take that the wrong way. Bashir disappeared into his bedroom, still chattering at him, though Garak had lost track of whatever he was saying. He thought about making his escape, but the door seemed very far away and the couch very comfortable and—
He awoke with what felt like a herd of Algorian mammoths stampeding through his head. He sat up, grimacing, and an unfamiliar blanket slipped from his shoulders. It was excessively fuzzy. Probably Starfleet issue.
“How are you feeling this morning?” Bashir was peering down at him, having already donned both his uniform and his bedside manner.
“Marvelous. Like a Casperian sunrise.”
Bashir tutted, and joined him on the couch, pressing a hot mug of red leaf tea into his hands. “Well enough for sarcasm, at any rate. In my professional opinion, you’ll live.”
“Thank you, Doctor. That’s very reassuring.” He finally met Bashir’s eyes, but for once, he found them unreadable.
They drank their tea in silence. It was unusual enough to be unnerving – they were usually both so good at filling the spaces around them with words.
Bashir put his empty mug down on the coffee table. “Are you going to tell me what all that was about?”
“Why do you insist on asking questions you already know the answer to?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, in a low, sympathetic voice that set Garak’s teeth on edge.
“They brought it upon themselves, wouldn’t you say?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is your point, Doctor?”
Bashir turned, and to his surprise, reached out to cup Garak’s face with both hands. “The point is, I’m sorry, for everything you’ve lost.”
Bashir kissed him so gently and sweetly. It felt like a promise that could never be kept.
“What is it you wanted, Garak?” he murmured. “Just a warm body to take solace in?”
“There are plenty of warm bodies on this station that would be far less trouble.”
Bashir laughed, though Garak could hear no real humor in it. “Oh, I’m trouble. That’s rich.”
Tain had been right about him: sentiment would always be his undoing. And Bashir’s head was too full of all those asinine Federation notions about love to ever understand just how much trouble he could be. But now Tain was dead, and the Obsidian Order was gone, and Cardassia might be closed to him forever, and did any of that even matter anymore?
When Garak kissed him the second time, he wasn’t sure if he was claiming victory or admitting defeat.
Victory: the contented little noise Bashir made when he felt Garak’s tongue brush against his lower lip. Victory: Bashir’s nimble fingers working their way under his shirt, seeking out all the unfamiliar textures of his skin. Defeat: the raw yearning that sliced through him as he pulled Bashir down on top of him, so they were sprawled on the couch chest to chest, thigh to thigh. Victory: the way Bashir kept pressing himself even closer, arousal palpable, unconsciously grinding his hips against Garak’s. Defeat: his own sharp intake of breath when Bashir’s mouth found its way to a particularly sensitive spot along his neck ridges, not to mention the way his whole body shuddered when Bashir took that as a cue to sink his teeth in. (Victory: and what a delightful revelation that was! Clearly the idea of all this hadn’t merely crossed the doctor’s mind – he’d done research).
Defeat: his hand reaching up, as if of its own volition, to stroke Bashir’s hair. Defeat: the continued pounding in his head, reminding him that this whole delirious situation was entirely the result of his own inexcusable loss of control. Defeat: the way he buried his face against Bashir’s beautiful neck and audibly sighed.
Defeat: that he wasn’t even the one to put a stop to it.
“I’m on duty this morning,” said Bashir, apologetically. “My shift starts in a few minutes.”
“You have dreadful timing, my dear.”
Bashir actually grinned. “You don’t have to tell me.”
They disentangled themselves. Bashir looked a mess, all swollen lips and disheveled hair, with that cheeky grin still spread across his face. What a ludicrous, childish creature this man was. How absurd it was to find him so captivating. Mercifully, there were no mirrors in his own line of sight.
“Um. Would you, er—would you like to have dinner with me tonight? Here, in my quarters? Or the replimat, if you prefer. Or Quark’s, if it’s not too crowded—”
Garak put a hand on his thigh, and he cut himself off, his smile shrinking down to one of nervous anticipation.
“Perhaps. I’m not sure how long it will take to get my shop back in order.”
“Ah. Well. Just let me know, then,” he said. “If you want to come to the infirmary with me, I can give you something for that hangover.”
“Thank you for the offer, but I have it on good authority that I’ll survive.”
“I’m beginning to think that you can survive anything,” said Bashir, with a sigh. “Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me. No reason to suffer if you don’t have to.”
Garak found Odo waiting for him at the replimat, seated at a secluded table in the corner. It wasn’t his usual table, something which made him feel irrationally grateful.
“I’m surprised Dr. Bashir didn’t give you something for that hangover.”
Garak’s expression betrayed no reaction to this opening, nor did he ask how much Odo knew about last night’s sequence of events, or how he knew it. He sat down and spread moba jam on his scone. “He offered, but I find that sometimes it’s better to allow oneself to experience the consequences of one’s actions.”
“Or you were too embarrassed to go to the infirmary,” said Odo, rolling his eyes. Many humanoid expressions were beyond his capabilities, but he certainly had that one down. “I take it that’s all he offered you.” There was a question in there, or at least a suspicion.
Garak gave him a sly smile. “If that was the case, why did I spend the night in his quarters instead of my own?”
“What you’re insinuating would be considered a very serious crime.”
“Only if I were to press charges, which seems an unlikely contingency.”
“I don’t think Dr. Bashir would appreciate your sense of humor.”
“He rarely does.”
“I think it went something like this: you attempted to drown your sorrows in Quark’s limited stock of kanar. After he cut you off, you showed up at Dr. Bashir’s door in the middle of the night in a state of intoxication, and he decided that you couldn’t be trusted not to get yourself arrested for disturbing the peace on the promenade.”
“You left out the part where I shamelessly threw myself at him. Not, I’ll admit, one of my better planned seductions.”
Odo wasn’t sure whether or not to believe him. When wielded correctly, even the truth could be useful. “I don’t think that I will ever understand humanoid behavior.”
“Yes, it’s completely inexplicable that Dr. Bashir was able to resist my charms.”
“You’re lucky that he seems to have such a selective memory where you’re concerned.”
Garak picked at his scone, which was too sweet, and wondered why he’d ordered it. “Maybe not selective enough.”
“You think that he’s not just going to pretend this little incident never occurred?”
“He asked me to have dinner with him tonight.”
Here, Odo looked genuinely nonplussed. “Is that any different from having lunch with him every week?”
Poor Odo. So insightful when it came to puzzling out the great mysteries of humanoid behavior, and yet there were still so many minute pieces he failed to grasp. “It’s a matter of context. A meal shared in privacy, when all one’s duties have already been attended to, can be very different indeed from a meal shared in full view of the public, with patients and customers waiting at the end of it.”
“I see what you mean. And this difference disturbs you, does it?” Garak didn’t answer. “How did you respond?”
“I equivocated.”
“Of course you did.”
“And how would you have responded, if you were in my place?”
“I would have declined.”
“Of course you would.”
“But it’s really none of my business.”
The set of Odo’s shoulders exuded discomfort. Maybe that was why Garak refused to let the subject drop.
“Still, you clearly have an opinion on the matter. I’m interested in hearing it.”
“So that you can ignore it and do the opposite, no doubt.”
“My dear Constable Odo, I’m not nearly the contrarian that you want me to be.” Odo harrumphed and crossed his arms, unimpressed. “I suppose that you and Starfleet would consider it a security risk if my relationship with Dr. Bashir were to become any more… intimate.”
“You’re always a security risk,” said Odo. He uncrossed his arms and leaned his elbows on the table. “Look, Garak – take it for what it’s worth, but I’m really only thinking about what’s in your best interests, and those of Dr. Bashir.”
He paused.
“Go on.”
“The way I see it, the fundamental problem is that your moral compass points in one direction, and his points in another. And no amount of… mutual fascination is going to outweigh that in the long run.”
“In the long run? You’re taking this very seriously. Not everyone expects their sexual liaisons to be romance for the ages.”
“If you were just interested in sleeping with him, you would have done it by now, and you wouldn’t be probing me for advice about it.” His voice was pitched so low that Garak had to lean in to hear him. “But you have feelings for him, and I think that scares you. No good operative allows themselves to form that kind of emotional attachment – and it doesn’t matter that you’re in exile, that the Obsidian Order is gone, or that your mentor is dead – you still like to think of yourself as a good operative, in service to Cardassia. And if you let those feelings get the better of you – if you give them any room to grow – then who are you going to hate more, yourself or him?”
Odo paused, studying him. “I’m sorry. Like I said, it’s really none of my business.”
Garak smiled – his polite, customer service smile. “No need to apologize, Constable. Thank you for your considered opinion. I will take it under advisement. Now, if you excuse me, I really should start work on my shop.”
They met for lunch later in the week. The usual time, the usual place, even the usual table. It was the usual dialogue, too. Garak found Hamlet’s vacillations even more insufferable than Caesar’s naïve trust in his friends.
“But that’s the whole point! Hamlet’s indecisiveness is his fatal flaw, and it ultimately dooms everyone around him. It’s supposed to be tragic.”
“My dear Doctor, these ancient human kingdoms must have been extremely unstable, if they could be completely destroyed by the personal failings of a single man. Your people put far too much emphasis on the importance of the individual.”
They meandered down the well-worn conversational path, never veering into more dangerous alleys. If Dr. Bashir sometimes looked a little uncertain, or perhaps a little bit hurt, well, he didn’t say anything, and neither did Garak. That was certainly for the best.
It was a victory, of course: a victory over his own weakness. And if it felt more like defeat, then Garak had no one but himself to blame.