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“Hey Garak,” Quark says, barely audible over the noise of the dabo table. “Our mutual friend isn’t looking so good tonight. He’s in the holodeck with a few bottles of my best whiskey and that antique gun he likes to play spy with.”
“I’ll be right along,” Garak assures him, setting aside his PADD.
“Better hurry. You have any idea how much it would cost me to clean up a mess like that?”
Garak thanks for the information and the holodeck passcodes with a smile that he’s sure looks more threatening than pleased, but it hardly matters since no one else can see it. Expecting Quark to think of a person before his bottom line was like expecting blood from a stone, to use a dreadful human idiom.
Nothing on this hellish rust heap is particularly far so it doesn't take Garak long to reach the holodecks and bring up the information on what Doctor Bashir is running. Security footage. How odd. He moves towards the door but stops, a feeling of foreboding gathering in his stomach. He might as well turn the safety protocols on while he’s got the chance.
Garak slips onto the holodeck, expanding his awareness until he disappears from notice. This way the doctor won’t see him until Garak wants him too. He edges forward and realizes the effort was unnecessary.
Bashir sits on a rather uncomfortable looking chair, a bottle of liquor in one hand and a gun in the other. It’s a crude device but effective, a fact he had learned first hand. The security footage is playing a few feet in front of the chair, the audio muted. It holds every shred of Bashir’s attention.
Garak recognizes himself and Ziyal as well as Bashir- no, the changeling- sitting at their usual table in the replimat. Ziyal is smiling widely at Garak, leaning into his space as she talks. Garak is looking at her fondly. Indulgently. He’d been distracted by her of late, trying to puzzle out the baffling fact of her attention. If he had looked over just then and caught the bored, flat look on the changeling's face he would have known it wasn’t Bashir. But he hadn’t looked.
On screen, the three of them stand from the table and the changeling smiles brightly at them. Bashir, the real one, aims the gun at its head and fires. The sound is loud, ricocheting around the small space. He fires three more times before his arm drops into his lap. The changeling remains unharmed, smiling at his lunch companions. The footage changes, another day, another lunch, another moment of Garak’s failure.
Bashir takes a long drink from the bottle in his left hand and Garak tries not to watch the stray drop run from the corner of his mouth. It runs down the length of his soft, vulnerable throat and he wants to lick it away. Carefully he sets that thought aside; it isn’t why he’s here.
When the doctor has drank his fill, he points the gun at the changeling again but doesn’t fire. Instead his arm wavers and he pulls it back, tapping his own head with the barrel, apparently lost in thought. Garak doesn’t like the way the nozzle grazes Julian’s temple.
It seems like a good time to announce his presence, if only to distract the doctor, so Garak emerges from the shadows and strolls towards him as if this were a perfectly normal place to run into one another.
“What are you doing here?” Bashir demands, the gun not moving so much as an inch.
“I was simply out for my nightly walk, as per my doctor’s wishes.”
“Get out, Garak,” he says flatly, eyes flickering away from him to follow the footage of the changeling as it leans in to murmur something in past-Garak’s ear.
“No, thank you,” Garak replies pleasantly.
“What do you want?” His voice is still angry but there’s a degree of civility to it that was missing only a moment before. It seems the doctor is picking up Garak’s tricks after all.
“A glass of kanar, for starters,” Garak muses. He leans in to study the changeling’s expression as it speaks to Ziyal and wonders how he missed the condescension in its eyes. “Then perhaps we can discuss that travesty of a novel you recommended.”
Bashir blinks at him for a moment as though Garak had spoken a foreign language. The gun barrel slips from his temple to the hollow of his cheek.
“You want me to talk about literature?” he asks, incredulous, all attempts at geniality forgotten. The gun slips farther down, its presence forgotten in the face of this outrage. “You want me to pretend none of this happened and just move on like, like–” He turns back to the scene and gestures with his left hand, liquid sloshing against glass.
“As though you weren’t replaced with an imposter for a month, yes,” Garak answers with a smile as he takes the chance to step closer.
“As though no one noticed I was replaced by an imposter for a month.”
“Yes.”
“How? No one noticed. Not the Captain, not Miles, not you . What a sad excuse for a spy.”
Long past are the days he could reasonably deny the charge. He misses it only because of the exasperated, knowing smile the doctor would give him for his efforts. Now, Garak only inclines his head in agreement because the accusation is nothing less than he deserves.
At least the weapon is now pointed at the floor. He could make his move now, retrieve the crude weapon from Julian’s hand. Instead, he drifts closer.
“Have you finished wallowing in self pity or would you like to shoot it some more?”
The doctor glares at him, jaw clenched. It takes him a moment to relax it enough to speak.
“If I’m bothering you, please feel free to leave.”
“You once dragged me back from the brink, quite against my will if you’ll recall,” Garak says, picking a bit of lent from his sleeve. “The least I can do is return the favor.”
“God save me from Cardassian gratitude,” Bashir mutters and looks away.
Garak nearly chokes holding back the laugh bubbling up his throat because it certainly isn’t gratitude that drives him. It isn’t the security of a well cultivated asset either, no matter what he spent years telling himself. No, he’d given up that delusion in the worst of his withdrawals. He merely hadn’t told Julian until he’d named Tain father in his presence. How unfortunate that he hadn’t gotten the message.
“Do you believe in a god, doctor?”
Bashir’s expression darkens.
“You’re not tricking me into a theological debate.”
“We can have any type of debate you’d like,” Garak answers easily.
“I know what that means, you know. Debating, hands on my shoulders. Miles told me.”
Garak straightens his spine and conjures a smile.
“It seems I’m found out.”
Bashir’s fingers clench around the gun. Whatever he’d been expecting in answer, it wasn’t that. His mouth goes a little slack, opening and closing again as he works through his anger.
“Is that why you didn’t notice they’d replaced me? Your only interest was to fuck me so nothing beyond my boyish good looks was worth noticing?”
The smile slips from Garak’s face.
“Would it be better if my interest in you was only for your federation secrets?”
“Yes!” Bashir yells, throwing the bottle at him. He dodges it easily and doesn’t watch it shatter on the ground as he steps forward.
“Why?” Garak asks, truly curious. He takes another step forward.
“Because then I wouldn’t have–” Bashir cuts himself off with a shaky breath, not seeming to notice that Garak has gained a foot of space between them.
The gun dangles, forgotten, in the doctor’s hand.
“By all means, speak your mind.” Garak’s tone is conversational, as if none of this matters. He’s very good at this tone.
“So, did you?” Bashir demands. “Did you take it to bed while it was wearing my face?”
Garak sighs. “There is truly no hope for you, I’m afraid.” He pauses to glance at the muted holo vid. “You would know the answer if you had bothered to actually look .”
Bashir opens his mouth to argue but looks to the screen in spite of himself, ever the ardent student. He studies the scene for a long time.
“Yes. Right. You went into the wall for her,” he murmurs.
Garak watches him with some amount of wonder. He brushes aside the puzzle of how exactly Bashir had heard that and focuses instead on how the doctor can still believe the things he says so easily?
“She’ll be good for you, Garak.”
So selfless, so human, so federaji . Garak can’t stand it. He bares his teeth and grabs Bashir’s left wrist, pushing him backward until his back hits the wall with a satisfying thump. Garak pulls at Bashir’s right arm until the gun is nestled under his own chin because he is just as weak and stupid and sentimental as his dead father had always said.
Bashir is livid, anger crackling across his face as he tries to jerk his arm back but Garak has pushed too much weight against his body, pinning him in place.
“Let go, Garak,” he demands through clenched teeth.
“Or what, doctor? You’ll shoot me again?”
Bashir goes still, shame creeping into his eyes. He might have been willing to kill Garak to save his friends but they both know he won’t right now, no matter how angry he is.
“Why are you doing this?” Julian finally asks, those accessing eyes boring into him.
“Oh sweetheart, isn’t it obvious?” Garak murmurs, leaning in close enough that he can feel the warm human breath on his lips. Bashir’s grip loosens, his muscles relaxing.
“Sweetheart?” he asks wearily and Garak wrinkles his nose.
“A clunky, inelegant translation.” He releases the doctor’s left wrist, hand sliding over Bashir’s arm and up his shoulder, stopping with his hand resting against the human’s jaw. His fingertips stroke the space behind Julian’s ear for a moment before pressing lightly down.
With the universal translator off, he leans forward until their lips are nearly touching again. Garak whispers the word again, the melodious syllables caressing the ear. There’s nothing so beautiful as his people’s language and nothing more arousing than watching Julian Bashir shiver against the weight of it.
Julian’s mouth presses against his, his hand sliding away from the gun until it rests solely in Garak’s own. It's easy to toss away, freeing his hand so it can slide it under the hideous Federation uniform jacket and splay against warm skin.
He tilts Julian’s face for better access to his mouth and lets himself explore the exotic texture of his mouth, enjoys the heat and the taste. So unlike anyone he’s ever kissed before. Julian reaches up and wraps his hands around Garak’s neck ridges, digging his thumbs in slightly and smiling against his mouth when Garak lets out a hiss of arousal. Leave it to his doctor to know about Cardassian erogenous zones.
Garak’s done his own research and he’s never been more glad for this habit of preparedness as he is now with Julian’s erection pressing against his thigh. Before he can put the rest of his acquired knowledge to use, Julian pulls away.
Garak stills himself, ready for the dismissal. It had been a foolish gamble, but at least the gun is safely out of reach. He tells himself that had been his primary goal anyway.
The doctor clicks his universal translator back on and says, “If a changeling fools you next time, I swear I will actually shoot you again.”
“I’ve given the matter quite a bit of thought, actually,” Garak says mildly, swallowing the relief that nearly overwhelms him. He lets his hands drift down to stroke Julian through his trousers, daring now. The doctor sucks in a breath, hands clenching on Garak’s ridges. “I’ve come up with a number of ways to verify your identity.”
“Is that so?” Julian asks, a smile finally pulling at his mouth. The sight of it sets something within Garak at ease.
“I’d be more than happy to demonstrate if you’d like, my dear,” he murmurs. Julian nods once and calls for an emergency transport. They dissolve into particles before Garak can voice an opinion on the matter.
A moment later, they’re standing in Garak’s own quarters. The lights are blessedly dim and the air is warm. He lets the rest of the tension seep out of his shoulders.
“I thought we’d be more comfortable here,” Bashir says, his tone equal parts smug and delighted with himself. Garak has never been one to let an advantage go unused so he doesn’t comment as he pushes the doctor toward the bed.
While he doesn’t know what this is to the doctor, Garak knows what it is to him. Another incoming loss, to be sure, but he’ll enjoy it while he can. Maybe he’ll tell Julian the truth just as he had before; obscured and quiet, knowing he’ll never put it together. No matter what he does in the future, he’ll have this moment to live in for the rest of his life.