I do not own Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
He found the darkness of the cell suffocating at first.
The first week he would have given almost anything for a light. The days blended together in the dim atmosphere with no indication of the end of a cycle of any sort, not of Cardassian or Bajoran or Human. However, after a month of this, he found himself quite accustomed to it and went to great lengths to avoid the outside or lamps or anything that brightened his world more than he was accustomed to.
Julian found isolation strangely comforting. He probably managed to convince his Jem'Hadar guards that he had gone insane, with his talking to himself. During that time, he crunched numbers and verbalized his way through countless escape attempts, disguised behind meaningless experiences from his childhood.
When he finally returned to the station, surrounded by things that should have put him more at ease, he felt strangely… not at home. He realized that he had to try harder to hide himself when among those he trusted.
He would have thought that he would want to surround himself with as much light and noise as he could to ward off the terrors of the night and quiet, but he soon found out that he wanted just the opposite.
He kept his room dimmer than usual and he flirted with the risk of going against regulation during his first month back when he lowered the lights in infirmary to as low as he could still see in and only just.
The infirmary was blessedly quiet. The controls hummed away without anyone available to use them, given the distinct lack of notable injuries over the course of the last week. Not even Miles had come by lately, his shoulder remaining miraculously intact. The smell of antiseptic laced with fresh cloth permeated the air and Julian had to remind himself to breathe.
All the experiments he had been cultivating before he was taken had long since died into nothing. Only decaying corpses of bacteria remained, the heavy sanitizers having killed off any life growing there.
Night was always a bit of a headache. The slightest tremor wrenched him from sleep and anything bigger would force him fully awake.
He rain-checked Garak for the first whole week, writing it off as physical stress that he needed to work off. What he finally admitted to himself was that it was the crowds and lights that scared him off. Even the taste of scones felt foreign for a few days and he had to force himself to eat them to readjust. He wasn't going to let the Dominion wreck his diet, for pity's sake!
"You've been avoiding me, doctor," Garak mused when he caught Julian with the others senior staff eight days after getting back. "I'm starting to think I preferred the changeling you."
"Do you? Or have you just so missed getting under my skin?" Julian managed a weak smile. His eyes had long ago adjusted to the brightness, but the clamor of numerous other groups waiting for their food or discussing it after the fact grated on his patience.
Garak laughed. "How about both?"
Julian didn't try half has hard to match the verbal spar like he normally did. Maybe tomorrow he would have the energy to fight back a little harder.
"Don't try to pretend you're not also recovering," Julian said, spearing a small cut of meat while some woman shrieked in laughter not two yards away.
"I'm not recovering," Garak said lightly. "I don't know why you're so intent on forgetting, but there are some things you get used to when living as a spy, and moving on from unpleasant experiences such as the one we've had is one such thing. Captivity is par for the course – you learn to adapt. Well, that's assuming you get caught, which I honestly tried to avoid."
Though as much as Garak would deny it, Julian knew that Garak was still affected from his time in the prison, judging from the way his head sometimes snapped up at some of the louder noises.
Not to mention the sober way he spoke, compared to before. Julian suspected he still mourned the death of his father.
"What do you do when the doctor is the one who needs rest and refuses to get it?" Jadzia teased him. He mentally wrote off conversation with Garak for the next half hour, as his Cardassian friend quickly slipped away at Jadzia's approach.
"I suppose captain's orders may be enough," Julian replied.
Jadzia's smile vanished once Garak left earshot. "In all seriousness, is it really that bad?"
Julian shrugged. "Not really. Nights are getting easier, at least. My body seems to finally be realizing that Jem'Hadar aren't going to burst into my personal quarters while I'm sleeping."
"Are you eating?"
"Of course, I'm eating."
"Julian." She shot Quark a wary glance. "How about you take a week off? Just a week? I'm sure Benjamin would allow it, I can talk to him-"
"You know as well as I do that I can't," he said, cutting her off. "I'm not going to drop dead of neglect, Jadzia. I can take care of myself."
She didn't look convinced, but she remained quiet, watching his expression.
"Sorry," he said. "I'm just… I've got a lot on my mind."
"I know you do," Jadzia said softly. "Let me know if you need anything, okay?"
"Right."
With a small smile, Jadzia turned away, leaving just Miles.
"Up for a round?" he asked, brandishing a handful of darts.
Julian inhaled deeply, considering. "Why not?" he said. "It's been far too long."
"What?" Miles asked. "You mean the Jem'Hadar didn't manage to ruin your love of darts?"
Julian laughed, readying a shot. "Oh, believe me. They tried."
Bull's eye.
What energy Julian had recovered vanished. He swallowed hard as Miles whistled. "They tried?" he repeated.
"They did." Julian shook his head and threw another one that he ensured landed in the outmost ring. "But they failed."
Miles chuckled as Julian missed another shot. He would still consider Julian to be recovering, which would affect normal people's coordination. They would be distracted, nervous, unable to focus on the image of the dart board in front of them.
But then, at least that part wasn't entirely inapplicable.
"You haven't been talking as much," Miles said.
The last shot went way off-course. Julian said nothing.
"Not your day, is it?" Miles asked.
"Not my week."
Miles stepped up and scored three close hits.
"He's back in the zone today!" Julian announced.
Miles smiled smugly. "I never really left it. Just been giving you a chance to get even."
"Thank you," Julian said, throwing another dart. "But I don't need your charity. Another game?"
"Maybe one."
A/N: Another tidied-up piece. Sometimes I think about the fact that "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" takes place right after Bashir's been held in a deep, dark dungeon for a lot of time and I wonder how that would impact the effect the whole thing has on him?