A/N: And part 2 of my series of Garak/Bashir songfics. Enjoy!

Series: Pins & Needles; Part II

Inspiration: ladyyatexel on deviantART, tumblr and AO3

Betas: SkyTurtle

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek Deep Space Nine, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

…

Always

Pins & Needles

…

"I am but a simple tailor! I've no idea as to the machinations of a government agent!"

The words were easy, familiar, falling into place one after the other without Garak's even having to consider their cadence. The result they produced was similarly familiar: an incredulous tilt of the mouth, an amused look about the eyes, a subtle shift of the shoulders broadcasting acceptance if not necessarily belief in the words that were said.

It was enough. It was familiar, and the familiarity of the routine brought with it a sort of relaxation, like a mantra whose phrases were worn to smoothness in the mind of the intoner. The words themselves meant next to nothing by this point, it was simply their repetition that held any sort of meaning.

Like a mantra, the words and the response they produced had Garak almost unconsciously smiling back, his shoulders relaxing imperceptibly, his breathing slowing, deepening.

"You know I don't believe that, Garak, and one day I will have the truth out of you."

Garak smiled at his young lunch companion indulgently, the continued spar of words only making him feel more at his ease. "Of course you don't, my dear doctor, and I have no doubt you will continue to try. Humans can be so single minded when they want to be. But I fear you are doomed to be disappointed."

"Because you don't ever intend to be honest with me?"

"Because I have been honest with you and you refuse to see it! One who seeks truth but cannot perceive it when it is presented to him will ever be disappointed by what he finds."

Julian Bashir, young Starfleet lieutenant and CMO of DS9, smiled and shook his head.

It was such a Human gesture, it worked to remind Garak that he was sharing his midday meal with a very Human specimen.

It was an odd facet of their relationship, and one that puzzled Garak in no small amount. There was no denying that Dr. Julian Bashir was Human, with all of the traits that typified the species, some possibly in greater measure than was considered the norm. Idealistic, optimistic, individualistic to a degree that bordered on anarchistic and frankly appalled Garak's sensibilities. With only the possible exception of Benjamin Sisko, Garak doubted he had ever met a specimen that more completely encapsulated what it was to be Human, at least from an outsider's perspective.

Which was why it confounded him that he had to occasionally be reminded that Julian Bashir was not Cardassian.

Why he should think of Julian as Cardassian Garak could not say; consciously, he didn't. In the same way the young doctor epitomized what it was to be Human, he was just as far from being Cardassian.

Open, friendly, trusting; were the doctor to find himself in even the most preliminary of classes at Garak's old school… well, Garak wouldn't lay odds as to his chances.

And yet when Garak allowed his attention to drift just a little, relaxing into the easy routine of conversation, he found his thoughts naturally shaping themselves around the notion that Julian Bashir shared his species.

What was it about the doctor that unconsciously whispered 'Cardassian' to Garak's senses? Or was the fault more on Garak's side, in the perception rather than the actual object under scrutiny? Was there more to Julian than met the eye that Garak was nevertheless picking up on, or had Garak become so desperate for congenial companionship with his own race that he saw similarities where there were none?

Either possibility was unsettling in their own ways, the latter crossing a line into the disturbing. He was self-aware enough to realize that his desire to return home naturally included the desire to be amongst his own kind, but if that desire had grown so much that he was beginning to think of effervescent Humans as Cardassians then he was worse off than he had believed.

No. The more he examined it, the more convinced he was that the impressions he was getting were all the fault of the good doctor.

Well, whatever it might prove to be, Garak was not unduly concerned. It was a small mystery, and he was well acquainted with those. He made a mental note and then worried no more about it. If some clue arose he would bring it out to reexamine it then, but until that time came there would be no point in fretting. And Garak had no doubt that should an errant clue arise, he would be there to find it.

He and the Starfleet doctor were spending a great deal of time together these days. Perhaps not so much when perceived coldly, as a simple numerical statement of time, but when one happened to consider who they were and therefore how much time anyone could logically expect the two of them to spend together, it was really an inordinate amount. After all, what would a Human doctor and a simple Cardassian tailor possibly have to talk about? Surely nothing to justify a weekly lunch meeting. It was only an hour, or maybe a little more each week, but those hours built up, and there were also the chance encounters to account for. Meeting on the Promenade, a drink or two shared at Quark's when chance had them there at the same time, the doctor needing a new set of clothes, Garak requiring a small skin remedy, a little boredom of a morning that brought one or the other of them to the other's door, just for a chat…

My dear, my, it really was a lot of time for two gentlemen who really ought not to have had any interest in each other whatsoever. But the universe was a vast place, and without these little incongruencies it would be duller than anyone could possibly stand.

Of course it also helped that the doctor was convinced, along with the rest of the Station, that Garak was a spy for Cardassia Prime. Unlike the rest of the Station, however, rather than that suspicion making him wary and hostile, it seemed to fascinate the doctor. Indeed, the young man's imagination positively enflamed with the idea, with the possibilities it offered for Garak's past and his possible exploits. Rather than repel, the notion of Garak being a Cardassian spy drew Julian to him like a moth to a flame.

Garak rather like the idea of being a candle flame, drawing in moths.

The fact that the doctor and the rest of the Station were at least partially correct was incidental. They were also completely wrong in the assumption that he had been deliberately left in place to act as a source of information on the Federation and Bajor by the State. Garak being of use to his people was probably the furthest thing from anyone's mind when it came to his exile on a decommissioned refinery-turned-station held by the Bajorans.

But Julian's perceptions of him were even more radically different from reality than even the most suspicious of Bajorans. The doctor's imaginings, it did not take long to discover, were hopelessly steeped in romanticism. Julian was not stupid, nor was he as naïve as many of his colleagues seemed to take for granted, but he held this almost childish ideal of what he thought a 'spy' ought to be. Secretive adventures, clever traps and escapes, unlikely missions and unlikely talents sent to deal with them. On its own the doctor was correct, but what he expected failed to consider the harsh, sometimes grisly reality of his imaginings.

Julian saw Garak as a clever puzzle, full of mysteries to be solved, and at his center as a man who could weave his way through any maze and come away unruffled, unstained by what he'd had to do.

It was the only lie, which Garak had never actually told, that he felt a real twinge of guilt over. He was not the man of Julian's imaginings. Garak rather doubted that he would have even been able to repeat half of Julian's fantasies. The truth that would have been sitting on the back of his tongue would have choked those idyllic notions.

It was easy to fall in with the good doctor's romanticism. It was an easy lie, made all the easier by the fact that all Garak had to do was not correct it. In some ways Julian's silly Human ideals fell in line with Garak's: a man dedicated to his planet, where all he did was for the betterment thereof.

It was almost licentious to allow Julian Bashir believe what he did. It was a secret pleasure Garak held close, to be looked on by someone with something so close to admiration. In all of Garak's life, he had not been seen at all that much, and when he had, it had not been with anything so positive, so gentle as admiration. It was a pleasant change.

And he could already see where it would all come to an end.

Garak was not what Julian thought he was, and one day he would come to realize that. There was no doubt that one day, sooner or later, the doctor would come to find out just what sort of person Garak had been. When that time came, then this strange, inexplicable friendship would fall apart, revealed to be the delicate weave of lies that it was.

The doctor had already seen Garak when he was not at his best, in the throes of withdrawal, the veils of graciousness and comradeship torn away, leaving the raw edges of rage, pain and resentment to be seen and felt. Garak had been so sure he would not survive that ordeal, and that he would die with, at best, Julian merely humoring him with empty words of forgiveness. Forgiveness he had not the power to give, nor even to understood. He had been surprised when the forgiveness felt genuine. He'd been even more surprised when he found it mattered to him what a Human thought of him.

Since then Garak had hinted, delicately, that even the worst of what he had confessed then might not be the worst he had even done, and that he would understand when Julian decided to sever all ties with him.

The good doctor had replied, though not in so many words, that Garak was an idiot and that he would not abandon a friend, no matter what they had done in the past.

It was such a typical, conceited, idyllic, Human thing to say, that Garak was almost disappointed. That anyone thought they would even be able to keep such a promise was enough to boggle his mind, and that Julian would do so, and remind him so forcefully that he was certainly not Cardassian stung him unexpectedly.

He could have no faith in such a promise, not even or perhaps especially as it came from someone like Julian. One who kept his promises and always seemed to believe the best in people, and who was therefore the most like to be crushed when forced to face reality.

However all of this began with Julian, and whatever he had first intended in approaching him, it was all twisted out of shape, now. Garak wasn't even certain what his original intention had really been.

Boldness had been the driving force, he remembered. Boldness in an exiled member of the Obsidian Order, it was as clear and glaring a rebellion one could make without attempting an actual assassination of one's former handlers. As an agent and a spy he had always been one to blend in, to fade into the background, seen but unnoticed, like the regnar of the desert, the totem of his youth. He had always been good at it, the best of his class and of his units. It took so very little, to just be a part of the scene and to act with a light touch…

No more. He no longer hid, though many would say that with his disgrace he had more reason to than ever before. But no, he refused to blend anymore. He wore the role of a tailor, but he did so with shocking conspicuousness. He dressed himself in bright colors and bold patterns, he spoke loudly to his customers and bragged of his skills - as a tailor, of course. He pushed himself forward out of the background, made himself memorable, one might even say notorious. As the last Cardassian on a 'Bajoran station,' he could not help but be noticed, but Garak made sure that none ever forgot to notice.

Approaching a young Starfleet doctor as he did, in the open, where anyone could see, and so openly soliciting his friendship was a step of boldness he was sure made more than a few brows raise back at the Order when they heard of it. And that step beyond, to go so far as to touch the young Human about the shoulders, so enticingly vulnerable with no scale and no ridges to protect… Well, he rather wished he had been able to hear Tain choking on his kanar when he heard of that.

Garak sometimes thought he had.

Boldness and rebellion, those had been the driving forces behind his decision to 'make friends' with Dr. Julian Bashir of Starfleet.

If only he could be so certain that was why he had remained friends with him for so long.

Boldness and rebellion fuelled some of Garak's actions, a childish need to strike back at those whom he had served so loyally, and who cast him aside to this cold monument to a power his people no longer held. He lashed out of temper and impotent rage, but in the end he knew it was a useless gesture, one made only to satisfy himself. There was very little he could do which would cause actual harm to the Order, and of those things, he would act on none.

He was still loyal, after all this time and the humiliation of exile. If not to the Order, then to Cardassia itself. His home would always have his loyalty, his love. There was no way he could withhold either.

Were he truly bold, or were he truly rebelling, then he would not still be aboard the husk of Terok Nor. He would not be cultivating the subtler arts of information gathering and interrogation, a desperate hope that if he could just make himself useful enough…

Rebellion or staunch alliance to the government which no longer wanted anything to do with him. Which was the more likely that kept him returning to the Replimat every Wednesday?

Either way it was allowing the specter of the Order to affect how he went about his life. Garak knew this, and he could not decide if it rankled or filled him with ridiculous pride.

So it was with some surprise when he realized that it might have nothing to do with his loyalty to Cardassia at all that brought him back to the Replimat week after week. It might have just been Julian.

Young Julian was a challenge to him, in a couple of ways. The first few were rather obvious - the use he either would or would not prove to be as an asset to his people and planet, the challenge of 'befriending' a Human in this particular political clime, in this particular place, with this particular Human.

Those were all challenges enough, especially when taken one atop another. But what they failed to take into account was the personality of Julian Bashir, and the good doctor had a surplus of personality.

Julian was as Human as they came, and in many ways, as Federation as they came as well. But always, there was that subtle, infuriating impression of Cardassian in him. It was almost as though beneath the naiveté, the almost gormless innocence, there lay all the building blocks of a truly formidable Cardassian, just waiting to be put together. Garak began to suspect that Julian wore his Humanness like a mask, using his aggressive innocence as a shield.

It made Garak wonder why he felt he needed to wear such a mask. If he were truly Cardassian there would be no need to wonder, but Humans… it was not in the normal order of things. What was it that Julian hid behind his mask?

And as their acquaintanceship grew, Julian began to prod back in earnest, to attempt to unravel Garak, approaching him like an interesting puzzle.

Garak was amused and somewhat charmed. There was no way he would unravel him, no matter how much he resembled a Cardassian in some ways, because despite the resemblance, he would always be trying to unravel from the outside. Whether he saw the impossibility for himself and did not care, or decided to believe he would somehow surmount it, or if he failed to see this simple fact in the first place, Julian persisted. He continued to test Garak's defenses, seeking a way in, and all the while continuing to pursue this ridiculous 'friendship.'

Intrigue. That was a very Human word, and one Garak suspected the good doctor applied to him more often than not.

Intrigued. That was a feeling any reasonably intelligent being felt upon discovering something interesting, unexpected, or bizarre. Garak often felt it upon conversing with the simple-yet-not-quite Human medical officer.

To invite one inside their defenses was to invite trouble, but Garak felt he had rested with no real challenge for too long.

Julian took to the books and novels that Garak lent him with a variable enthusiasm, but unwavering determination. No doubt he saw them as an opportunity to learn more of Cardassia and its people, more of Garak through his literary tastes, and possibly hoped for some clue or secret glimpse into Garak's old life. Fanciful Human, believing so much meaning was meant to be read into the simple act of a book recommendation.

What Garak hoped… well, more what Garak was curious to see if it would happen, was whether Julian's hidden, Cardassian nature would be more prevalent once given the opportunity to assume the perspective of others via literature. Would the good doctor think and act more like a Cardassian if he were to read such books, and encouraged to adopt their particular way of thinking and perceiving? If Garak instructed him, guided that way of thinking, steered him away from any interpretation that was too Human… would his mask begin to disappear, leaving the true face below for him to see?

With Julian thinking like a Cardassian, and moreover one of Garak's fashioning, would he then be able to solve Garak as he so desired.

Occasionally the lights of the Promenade - always so bright! - would catch at the doctor's eye, or something would be said and he would smile in just such a way - such a shock of white in his lovely dusky skin - and Garak would admit, privately, that no reason he came up with for why he spent time with Julian would be the whole truth.

Sitting with him in the Replimat, finding himself genuinely enjoying their conversation and his ridiculous observations, he would question the wisdom of his experiment. Did he want to change the doctor from who he was into what he, Garak, believed he could be? It was not a thing that could be undone later.

Did he want to remain alone forever? Always the unsolved enigma that none could - or wished - to solve?

If he changed Julian too much, in all the ways that made him Julian Bashir, would Garak even want to be solved by him?

Ah, Elim. It was all such a muddle now, wasn't it? There were no clear directives to follow any more, and left to his own devices, he lost sight of the objective, and it all became confused. Life was quite complicated enough without adding personal feelings and unfocused desires, whatever they happened to be. It was best to leave off his 'experiment' and let the doctor remain as he was.

Except if he did that, then where would be his own personal challenge? Like the wire that had once nestled in his brain, he was addicted to the comfort of Julian's companionship, to the enticing glimpses he had into the man, to the promise of what he could become, given enough attention.

Compromise was a word that any good agent learned to make friends with. There were plenty of hard lines to be held and ultimatums to be kept, but often one would find themselves in a position where the goal was unreachable as it was, but not if one were willing to change what it was they wished to accomplish, just a little. Even those in the military knew the benefit of compromise, even the insufferable ass Dukat knew it. One could exit an unwinnable situation without losing all, if they only possessed a little flexibility.

Garak would not push too hard on the good doctor. He would not make the mistake of pushing his personality in any particular direction. He would simply point the way out to him, clear the path of brambles, make the journey easier for him should Julian decide to take it - and wait.

It would be Julian's choice whether or not he took the path that would bring him closer to Garak, closer to what Garak thought it was he truly wanted: Solving the puzzle of the Cardassian.

If it was what Julian wanted, it would be Julian's choice. It was a fair arrangement. Garak would wait, and be perfectly content with whatever resulted.

"Garak?"

He blinked, a smile forming automatically as he resurfaced from him long reflections. "Yes, doctor?"

A small frown, betrayed to be a farce by the accompanying quirk about the lips. A partial mask, or a complete one with the true feelings of the man still hidden from him?

"Reliving old adventures?"

"On the contrary, I was considering the truly befuddling problem of reconciling the loud patterns favored by the Ferengi with the more subdued tastes of the Vulcans."

Bashir's brows rose. "You believe that a worthwhile endeavor?"

"Why, yes! Consider for yourself, my dear doctor, that the Ferengi as a species are driven by profit and will ply their wares among any who have latinum to spend. To date their dealings with the Vulcans have resulted in markedly lower profits than any other race. I have no doubt that a sartorial adjustment could go a long way in remedying this imbalance."

"Well… possibly. But your reasoning ignores the fact that the Ferengi have very little Vulcans would want or need, and what they choose to sell is often so off putting that Vulcans won't deal with them on principle. And no suit of clothes is going to offset their personalities…"

Garak nodded, conceding the point. "That is true. All I could hope to achieve for them would be an easing of the first sally, the opening of negotiations. Anything beyond that would be up to our diminutive friends."

"And Heaven help them, there," Julian said, his grin appearing again a white flash.

"Mm. Ah, but so tell me what you thought of The Lotus Flower, doctor. Have you made much progress?"

Circles. They danced in circles around each other, neither making much headway or retreating, they just held position where they were.

Garak would have found it more frustrating were the company not so enjoyable.

It was a true frown this time, a gentle one denoting consideration, mild confusion. So mobile, the Human face. Made to be read, designed for range and the ease of the reader. Garak marveled and wondered just how many subtle variations that face could achieve, how many Garak could compel it to wear.

"Frankly, Garak, I was a little puzzled before the very first page. 'The Lotus Flower'? A little poetic, isn't it?"

"Are you suggesting that Cardassians are incapable of poetry?"

"No, of course not. Perhaps 'poetic' isn't the best description. It seems a little… romantic for the material it presents. I mean, does Cardassia even have lotus?"

"It's possible that in the process of translation some liberties were taken a little too far. I'm afraid that this was a book I had to translate myself, with a little help of the computers." He smiled at Julian's surprised expression. "It's hardly the kind of tale that would be encouraged to share with other races, is it?"

"No…" Julian sounded stunned, appraising him carefully. "No, I can quite see that. The plot deals with rebuilding the State, and doing so would suggest it were possible to destroy it."

"The first real indicator that The Lotus Flower is a work of fiction."

Whatever Garak might have once thought about Julian, how he might shape him into the Cardassian mind he was so obviously meant to be, he did not think so now. Or at least, he did not think it so strongly or definitely.

Julian's was a surprisingly unique mind, and Garak found more pleasure in discovering its shape than trying to give it a new one.

Julian smiled, humor lightening his dark eyes. Garak smiled back, and tried not to think too much on how easy it was to smile with this Human.

...

A/N2:There will be a long gap between this and the next installment. Thanks for reading!