A/N: I'm on Twitter at JohannesTEvans if you'd like to seek out my original work as well as my fanfic, and in the meantime, enjoy!
It's late evening when Julian leaves the infirmary. He's tired down to his bones – something about all the drama earlier that day with Tahna Los and the Klingons has left him exhausted in a way he doesn't know how to even describe, really, just leaves him wanting to crawl into his bed, hold Kukulaka close to his chest, and sink his head into the pillow.
He's still getting used to his quarters here on DS9 – he'd been in the same quarters for four years at the academy, even while doing his placements, and he'd come to really like them. They'd been bright and airy, had let in so much light, and his bed had been broad and comfortable, the mattress soft. It's not that there's anything wrong with the quarters here. They're larger than the ones he'd had at the academy, and his bed is bigger too – the mattress is a little too soft for his liking, but he doesn't even have to trade with someone for a different one, out here.
He can buy one. They're given a stipend from Starfleet to use as they please – a salary, almost. It's a funny thought, to be paid a salary. His parents had money, growing up. They'd used it, anyway, in the end.
He doesn't realise that Garak is in front of him until Garak's hand touches his shoulder, and Julian actually stops in the corridor, stares at him with his lips parted, his eyes wide. His eyes feel dry – his lips feel a little dry too.
Garak's hand, though, is incandescently warm where it loosely grips at his shoulder, and it's actually soothing on his tired muscles, so soothing in fact that Julian slightly leans into the press of Garak's scaly palm before he can even think about it, and that makes Garak's smile widen.
"You didn't hear me, I take it, young man?"
"I'm sorry, Garak," says Julian, resisting the urge to swallow. "I'm— I'm really quite dead on my feet, I really—"
"Well, all that excitement from the Duras sisters and their Kohn-Ma target has no doubt tired you out, my dear," says Garak, and moves to put both of his hands on Julian's shoulders, resting at the top of his arms each side while looking at him. Garak squeezes, and Julian does swallow now, feels heat in his cheeks. "You're quite the picture of exhaustion – you must see yourself directly to bed."
Julian's mouth feels dry, now, not just his lips, and he stares at Garak's face, at the pleasant quirk of his grey lips, at the glitter of his blue eyes, the slightly purple tip of his tongue behind his teeth. "I," he starts, and doesn't know what to say, doesn't know what to think, because is this still spy business, now? Is Garak about to give him more information, suggest something else, give him something else encoded? "I, um, Garak, that is, I—"
"I merely wished to thank you, Doctor," says Garak softly, "for welcoming my offer of friendship with such warmth and affection – and taking me so seriously, of course, in regards to… Last evening's business."
"There's no need to, to, um, to thank me," says Julian, and then breathlessly exhales, because Garak's hands have moved around his body to the centre of his back, and his fingers are sliding down either side of his spine, putting pressure on the tired muscle in a way that makes Julian want to melt against his chest.
The corridor is dark, only around the corner from Julian's quarters, and this close to Garak, it's warm.
"How does a man so young come to carry such tension in his back, Doctor Bashir?" asks Garak in a soft voice, almost a whisper, and he scrapes Julian's back through the fabric of his jacket and undershirt with his nails, which are so warm and slightly sharp. He can't help the way he gasps in a shuddered breath, the way he leans back into Garak's hands, his head tipping back, and as soon as Julian's neck is on display, Garak leans in and grazes his teeth over the bared flesh.
Julian whimpers, his teeth gritted, because for a moment he wonders if Garak is going to rip out his throat and somehow the thought makes the whole of his cunt throb and come suddenly hot and wet, and that's before Garak's teeth dig a little harder at the side of his neck, head tilting to the side, so that Julian can feel the obscene heat of Garak's scaly jaw and the slight brush of his hair, which feels like silken steel, and Garak's nails are digging harder into the meat of Julian's back as his hands go lower and lower.
When Garak's hands reach his lower back, the nails stop leading the charge, and Garak cups Julian's arse in his sublimely hot palms, squeezes the flesh in a way that makes Julian clench down on air, and now, Julian does fall against his chest. He grabs and clutches at Garak as best he can, feels the strangely stiff, boned fabric of his tunic and the tight weave of it that feels cool even though Garak's hands and mouth are so mind-meltingly warm.
Julian doesn't even kiss or bite as his cheek and his nose meet Garak's own neck, although it would be polite – more than polite, more than polite, it would be nice, it would be wonderful, because he wants to know what Garak's skin tastes like, wants to know what the older man's scales feel like under his tongue and his teeth, wants to know if he can bite without hurting him. Instead, he presses his cheek harder into Garak's jaw, his neck, feels the way his scales rub and pull at Julian's clean-shaven cheek even as Garak's lips form a seal at the base of his jaw and suck. His hands, at the same time, squeeze Julian's arse again, one of them curving around the back of his thigh and pressing up against the seam of his trousers.
The whine Julian lets out is humiliating, but as Garak parts his lips and stops sucking – he doesn't know if Garak's even sucked hard enough or long enough to leave a mark, and he feels his cock give a jump, twitching, at the idea of walking about with the evidence of Garak's mouth on his body – he laughs, and it's a dastardly, venomous sound. Julian wants to drown in it.
The hand between Julian's legs presses up higher, slides against his lips and makes them part even through the fabric, and it makes him throb, his hands grabbing clumsily and a little desperately at Garak's chest before they settle on his hips and grip harder to keep himself upright.
"Garak," Julian whispers.
"You don't seem quite so tired anymore, Doctor," he says amusedly, his hands sliding back around Julian's arse, back up to settle on his lower back again.
"I suppose I'm not," says Julian, feeling himself smile. "Um, my quarters are just, just around the corner, actually."
"Is that so?"
"Yes, and I'll tell you what helps me get a good night's sleep, it's—"
"Such confidence, young man," purrs Garak. "Ought I look forward to seeing more of that, as our friendship goes on?"
"If it's going in this direction," says Julian, feeling the burn in his cheeks. He clenches down on air again, wishes his underwear were tighter, wishes that Garak would press his hand against him, almost wishes Garak would pin him against the wall and fuck him right here. "And as far as our developing friendship, I should really like to develop it further."
Garak laughs as he withdraws his hands, and Julian's protest is wordless but no less plaintive for it.
"I knew as soon as I sat across from you in Quark's," says Garak, adjusting Julian's rolled collar, "that the two of us might enjoy a most… productive relationship."
"We can't be productive tonight?" asks Julian, sliding his hand up to the side of Garak's neck. Garak's scales are somehow rougher and smoother under his fingers than he expected at once, and he presses loosely on the ridges of his neck, tracing up to the base of his skull, and Garak's eyes flutter closed for a moment, then focus on Julian so fixedly that Julian's thighs spread wider apart.
"I hardly think so, Doctor," Garak says, in the tone of one being reluctantly sensible, and putting his foot down. "A handsome young man like yourself needs his beauty sleep, do you not?"
"Perhaps I sleep better with a Cardassian warming my bed," says Julian.
"With me in your bed, Doctor, I worry you might not get much sleep at all," says Garak.
"It's a day off tomorrow," says Julian.
"Ah, good," says Garak, patting his chest. "You can sleep in, then."
"Is this why you approached me?" asks Julian as Garak makes to walk away. "To fuck me?"
"I don't believe I am fucking you, Doctor," replies Garak as he walks away, and Julian, powerless and aching and his skin sensitive under his clothes, watches him go.
"Tease!" Julian calls after him, and Garak's laugh filters away as he rounds the corner.
