Julian remembered the first time he'd met a Vulcan.
He'd not yet turned seven – he'd not yet been rebuilt from scratch. He'd still been Jules, not just because he accepted the name, but because he'd still been Jules: small, slow, clumsy, simple. He remembered how disappointed his parents seemed with him, all the time, how angry they always were, how impatient, how sad – he remembered how he used to dread going home from school in the afternoons, because it meant he'd be with the tutors his parents would hire, or his parents themselves, and not the kinder tutors in school, and the other children.
He doubted that he'd been better with other children, when he was younger, than he was later on, that he'd been more socially adept: genetic resequencing had served to strengthen his muscles, his every piece of flesh and tissue, bolster his immune system. He had looked at the records of the changes in his body – his bone density, his muscle mass, his hormone production, his nutrient absorption, his digestive system, the weight of his brain matter, Hell, the strength of his brain synapses: they'd deactivated some genes and activated others, and when some of his own genes hadn't served the purposes they liked best, they'd spliced in some new ones.
Other Human genes, of course, but genes from other species, too – he had obsessed for a time over the precise nature of all those splices, for a little while as a teenager, traced what had come from axolotls and jellyfish, what had come from Vulcans, Bolians – the first time he'd ever really known what a Cardassian looked like, it had been because he'd looked at the source of a sample for something intended to let his body fare better in higher temperatures, and to go without food or water for longer.
All that resequencing had fixed the flaws his parents had found in his body, but they hadn't managed to change his neurotype: even after the Eugenics Wars and the everyday eugenics that still abounded, no one had found a "cure" for autism.
So, no, he didn't think he'd been better at socialising, before his resequencing. He'd been just as autistic, but with added learning disabilities besides, and whatever other comorbidities that could or couldn't be listed with specific names and labels. But it had seemed different.
It had seemed easier – or, no, it hadn't been easier, it was just that he hadn't remembered his failures in such perfect detail, and hadn't been quite as anxious about everything. Genetic resequencing had given him perfect temporal recollection, an eidetic memory, an exaggerated learning capability, an obscene memory capacity, and along with all that, what might be described as a high-functioning anxiety disorder, if it happened to anybody else.
He'd used to be a lot more physical with the other children too, he thought. His skin was less sensitive, before, he thought, and while his pain threshold might not have been as high, he hadn't been quite so aware of all the types of pain and discomfort there could be. He remembered enjoying hugs more – he remembered enjoying hugs without quite so many asterisks involved.
A hug had been a hug, before his resequencing; later on, a hug was nice, so long as it wasn't too light, and so long as it didn't last too long if it was too light or if the other person's hands weren't in the wrong place, if they didn't brush the hair on the back of his neck or rest their hands over his diaphragm so that he felt like he couldn't breathe even though he knew it was purely psychological or pull at his clothes or touch his wrists or, or, or.
He hadn't been good at handshakes, but he'd been good at hugs. The Vulcan he'd met had been his own age, or thereabouts, a cousin by marriage of one of Jules' schoolmates. Vulcans didn't shake hands, he'd informed Jules when Jules put his out, and when Jules had asked if Vulcans hugged, the Vulcan boy had told him that they did.
Julian didn't remember the Vulcan's face in the crisp, perfect detail he remembered every face he'd met after the age of seven. He didn't remember the Vulcan's name or the student he'd been related to, and he didn't remember the clothes he'd worn like he remembered everyone's clothes. He remembered that he'd been warm, and that although they'd both been smaller, skinny boys, that the Vulcan's flesh had been harder than his – the Vulcan boy had told him that Vulcan flesh was denser than human flesh. It was why they were stronger, and why they weighed more, even if a Vulcan looked the same as a Human, when compared.
He remembered his parents talking about how cold Vulcans were, and remembered some of the other children not liking him, except for his cousin and Jules, but he'd felt the Vulcan was very polite, and kind.
He remembered admiring him, finding him impressive, although he couldn't remember the details of why, either – maybe that he'd been good in class, or good at sports, or one of the other things Jules hadn't been good at, which could have been anything.
He'd met dozens of Vulcans since then, of course, hundreds, thousands, even. There hadn't been any Vulcans at the school he'd gone to in Cambridge, but there'd been Vulcans at schools he'd gone to in other cities on Earth and Earth settlements, Vulcans in the various settlements he'd stayed in once his father had begun his diplomatic tours, and when he'd gone to Starfleet's medical school, all sorts of Vulcans.
Vulcans, Bolians, Andorians, Tellarites, Arcadians, Caitians, Grazerites, Denobulans, Betazoids, Kelpiens, Rigellians, Trill, Orions—
That was within Starfleet's bounds, of course, most of them races that were Federation members – but while studying off-planet, on placement here and there, of course, he'd met Klingons, Ferengi, Romulans.
He'd never met a Cardassian until he'd come to DS9.
As a child, he'd been tremendously interested in the different cultures of other Federation planets – he'd gone far beyond the required reading requirements in his literature and media classes; he'd read up on all manner of Vulcan philosophers, Denobulan and Andorian folk tales, Caitian dramas, Kelpien spoken history…
So many different cultures came together under the Federation of Planets, within Starfleet, and within all the trading unions and cultural exchanges that spanned Federation territory and farther abroad, to its colonies and the edges of Federation borders.
Julian used to entertain idle fancies that perhaps he was meant to be somewhere other than with Humans, that he had somehow been surgically altered to fit in with them, a sort of cuckoo, a modern-day echo of the changeling myths, where the child who was wrong had replaced the child that ought have been.
By the time he was fifteen, those fancies had been eviscerated, and instead replaced with a far worse reality – one that established, in cold, hard truth, the freedoms he could and couldn't reach for. He had long since deleted the documents he had begun accumulating, at age fourteen or so, to argue for his own emancipation from his parents, planning to take himself away to some other planet, ideally not under Earth's rule, and he had considered Vulcan.
When his mother and father had told him what they'd done to him, he'd quietly deleted those files, and scrubbed the data rods they'd been saved on. You couldn't file for emancipation without arguing your case in front of a few committees, and explaining precisely why you wanted legal independence from your parents, and an in-depth medical exam was a matter of course, not to mention a careful study of your childhood history, the records of where you'd been, and where your parents had taken you.
He'd been allowed to leave his parents' home, legally, at age seventeen, so long as he didn't try to move off-world, and once he'd begun his medical studies, he'd had to stay on Earth. He'd done placements on other planets, of course, a handful of times, but that was all, and it had never quite been enough.
He'd always wanted to go further away, and now here he was, on a space station above Bajoran space, all his dreams come true: he was a Starfleet medical officer, a star in his field but not too much of a star, a genius but not too much of a genius. Not a professional tennis player, and he didn't submit most of the papers he wrote or the research he authored to journals, and he made sure he appeared more often as a co-author or a contributor than a primary author…
And he would never be a Captain, and he would never be a Commander, and he would never be an Admiral.
In an ideal world, he'd die in the line of duty; in a less than ideal one, when he reached eighty years or so and the non-Human genes in his system meant that his middle-age was going on suspiciously long, he would quietly retire, and leave Federation space altogether.
He used to imagine going to live on Vulcan, when he was thinking about being emancipated. His parents had argued a lot at that time – they'd argued ever since his thirteenth birthday. He hadn't witnessed whatever argument had started it, but he'd first noticed the tensions between them when he'd come home from a weekend trip he'd gone to with his school, and he later surmised that what had prompted it had been him saying he couldn't decide between wanting to be a neurosurgeon or a transplantation specialist. He'd thought at first that it was to do with his gender transition, because he'd started taking testosterone the year before, and had gotten an implant for it at around the same time, but it turned out not to be that at all.
He recalled the conversation over dinner in vivid detail, the way that he'd idly said, picking another parcel of stuffed cabbage from the plate of mahshi in front of him, how interesting transplant science was. He'd talked about cross-species transplantation – he'd mentioned gene splicing, talked about the complexities in arranging appropriate organ regeneration and transplantation in species hybrids.
At the time, they hadn't shown a particular interest in the specifics of the conversation, but he had been able to ascertain, upon his return, but he'd been able to pinpoint key notes of tension in their voices later on.
They'd been arguing about whether to tell him, how to tell him, what he was, what they'd done to him. When he was fifteen and they finally broke the news to him, told him everything, they'd grown so much closer – all their troubles, all their tensions, were suddenly repaired!
They were closer than ever.
They'd only come closer, as Julian had started inching his way out, as he'd widened the distance between him and them more and more, replied to fewer of their communications, visited less.
Stopped visiting.
Sent them communications only once a year, if that.
He was everything they wanted, after all, an achievement they could mount over their mantelpiece and talk about in diplomatic communiqués and brag about to the sort of well-to-do friends they liked to make, use him as a trump card in arguments about their influence. It wasn't like he needed to talk to them, for him to be all that.
He wondered what it might have been like, if he had gone to Vulcan at age fifteen, newly emancipated, separated from his parents. He would have enrolled in the Vulcan Learning Centre, would have studied medicine on Vulcan – there were a fair few humans on Vulcan, not to mention different Vulcan and Human hybrids.
He would still have enrolled in Starfleet, but it would have been—
Different.
A lot of autistic Humans got on better with Vulcans than allistic ones, even if they weren't genetically modified – autistics with flat affects or lessened outward emotional performance, autistics who felt emotion very intensely but struggled to verbalise it or didn't display it. Julian didn't think that he was either of those. He felt strong emotion and he was very outwardly emotive, was sometimes overwhelmed or overstimulated, but not in the way some people were – but he did prefer things to be literal, liked for things to be logical and ordered, preferred to be spoken to frankly than to communicate indirectly.
The idea of learning to learning to meditate, properly meditate, had appealed to him. He'd thought it would help with his anxiety, help him when he got overstimulated, and more than that, help him learn, let him…
But Vulcans were telepaths.
The funny thing was, if his parents had never told him what he was, he could have gone to Vulcan just as he'd wanted to. The reason his parents told him what he was in the first place was because he had to be cautious about making too much of a name for himself, being so impressive that it prompted suspicion – if he'd managed to emancipate himself, if they'd agreed easily or if they'd let him go with their permission, he could have lived out the beginning of his career on Vulcan. If it had come out what he was because he tried to emancipate himself, perhaps his parents would have been arrested, and perhaps he'd never have gotten into Starfleet – but the Science Academy would still have let him study medicine. He still could have served, just not as a Starfleet officer.
But as soon as he knew, he couldn't go to Vulcan, couldn't be constantly among telepaths. He'd never liked to be around Betazoids or other telepaths, but a lot of telepaths didn't like to be around him. His thoughts moved too fast, and too emotionally – he didn't know if it was being autistic or genetically enhanced or just annoying, but a Betazoid he'd sat next to in his second year at Starfleet Medical had once told him that sitting next to him was like experiencing a hydro shower's flow at full pressure directly to the face.
He'd said, "I suppose that means sex is off the table, then?" and the Betazoid had laughed – he'd been handsome, had had sparkling teeth, and said, "Maybe if you took a telepathic suppressant."
Julian had, at that – it had been a very pleasurable one-night stand.
"Doctor?"
"Hullo, Garak," said Julian. "Do you need me for something?"
"No," said Garak. Julian listened very carefully, and he heard the almost-silent movement of Garak's heavy, insulated boots on the smooth, tiled floor as he came forward. It was cool in the observation deck, a few degrees colder than the rest of the station, but it was darker too, and he couldn't help but wonder how much Garak noticed it, the brightness of the lights compared to the Cardassian standards, or the cooler temperature.
He wished he knew more about Cardassian culture. It was hard to glean information about the Cardassians through Federation channels, and when he'd tried to ask Quark if he had any Cardassian literature available, Quark had gotten a salacious grin on his face and had offered half a dozen Cardassian erotic genres; asking Bajorans was just as useless, albeit for different reasons.
And—
Julian liked Garak.
He liked him very much, liked him a dangerous amount.
Liking him didn't make him a reliable source of information.
"Is my shirt ready?" asked Julian. He was sitting on the cushioned bench of one of the observation windows, and when Garak approached, Julian retracted his feet from where he'd stretched them out across the bench, letting the Cardassian sit down. When Garak didn't answer right away, tilting his knees in toward the bench and leaning forward to look out of the viewing port, to Bajor below, Julian said, "They have benches like these on Galaxy-class starships, with the viewing ports. This area is going to be refurbished either into a conference hall, but they won't have the work crew to finish it for a few more months, with the ways things keep malfunctioning. That's why it's so cold in here, and so dark."
"I was surprised I didn't have to use some sort of command code to enter," said Garak, and on a whim, Julian put his feet in Garak's lap. He watched Garak's face in the reflection of the glass as he did it, and Garak, being Garak, looked disarmed and surprised – and then he met Julian's gaze in the reflection, and smiled.
His hands were extremely warm where they settled on his ankles, pushing up slightly under the fabric of his trousers. Julian's shoes were resting together on the floor beside the bench.
"Your shirt is ready, my dear, but you needn't collect it right away – I'm not quite so desperate for the commission as to resort to shaking down customers immediately upon completion."
"Who said it was about the commission? Perhaps you're just desperate to see me in it."
Garak kept smiling, his grey thumbs sliding back and forth against the fabric of Julian's socks, putting a marvellous pressure on his ankles.
"Did someone send you looking for me?" Julian asked. "Don't tell me, let me guess. Kira, O'Brien, and Sisko would contact me via my comm, if they needed me. If Jadzia needed me for something medical, she'd do the same – if she needed me for something personal, she'd come find me herself. If she heard about my little meltdown today, she'd come find me herself, and because she hasn't, I guess that means she hasn't heard – but Odo wouldn't come find me himself. He'd think it was overstepping, and even if he didn't, he finds human emotions messy. He might tell someone with an investment in my emotions, though, and unlike everyone else in Ops, he doesn't forget our friendship, or even pretend to forget it, like some people do. Did he ask you directly if you knew what was wrong with me? Or, wait, no, no, let me see… He came into your shop, under the pretence of dropping off a security briefing that affects your stock, or to ask you a follow-up question about an ongoing investigation, and just as he was leaving, he said, over his shoulder… "I'm surprised I found you here, Garak. I thought you might have gone in search of Doctor Bashir, given his outburst today."
Garak's eye ridges raised, but he was smiling the peculiarly small, brightly curved smile that meant Julian had impressed him, that Julian had pleased him, and it made Julian feel warm and satisfied in a way he wouldn't admit to, if anyone asked him about it.
"I had never noticed that Constable Odo brought his shoulders up so much in line with his ears when he spoke, Doctor," said Garak, imitating the scrunched-up position Julian had taken on to imitate Odo's gruff drawl, and Julian leaned his head to the side, looking down at the planet.
"The good constable didn't come into my shop – I was already closing my shutters for the evening. In every other aspect of your analysis, however, your estimation was remarkably accurate – but for a minor change in syntax, you guessed his parting remark word for word."
"I like Odo," said Julian.
"So do I," said Garak.
"Really?"
"Of course. What reason would I have not to be fond of him?"
"Well, among other reasons, I think he wants you dead."
"Oh, if I counted that as a reason not to like someone, Doctor, I'm sure I wouldn't like anybody at all."
Julian laughed. "This would be a wonderful opportunity for you to kill me, you know," he said softly. "The two of us here, isolated, in a part of the station where very few people walk by."
"Do you want me to kill you here?" asked Garak. "There isn't something else you'd rather I do to you?"
"Tease."
Garak let go of one of his feet to take his left foot in both of his hands, and with a very firm, hard pressure, he pushed his thumbs against the curve of his transverse arch, making him hiss and close his eyes tightly. Garak didn't stir or flinch away, sliding his thumbs down the middle of his sole toward his heel and then pushing outward again. He massaged Julian's foot without much mercy, and Julian couldn't help the way he squirmed, digging his fingernails into his thigh as he clenched his other hand into a fist, and at the same time, he pressed his teeth into his lower lip to keep from crying out.
"As it happens," said Garak, "I heard Nurse Jabara mentioning your afternoon's difficulties to a friend as I passed her in the hall. She sounded rather sympathetic – she mentioned that the Starfleet CMO is such a kind man, and really quite brilliant, but that he seems prone to headaches sometimes, overstimulation, that he gets fits of irritability."
"Fits of irritability," Julian repeated with a sardonic laugh, and Garak laughed too, laughed a little louder when he squeezed a pressure point in a way that made Julian almost choke on air.
"Contraceptives again?"
"Neuroleptics."
"Neuroleptics?"
"They're tranquilisers – dopamine inhibitors, in the case I was discussing. Used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder – wonderful for managing manic episodes. Some autistics take them to lessen overstimulation by their surroundings – and some autistics take stimulants to lessen overstimulation."
"They take stimulants," Garak repeated, "to lessen overstimulation?"
"Dopamine deficiency in some brains can manifest in apparent hyperactivity. The brain searches for outside stimulation, lacking sufficient internal reward, meaning that someone can become overstimulated by latent sound, textures, et cetera, that they would ordinarily tune out as background noise."
"The human brain, Doctor," said Garak thoughtfully, "seems a remarkably unbalanced organ, if it requires stimulants on one side and tranquilisers on the other, because it will be overstimulated either way."
"If only it were just humans," said Julian. "The biologist she was treating made a passing remark that she wished she could have it prescribed to one of her juniors to manage her symptoms. I informed her that the junior officer in question can make her own decisions what medication she takes, and that irritability is not of itself disruptive. She made some… further remarks. I responded coldly."
"I'm told you threatened disciplinary action."
"I implied a threat of disciplinary action," said Julian.
"What's the difference?"
"Oh, please. You spend all our time together lecturing me on the difference between threats and implications thereof."
"And how can I be assured you are learning the lessons I teach you, Doctor, if you do not allow me to test you on them?" Garak punctuated the end of the question by twisting his fingers in a way that made Julian gasp, his head tipping back as Garak kept working his foot over.
"I'm not as stupid as everyone likes to think, you know," said Julian. "Not everything you try to teach me is actually new to me."
"Mmm," hummed Garak noncommittally. "None of us are as stupid as we like others to think, my dear."
Julian opened his eyes, but Garak wasn't looking at him: he turned his attentions to Julian's other foot, and Julian gasped. He heaved in the cool, slightly humid air of the observation deck, feeling its weight in his lungs as he felt the heat of Garak's strong, muscled hands against his foot.
Something popped, making him grunt, and he said, "If you can do that to my foot, just think what you could do to my neck."
"Oh, I do, Doctor," rumbled Garak in a voice that went straight to Julian's cunt, and Julian exhaled hard.
It was funny, really – he chased after Dax and he chased after Garak, and in their respective ways, they gave him a little, enough to make him ache with want, but wouldn't actually follow through. Between one or the other, he supposed he would die – it would be nice, to die between them both, but he guessed that was an overstretch of the imagination.
"Still ruminating on what a Vulcan Bashir might have been like?" asked Garak as he smoothed his fingers over the top of his feet. "Jabara is right, my dear. You've been irritable, this past week or so. Surely six months on DS9 hasn't so swiftly rendered you exhausted?"
"Is that your way of suggesting I need a holiday?"
"That or a neuroleptic."
Julian withdrew his feet from Garak's lap, and as he bent to pull on his shoes, Garak stood to his feet. Julian thought about taking his arm, as they walked toward the turbolift and made their way to Quark's. People knew that Julian and Garak had regular lunches together, and people knew that they argued, that they talked about this and that.
They were friends – really, Garak and Jadzia were Julian's only friends on the station, if he was honest. He liked O'Brien, and he liked Kira, and he liked Odo, but none of them really liked him, most days. They showed how much he irritated them, but they wouldn't actually say it, and he wished they would, sometimes, wished they'd say it outright.
The Vulcans that had been in Quark's a few nights ago were in again, and once more, they were playing a game. It was based on the program that they used in the Vulcan Learning Centre back on Vulcan – Julian had heard Quark talking about it, saying that it wasn't popular with most non-Vulcans, even as a gambling trivia machine.
"Why don't we say hello?" asked Garak.
"What?" asked Julian, but Garak was already moving forward, and he ignored it when Julian hissed his name and tried to get him to hold back.
"Good evening," said Garak warmly as he came up behind the Vulcan sitting down, curling his hand around her shoulder, and Julian hovered at his back, paralysed with second hand embarrassment, but the Vulcans didn't seem— Vulcans wouldn't seem displeased, but even by Vulcan standards, none of them seemed displeased. "Torok, Saava, T'Pek, and Romat, isn't it?"
"Mr Garak," said the Vulcan under Garak's hand. "Is there anything with which we can assist you?"
"Oh, my dear, how kind of you to ask," said Garak in a bright purr, and Julian swallowed at the way the Vulcans looked from Garak to him, feeling his cheeks burn with embarrassed heat. "But as I've told you before, it's just Garak."
"What can we give you, Just Garak?" asked one of the men, Torok, his lip curving slightly up at one edge.
"My friend here," said Garak, taking his hand off of the woman's back and putting it on Julian's, "has been watching your little game with indefatigable fascination. Would it be a great trouble to you, to allow us to join you for a round of play?"
"The device is not for play, Garak," said the Vulcan woman sitting down. "It replicates the learning environment to which young Vulcans are accustomed."
"For what purpose, child? You are using it in a bar amongst friends – could I not be forgiven for thinking this is recreation?"
"It is recreation," said Torok.
"Ah," said Julian, unable to stop himself. "A synonym for play."
Garak's thumb pressed against the base of his neck in silent praise.
"But," said Julian, "if we're disturbing you unduly—"
"Oh, my dear doctor, I hope you won't take it too personally," said Garak. "You know how these young Vulcans are with their pride. Illogical as it may seem, they so hate to be challenged."
"Garak," said Julian in an undertone, too used to Garak's provocative nature by now to be really scandalised but still feeling motivated to say something, but Garak's bait had been taken nonetheless.
"Please," said the woman, standing to her feet. "By all means, Garak, in the spirit of cultural exchange, we would be glad indeed to share our recreation with you." She hesitated, and then said, "I'll lower the brightness of the display for you."
Julian watched Garak's face, which showed only flattery, his head tilting slightly as he smiled very warmly. "What a thoughtful young woman," he said, pleased. He didn't glance to meet Julian's gaze, and not for a moment did he even try to brush off the reference to any light sensitivity Cardassians might or might not have.
When Garak settled into the seat, he slid his fingers with ease over the central control of the device, and Julian watched with interest at the three panels of output that were holographically displayed over its disc, each of them a touchable interface. As Garak began the program, only the central panel displayed text, but after he had swept through several answers, the other panels also began to display questions which Garak began to answer.
His fingers moved fast over the projected keys and also on the panels themselves, twisting geometric patterns into place, tilting architectural representations, balancing equations, selecting from multiple choice options.
"In the Vulcan learning centre," said the other Vulcan woman, "students stand on the central pad of a skill dome, and challenges are displayed in one to three rows at different heights, across six to ten columns, depending on the difficulty level of the skill dome. The student is required to turn on their feet, answering verbally and non-verbally, and accepting the onslaught of conflicting, overlapping questions from all sides. This device requires only speed and soundness of logic: it does not aim to overstimulate as a true skill dome does."
She was talking to Julian – there was a superiority in her tone, but that was just how Vulcans were. She was being helpful, volunteering information she thought Julian didn't have.
Garak opened his mouth to reply, and Julian rushed to speak before he could.
"Well, that's for Vulcan children, isn't it?" asked Julian, doing his best to sound casual. "Children that have yet to establish a firm command of their emotions and self-control? Garak is a Cardassian – from a very young age, he underwent the mind training programs typical of Cardassian pedagogy. As I'm sure you're aware – Saava, is it? – this is one of the reasons Cardassians are one of the only species that can learn to resist the Vulcan mind meld. This device has no reason to overstimulate: you can already retain a cool head in the face of it."
He couldn't see Garak's face, but he was feeling confident, and although he didn't go as far as to put his hands on Garak's shoulders, he did rest them on the back of Garak's chair, leaning slightly over him.
"And you?" asked Torok, seeming fascinated.
"Can I resist a Vulcan mind meld?" asked Julian, arching an eyebrow, and Torok and Saava both leaned back on their heels, seeming either pleased or amused. All of the Vulcans looked… interested, in any case – perhaps in Julian, perhaps in the speed with which Garak was still working. Probably a bit of both.
"Can you retain, as you call it, a cool head in the face of overstimulation?" asked Saava.
"I suppose we'll find out when I give it a go," said Julian, with a self-deprecating smile, and to his surprise, none of the Vulcans seemed as disapproving as he would have expected.
"Do you want me to readjust the brightness?" asked Saava when Garak sat back from the unit, a few statistics displaying across the screen.
"Uh, no," said Julian, taking his seat and feeling the warmth Garak had left behind; Garak's hands rested on his chair in the place Julian's had, a moment ago.
He meant to keep on talking, but the unit was all-encompassing, after the first few questions. It was everything he'd heard they could be: the questions came at rapid pace, and they were complicated, challenging, but so long as he kept focused and didn't let himself get too distracted, he could do them in order, one after the other, all at once—
He lost track of time.
It had been a long, long time since he'd done that – not since the last time he'd played a really, really good game of tennis, and when he finally sat back from the unit, laughing to himself as he looked at the statistics across the screen, showing the questions he answered the fastest, which he had done best at, his rate of response, he realised that the Vulcans were all looking at him.
Saava looked… pleased. Torok looked fascinated. The other two seemed interested too, and Julian glanced back at Garak as Garak's hand rested on his shoulder – it was too intimate, and he shouldn't have done it, but he was in a good mood: he rested his hand over Garak's.
A hand on the shoulder or the back of the neck was affectionate for Cardassians – hands touching hands was intimate, for Vulcans.
Torok arched one sculpted eyebrow.
"Was it everything you dreamed, Doctor?" asked Garak, but he sounded too amused for Julian to take offence at his venom.
"It was very stimulating," said Julian. "It was very kind of your friends to let me give it a try."
"Vulcans are known for their philanthropy, of course," said Garak, squeezing.
"Have you experienced a Vulcan skill dome before, Doctor…?"
"Bashir," said Julian to Saava. "And, no. But after a busy hour in the Infirmary, a few bits of trivia and mathematics equations don't exactly pose an overwhelming challenge."
"You should compete with us, the next time we're on the station," said Romat as Julian got to his feet, nudging Garak's hand off his neck. Taking the scenic route, it trailed over his side and his hip as Garak took it back. "We have been known to bet upon the quickest and most enduring competitor."
"Betting?" asked Garak. "Why, Doctor. It seems you're corrupting these handsome young logicians with your iniquitous human ways."
"Who says it's not your iniquitous Cardassian ways?"
"Do drop into the shop, when next you're passing through," said Garak to the Vulcans as Saava took her seat back.
"Come back to my quarters with me," said Julian. It was the twentieth or thirtieth time he'd—
Oh, who was he kidding?
It was the twenty-second time he'd asked.
"Alright," said Garak, for the first time.
Julian smiled, unable not to, and he met Odo's gaze as they passed him on the Promenade. Odo looked past him, looking at Garak, and slightly inclined his head.
"How did I do?" asked Julian.
"Very well," said Garak. "Our Vulcan friends seemed suitably impressed."
"Were you impressed?"
"Does it matter to you if I was?"
"Of course. I want you to be impressed with me."
"Are you impressed with me, Doctor?"
"Oh, you're very impressive," said Julian. "Cardassians are, aren't they?"
"Of course," said Garak. "And, as you explained to our companions, I was trained in certain disciplinary techniques, with the intent of strengthening my mental composure. Who told you that, I wonder?"
"Interrogate me," said Julian. "See if I tell."
"If I wanted to interrogate you, my dear," said Garak softly, "I could have you tell me every secret you ever had."
Julian laughed, turned to Garak, and pushed him back against the wall. It wasn't how he normally treated any of his partners, was more in line with how he liked to be treated, but it was worth it to see the way Garak's lips parted, the way his eyes widened. In the corridor, darker than the Promenade had been, his eye ridges cast his eyes in shadow, but that just made the wetness of his eyes shine brighter with the light they could reflect.
"Mr Garak," said Julian firmly, gently smoothing out the creases he'd made in the front of Garak's tunic, "I might be naïve, and I might be Human, and I might be silly and self-pitying and all those other things… But for all your skills as an interrogator, there are things you could never make me tell you."
He ghosted his lips over Garak's, felt the heat of his breath, and when Garak tried to grab him by the hair to pull him in for a kiss, Julian ducked, and dodged away from him. The toothy grin on Garak's face was wonderful.
"Doctor, what are you doing?" he asked as Julian playfully stepped away.
"What does it look like I'm doing, Garak?" he asked. "I'm making you sing for your supper."
Garak froze. "Beg pardon?"
"Oh," said Julian, "sorry. I meant— Chase me."
Even Garak couldn't keeps his boots quiet at a sprint.
