"You're looking better," said Jadzia, and Julian turned to give her a warm smile. An ensign named Yoxley was helping him put the frame of the regnars' tank into place on one wall of his quarters, and Jadzia had come through.

It was early afternoon, and he'd only just off the ship onto the station, but he'd sent word ahead with the requirements for the tank he wanted in his quarters, had actually sat down and designed it with one of the other doctors on the Excelsior-class he'd been working with on his way back from Vulcan. Yoxley was just helping him bolt it into place, and then he'd set about putting in the sand and the rocks, the sunlamp and the humidifier, and a little pool of water.

They mostly ate grubs and small rodents and insects, and he'd asked Quark to order them in for him.

He was—

Excited.

"I'm feeling better," said Julian, taking a wrench from Loxley and bolting the frame into place. It was a big tank – around six feet in breadth, covering one wall, and nearly four feet deep, so he'd have to bend into it to clean it and rearrange it, but that didn't bother him. He wanted them to have as much space as they possibly could.

"What did you get up to on Vulcan?" asked Jadzia, sliding into the room and looking with interest at Julian's open luggage. "Did you bring home a whole library?"

"Something like it," he admitted sheepishly as Jadzia looked away from the pile of data rods he had in a big cloth bag – he'd bought a few paper books, too, including two handsome copies of The Never-Ending Sacrifice, which was apparently an extremely highly regarded work of Cardassian literature, one in the original Kardasi, and the other translated not into Federaji, but English. He was itching to dig into it, to compare the two side by side, but the former wasn't really for him – it was for Garak. He'd mentioned repetitive epics when talking about styles of Cardassian literature, and this was apparently a prime example of the genre. Those books were already neatly set away, though, where Jadzia couldn't see them.

"You go to the hot springs?"

"Oh, no," said Julian, opening his mouth to answer, and then realised he didn't much want to. Or— Well, he wanted to. He just didn't want to answer entirely truthfully. "I spent the week in Revaht, which is a smaller Vulcan city, and I'm afraid I didn't do much out of the ordinary. Ate a lot of fruit, took in the sun… studied."

"Julian," said Jadzia scoldingly, but then her eye was caught by the smaller tank that the regnars were in, and she went to peer inside, her gaze scanning the sand and rock. "You got a pet?"

"Mmm, that's what the big tank's for," said Julian. "I've another day off tomorrow – I worked my week's shifts on the Utica on the way back, but I'll still be in the Ops meeting in the afternoon. Have I missed any prevailing disasters?"

"Not really," said Jadzia. "Molly's been getting over a cold, so the Chief's been a little tired the past few days, Odo's had a few high profile arrests… Quark had a minor explosion."

"Explosion?"

"Circuit overload in one of their replicators," supplied Loxley, with a half smile. "No one was hurt or anything, but it was a really big portion of plomeek soup, shares for six people. It went everywhere."

Julian laughed, rubbing at one eye.

Jadzia went back to work – she'd only dropped in for five minutes during her break – Loxley helped him pour in some of the sand and start placing rocks.

"Are they really small?" he asked, nodding back to the tank, and Julian smiled.

"No, they're just good at camouflage, that's all, like chameleons. I'll show you in a minute, as soon as I put their pool and the lamp in place, make sure it's warm enough for them."

They didn't need a pool of water to bathe in – the water would only ever be a very thin layer in the dish itself, with the vast majority of the moisture in the tank permeating the air on an irregular cycle – most of the time, the air would be dry, but would cool and get more damp at night, so that the regnars could retain a routine.

When Julian reached into the tank and scooped one of them up, Loxley's mouth fell open, and he looked at the animal where it went utterly still in Julian's hand, flattening down against his palm with its tail curled loosely against his wrist. As they watched, its scales shifted and changed their colour, allowing it to blend in with the light colour of his palm, even mimicking some of the creases of the skin, and Julian smiled as he gently carried it over to the new tank.

"Wow," said Loxley, and Julian scooped up the second one – this one was the female, he thought, because she had a more pronounced crest and was a little larger, and the other was the male. "I didn't see them at all until you picked them up – how did you know they were there?"

"I used to love watching things outside, growing up," said Julian. It was one of the few memories he had from before his resequencing, apart from sewing up Kukulaka that first time and a few vague school and family memories: he remembered the intensity with which he would focus on insects or lizards that moved in the garden or over the stone, how still he would go, how little he would breathe so that he could watch them without frightening them.

He'd kept it up, afterwards, of course, with renewed comprehension of the animals he was watching, more focus, more control.

"You learn to trace the outlines of things," he said. "Lizards, deer, fish, insects, their camouflage all works by disguising their colour, their true shape, but for the most part, you can see the slight shadow they leave, or the depression in the sand, or just… The imprint they leave. You almost don't need to see their actual edges – you see them without your eyes being able to make them out, sometimes. It comes to be an instinct, when you watch for long enough."

"These lizards are common on Vulcan?"

"As pets, I think they're mildly popular," said Julian. "They're fascinating to watch, and surprisingly affectionate, once they're comfortable with you, but they're not native to the planet – regnars come from Cardassia Prime."

Something in Loxley's body language changed, a slight stiffening showing.

"Did you get them for Mr Garak?" he asked, and Julian scoffed.

"No, I did not," he said firmly, putting the last of the rocks into the regnars' tank. "Mr Garak has on multiple occasions riveted me with his explanations as to how keeping pets encourages only mess, a misapprehension as to natural law, and most dreaded of all, sentimentality." He made his voice very sarcastic, but it only seemed to put Loxley slightly at ease, and he looked from Julian to the tank, although Julian could see from the way his eyes moved that he couldn't find the regnars, the two of them curled together in a crack in one of the rocks. "You've met Garak, I take it?"

"Not really," said Loxley.

"Don't take what he says too seriously, Ensign," said Julian. "Garak lives to shock and appal, and I'm afraid he finds easy pickings in us Starfleet people, with all of our ideals. He likes to provoke, that's all."

Loxley looked at him uncertainly as he packed his tools into his bag. "You mean I should trust him?"

"Oh, no, not with anything," said Julian. "I'm just saying that he knows exactly how much uncertainty and fear people place into seeing him, what with his being the only Cardassian on the station, and when he says things to make you react, it's not necessarily a sign he's going to follow through, or that he even believes what he's saying."

Loxley nodded his head as he fastened his case, standing to his feet. "Do you trust him, sir?"

"Garak?"

Loxley nodded.

"No, not in the least," said Julian. When Loxley looked down, he asked, "I suppose it's common knowledge now, he and I, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir," murmured Loxley.

"Are your Bajoran colleagues of the opinion that I'm no better than a collaborator, or do they think he's ensnared me in his charms?"

"Depends on who you ask," said Loxley, after thinking about it for a moment, not because he seemed uncertain of the answer, but because he didn't know whether he should share it. "A bit of both, I think."

"They almost lynched him, when the Cardassians left the station, you know," said Julian, just to see how the ensign would react, and he was pleased to see Loxley react with discomfort and distant disgust, meeting Julian's gaze. "It's in one of Odo's security reports from the first few days, although Garak wouldn't press charges. They realised all the other Cardassians had left but that he'd stayed and they swarmed his shop, surrounded him… I can't imagine how that must have felt, all those people with all that righteous and rightful anger, all that hatred and desperate want for revenge, and all of it aimed at you. Odo kept security officers stationed just across from it for the first two weeks of the transition – he doesn't go into much detail, obviously, you know what he's like. He still keeps a special eye on Garak's shop now – he always says it's because he doesn't trust Garak, but Garak's conniving as they come. There's as little point keeping a watch on him as there is on Quark: they do all the sneaky things behind their back. The security guards are never to protect other people from them."

"But Quark's a criminal, and a Ferengi," said Loxley. "And Garak's— maybe a spy, and a collaborator. He's a Cardassian."

"True," said Julian. "Would you prefer if their businesses were given to Humans instead, or Bajorans? If Odo let the next Bajorans rip Garak to shreds, and the next angry smuggler crack Quark's head over his bar?"

"Rather than what you do, you mean?" asked Loxley, although he almost seemed to regret it as soon as the words were out of his mouth, cringing back, and Julian laughed.

"Now, Ensign," said Julian, faux-sternly. "I don't do anything with Quark. Thank you for your help today."

"It's okay," said Loxley. "Can I help with anything else?"

"Try not to worry too much about Garak," said Julian. "For your own sake. But nothing else for me, no."

Loxley smiled, mumbling a quiet "Yes, sir," and he made his way out. Julian made a mental note to check in with Miles about him and make sure he was alright – he didn't know most of the noncoms or the petty officers as well as he did others, but then, he only really knew well everyone in the medical department, and a little bit in the sciences.

He should branch out more, he knew that – he just wasn't all that good at branching out.

He put on his new shirt to meet Garak for lunch.


Garak had decided, with a bristling certainty following a night of sleeplessness, that he'd allowed himself to become too sentimental, and too distracted. It had been, months ago, that he had thought of Bashir as little more than a pleasure he might indulge in whilst he was still stranded on DS9 – a point of contact and leverage with the Federation and Starfleet, yes, but more than that, a balm for his loneliness, and a balm for his libido, too.

Perhaps he'd never thought of the young man as the likes of Skrain Dukat thought of Bajorans, perhaps he'd thought of him too much as a person, too much as an engaging creature, an equal with which he might converse, connect – and that, that was his mistake.

He had no intentions, after all, of remaining stranded on DS9 forever. He had no desire to seek Federation asylum or abandon Cardassia as Tain had abandoned him: in his heart and his blood and his bones was Cardassia, would always be Cardassia, and he could no more turn his back on her than he might turn his back on the air he breathed.

His relationship with Bashir was important, that much was true.

Bashir was charming, he was fascinating, he was intelligent, he was attractive – he was young, and in desperate need of guidance, of moulding, of correction. Garak could treat him as a plaything, a young man upon which he could work out his frustrations, and so far as it might benefit Cardassia, he might treat him as his very own project, his own potential protégé, insofar as his ideals might be twisted to serve Cardassia instead of his Federation, whether he knew it or not.

If he couldn't be pruned and corrected, couldn't be drawn to accompany Garak when finally he was permitted his return – or, just as likely, if Garak had to use the young man as leverage to allow for him to go back, and see him caught up in the ensuing response… So be it.

Garak owed no loyalty to Bashir, and it was foolish of him, sentimental, to treat him – a Federaji Human with a pretty mouth and a painfully bright spirit – as an equal. He might guide him, yes, and glean for himself the benefits, the pleasure of overseeing his development, but Cardassia came first, and would come first.

He would guide him, and he would fuck him, take what pleasure he pleased from Bashir's body and leave him powerless to do much else than beg for more, but he would dispense from these strange notions on the horizon of allowing Bashir to draw him in, to allow himself to be drawn in toward the Federation and its insidious, corrupting ways, its dangerous democracy, its sweet poison.

He had allowed sentiment to blind him to reality, as he had done as a child with Vlatvlat and Mila, as he had with Palandine, as he'd even done with Tain = as he'd done with those Bajoran children and their shuttle.

He was a Cardassian, after all, once a Son of Tain: it was an obscenity for him to allow himself to be so distracted.

He would treat Bashir as he deserved, use him as was needed, and stop letting his youthful appeal overshadow what truly matter.

This was what Garak told himself as he went to meet Bashir in the Replimat, what he had told himself as he closed the shutters of his shop, what he had been telling himself all day.

Until he saw Bashir dressed in a pair of tight, dark trousers that clung to the lines of his muscled legs, surprisingly loping and graceful for a creature that seemed so gangling at first glance; until he saw Bashir's shirt, a structured tunic that exaggerated the breadth of his shoulders and the angular lines of his waist and hips, that scandalously bared his wrists and had a diagonal cut across the chest and one shoulder, which would have bared the ridges at his chest and shoulders, were he truly Cardassian, and not just a handsome young Human in a Kardasi design; until he saw Bashir's beaming smile, and Bashir put out his hands before he even said hello, so that Garak was taking what he was offered before he had even a moment to think about it.

A glass cannister of moisturising cream was first pressed into his palm. It had a Kardasi label on it – it was of Cardassian make, he was surprised to find, produced on a colony called Hikanus he'd almost forgotten existed. It wasn't a luxury brand, but it was certainly more expensive than the moisturisers he'd used even with his more generous pay packet as an Obsidian Order operative, and that aside, the item itself was most certainly a luxury. He'd been making do with a simple serum from the replicators, a catch-all cream that was intended for Rigellians and Tellarites as much as it was Cardassians, but this, this was truly made for a shed.

He didn't have time to say a word before Bashir was saying, "I don't know when you last re-read it, so definitely don't feel as though you have to right away, but I bought my own copy translated into English, and they're actually paired copies for comparative study – they obviously had Federaji and some other Federation languages, two Vulcan dialects, but I thought if you were interested at all in English compared to Federaji we could…"

Bashir's voice almost faded into nothingness as Garak slid his fingers over the wood-pulp casement of the paper book – of course, no paper text published on Vulcan would be bound in leather.

The Kardasi script was beautifully printed in careful embossed gold, and when he opened the front leaf, he saw an etching of The Never-Ending Sacrifice's central patriarch, Ilok, his infant daughter held in the crook of his arm and from his other dangling a loosely-held spade.

Written in stumbling, awkwardly cramped Kardasi (it was plain to Garak he had copied from someone else's calligraphy, and struggled to accomplish the pen strokes), Bashir had written, For my teacher, with gratitude: may this gift be my promise to echo your patience and your strength, and use all you have taught me.

A traditional Kardasi thanks for one's educator.

Bashir's voice, still chattering, filtered back into his awareness: "… the second chapter but it's surprisingly dense, it actually reminds me a bit of Tolstoy in how dense the prose is, and I'm actually really glad I picked up the translation because it has translation notes and I compared it with a Federaji translation but that one shortens so much of the dialogue and I suppose it's no surprise because obviously even the literary form of Standard is just an extension of what's really a trade language at its heart. I know I've only just started but I wanted to ask about the significance of—"

Garak forgot himself.

He really oughtn't have – hadn't he just been considering how sentimental he was getting, how weak-willed, how impulsive? Had he not just been considering how he was being too free in his emotion toward and about Bashir, steeling himself to improve himself?

Garak's weakness was as much a part of his core as his humiliating penchant for yearning for that which he could not have.

Bashir gasped, his chatter stumbling into silence as Garak gripped very hard at the side of his neck, forcing Bashir to meet his gaze. He squeezed harder than he ought have, and it must have hurt him, but Bashir didn't cry out, and nor did he pull away, just leaned slightly into Garak's grip to reduce the pressure on his throat.

Garak didn't say anything immediately. Silently, he met Bashir's suddenly wide-eyed gaze and parted lips. He stared into Bashir's eyes, looked at their handsome shine and their black pupils, dilating before Garak's stare, and after a few moments had passed, he was aware of Bashir's soft noise, not loud to be a moan or even a grunt, but audible. He didn't loosen his grip.

"When did you last eat?" asked Garak severely, in a voice that brooked no allowance for chatter or obfuscation.

"Just before the Utica docked – five or six hours ago."

"Are you hungry?" Garak asked. He was aware of the almost-growl in his voice, the resonance to it, and it was plain Bashir was aware of it too, because he shivered, and he glanced down to the base of Garak's throat before meeting his eye again.

"Not very," said Bashir.

"You could withstand another hour without a meal?"

"I… yes?"

"Good."

Oh, he was very glad for the high tailoring of his tunic, the way it hid almost the entirety of his neck and shoulder ridges, because it was doubtless that they were dark with blood. His voice thrummed with arousal, almost purring, its sound affected by the rush of blood to the base of his throat, and Bashir gulped.

Garak took Bashir under his forearm instead of the side of his neck, and Bashir stumbled as Garak led him at a quick pace toward the turbo lifts.

"Mr Garak, Doctor Bashir?" asked Odo in a tone of some alarm.

"Go away, Odo!" Bashir hissed before the constable could stop them, and Garak was so focused on their forward movement that the thought of laughing was only a distant consideration.


"Take that shirt off," growled Garak as he pushed Julian into his quarters, which were as warm and humid and slightly dark as the Madrel home had been, and Julian shivered.

"You don't like it?" he asked, although his voice was too tense and eager to tease as flirtatiously as he wanted.

"I don't wish to tear it," said Garak in a tone of careful control. His voice, when he spoke, rumbled. Julian couldn't help but think of Madrel telling him idly that Cardassian arousal could come with a sound like a purr, where rushing blood changed the sound of the voice, made it thrum and gave it a slight vibrato. Garak was delicately setting aside the cannister of moisturiser Julian had bought him and the book, too.

Julian almost tore it getting it off himself, shimmied out of his trousers, kicked off his boots, and hurried to fold his clothes and put them neatly aside so that he could wear them afterwards.

"You still want to go to the Replimat afterwards?" asked Julian, turning around, he saw that Garak had set aside his own tunic. He wanted to look his fill, wanted to look at what he could see of Garak's body through his undershirt, which wasn't made of the same stiff, reinforced fabric, with the same boning, as his outer one: he could see the roundness of Garak's belly, the swell of it under the fabric, the outline of his ridges at his chest, his sternum, around his plump, padded hips—

He didn't get the chance to look for very long, because Garak was dragging him, moaning, by the hair into the other room, and saying in an even tone, "Your shirt won't fit you once I'm done with you, my dear."

"You like the book?" asked Julian breathlessly. "You like the—"

Garak kissed him like he was trying to eat him whole, and Julian stopped trying to talk.

Garak bit his way into Julian's mouth, sucked his lower lip, and at the same time his nails dragged down Julian's naked back, and Julian was abruptly so painfully hot and desperate and eager that he could barely breathe. He'd been excited for lunch, had been excited to hear Garak's thoughts about books and translation, to tell him about the people he'd met in Revaht, what he'd learned, ask Garak about Hebitians, about Cardassia, about regnars—

All of that was melted out of his brain with the heat of Garak's body against his, Garak's nails on his back, Garak's hands in his hair, Garak's weight over Julian's, Garak's breath in his mouth.

"How you humiliate me, young man," said Garak, shoving Julian onto the bed on his back and shoving him back down by his hips when he tried to lean forward, pushing the young man further up the bed. "Look at what you've done to me, set such a spark of want in me that I'm acting like a child myself, so much so that I forego our meal together, forego the precursor of our conversation. To Cardassians, the meal, the discussion, is as much a part of the sexual ritual as the touch of our hands, our mouths, our bodies. You're such a temptation that I've cast that aside. Are you proud of what you've done to me?"

Julian wanted to respond to that, but he had no idea how to begin, and it didn't matter anyway: Garak had pushed his knees apart, fingers sliding over Julian's inner thighs, and was examining Julian's cunt with a focused, hungry interest, one that sent heat pooling between his legs and made him spread his legs wider.

He couldn't sit up properly, not with one of Garak's hand still splayed over his hip and belly, pinning him in place – maybe he could get free, if he really struggled, but why would he want to? He could, however, set his elbows underneath him and crane his neck, the better to watch Garak as he examined Julian's vulva as though he were studying it for a diagram.

Julian's cock was hard, twitching and straining, and he could feel his cunt wink as he clenched around air: he'd gotten wet very quickly, and he felt a little of his own slick drip between his arse cheeks, gathering at his arse.

Garak swiped two of his fingers through the wetness, sweeping around the inside of Julian's hole where the flesh was sensitive, and Julian whimpered, his head tipping back against the bed.

"Not very talkative in the face of pleasure, are you, my dear?" asked Garak: his voice was a purr, so resonant Julian could feel it in his chest, and Julian closed his eyes tightly shut as Garak pushed his outer lips apart. With his index and middle fingers, slick with Julian's own wetness, he very delicately traced the thin, sensitive flesh either side of his inner lips, wet and membranous as the flesh on the inside of his mouth. His hips bucked, and Garak laughed. "I like to think you're as sweetly wordless as this in the face of pain, too, but one can't have everything, can one?"

"Garak, please—"

"My dear, you've rushed me enough this evening," said Garak sternly, and squeezed Julian's cock between a slick thumb and forefinger. Julian had to bury his face in his shoulder to keep from yelling outright, and he thrust up into Garak's hand as Garak squeezed and tugged at him, pulling back the hood slightly and baring more of his head to the air. He stroked over Julian's inner lips, too, made him gasp, hips bucking again.

"I need it," Julian managed to say. "Garak, Garak, I need it, I've been… Ungh, I've been thinking— thinking about it, I want it, I want it—"

"Do you need it, or do you want it?" asked Garak, arching his eye ridges. "The distinction between the two is an important one, my dear – I should expect better specificity from you."

Julian kicked him in the shoulder, and Garak was suddenly so wonderfully, fiercely angry that Julian wanted to run away from him: he spread his legs wider as Garak leapt on top of him, hand around Julian's throat, Julian's legs around his waist and cock grinding against Garak's belly through his undershirt.

It was warm, and the skin was hard and scaled under the fabric, but the flesh yielded a little.

"Heavy," Julian whispered almost without thinking, and Garak showed his teeth, tightened his grip enough that Julian choked.

"You really think now is the time to make complaints about my weight, Doctor?"

Julian stared at him. "I like it," he growled back, and he twisted Garak's arm from around his neck. Garak was surprised, but his blue eyes were alight with what was very plainly pleasure as Julian rolled them over, grinding himself down against Garak's belly even as he found the side-fastening of Garak's trousers. "You're bigger than me – heavier than me. Stronger. I'm not supposed to, ha, ah, like that? And if you, if you stop… stop prevaricating and fuck me, Garak, I won't be in any place to comment on your belly over mine, will I?"

Garak stared up at his face. His eyes glinted with focused want, but new comprehension, too.

"Oh, I'm sah, ah, ah, ah, Garak," Julian moaned as Garak's hands slid up under his buttocks, two fingers curving inward to his cunt, sliding inside even as Julian kept rubbing himself against Garak's belly. "I'm sorry, Garak," he bit out. "Did you want to take me, take me by surprise?"

"I certainly want to take you, my dear," said Garak, and shoved him aside.

Julian fell on his belly and knees, legs apart, as Garak brought his hand down against Julian's open cunt with a loud, wet smack, and he almost yowled, hiding the sound against the inside of his elbow, as Garak drew off his undershirt and dropped his trousers.

Julian turned over, sitting up to look at Garak's cock as it everted from his sheath, but Garak didn't give him the chance.

"Impatient?" he asked.

"Yes, I—" Garak hauled him by his hips to be flush against Julian's own, so that he couldn't get a good look at it – it went directly from being hidden in Garak's genital sheath to being sheathed in Julian, and the way it moved made Julian howl.

Garak's cock was almost as thick as Julian's wrist, and while it wasn't as loose or flexible as a tentacle, it wasn't as stiff and rod-like as a lot of other humanoid cocks: it had two joints that Julian could feel as it was buried in him, and it met resistance as it pushed deeper in them. Julian felt burningly hot as Garak excreted something, the chemical compound he knew was part of Cardassian lubrication: it didn't just make the muscles inside Julian's cunt relax, allowing Garak to press further inside him than he should have been able to.

In Cardassians, all it did was relax the actual canal and its sphincters, allowed the penis to drive further in – Cardassians themselves were immune to any of its other effects.

Julian wasn't a Cardassian.

Julian felt light-headed and breezy, not like he was drunk but certainly like he was tipsy, and then he felt Garak's cock… "Oh," whispered Julian.

"Yes," Garak rumbled, dragging Julian against his chest so that Julian could feel the word through his chest, his belly, his cunt, as much as he heard the word: Garak's cock had opened at the head, blooming like a flower (in Cardassian poetry, blooming flowers had an even more filthy connotation than they did in Blake's), and the rest of his cock had spread out too: soft spines dragged and tugged at the inside of Julian's walls, and the base of him had flared to lock him in place. "We don't grind and thrust as you… charming little mammals do," Garak murmured, dragging his teeth over the side of Julian's neck, and the high that spread through his body from Garak's cock made the little ghost of a bite feel like ecstasy. Garak was dragging Julian up from the bed, pulling Julian's arms around his neck, and when he stood from the bed, holding Julian like he weighed nothing at all, Julian was forced down the last inch onto Garak's impossible cock by his own weight, so that he could feel the ridged edge of Garak's sheath kissing the lips of his cunt.

And then he felt the hot, burning rush of Garak's come, and to keep from screaming he bit down on Garak's ridged neck. The hard bite made Garak growl, and he reached between them to squeeze and pull roughly at Julian's cock even as Julian kept on biting, started kissing Garak's neck instead, nipping and mouthing at Garak's chin, his jaw.

He was coming in agonising waves, feeling the orgasm rock through him, his hips, his quivering thighs, his clenching cunt, and Garak's come was pouring into him like the rains before a flood (another piece of Kardasi erotic imagery, Madrel had told him), and he felt tight, and hot, and like he was floating instead of held in Garak's arms.

"Beautiful creature," whispered Garak as he kissed Julian's mouth, tasting different than usual, with a metallic, sweetened tang. Julian's belly felt… Tight. Tight, it felt tight, and it ached, and he was forced to lean back as he bulged, bulged, and thought about why Cardassians had such an easy time of impregnating other species.

Julian came a second time, he thought – maybe a third time.

He couldn't entirely rely on his usually constantly-working mind to keep count.


Garak let Bashir doze on top of him. It was no surprise that he was drowsy, with the weight of Garak's come inside him, mildly drugged by its effects and, of course, filled with heat and weight. There was a reason sweet things like him made such charming bedwarmers, blanketing one's body with their exhausted selves, their bulging wombs, their lovely, even breathing.

Bashir must have slept for half an hour or so before he sleepily rose from Garak's lap, delicately extricating himself. The swell of his stomach was unmistakable, and Bashir stared down at it with wonder and desire, his cheeks dark, sweat dripping all over his skin.

"The effect I've had on you ought wear off after another half an hour or so," said Garak. "After that, my dear doctor, you have a choice between letting it out as you shower, or…" His own body thrummed with desire at the very thought. "I might settle a plug in you until I have you again this evening, see if I can't ripen that new fruit of yours a little further."

Bashir shivered, but he giggled too, and stumbled – waddled – to Garak's washroom.

Garak wished he'd taken a stimulant – he wanted nothing more than to follow after the young man and fuck him again with immediacy over the sink, weigh him down a little heavier, fuck him until he sloshed with it, until he was ready to burst, until no one could ever meet Julian Bashir again without knowing precisely how entirely Elim Garak had had him.

"Oh, fuck," said Bashir in the other room, and stumbled back to meet him. "Are you alright, Garak?"

"My dear, I'm positively jubilant," said Garak, aware of the tired, indulgent warmth in his own voice, although it faded somewhat at the alarm on Bashir's face as he came back. His face was rather messy with Garak's blood, stained onto his chin, one shade of brown over the other.

Garak was just lazily thinking how he'd probably never bitten a partner before when he remembered why, and he was frozen and stiff as Julian rushed, clumsy with the weight of his temporary paunch, to push back Garak's head and examine where he'd bitten.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Garak, I'm sorry," Bashir was saying. "I can't believe I did that – doesn't it hurt?"

"It's natural for Cardassians to bite one another during the mating process, my dear," said Garak. His own voice sounded wooden to his ears, but Bashir didn't notice as he wiped away the blood staining Garak's ridges, dripped down his scales. "Don't let the blood bother you. Our blood doesn't coagulate as fast as yours, but nor do we bleed so freely."

"Still," said Bashir, fussing over the wound, "I—"

Garak gripped Bashir's wrists to look seriously up at his face, and Bashir looked questioningly down at him.

"What?" he asked. "Oh, Garak, I apologised, I've never done that before, I—"

"Certainly you've never done it before, my dear," whispered Garak. "You oughtn't have been able to. There is no reason I can imagine, in fact, that a Human ought have the bite force possible to sink his teeth through my ridges and draw blood."

Bashir's stare lost its concern, and his eyes widened with fear not for Garak, but for himself.

"I," he stammered, his lips quivering. "I, no, no, you see, I, it's just, I, it's really not…"

Garak, silent as the interrogator he still was at heart, kept his gaze.

Bashir's hands went limp and loose, so that Garak dropped his hold on his wrists, and Julian sat on the edge of Garak's bed, utterly still, and stared into the middle distance before them.

"Care to explain?" asked Garak.

"No," whispered Bashir. Garak heard such exhausted grief in his voice he expected to see tears well in his eyes, but Bashir's gaze was dull, and his bloodied lips were slightly parted.

"You really expect me not to ask?"

"Why should I answer?" he asked. "My life's over regardless."

"Somewhat dramatic, isn't it?"

"If I tell you, you know," said Bashir, "and I lose everything. If I don't tell you, you ask someone else, you start looking for information through one of your little networks, and then you know, and other people know, and I lose everything."

"Everything?" Garak repeated.

Bashir's chest was starting to expand and contract, and his breathing had taken on a slight, hissing whine.

"My dear," said Garak warningly, attempted to inject warmth into the words, but Bashir didn't stop hyperventilating – his breathing worsened, and he was trembling like a suncatcher in high winds. His eyes had defocused.

Garak set interrogation aside as the panic attack took priority, and he drew Bashir back into the washroom himself.