Garak's business, in the week following, improved.
He had, of course, anticipated certain of DS9's denizens entering his shop and buying small bits and pieces, or perhaps completing errands earlier than expected, out of a desire to gossip. This has been a natural part of Garak's service even when he was first brought to Terok Nor and set, scornful and dejected, into the ruins of what was now his clothier's shop. All manner of officers had spoken somewhat freely, not giving thought as to the man measuring them for their clothes, whilst they were in his rooms for a fitting, and more people still had sought Garak out to speak to him – his fellow Cardassians, of course, the few Bajorans permitted such luxury as consideration of their clothes, the travellers that came to and from, Quark and Rom…
Sometimes, they told him their woes, or gossiped about this or that, and Garak responded: he comforted them, sold them small balms for their wounds, clothes and accessories that would infuriate or drive wild the ex-partner with jealousy, that would make the scorned friend think twice, that would show up the sibling, or impress the parent; he added missing fragments into the stories they told him from around the station, or asked questions as to the veracity of certain sources; he chuckled at their anecdotes, hummed at their stories, dispensed advice.
Garak, being a tailor, was as invaluable a resource and a source of comfort as certain others on the station – why, were he to band together in a guild of sorts with the barbers, pedicurists, stylists, and beauticians of the station, they might rule the sector themselves within the week, and force out any illusions the Federation or the Cardassian Empire ever had of influence there.
In the transference of power, little had changed in that department.
People still spoke freely without considering that Garak might be listening to the conversation they were carrying over their communicator, or with their family or friends who had accompanied them; others still saw Garak as a sympathetic ear to pour out their frustrations and their woes to, and Garak listened with his friendly smile and his gentle nods, and his kind eyes.
He always found it so very funny when people remarked he had kind eyes – never Bajorans, never Humans, rarely Federaji people at all: it was always passers-through who did that, who said how well Garak treated them, how welcoming he was, how free he made them feel to talk.
People tended to tell Elim Garak their secrets, even when they knew who he was and suspected what he was: he was a man who made himself disposed to hearing them.
The new business of people coming into his office to hear gossip instead of scatter it was a charming break in his usual routine, and he enjoyed the different ways people asked him questions or made their commentary, ranging from the subtle ("Doctor Bashir was just doing the final check on my wrist." "Oh, my dear, I am glad to see the rash has healed up so well, and just in time for the final fitting of your dress, too." "Thanks to his help, no doubt. He has very soft hands." "He does, doesn't he?") to the less subtle ("Doctor Bashir was asking about Cardassian ingredients in my shop the last day, Mr Garak." "The young man is a consummate dedicant of multiculturism, it seems." "Ahem… Any favourites you'd like me to mention?") to the positively blunt ("You'd better not get him pregnant. My girls are already complaining he doesn't pay them any attention any longer, you don't need to ruin their view as well." "For your sake, Quark, I'll try to refrain.").
What he didn't expect was the people that asked nothing about Bashir at all, and made no commentary on the development of their relationship, but came to his shop.
Starfleet officers who ordinarily made do with uniforms from replicators who had now made the decision to get real uniforms tailored precisely to their measurements; scattered merchants and Federaji attachments – the spouses and relatives of officers stationed on DS9, particularly – who chose now to get items repaired, ask advice on garments, purchase new ones; even a handful of Bajoran militia members, all of them medical or science staff.
They didn't come to gossip or to glean information, to ask about Garak's relationship with Bashir or to tease about it, to see if he'd tell them more, to show their curiosity.
They came because if Bashir was eating from Garak's plate and taking his tutelage, if Bashir was letting Garak touch him and spending some of his nights in Garak's bed, then he must be safe. They trusted Garak in the same, simple way that a feral lemur trusted the water you gave it, so long as you sipped from the bowl before you set it down.
They followed by example, and they were glad to do so.
One or two of them remarked what a relief it was, to see a tailor when they hadn't in so long, since they were last in another system or down on Bajor, and neither Garak or his new patrons talked about why.
When Garak met Bashir in his quarters at the end of the week, he was first forced to wait outside. Bashir had changed his security protocols, and removed not only the doors' tendency to open upon the arrival of any guest, but also introduced a voice recognition protocol, and judging by the quiet whoosh he heard and the moment of silence that followed, a DNA recognition protocol as well.
When Bashir opened the door, Garak said, "And if I was replicating someone else's voice, Doctor? If I was a clone? If an inhibitor field was hiding my genetic profile and falsifying another?"
"What if the moon was made of cheese, Garak?" asked Bashir seriously. "What if the Promenade's floors turned to jelly? What if time started turning backwards?"
Garak refused to allow the young man the satisfaction of a laugh as he stepped inside.
Bashir opened his mouth as the doors closed behind him, but Garak put one hand on his shoulder and brushed his fingers over Bashir's lips, keeping him quiet. Bashir, baffled but curious, allowed himself to be guided back to the edge of the bed, and sat obediently down. He sat in silence as Garak moved, sweeping the room in its entirety.
These quarters had belonged to Glinn Ledek when the station was Terok Nor: when he had finished his circuit of the three small rooms, he had only two small sensors in his hand, which he dropped into Bashir's cupped hands.
"What—"
"Shht," hissed Garak, and Bashir watched Garak go to his replicator, dropping to his knees and opening the unit. He reached inside, running the tips of his fingers along the conduits and feeling for the tell-tale tremor in the constant thrum of the electromagnetic field – it felt scarcely more extensive than static charge. He felt no disturbance in its current, and when he opened the central panel, there was no proper mole in the replicator either.
Bashir watched silently as he ran the same sweep over the panelling for his plumbing controls, and the same over those of his environmental panel. Nothing else – Ledek had only been a Glinn, after all, and not a particularly interesting one.
"Care to explain?" asked Bashir.
"No," said Garak.
"You really expect me not to ask?" It was a test as much as it was a flirtation, and an admission of trust, too – Garak smiled at him.
"Why should I answer?" Garak responded, and Bashir's lips shifted into a smile of his own before he looked down at the two little bugs settled in his palms. Garak watched as he lifted them higher, examining them more closely – they'd been affixed in places where steel bars came together, settled in the joint to keep them from being detected or coming free, not to mention to channel sound toward them with the angular nature of the room's design.
"May I?" asked Bashir.
"Please," said Garak, gesturing with one hand, and Garak watched as Julian set one of the bugs down on the bed, bringing the other up closer to his face. He turned it over, the little piece of metal and circuitry only the size of one of his fingernails, and to Garak's interest, he did more than look at it – he brought it closer to his nose, inhaled, brought it close to his ear and focused on listening, as though to see if he might trace some quiet whir or noise from it.
He twisted the bug into two pieces, easily opening the carapace, and he touched the tip of his tongue to the outside and then the inside of the circuit board, each time drawing his tongue back inside and running it against the roof of his mouth before he dug his fingernails into the bug, broke it down into its individual components, examined them all.
After ten minutes, he picked up the second bug and crushed it in his palm.
"No tricorder readings?" asked Garak with his eye ridges raised.
"I'll tell Constable Odo I found them while I was letting Caractacus and Truly roam," said Bashir. "They climb up the beams and get into all the cracks – it's easily conceivable that they'd dislodge one of them, and that I'd go searching for more."
Garak chuckled. The Obsidian Order might or might not accept that explanation – if they didn't, it would be of no real consequence, as they already knew that Garak had taken up with the young man; if they did, it would be delightfully ironic, might even make a few of them laugh.
Pythas would find it funny, Garak had no doubt – apart from the idea of Garak's Human paramour gaining an affection for regnars, the idea that a Cardassian species, a species who had educated many Order members in their espionage at that, should be responsible for alerting Starfleet Command to the presence of Cardassian probes still upon the station…
There was a charming irony in the idea.
Garak walked toward the tank now, crouching to examine the two regnars in their home. Quark had mentioned them.
"There's some literary explanation for your inflicting such strange names upon our new friends, I suppose?"
"They're the main characters in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," said Bashir. "Not the original book by Ian Fleming, but the cinematic film it inspired. Their full names are Caractacus Potts and Truly Scrumptious."
The UT couldn't even make an attempt at replicating any of that, and Garak felt the weight of the names and their strange, particular phrasing – English was more flexible that Federaji, but strangely close-mouthed and syllabically stunted. "Chitty chitty…?"
"You don't need to make that face, Garak."
"Doctor, I can assure you, I do."
"Which is which?"
"Caractacus is the male," said Bashir. He was sitting cross-legged on the bed now, poking remains of the bugs around his palm. "Truly is the female. I think they're wonderful – I've been watching them every night to fall asleep. The way they move, and the way they go still, the way their skin ripples. When I let them roam my quarters, they always look around, and then they climb up here and sleep on my chest or on my thighs."
"Well, there's no accounting for taste," said Garak mildly, and pushed open the lid of the tank, reaching in.
Truly was evidently quite delighted to rest in the palm of a Cardassian instead of a Human, his skin so much hotter to the touch than Bashir's own, and she shook the sand off of her shoulders as she rested in his palm, flattening herself to his flesh and turning grey 'til she almost disappeared from view.
He thought of Mila – only a few years, Mila had been his most stalwart companion at the Bamarren Institute, and he had no idea how many hours he'd spent watching him in the crevice he'd set aside for him, or feeling his gentle weight in Garak's hands.
"You know about Cardassian plants, don't you?" asked Bashir, and Garak moved to sit on the other side of his bed, turning to look at him. "Keiko told me you used to be a gardener, that you two talk about botany sometimes when she's in your shop." He lifted a PADD, an isolinear chip shining in its entry port, "This says they normally live under Indigo sunsearchers, that they like their root systems – I thought I would cultivate those within the tank, but I wanted other stuff in my room as well, for when they explore. I can't have a Mekarian sawtooth in my room, can I?"
"Not unless you want for it to be your cause of death, my dear," said Garak, surprised by how flattered he was. He stroked the backs of his knuckles over Truly's back, feeling the texture of her scales, watching how they shimmered at his touch and under the light. "You ought be able to grow some sunsearchers in this earth here, within the tank – as for the others you might like to keep, very few are toxic to regnars. It would be sensible for you to select whatever should please you."
"Nothing's going to please me," said Bashir. "I don't care about plants, Garak – if I did, I'd already have them. I liked the look of the perek flowers, but I—"
"Perek flowers? In your quarters? Do you plan to embalm yourself for the pleasure of your regnars, too?"
Bashir exhaled, seeming amused, and sat back on his hands. "Yes," he said, seeming unsurprised. "I know it's taboo to grow them in your living space."
"Taboo?" Garak repeated disgustedly. "My dear, why ever would you want to grow funeral flowers where you sleep? Where you eat? Would you like perhaps to have a slate grave marker, maybe a monument, while you're at it? Ought I source you a corpse, that your regnars might appreciate exploring its decomposition?"
"Now who's being dramatic?" asked Bashir.
He seemed so entirely unsurprised that Garak couldn't help but smile, and he gently set Truly back into her tank. Caractacus rushed forward, nudging his head against Garak's fingers and then nipping at the tip of his finger, plainly hoping it might turn into a Meklan beetle grub.
Garak slid the lid of the tank's lid back into place.
"Are you going to breed them?" he asked.
"I don't know," said Bashir, leaning forward, and Garak felt the weight of Bashir's cheek against the back of his shoulder, his arms sliding around Garak's waist. Garak settled one of his palms over Bashir's when it wound around his waist. "Truly's only nine months old – she won't reach sexual maturity for another six months or so. I'll have decided by then."
"They might be a solution to the vole problem on the station," said Garak.
"They're half the size of a Cardassian vole."
"They hunt in packs," explained Garak. "They do primarily eat insects and grubs, of course, but a colony of regnars can wipe out a vole population given sufficient time – a regiment of between five or ten will move in formation, and close ranks about their prey. Particularly populous colonies have even been observed killing and tearing to shreds wild honge."
Bashir stared at him, and then leaned on Garak's shoulder, scrolling rapidly through the PADD of what appeared to be a guide to the flora and fauna of Cardassia until he found the entry for the honge. He scrolled down to the size comparison between a Honge and an average Cardassian male.
"Really?" he asked, fascinated.
"Mmm hmm," said Garak.
"Wow," he whispered.
"Your youthful innocence is something I take great satisfaction in, my dear."
"Mmm," hummed Bashir, sliding his hand down to press into the front of Garak's sheath through his trousers, making him groan softly, lean back into the pressure f Bashir's chest. "You do, don't you?"
Garak grasped him by the wrist, and Bashir hissed.
"You licked the bugs," he said. "Why?"
"To see what the main components of the circuit board."
"You can taste the individual components?"
"Not like you're imagining," said Bashir. "Not like a tricorder could, no. But I can taste the difference in some of the metals – enough to know I didn't taste a power source, that they work by leeching ambient power… This component," he said, showing Garak his palm, touching his thumb nail against one of them, "this was the core of the dampening field. It's not the same as cloaking technology, I know, but it camouflages, doesn't it? So that a sensor field wouldn't be able to distinguish between it and the columns of the room's boning?"
"Quite correct," said Garak softly. "Where did you learn that, I wonder?"
"I sat next to an Ixashian for almost the whole of the extension courses I took in engineering, including the ones I took in surveillance technologies and transistor design. Ixashians have an extremely powerful sense of taste – she used to taste everything. I used to copy her, taste things like she did – we used to laugh over it. It was an unusual way to flirt, but it worked… And in the process, I tasted the differences between everything, listened to what she told me about those differences, too."
"Oh, but you are wasted on Starfleet, my dear," whispered Garak.
"Wasted on medicine too, am I?"
"You think I don't understand the value of medicine? Six months on Cardassia Prime, and I expect you might cure half the diseases that ravage the northern continent each winter, create vaccines for the rest, and you could no doubt do so alone, without even an assistant."
"A shame I'll never reach Cardassia Prime, then."
"You'd go back on your word?"
"No," said Bashir. "But it's not going to happen, Garak. No one else is going to find out."
"Such sweet naivety," said Garak. "But it will end in one thing, my dear: you in a Cardassian hospital, leading Cardassia into a new medical age. Will you smile as you're smiling now, when you're permitted work truly befitting your abilities, with no need to hold yourself back from discovery?"
"I suppose it depends on if they let me keep my regnars," said Bashir, and Garak reached back, squeezing his arse and smirking at the gasping moan the motion prompted. "It's not going to happen, Garak."
"My dear," said Garak softly, "it is."
He kissed the back of Bashir's hand.
Bashir sighed, pressed his forehead against the back of Garak's neck. He made no sound of agreement nor even of relent, but Garak heard in the frequency of his sigh a certain understanding, as reluctant as it was.
"Sex before or after dinner?" asked Bashir.
"How much room do you want to fill your belly?"
"After dinner it is," said Bashir, and went to the replicator. Garak watched him go, and then he looked to Caractacus and Truly, the two of them curling together into one crack in the rock, their breasts pressed almost into one.
"Have you ever heard of an Edosian orchid, my dear?" asked Garak softly – out of sentiment, he knew, dangerous sentiment, but the words felt pleasantly warm in his mouth, and he felt warmer still when he saw Bashir's sweet smile.
"They were mentioned in a footnote, but there's no picture in my book. They're quite beautiful, aren't they?"
"Oh, yes," said Garak. "Very beautiful. I've just the trick for planting them, if you might be convinced to retain sleeping quarters instead of a crypt."
"I might be swayed," said Bashir. "Tell me about them."
Garak did.
END PART I
