"You're not as angry as I expected," said Julian after Kira had gone. He was standing in front of Sisko's desk, and he watched Sisko rock one way and then the other in his chair, turning his baseball over and over in his hand. Julian himself was going to significant effort to keep himself from fidgeting in his place, his back ramrod straight, his fingers clasping each other behind his back so tightly he was liable to leave marks.
Sisko's expression was distantly thoughtful, and there was anger, distant tension in his face. "You expected me to be angry?" he asked quietly.
"You are angry," said Julian.
"Mmm," Sisko almost rumbled, the sound very low, the baseball going still, and he gave Julian a very severe look. "Tell me you know why."
"Apart from the risk of interplanetary incident, the way I utterly ignored the potential political ramifications of what I was doing even acting as a lone actor, the way that I used private currency to ferry goods for the purpose, and how arguably I've been functioning as a representative for a foreign entity? Well, sir. I ignored the chain of command."
"You ignored the chain of command," echoed Sisko, but he'd relaxed slightly – the anger had returned to what it had been before he'd allowed to show it through: powerless unhappiness. "Your logs on your personal terminal don't match the ones in the Infirmary. Want to explain why?"
"You looked at them?"
"No, but the file sizes are different even though the names and star dates are the same," said Sisko. "There must be an explanation. I'm hoping it's one that will make me less angry, not more so."
"Less, I think," said Julian. "I can show you the ones on my personal terminal myself – and Odo will tell you himself, I've been asking him to keep falsified travel records in his security terminal, but I did inform him of all my actual headings at all times, sir, there was never any danger of me not being locatable – and I always took my comm badge even though I wasn't in uniform."
"I see." Sisko's eyebrows were raised very high as he stared at Julian, and his smile was almost manic as he said, "The false trail wasn't for us."
"No, sir."
"Does Garak have a habit of perusing your personal logs, Doctor?"
"He'd never, sir, that would be a gross invasion of my privacy," Julian said automatically, and faltered when Sisko gave him a severe look. "I… Yes. He does."
"He checks your travel data?"
"He does."
"The minutes and reports from Ops?"
"Not from me, Commander," said Julian, trying not to sound too offended. "I've taken to encrypting anything I have from Ops or Starfleet Medical in triplicate, patch it through to the Infirmary, I don't take anything classified through my personal terminal, nor anything intended for broadly internal use outside of publicly available data like medical reports; every PADD I use is DNA, voice-print, and fingerprint locked, and I—"
"Ah, ah ah ah," said Sisko, holding up the hand that didn't have a baseball in it. "Why?"
"Why, sir?" repeated Julian, baffled and caught in his tracks. "Because Garak's a spy."
"Yes," said Sisko slowly. He seemed to be as having a difficult a time of following Julian's explanation as Julian was having explicating it. "The two of you are… Doctor. You're dating. You have been for nearly nine months. You can't trust him not to go through your personal terminal for data?"
"Of course I can," said Julian. "I still have one, don't I?"
"But you keep falsified data and triple-encrypt everything?"
"Only the stuff it doesn't matter if he reads, sir."
"But he does read it?"
"Of course, he's a spy."
"I—" Sisko opened his mouth, closed it, and Julian shifted on his feet. He was being too Cardassian about this, he knew, but it was hard to explain it in Human or Federation terms when they weren't like this – the only person he spoke to about his evolving encryption and security protocols other than Garak was Odo, and Odo understood. He went out of his way to avoid talking about it even with Jadzia, let alone the Major or the Chief.
"Sorry," said Julian. "I know I'm being… It's— I can speak freely, sir?"
"Please," said Sisko. "By all means."
"It's part of our relationship, sir."
"Garak spying on you is part of your relationship?"
"I— Sort of. It's not about the deception exactly. He goes through my personal logs as a matter of course; I put in false ones amongst the real ones, encrypt certain things one way or the other – but as I said, only the stuff that's alright if he goes through. It's about the challenge, sir. Him breaking in, trying to determine what the truth is."
"You break into his computer terminal?"
"I wish," lied Julian with a breathless sigh. "I don't suppose you know anything about Cardassian encryption protocol?"
"I wish I did," muttered Sisko. "It seems I have a lot to learn about Cardassians."
"Oh, this isn't… With respect, Commander, this isn't Cardassians. This is Garak. The man's insane." Sisko stared at him, and Bashir added hurriedly, "Not— Not that he's dangerous, or ill, I only mean, he's… Well. He's… eccentric. Unique. Even by Cardassian standards."
Sisko was almost smiling now, and he rested his chin on top of his baseball, his fist loosely cupping the ball in his grip. "I suppose it was hard to believe all Cardassians flirted via espionage."
"It's our age difference, sir," said Julian softly. "It's— The Cardassian culture has multiple varieties of romantic and sexual partnerships, and it venerates the value and the appeal of age and experience. A marriage might be between two people that complement one another – a commander and a scientist, for example, who work in different, separate spheres, but complement one another within the home; it might be a captain and their second at the head of the household… But what Garak and I have, it's founded in Garak's role as educator, and mine as student. Learning his craft and letting him challenge my knowledge of it isn't just flirtation – it's a show of… respect, of reverence, that I take the time to learn and to listen, and for him, it's a show of love and kindness, almost philanthropy.
"It would be an insult, if he taught me something, and I didn't put it to use in a way that he could test or challenge." It was a relief, to see Sisko looking at him with undisguised fascination, listening intently – Jadzia had been like that too, and the two of them often talked about it, when Julian complained, or just as often, enthused, about how much Garak was making him learn, how much he'd withhold until he'd learned something else… How Garak had taken to making him hem his own trousers, and tearing them loose for him to do again when they weren't done to his standard.
"It's not to say that we're not also equals in the relationship, that he doesn't or can't learn from me, that we don't have equal say in… It's like dating as we would, sir. But it's also like a Roman relationship between patron and client, or a relationship between a master and apprentice, at the same time. Were we on Cardassia, it would be expected for the relationship to last, I don't know, ten or twenty years, and then for me either to marry someone else, take a wife, or marry him, depending on… Children, family, careers. There are echelons when it comes to different romances, sir, different implications, political ramifications, it's… It's complicated. So complicated it makes my head hurt sometimes, just reading Kardasi literature."
He'd started explaining it to the Chief a while back in Ops, when Julian had been helping Jadzia run through some data; this couple were complementary plants, their roots running in and out of one another; this couple was like the ivy that grew around a tree's base, the tree shielding the ivy from the sun's glare, the ivy protecting the tree's bark, the both of them creating a specialised sap together; this couple was a funeral flower, and rooted out almost everything it touched but this funeral bush, which the flower mimicked the pheromones of, so that—
The Chief hadn't much liked the flower metaphors, but when Julian had set metaphor aside and tried to explain that the point of Garak was that he was Julian's teacher, the Chief had looked horrified and disgusted, and said, "What, he sees you the way that Keiko sees Jake and Nog?" and Julian had been so flustered he hadn't understood how to explain why the answer was no, and also yes, and it was complicated and foreign and strange, but that didn't mean you have to make a face like that, Chief, that doesn't mean it's bad.
"So Garak teaches you to encrypt your logs, and then breaks them?"
"Not exactly. Garak lectures at me, half of it lies, I infer the actual lessons based on what he was lying the most about, and then I learn the skills from elsewhere. The more I learn, the more I can recognise his weaknesses, and then I can beat him."
Sisko's smile was as bemused as it was delighted. "He didn't know what you were doing, then?"
"I suspect he knew more than he admits," said Julian quietly. "Odo won't tell me and I couldn't get it out of Quark, but I'm pretty sure he knew something about my freight. I should have told you," he added. "I know that."
"Yes," agreed to Sisko. "Why didn't you?"
It was a good question.
It was a simple one.
The answer, "Well, sir, being as Garak and I have been discussing my augmentation all the time, and he occasionally peppers in romantic imaginings of what our lives will be like when I'm the one in exile and pay the way for his return therefrom just to get on my nerves, I didn't particularly want to wave a flag in front of your face etched with my Cardassian sympathies."
But that wasn't the real, simple answer, not on its own. He'd wanted to go in alone, from the start – if not with a contingent from Vulcan, he wanted to make sure they knew him, the Cardassians. Not his uniform, not the Federation or Starfleet, but him, as a doctor, as a person. As Bashir – they all called him Bashir, naturally, if they didn't call him Doctor.
He wondered if they found it a relief to call someone by their surname instead of a title, any of them – Bajoran custom had been forced to adapt to the Kardasi in that regard, but he doubted they risked calling people by name much of the time. It was hardly worth the gamble.
It was self-centred and arrogant of him, but he didn't care – he'd wanted them to know him, one man, because it was hard to be scared of one man in the way you might be scared of Starfleet or the Federation of Planets, the way you might be scared of uniforms and symbols. Later on – maybe soon, given how well Sisko and Kira had responded – there'd be others, but for now, it was just him.
Community service, Garak would no doubt call it, all scathes.
"I didn't think you'd want to deny me permission, sir," said Julian. "I just thought you'd be obligated to. Waiting for it to come out gave you deniability – but because I've already been doing it, and I have data about the abuse planet side, it gives you leverage to let me keep going. Even if you want to discipline me, make a show of it for the brass as much as give me the discipline I know I've earned, sir, we know what we know, now. There are records, even with my being a rogue agent. Better to ask for forgiveness, so to speak."
"I haven't forgiven you yet, Doctor."
"No, sir," said Julian quietly. "I didn't expect you to."
"But I'm glad you did it," said Sisko. "It was wrong – don't do it again. But… I'm glad. You feel a connection to the Cardassian children on Bajor."
"I feel a connection to everyone," said Julian. "I'm a doctor. It's part of the job."
Sisko looked at him very evenly, and Julian wondered exactly how honest to be – how honest he could be, how honest he wanted to be.
"I was a lonely child," said Julian. "Even in a crowd of other children who really did like me – I was always quite popular – I was a man alone. Too in my own head, too distant. Talked too much, or about the wrong things. I was too much for people, Commander – I'm too much for people now. You've seen how the Major and the Chief can only handle a little of me at a time."
"Their tolerance is improving," said Sisko softly, and Julian laughed. "So is mine."
"Yes," he said. "It is, and I don't take it personally. But the Cardassians, they're… It's not the same thing, not at all. But we share enough in common, the children down there and I, that sometimes it feels almost palpable."
"You're in too deep with Garak, you know," said Sisko. "Try not to be too generous in the futures you imagine, Doctor. There's a limit to what a couple like you can do."
Julian was so taken aback that his jaw actually dropped, horrified, certain that Sisko somehow knew, that he was discovered, that he'd overheard or that Garak had betrayed him, but Sisko's smile was gentle as he went on.
"Garak is a Cardassian, Doctor, and you are a Federation citizen – but you're a Starfleet officer, first. You know people can't always bring their spouses with them on their assignments, but Garak particularly—"
"Oh," said Julian, trying not to show the desperate relief he felt. He wanted to be sick. "No, I don't think… It's not even a year yet, sir. We're not…"
"I know, I know," said Sisko, spreading his hands. "It must be annoying, when your entire relationship is having an old man lecture you, and then, between me and Jadzia—"
He was smiling, and Julian laughed.
"Without meaning to impugn the grace that would get you a lot of dates on Cardassia Prime, Commander Sisko, I don't think you're quite the old man that Garak is, and won't be for a few years yet."
"And Dax?"
"Dax could hold the hearts of every Senate member in one hand," said Julian. "I don't know that either of us would survive seeing it."
Sisko chuckled. "You're not stupid, Doctor – and you can be short-sighted, but I know you're not as naïve as we et ourselves think from time to time."
"No, sir," said Julian. "I'm glad you noticed."
"Of course I notice, I notice things about you you'd never imagine," said Sisko. Julian wasn't sure if it was to set him more at ease or make him uncomfortable – he'd not entirely been joking about the appeal Sisko would have to people on Cardassia Prime, and Garak himself had enthused on Sisko's surprising charm and sex appeal, for a Human and a Federaji: Sisko was more Cardassian than he would ever like to hear from Julian, he was sure – but he didn't feel either. He just felt tremendously, painfully guilty, because here was Sisko giving him advice, mentoring him, treating him like the promising young officer he was – it was part of the relationship contract between them, CO and junior officer, just as it was between Sisko and Kira, just that Kira didn't have potential fail safes in mind in case she had to defect. "It's part of the burden of command."
"Yes," said Julian. "Yes, sir, of course."
He went by Garak's shop before he returned to the Infirmary.
"Did it go well?" asked Garak.
"Mm," said Julian.
"Not here to talk, I take it?"
"Mm-mm."
"Cut and pin that pattern for me, will you, my dear?" asked Garak after a moment's pause, and Julian fell to the work with his gratitude resting heavy and warm in his chest. Garak didn't talk to him, just hummed a vague tune under his breath – Julian realised after a moment that it was from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and it made him grin despite himself – as the two of them worked alongside one another in silence.
It was less than ten minutes, but by the time he walked back to the Infirmary, he felt put almost to rights again, as if he'd been recalibrated, just by the bustle of Garak's work beside him.
On the bright side, if it all came out and he didn't take Garak up on his offer, was stripped of his medical license, he was fairly certain he could learn to be a tailor just like Garak had.
Doctor Dinar Madrel lived in the way a Cardassian ought, and hearing her speak with Bashir made Garak feel a distant pang of want for Mila, although it was foolish of him.
Bashir was working from his quarters today, and Garak, seated at the table beside the replicator as he hand-embroidered a wedding dress, watched him pace the room, a PADD in his hand.
On the holovid, Doctor Madrel was working from a rolling chair and bouncing a baby on her knee as she worked through statistics, and apart from her young niece and her brother, Dunan, who was a goods trader and had been assisting in certain logistics, people regularly filtered in and out of her office, which was placed as Cardassian offices were not in a secluded corner, but in the heart of the house. When not juggling the little girl or her slightly older brother, or occasionally accosted by her own daughter's pet lemur, Madrel was barking orders to her family as much as she was to Julian.
They had schoolwork to be getting on with, and apparently their father had promised to bring them to a theatre performance in the evening, but in their free moments they would come into the room and set plates or fresh gelat beside their mother, or pass her papers; Madrel's mother had come in this morning and very seriously began to comment on the moisturiser blends that might better suit the Bajoran-Cardassian children (Madrel's mother was a dermatologist and her father an osteologist; her husband's mother was a paediatrician); other siblings and cousins had come in and out.
Madrel's house was open to family as a matter of course – they were not guests, they were home, no matter that most of them lived in the home of Madrel's sister, just as Madrel was home in her sister's house – and that included her office.
Real Cardassians believed that work was service to the heart of Cardassia, just as their service to their family was, and no matter one's position, it was natural and proper that one's children, one's family, ought come in and out of one's office, and know to treat it with respect, with all attendant propriety.
A locked office, from which the children were banned, was something that would raise an eye ridge, if not a cluck of disgust – how poor a worker are you, if you cannot work and love your family at once? How little do you understand your own position, if your children cannot be trusted to understand respect it? How many errors do you make in your office, if the thought of observation so deters you, and you want to put a lock on the door?
It made him think of Tain, and although it was bitter, his smile was quite real as he picked up another bead to sew in the centre of the pearled flower he was embroidering. Tain would never acknowledge him as anything, even bastard, but in the eyes of Cardassia, he had never acted like a father, to Garak or anybody.
The moniker Sons of Tain was as much a mild rib at the Father as it was a show of the sons' skill and competence.
Tolan Garak had treated him as a father ought – young Elim had known his father's craft well enough before he went to the Bamarren Institute, and later, he had come to know it very well indeed. Tolan Garak had considered Elim his son through and through, and treated him as dearly as one – more so than Tain had, and more so, even, than Mila ever had, although that last thought often stung whenever it made itself known.
And Tain's home had been quiet inside, and dead, calcified as any rotting or desiccated thing Garak might have found in the memorial gardens his father tended. Tain had no mother or father, no brothers, no sisters.
It was fitting that the heart of the Obsidian order should be so much like stone, but no matter that Tain would strike him to hear it said, it made him very un-Cardassian indeed.
As well as Madrel's screen, there were two others – one was that of a Cardassian-Vulcan woman with very striking features, and quite unusual ones, what with the way she had two lines of ridges either side of her face, the Cardassian one that cupped her jaw and cheek, and the hybrid that curved to the point of her Vulcan ear. Her name was T'Vana Lokor, and she was a cousin of Madrel's husband, after whom they had named a daughter: Lokor was a high-ranking member of the Revaht region's council, and lectured at the Vulcan Science Institute in Commerce and Economics.
The other, Garak didn't like.
His name was Provor, and he was a clerk at the Cardassian Embassy in ShiKahr – so he'd told Bashir, anyway.
Garak had told the young man very seriously not to take any solo calls from Provor, and as much as possible to avoid any with others of the Cardassian Embassy, but Garak had watched them, and they didn't pose nearly so much the same threat.
Young Bashir, to his credit, hadn't attempted to ask why, and had understood from the severity of Garak's instruction not to attempt to tease or flirt over it.
Garak didn't believe that Provor was a member of the Obsidian Order – if he was, standards had dropped quite terribly over the past several years. He was perhaps a plant from one of the military or civilian government offices or, given that he exuded certain barely veiled tendencies toward what might be brushed off as xenophilia, and what Garak could plainly tell was an appetite for sexual predation, had been planted in place by the Order or another surveillance operation.
"You don't think he's a spy," Bashir had said a week or two after Garak's warning. "I didn't care for him before you warned me – I know you don't particularly trust Lak or Rudelana," (these being two more Cardassian citizens involved in this operation: Lak was a Gil and served as part of the small military contingent at the embassy on Vulcan; Rudelana was a doctor serving the Cardassian Embassy, the Cardassian diaspora in ShiKahr – not exiles) "but he sets my teeth on edge. He's too stupid to be a spy."
"Yes," Garak agreed.
"Someone's pushed him into it," had said Bashir. "Why, to undercut our efforts? To embarrass us? He's barely bright enough to pull anything off even were we not suspicious of that – the only thing I can really see him being good for is to distract from a less obvious agent of discord."
Garak had met the doctor's gaze, quite pleased, but Bashir's expression had faltered in dismay.
"Really?"
"My dear, I try not to overwater your ego, leafy and ever-blooming as it is, but that's quite the astute observation, and not an inference most Federaji would have jumped to at a glance."
Bashir had clucked his tongue, upper lip curling into an expression of distaste too much like a moue to be called something as dignified as a snarl. "Too easy," he'd muttered, and Garak had laughed.
There was a meeting between members of Starfleet and the Bajoran government upcoming, to which Bashir would present his data. That was a prelude to meeting a Cardassian government contingent, so long as Bashir was sufficiently convincing.
They weren't talking about that now: Bashir and Madrel had worked through a list of the medical complaints that Bashir had gone through with her, the ones caused not by neglect or abuse, but by the blend of species particularities in the hybrid orphans, and this had naturally led into a talk about the most readily accessible cosmetics and minor item supplies. Dunan and T'Vana, judging by the ease with which they held their discussion, knew one another's speech patterns quite well, and Garak was well aware of the way that intonation changed as they went between Kardasi dialects and Vulcan ones.
He wondered how much Bashir picked up on the subtleties of those linguistic changes through the UT – his own didn't attempt to translate any but a small minority of Cardassian tongues, and he knew the primary dialects of Vulcan quite well, but for Bashir, he was likely hearing everything in the Federaji Standard, unless his UT was customised to adjust to English or Urdu.
It occurred to him that he'd never thought to ask – he knew that some Human English-speakers preferred English to Federaji as their base language because of the breadth and flexibility of the language's obscenely prodigious vocabulary, bastardised and cobbled together from every other language it had ever touched. Bashir did like flexibility, and he had expressed an affection for the specific flexibility of English, but he'd done the same of Urdu, particularly when addressing puns and poetry.
"Oh, hullo, Prang," said Bashir cheerfully, and Garak put his needle through his finger, freezing in his place as he stared at Bashir's friendly smile, and then he glanced to the terminal. On the other side of the room, the terminal angled away from him – Garak didn't like to sit in the view of the holoprojector, and he was intensely glad of that now – he couldn't well make out Prang's severe features, but he could see the figure behind Provor's shoulder. Provor must have been one of Prang's nephews, a child of his sister's, he realised – his continental accent, though he spoke far more, was a perfect match for Prang's. "How's the cat?"
"Fine," said Prang. Just one word, Limor Prang as quiet as any man ever was even now, but Garak heard the familiar whispered, delicate intonation. His breath caught in his throat. "Your work?"
"It's going well," said Bashir. He had a teasing smile on his face as he looked to Madrel and T'Vana, and said, "See? I told you. Positively brims over with words just at the sight of me. He's flustered by my good looks."
Madrel laughed, and T'Vana didn't: Prang laughed.
Garak had heard Limor Prang laugh only once or twice before – in all the time they'd known each other, Garak had never made him laugh.
The sound was soft and had a surprising warmth to it. Garak forced himself to school his breathing, because Bashir was saying, "… popular on Cardassia one day. Vulcans took to them almost the same year they made First Contact."
"The introduction of new species to Cardassia Prime is strictly controlled, Doctor," said Prang. "One of many reasons you would struggle to cross our borders."
"You'd smuggle me in, wouldn't you, Prang?" asked Bashir.
He didn't tease in the way he did Garak – Bashir's teasing with Garak was flirtatious in a Cardassian fashion. He condescended, he bit, he played, he insulted – in short, he began feints of a fight, and invited Garak to fight him back. His posture with Prang was something entirely different: Bashir's shoulders were forwards, not back, and his eyes were exaggeratedly wide, but not innocently so, his lips pouted out, his head tilted to the side.
Cute, someone might call it – Garak found the young man cute from time to time, but this, this was too saccharine even for his tastes. This was Bashir pretending himself unthreatening, a real naïf, and what was more, it was working.
Prang's thin smile was the warmest Garak had ever seen it, and any thought Garak had at being jealous or protective turned to mist and distant cloud.
Prang said, "No."
"Legate Prang, you're a liar," said Bashir immediately, playful in a very, very Human way: playful in a foolish, childish way. He looked younger, Garak realised, observing him. He wore youth like a Hebitian mask, and became a thing he wasn't – or became a greatly exaggerated version of the thing he was, at least.
They returned to business, Prang speaking seriously over his nephew's shoulder about Cardassian commerce routes – he was working in the Cardassian Embassy, and lived on Vulcan for half of the year or more.
Garak's finger hadn't bled – his skin of his fingertips was thick before, and years of tailoring had ensured a mere needle prick would do little to draw blood – but he didn't return to his embroidery for some time, listening as they worked. It was a pleasure to watch Bashir work – he was astounding at medicine, of course, but he was a chief in his own right, and although he didn't command this room – Madrel was the unofficial leader, it seemed – he gave clean, clear instructions, thought in frank, simple terms.
Prang said, "I must take my leave. Please, pass on my regards to your partner, Doctor."
Julian didn't glance over at Garak, or even flinch, but he arched an eyebrow. He gave no indication whatsoever that Garak was in the room. "Sending your regards to an exile, Legate?" he asked in the same sweet, playful tone as before, with an edge of poison through its honey. "You must be in love with me – if not with me, then with him."
"Cardassians value polity and good manners over such simple things as politics and borders, Doctor," was the quiet reply, but Garak knew Prang well enough to hear the ever so slight edge in his wiry voice – he had meant to squeeze information out of Bashir, had forgotten that the act was precisely that, and in this moment it was plain he realised he had revealed more than he would learn.
"You are a liar, Legate," said Bashir with soft satisfaction. "How ever do the Vulcans keep up with you?"
"They don't," said Prang, and took his leave.
An hour later, Bashir turned off the terminal, and his good-natured but professional mood lost its cheer. His expression was abruptly quite serious and focused, and Garak kept sewing for a little while as he set his PADDs and notes in order.
After five or six minutes of silent thought, Bashir said, "He's never mentioned you before. Prang. I'll write down every conversation we've had for you."
Bashir had as good an eidetic memory as any Cardassian did.
Now, he looked quite concerned.
"Does he know you?" he asked. "Are you in danger from him?"
"I don't believe I am," said Garak.
"I shouldn't have played with him like that," Bashir muttered. "I showed my hand too early, didn't I?"
Garak raised his eye ridges, surprised. Bashir had a tendency toward self-flagellation he had never observed the like of before, and it always seemed to show itself in the most unexpected situations. "Do you think, Doctor?"
"He won't let his guard down with me like that ever again," said Bashir. "I knew he thought I was stupid – he knows I'm not, really, but he liked that I was… I don't know, do you know what a dumb blond is?"
"I surmise from your tone, my dear, that you don't mean a golden-haired individual who cannot speak."
"I'll explain later," said Bashir with a wave of his hand. "But people think we're stupid, Humans – they know we're not, but it's a stereotype for a reason, that we don't know anything about other cultures, that we never learn anything. That's how he thought of me – I've ruined that, now."
"You've reminded Legate Prang that you're the only Human in a room of Cardassians for a reason," said Garak softly. "Better that he receives this reminder from you than a coworker or a friend, do you not think?"
"I could have carried it for longer," said Bashir. "He's had a specific interest in me since I landed on Vulcan – he likes children, doesn't he, Prang? He's a teacher?"
"He's a cultural attaché, it seems."
"Before, when you knew him?"
"Doctor, I never said I did know him. Prang was a friend of my least favourite uncle's – in all my life, I doubt he spoke more than a thousand words to me." With Prang's ordinarily laconic tendencies, this was probably even true, no matter how closely they had worked together when Prang was Garak's superior. "I knew that he had worked closely with certain ambassadorial contingents, and it's not a great surprise to see him landed on Vulcan. As I recall, he has six children of his own – two sets of twins, and another two. He seemed fond of them, but most fathers are fond of their progeny."
"Yes, Garak, thanks for that," muttered Bashir, evidently quite irritated, and Garak opened his mouth, hardly knowing what to say to soothe whatever cut he'd plainly made, but Bashir had dropped onto the bed on his belly, and Garak set aside his work, coming to settle beside him.
He sat on the bed's edge, sliding his palm gently down the doctor's back.
Bashir said something into the mattress.
"My dear, you know I can't follow a word when you mumble into fabric like that."
Bashir lifted his chin. "I'd have been a shit spy," he said bitterly.
"Oh, is that what this little sulk is about?"
"I'm not sulking, Garak," Bashir said, lying on his back. When Garak continued the movements he'd been doing on his back to his belly instead, Bashir jumped, ticklish, laughed, and shoved his hand away. "I thought he was interested in me because I was a lone Starfleet agent – the play at innocence obviously pleased him, but I didn't feel I was titillating the old man. I just wanted to, I don't know, show how vulnerable I might be, make him feel he could try to use me, so that I… But him mentioning you, either it means my relationship is important somehow, as in, because of the chink it makes in my armour, or he mentioned it because of you. And if he was a friend of your uncle—"
"Doctor, I never liked my uncle," said Garak. "And what's more, I don't know that Prang ever did."
"You said you were friends."
"Friendship isn't about liking one another, Doctor."
"Don't Cardassiate at me at this time of the evening," said Bashir – the accent from his English word construction was quite different to the Standard of the sentence, and it made Garak chuckle. "I've had enough today."
"My apologies, my dear, I shall do my best to resist any further Cardassiating, and warn you before I begin operations on the next Cardassiation."
Bashir's answering smile was so tremendously soft that it rather made Garak ache. "Much appreciated," he said softly. "We're still on for dinner with Keiko and the Chief?"
"Is there a reason we wouldn't be?"
"I don't want to?" asked Bashir, almost pleadingly, and Garak frowned at him.
"Mmm, the "dumb blond" variety of Humanity is not my favourite of yours, Julian. You'd best reserve it for Limor Prang rather than aim it in my direction again."
Bashir's pageantry of innocence faded, but so too did his irritable mood. His smile was quite insufferably smug. "You know his first name, then?" he asked.
Garak kept his expression studiously blank.
"God," said Bashir, smugger than smug. "You might not like it, Elim, but you can't deny it works."
"Turn over," said Garak coolly.
"Garak, we're about to go to dinner!"
"You ought have thought of that, oughtn't you?" Garak replied. "Show such cheek, my dear, and be rewarded accordingly."
Bashir's face had darkened, his half-smile full of heat – he didn't turn onto his belly on the bed, but clambered over Garak's thighs.
"You think this will earn you leniency?"
"My dear Elim, if I thought it would, I would never have done it."
Garak drew down his trousers in one sharp movement, making Bashir gasp, and brought his hand down in another.
