"Think, my dear," said Garak in warm tones as he reached out and pulled down the hem of Julian's shirt, fixing the set of the shirt on his body. "When I have you on Cardassia, you'll feel bruises like that all the more keenly, what with the heat plumping those handsome blood vessels of yours."

"It's not going to happen," said Julian, sing-song.

"It is going to happen," replied Garak, squeezing his arse and making Julian sigh. It hurt, but the pain was pleasant and stinging and wonderful, and Julian exhaled and dropped his forehead against his chest.

Exchanging those two phrases had become a ritual of theirs. Julian wondered if he ought be angry, if he should be irritated with Garak, but funnily enough, it didn't annoy him. It was almost comforting, really.

Infuriating.

Garak being infuriating was comforting.

"It's going to hurt sitting down to dinner," said Julian.

"It is, isn't it?" asked Garak pleasantly. "Perhaps that will distract you from your sulk."

"I wasn't sulking, and I'm not sulking now."

"No – my discipline has evidently served its purpose."

"You're insufferable."

"Now, Doctor, don't say that. I have faith in your ability to suffer through almost anything I might inflict upon you."

Garak sighed happily into Julian's mouth when Julian kissed him, and Julian felt sick to his stomach, still felt guilty about Sisko, still felt nervous, still felt as though he'd messed something up with Prang, as though he were liable to mess the whole thing up – and really, wasn't that just like him? Taking on something too ambitious and feeling it collapse in his hands? Being so arrogant as to put himself forward, and when it came to letting everybody down—

Garak's hands had slid up to gently cup his jaw.

"Calm," he said quietly.

"I am calm."

"Your heart rate increased."

"That's just arousal, Garak. Aren't you flattered?"

"Very," Garak replied. "Or I would be, if it were the truth."

"Can't it be both?"

"I can let Keiko know we won't be joining them," said Garak softly. "I can spin any lie you wish me to, my dear – just say the word, and I will make it so."

"Did you ever think you weren't a good…" Julian trailed off. "Think you weren't good enough?"

"You ask if I doubted my skills?"

"I can't imagine you ever doubting your skills, Elim. But did you doubt yourself? Did you ever think that you weren't good enough for… for your family, your school, your work? Cardassia?"

"I am only what I am, Doctor. What more could I be?"

"Better," said Julian.

"Between the two of us, my dear, one of us has been made as better as possible. You're as close to perfection as one comes."

"Funny that I can't get anything right then, isn't it?"

"It's funny, certainly," said Garak dryly. "An abstract attempt at humour, separate as it is from reality. You're truly so distressed about Prang?"

"I want to do my duty to Starfleet. Keep my commission. Keep you. Help those children. Learn more about Cardassian culture. Keep my friends – maybe make them into actual friends, first. Not disappoint Commander Sisko. Not make everyone hate me. Be a good spy. I can't do all of that at once. I can't do any of them at once, it sometimes feels like."

"This is curiously maudlin," said Garak. "That sub drop you were talking about, perhaps?"

Julian smacked him in the shoulder, wishing he could smile but not quite managing it, although Garak's own smile came with glittering eyes, and Julian sighed.

"I am being maudlin," he said. "You know what would make me less maudlin?"

"Do tell."

"Carry me?"

"Mmm," hummed Garak disapprovingly. "More humour, I see."

Julian subtly leaned on his shoulder as they walked to the O'Briens' quarters, felt the radiating heat of Garak's body through his tunic. Keiko had invited them, and Julian had been a little uncertain of it, but from what he could surmise, Garak and Keiko were friends – unless he believed Garak's story that he and Keiko had been operatives in the same cell, or the story about him teaching her a variety of poisons to supplement her secret assassination side business, or the most likely – but still untrue – story about Keiko inviting him to do guest lectures to the Bajoran children in her school about Cardassian ethics.

That had made him laugh, but he'd tried his best to hold it back.

Garak pressed his hand to Julian's just before they went inside – not like a human hand press or a squeeze, but a Cardassian hand kiss, their fingers and palms pressed together. It meant that Julian was smiling very warmly when Keiko opened the door, and said, "Oh, an orchid? Julian, thank you, that's so sweet!" when he handed her the pot.

Garak had cultivated it, of course.

Garak was cultivating a fair bit in Julian's quarters, of late – the sunsearchers, the metello flowers, the cacti, the Bludel Blooms… Julian.

"Thank you for inviting us," said Julian warmly – and he did mean it, honestly he did – as they stepped inside.

The Chief was across the room, bent over something with Molly, so as Keiko went to set the flower aside, Julian stepped inside after Garak, and let him lead the way. Garak was smirking, which had everything to do with Cardassian relationship dynamics and very little to do with Julian's own nerves, but funnily enough, Garak being as insufferable as ever actually put him at ease.

He'd never been good at this stuff.

Garak laughed when he talked about inferring double meanings, how much he enjoyed debate and analysis – he'd said more than a few times over the past few months that Julian conducted himself well, but Julian rubbed people the wrong way just the same way Garak did, it was just that Garak usually did it on purpose.

He was too arrogant, too hostile, too nitpicky and particular, too rigid and inflexible, too serious, not serious enough. People didn't normally go out of their way to have him as a dinner guest, outside of a date – they normally went out of their way in the other direction.

He wasn't good at non-verbal cues – or, he was. Mostly.

It was more to do with the fact that there were non-verbal cues you were meant to react to, and ones you were meant to ignore or it was impolite, and others still that you were meant to react to, but not by mentioning them, because that was even ruder than the alternative.

"Of course you like Cardassians and Vulcans," Garak had said a few months ago, as they'd argued over some Bolian romance novel that both of them had hated, but for completely opposite reasons – Julian because he felt the relationship was too shallow, too based in sex and physicality, to be worth giving up their lives for, and Garak because he felt they'd not given up enough, that their relationship represented a dedication to a higher cause, which was why the relationship should be shallow, that they should be free to abandon each other when the time came.

"Of course?" he'd repeated dryly.

"You desire ritual, my dear. You like for a dance to have steps to follow."

"You're calling me inflexible?"

"Julian," said Garak – Julian had enough Kardasi now that the UT no longer worked to polish Garak's accent out of his voice when he spoke Standard, and he said Julian's same with the slightest of sibilances on the J – a J sound, if it appeared at all on Cardassia's planets, was ordinarily buzzed through one's teeth, not bounced off the roof of the mouth. Zhjulian. Julian liked it. "Inflexibility has naught to do with it. There are more than one dances in a night."

"Pot," said Julian. "Kettle. You like ritual. I've watched you take your clothes off. You do it exactly the same way every time, the same flourishes of your hands, your elbows, start from the same sides, undo the buttons or fastenings… If I recorded a holovideo of you doing that a hundred nights in a row and played them over each other, the only way you could tell would be in the different colours and styles."

"Cardassians are committed to ritual, my dear," said Garak softly. "Water that runs down a mountainside can be but a trickle, but so long as it takes the same path each time, it can wear through the hardest of stone. That is the essence of Cardassia."

It had made him shiver at the time, not because it had been frightening or intimidating – and it should have been, knowing what he did about Cardassian supremacist culture and their Empire – but because Garak had said it so softly, with such feeling and poetic emphasis, that Julian had actually felt drawn in by it.

"I brought a bottle of wine, too," said Julian, taking the sling it was in from over his shoulder. "He made me pass it over, but the orchid was from Garak. I'm sure you knew that."

"I might have guessed," said Keiko.

"He thinks you think he's too uncultured to bring you wine," said Garak amusedly. "He wants to assure you he's contributed something this evening."

"Would you shut up?"

Garak and Keiko laughed together at Julian's expression, and Julian rolled his eyes, surprised by how much he wanted to laugh himself.

"Garak is only saying that," said Julian, "because he's too insecure to admit that I know more about Vulcan spring wines than he does."

"A man of knowledge, my dear, has no need to assure people of his superiority over others."

"Sounds like something unknowledgeable men say to keep from being shown up."

"You'd best open the wine, my dear. Perhaps a little alcohol will soften the good doctor's jagged edges."

Stood between them, Keiko had her fingers pressed against her mouth, her lips twisted up at the edges as she tried to keep from laughing, and Julian felt his cheeks darken as he handed her the bottle, and tried not to look at Garak, who he knew was smiling insufferably.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Garak," said Keiko dryly, "but you're someone who likes sharp edges. Just look at Julian's jawline."

"I could cut glass," Julian pronounced, lifting his chin, and Keiko's laugh was soft and full of warmth as she pulled away. Garak was smiling, his brow furrowed in bemusement.

Julian wouldn't pretend to know how it worked, the friendship between Keiko and Garak. It wasn't as though he were always in and out of the school, or as if Keiko was constantly getting new clothes. Yes, Keiko was a fashionable woman – Garak often said this very approvingly – but in their day to day lives, they shouldn't have crossed paths that much.

Every once in a while, they'd get lunch together – it was usually on weekend days that that happened, when the school wasn't open, and Julian didn't think they were usually scheduled or planned.

It was just that if Keiko and Molly were going to the Replimat, they'd stop by Garak's on the way, and so long as he wasn't too busy with his commissions, he'd join them.

He didn't exactly understand what Keiko and Garak had in common, but he knew that Garak had never said an unkind word about Keiko, and what's more, he'd never even said a catty word about her, and he said catty words about almost everyone. Julian was quite keenly aware, what with how closely he'd learned to listen to Garak talk, that he tended to respect women far more than he respected men, and that he was particularly defensive of parents of young children, especially birthing parents.

Julian had asked him why he cared so much about stay-at-home parents, once, and it had rattled him, Julian thought, because Garak had genuinely been taken aback and hadn't even lied that much about it, had just changed the subject to child development instead. It wasn't, Julian didn't think, that Garak truly hadn't expected to notice it as a bias of his when Garak once irritably made some comment about some woman not respecting the value of her husband's dedication to their children's care while she worked shifts. He almost hadn't realised it himself, maybe, or had just never thought about it in the context of a conversation like they were having.

It wasn't like that was the only reason he liked Keiko, it just made him a little more defensive of her – but they did share things in common. They talked about fashion, about plants and botany, about religious philosophy and spirituality in history and modernity.

Keiko had stopped by when the two of them were sitting down to lunch together one weekday, while she was on her way back to the school room, and she'd said to Garak how interesting she'd found the book he'd loaned her, and they'd exchanged a few words about animism as it compared between Shinto and the Oralian Way.

He'd not yet managed to pry out exactly how Garak felt about the Oralian Way, or what he thought about Hebitians – Garak had so far gone between telling Julian his father had been a high-ranking Hebitian Priest, that his mother had been committed to the extermination of Hebitians on Cardassia, that he'd been for three years an undercover operative in a Hebitian garden on the northern continent of Cardassia, that he'd been plagued by visions of Oralius for months after his teenage experimentation with chemical highs had gone astray, and that he had neither particular opinions on or investment in the Hebitian people or their religion, and never had.

And Garak liked Molly, and Molly liked Garak, Julian knew that. Twice, he'd seen Molly cry, "Garak!" and sprint at him across the Promenade, and both times Garak's face had lit up in surprise, but each time he'd bent down, caught her around the waist, and tossed her into the air.

It made her squeal with laughter, falling back into Garak's arms again before he put her down, and Julian knew that he listened very keenly when Molly talked. The UT could be a little bit difficult with children, especially across species, and Molly's syntax would be translated oddly if you didn't understand any Japanese or English, because of the way she folded those languages and their influences into her Standard, but Garak always listened every carefully, and nodded, and Julian had even heard him use words of Japanese or English with her when they were talking, which Molly always seemed to appreciate.

Going through Garak's console in the tailor's shop – Garak had given him his permission to do it, but it had still taken Julian three days to get through Garak's encryption protocols, and so far he had only managed to access Garak's civilian records, not those for the Militia, Starfleet, or any other military members – he had looked with interest at the designs and ideas he had saved for Keiko and Molly. Molly had a sub-folder with the measurements of all her favourite dolls – Garak had sub-folders like this for most of the children on the station, and some of the adult collectors or enthusiasts who commissioned clothes or upholstery for dolls and models or doll furniture – and as well as Molly's favourite colours and fabrics and textures, her favourite story characters and how they dressed, Garak had subsections that noted history or culture that were most relevant to her.

Garak had made outfit designs that were intended to teach culture and history – he'd researched Irish medieval dress and he'd researched Japanese medieval dress too, and also some Irish and Japanese periods through the following centuries, but Garak had brushed that off as the basic attention to detail of any tailor.

He had about eight designs based on specific figures in Keiko's family tree and in Miles' for her to choose from on her next birthday, so that Keiko could have a doll with an outfit just like a specific ancestor would have worn, or like her grandmother wore when she was a little girl.

Molly wasn't special in that regard – Julian had been fascinated to note that Garak genuinely did this sort of thing for all the children on the station, so long as, he said, their parents showed a sufficient dedication to their children's education.

Garak had scathingly implied that most Bajorans didn't care enough about the education of their children to be worth bothering with, but he also knew that Garak had a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of every prominent monk, hero, and philosopher in Bajoran history, and that for all he grumbled, he'd made little outfit designs for quite a lot of them, so that when he did have a Bajoran child in the shop, he could put something educational on one of their dolls.

Garak and Julian shared in common an obsessive work ethic. It had been a relief, to realise how much that was the case, and just how many designs that Garak's library was packed.

The doll Molly carried over to them was wearing a design of Garak's now, and it mirrored the style of the dress that Keiko was wearing, but in a different texture and design.

Julian knew that Keiko and Garak met more often than just occasional lunches in the Replimat – it was difficult to judge who were Garak's friends and who were Garak's friends on the station, apart from Julian himself, but Julian was certain that Garak and Keiko were probably closest of Garak's associates, he just couldn't figure out the practicality of it.

They met for more than lunch every one or two months – Julian was pretty certain that they met at least once a week, he just hadn't been able to work out the how or where, and as much as he'd been working to understand the air currents in the station corridors, he still hadn't learned how to tail Garak without Garak knowing.

He could just ask Keiko, of course – Keiko wasn't like Garak. Keiko would just tell him.

Somehow, that would ruin the fun.

"May I say, my dear," said Garak, "you have a lovely home. Look at this handsome collection!"

He was addressing Keiko's bonsais, and Julian watched the way he leaned into examine a selection of them, gently touching the leaves of one of the carefully sculpted plants. Garak liked bonsai – he'd said they weren't quite appropriate for Julian's rooms, that the regnars were a little too large to enjoy climbing them, and that they required a careful attention that would be disrupted by lizards pulling and nibbling at their bark and leaves.

"Your mother taught you, didn't she?" he asked, and Keiko nodded her head as she poured wine.

"That's right," she said. "My parents are both historians – my dad used to write more books, but now he primarily writes immersive holosuite programs for historical education, but you know my mother still works in that living history museum I told you about."

"A fascinating concept," said Garak. "Are you familiar with this, Doctor?"

"I've heard of living history museums," said Julian. "I didn't know your mother worked in one though, Keiko."

"It's on Kyushu, outside of Kumamoto City," said Keiko, passing him a glass. "It shows a few different eras on Kyushu within the compound, and my mother's duties are a lot lighter than they used to be, but she still works in the shrine there. Her specialty is early Edo period religion – the culture around shrine visitation and maintenance, the intersections and evolution of the Shinto and Buddhist teachings at the time."

"We have nothing like it on Cardassia," said Garak, bowing his head in thanks before he took a sip of his wine. "But it strikes me as quite the emphatic way to educate someone as to the realities of a given period, particularly children – so much more flexible, so much more… organic, than mere holosuite immersion."

"You'd like to work in the garden there, you mean, and know what you'd done would still be there tomorrow, and not just reset?" asked Keiko wryly, and Garak's chuckle rumbled slightly.

"Am I to be shamed, my dear young woman, for thinking that perhaps our actions ought carry through, and not merely fade into the ether of a hologram's pixels?"

"My mother cultivates the shrine gardens," Keiko said to Julian, laughing as she brought another glass of wine over to Miles, who stood up and nodded to Julian. When he didn't do the same to Garak, Garak raised his hand in a silent toast, mockery writ in his grey lips, and Julian watched the Chief's own lips thin. "She does less than she used to, but they can't tear her away from the gardens there. She cultivates the vegetable gardens that supply the compound, but she's primarily responsible for the small shrine and visitors' gardens, and that includes the bonsai."

When they came to sit down together, Julian and Garak on the couch across from Miles and Keiko, Miles put out one of his arms, but Keiko ran up to Garak, patting his knee.

"Like you told me," she declared, holding up the doll, and Garak handed Julian his wineglass, removing from one of his pockets an eye piece, clipping it to his ridge, and beginning to examine the doll Molly had handed him with a critical eye.

"Hm," Garak hummed after a moment, turning the doll carefully over in his hands, his lips frowned in intense thought and concentration. "Very adeptly styled, my dear. Did you use a pin?"

"My fingers," said Molly, spreading her hands before gesturing to her doll's hair, which she'd managed to tightly braid despite the fibres. "They're not as big and stubby as yours."

"Being rude to one's tailor is very unwise, my dear," said Garak. "All sorts of things could result from such behaviour."

The Chief went stiff, his lips curling back in a snarl as he went to say something, but Molly laughed. "But it's true!"

"Truth," said Garak despairingly, handing back the doll. "Tell the truth to your tailor about your measurements and your needs, Miss O'Brien, but never about his appearance."

Molly expectantly put up her hands.

"Truth, and now comedy?"

Molly scowled at him.

"Young lady—"

"Garak," said Molly.

The smile on Garak's face wasn't normally aimed at Julian – but he'd seen a smile like that on Limor Prang's face, aimed at him, until he'd scuppered that. Garak took Molly under the armpits, lifting her up, and Molly perched on his knees. Demonstratively, she pulled a pin from Garak's lapel, and started loosening her doll's braids.

"You don't have to indulge her, Garak," said Keiko. "He can say no to you, you know."

Molly crossed her arms over her chest. "He can prove it," she said.

"Molly!" said the Chief scoldingly, but Garak was laughing, his blue eyes shining with pure delight.

"I find myself bested," he said, and with the pin, he loosened the black, shining fibres of the doll's hair. "I am powerless but to do as the young lady says."

"At least we know the secret to infiltrating Cardassian High Command if it ever comes down to it," said Julian mildly. "Send Molly O'Brien and an army of dolls in need of styling."

Molly was shyer with Julian, but she did keep smiling even when she looked away from him and down to the careful, studied movement of Garak's fingers. He did a set of braids even tighter and more complex than she'd managed to do, the pin shining as he used it to manipulate the fibres.

"Let's not joke about Molly ever going to Cardassia," muttered Miles. His knee was bobbing slightly, and Julian could see he was uncomfortable with how comfortable Molly was with Garak, and how obvious Garak made it that he was comfortable with her.

"Was it your mother's work in the shrine that led you to botany, Keiko?" asked Julian.

"Not exactly," she said. Her hand was resting on Miles' shoulder, her thumb sliding over its curve. "I was actually interested at first in traditional medicine – cures and natural remedies really interested me, especially comparing medicinal properties of traditional medicines with their modern counterparts, but also looking into the folklore and stories that was associated with the remedies. Getting into learning about that led to me connecting with foraging groups, especially mushroom foraging, and then more food foraging… and then into botany."

"Foraging?" Garak repeated.

The English word for forage didn't have an exact equivalent in Standard, was just translated under the general umbrella of hunt, and Julian turned and said, in Kardasi, "Like root-searching, to find edible… dors?"

"Dor'hs," Garak corrected his pronunciation.

"My tongue can't do that."

"It can."

"Dor'hs?" repeated Keiko.

"Literally, food of the land," supplied Garak. "I confess, Cardassia Prime lacks the broad variety of mycelium species that seem to span the whole of Earth, but where it seems Humans have historically foraged for mushrooms," he used the English word, his accent funny on it, and it made Julian's lips twitch, "on Cardassia we have foraged for roots and tubers."

"You're learning Kardasi then?" asked Miles, slightly tensely.

"Of course," said Julian. "He's learning Urdu."

"And making slower progress than he is, I admit," said Garak, doing a complicated movement with the needle of the pin that let him twist one strand of hair around the based of a miniscule braid, tying it in place. "Are you familiar with it?"

"Not especially," said Miles guardedly.

"It reads right to left, instead of left to right, and as Kardasi, it employs vowelising diacritics…" He turned a scornful gaze on Julian, as though it was his fault, when he added, "seemingly, when it feels like it."

Julian sniggered, shaking his head. "You should feel lucky, Garak. Urdu and Arabic actually both share a lot of sounds in common with Kardasi's main dialect that don't show up in other Terran languages – you pronounce my name the same way my grandmother does, and anyway, much as you complain, most Earth languages aren't written in abjads. English isn't."

Garak sniffed. "Don't remind me."

"I'd kick him if I wouldn't dislodge you," he told Molly.

"I can move," she said, and it made Keiko and Miles both laugh, although Miles seemed annoyed to be caught out. Julian grinned at her, and Garak sighed.

"I might not have accepted the invitation had I known I would be victimised the night through," said Garak. Julian rolled his eyes, settling his chin on his hand, and he watched as Garak held out the doll back to Molly. She now sported a far more elaborate, complex weave of braids.

"It's a Romulan style," supplied Julian before Garak could open his mouth, and Garak smiled. "Worn by ancient priestesses, if I'm not mistaken."

"Now," said Garak, reaching to lift Molly off his lap, but she caught his hand and looked at him plaintively.

"Now mine?"

"Oh, Molly, let him—"

"Please, Mr Garak?"

"Oh, I'm Mr Garak now, am I?"

He was already reaching for the comb resting on the table beside them, and Julian pulled over a stool so that she could sit forward, between his knees instead of on top of them.

"See, Miles?" asked Keiko. "If we ever need a babysitter—"

"I comb the girl's hair and suddenly I can be entrusted with her well-being?"

"Julian would supervise," said Keiko, and Garak gave her a flat look. It was funny, being in the room, with how familiar they were with each other – Julian could see how they obviously had a rhythm with one another, and he didn't know where he was supposed to fit in, or join in – and the Chief, obviously, was even more uncertain than he was.

"You never know, Chief," said Julian. "Could be that it'll come in handy that I can read and write Kardasi myself, if anything else goes wrong on the station."

"If the Cardassians invade, you mean?" asked Miles coolly, and Julian faltered, was about to clarify that no, he meant engineering wise, flustered, but Garak slid his knee against Julian's as he sat forward to start combing through Molly's hair, delicately teasing the floral barrettes out of her hair and combing out the loose French braid she'd had it in.

Julian inhaled, and after taking his time with the exhale, he said, "Well, suppression of UTs is a Cardassian invasion tactic, isn't it? You can't claim we wouldn't be at an advantage."

When Miles gave him a slightly forced half-smile, Julian asked, "How did the docking thing go earlier? I didn't see any of the mess, but I heard enough of Odo's reaction."

"It went fine, sir," said Miles tersely.

Julian closed his mouth, leaning back slightly in his chair although he tried not to show his actual expression that much. At least Kira would call him Julian, sometimes, or call him Doctor in a way that didn't sound like a title, that sounded… Normal. Odo was very formal, sure, but Odo was formal with everybody.

Miles was only formal with people that really outranked him and that he respected – people that weren't friends, in short.

"I did mean to ask you, Chief O'Brien," said Garak as he carefully segmented out Molly's hair, every fibre of it showing a fine, silken sheen as he worked the comb through it, "you are good friends with Lieutenant Commander Data, aren't you? Or, you were, on the Enterprise?"

"The doctor's met him too," said Miles.

"Miles," said Keiko in a warning tone, and then said, "Garak, Data introduced us. He played the father of the bride at our wedding."

"Oh, how charming," said Garak, smiling. "But, Doctor, I didn't know you'd met him."

"Only for a bit, when the Enterprise was coming through last," said Julian. "He, Geordi, and I accidentally unlocked a subroutine in his programming that allowed him to start dreaming, left for him by his creator – but then, you knew that. I wrote a report about it for Starfleet."

"I've read no such thing," said Garak innocently.

"Haven't you? It was downloaded on the PADD on your bedside table."

"I mustn't have gotten around to it."

"It was marked read."

"An error, I'm sure."

"You made annotations."

"Oh, that report," said Garak. "My apologies – I thought you must have meant another."

Julian sighed.

"In any case, being as the two of you know the Lieutenant Commander best, being as it is my assumption and hope that the good doctor hasn't seen him out of his uniform," Julian choked on a mouthful of wine, and Keiko looked like she was biting her lip to keep from laughing as Miles stared at Garak in disgust, "I wondered if you might be able to tell me something about his choices in fashion?"

"He had a beard for a bit," said the Chief. "It didn't stick."

"More glue needed, I take it?" asked Garak sympathetically.

Miles stared. "What?"

Julian stamped on Garak's foot.

"Data doesn't really have a casual wardrobe, Garak," said Keiko. "Outside of his holosuite costumes, he just wears uniforms."

"Such a shame, for a young man not to branch out in his sartorial choices."

"Data is not a young man in need of your… moulding, Garak," said Miles, somehow making the word "mould" sound unfathomably dirty. "He's an android."

"He's only five or so years older than the good doctor," Garak replied. "Very much within his youth, I would say. A young man with friends, dreams, a career… ought also be in possession of a good wardrobe."

"And you're going to provide that, are you?" asked the Chief coldly.

"I might provide some suggestions," said Garak mildly. "I might for you too, Chief – I'm so happy to assist a friend in need of tailoring advice."

Julian watched Miles raise his shoulders, lean forward, open his mouth, to take Garak's bait.


Miles O'Brien was an astonishingly easy man to provoke. Garak had given him chance after chance to collect himself, to display some control, but it seemed he was incapable – he could hold himself very still and quiet, grit his teeth but otherwise hold himself back, but it seemed he had no idea how to hold back his feelings in conversation, especially when needled.

When Keiko and Miles stood up to but Molly to bed, Garak said, "My dear, my foot is going to be irreparably harmed if you keep stamping on it like you do."

"I'm sorry, Garak," said Bashir darkly. "Would you like me to hit you in the face next time?"

"Really, I am conducting myself with perfect—"

"You're conducting yourself like a perfect arse," Bashir interrupted him. "I know he's being rude, but you keep provoking him. Try to just, just…"

"Be nice?"

"No. Absolutely do not try to be nice. You've been more than nice enough. Why don't you try shutting up?"

"It doesn't agree with me."

"That's not hard to believe," muttered Bashir, and Garak slid his hand over Bashir's back, about his shoulders, slid his fingers up the side of his neck and splayed his hand over Bashir's throat.

Bashir was trying very hard not to smile, and while he succeeded in retaining his frown, he did relax marginally into Garak's warm hand.

"Speaking of arses, how's yours?"

"Fine," said Bashir. "Makes sense that you ask, since you're not going to be laying your eyes or your hands on it once we go back to your quarters."

"What if I don't look and I don't use my hands?"

Bashir's elbow struck with tremendous accuracy just under the dart of his right-side chest ridge, sending a horrible pins and needles sensation thrumming up underneath the ridge, and Garak groaned in pain and then a hot, tingling pleasure when the wire took over.

If Bashir saw the difference, even suspected something awry in the way Garak responded or reacted, he made no show of it.

Garak didn't need to provoke O'Brien any further, now that he was sufficiently wound him up.

"… in the corridors and even in rooms like this, see the way that the steel beams curve, and see how they're different angles than any support beam we'd typically use, even if we did show them instead of hiding them in the walls. Apart from the ceiling moulding and beams, Cardassians use a lot of acoustic awareness even in tunic designs – I was reading a book from Garak's collection about the evolution of Cardassian armour, and the front carapace of Legates' armours ordinarily has a reinforced outcrop of dish-shaped metal here," Julian was gesturing to the top of his chest, "to help them project their voices and also direct some of the sound up and toward the ceiling, so it can project against angles and better throughout the room."

"Yeah, it's no surprise they're sneaky and duplicitous even with their architecture."

"You know what," said Bashir loudly, putting down his fork.

Garak had to focus to keep from beaming. "My dear," he said softly, in the voice of one soothing a lover's inappropriate temper, "you really—"

"Shut up, Garak," said Bashir, and he leaned across the table at O'Brien, who seemed genuinely shocked and surprised to see Bashir react. Keiko looked embarrassed, of course – she was always nervous when Garak interacted with her husband, and while Garak had no idea what precisely O'Brien said about Cardassians, about Garak, when they were alone together, he knew it was bilious enough that it prompted Keiko to often take Garak's side no matter now plainly he provoked her husband.

"Do you know what else the Cardassians are, that we're not?" Bashir asked O'Brien coolly. "Other than duplicitous and evil and bloodthirsty and whatever else you've been thinking tonight?"

"Doctor Bashir, I only—"

"No, really," said Bashir sharply. "Guess, Chief."

O'Brien leaned back, his lips pressed together, his eyes hard. "What?"

"Compared to you and I and Keiko, Chief, a lot of Cardassians are deaf."

Somewhat dramatic phrasing, but Garak liked the way that O'Brien's face crumpled, his cheeks taking on a bright, mottled pink, so unlike the handsome darkening of Bashir's own blush.

"Cardassian ear canals are significantly narrower than ours, apart from the ear being folded into the side of the head with those ridges rather than sticking out as ours do, and being as they're evolved primarily for thick air, mud, and sand, being covered in scales, they don't have hairs in their noses and their ears, Chief. They have ridges that carefully block the canal, and while the hard keratinised ridges within the ear canal serves to carefully funnel sound, Cardassian hearing is far less keener than ours to variations in pitch, less astutely able to pick out minor fluctuations or discrepancies in sound or process muffled language, and they don't have our ability to hear low volumes. This station, for decades, was built with Cardassians in mind, Chief – they don't have these beams or ceilings or carefully modulated acoustic designs purely for the purposes of spying or being duplicitous, not for the most part. They do it so they can hear one another speak."

O'Brien sat back in his seat.

"Well," he said.

"Well," said Julian.

"Quite the dashing defence, my de—"

"I'm not defending you, you're being a prat, and you are sneaky and duplicitous. Miles is completely right."

"I'll drink to that," said O'Brien, putting forward his glass, and he and Bashir clinked their glasses together.

Keiko laughed, and Garak clinked his glass against hers in a silent toast. If Garak's affectionate smile – for Bashir, for Keiko, and yes, even for O'Brien himself – deterred O'Brien any, he was for once controlled enough not to show it.