"My sleeves are too long," he said by way of greeting, and Garak raised himself to his full height, turning his gaze quite severely on the young man. He kept his lips smiling, but either the young man – a Bolian not yet twenty-five, Garak would guess – was unused to Cardassians, and mistook Garak's smile for a more simplistic friendliness, or he was simply ill-adept at reading such cues.
In any case, Garak said, "Are they indeed? Would you, perhaps, like for me to tailor them for you?"
"Yes," said the young man, and then furrowed his brow. "You are the tailor, aren't you? Todd Pechetti said you were a Cardassian."
"Guilty on both counts, I'm afraid," said Garak, and took the uniform jacket from the young man's hands, lifting it up to his chest and measuring the length of his sleeve to his arm. "Is this a problem with the whole of your uniform assignment? This is tailored work, I see, not the replicator fare."
As he nodded, he asked, "How can you tell?"
"The most obvious clue is the pattern of the stitching, young man. Even machine stitching would not show quite so cleanly, with such a small loop for the thread – machine replicated garments almost always have stitches that are more like fabric staples than real thread, and subsequently there tends to be a little less give in their design, they're less tailored and lie less flat on the skin, and of course, these stitches lead to puckered fabric that can rather itch."
The Bolian had a bag over his arm, and he followed Garak to his front desk. He wasn't dressed in his uniform, just wearing simple beige trousers, a shirt, and a leather coat.
"You're just arrived on DS9, I take it?"
"I'm a new transplant to the engineering crew, just graduated last year. My name's Boq'ta."
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Crewman. My name is Garak."
"Oh, yes, I know. Um, my friend, Todd Pechetti, he's been here a few more months than me—"
"Yes, I've met Crewman Pechetti. The young man has something of a fetish for military insignia."
"Well, he collects them. And Ensign Yoxley said that your name was Garak, and that you're dating the CMO. He's Human, right?"
"He is."
Young Boq'ta was looking at Garak uncertainly as Garak took the measurements of his arms, making a few notations of the spread of his shoulders, his arms, his wrists.
"How do you like your sleeves? Tight fast to your arm, or do you like them to regulation looseness, with space to roll them up?"
"Tight fast, please," said Boq'ta. It was the first sign of manners Garak had heard from him, and he rather approved, until Boq'ta asked, "How does that… work?"
"Well," said Garak, blinking, "I'll unstitch the inner seam and—"
"No, you, um, you and Bashir. The Human. I heard Humans produce less than a teaspoon , but aren't Cardassians pretty…?" He made a vague gesture that, from what Garak could only surmise, was meant to communicate a quality of prodigiousness.
Garak stared at the young man in thinly disguised disgust, but it was evident that Boq'ta did not see this for what it was.
"I just mean, you know, my cousin Lid'na works at this one brothel in the Trexel System and they regularly get Cardassian clients, and Bolians, you know, we're a lot less flexible that Humans internally so they have to hose down the whole room sometimes, but I heard that Humans and Bajorans' bellies that can just—"
"Constable!" said Garak loudly as Odo passed by (no doubt passing by very intentionally), and Odo came into the room with an expression of manufactured innocence on his face, his eyebrows raised.
"Crewman Boq'ta," he said coolly. "Is there something I can help with, Garak?"
"I have that baby shower gift Major Kira twisted your arm into getting you to purchase," said Garak. "Whilst I am collecting it, perhaps you and our young friend here might discuss the difference in certain social etiquette between Bolians and Cardassians?"
"For all I've heard of recent, Garak," said Odo with his characteristic venomous playfulness, "you have become quite the disciplinarian. You don't want to take the crewman in hand yourself?"
Filth from the young crewman was one thing – filth from Odo was not acceptable in the least, and Garak gave him a stupendously cold look.
"My discipline is reserved for my student, Odo," replied Garak. "To take on a singular mentee remarkably adept for a Federaji is somewhat different to taking on a harem of Starfleet fools."
It was evident Boq'ta was struggling with this conversation. "What—"
Garak swept into the backroom, and took rather longer than he needed to in setting the new blanket into a decorated box with a ribbon. He did not consider himself to be an extremely prudish or conservative man at his heart, but for all he was winning to entertain certain overtures of sexual liberation as pushed by the Federaji, the Human cultural ideas were often too much for him – Bolian sexual liberation was some many steps ahead, and far more than he was willing to withstand even amongst close friends, let alone some ignorant child recently dispatched from San Francisco.
The young crewman, at least, looked somewhat shamefaced as Garak returned, passing the box to Odo before he asked, "When are you beginning your shifts on the station, young man? I might tailor one jacket to you with immediacy, and then finish the rest as a batch for later in the week."
"Erm, yes, yes, that's— Thank you, please, yes. Please. Thank you."
Evidently, Constable Odo had gone beyond telling the Bolian not to ask about Garak's semen production or, for that matter, Bashir's semen capacity, and Garak gave the changeling a warm and affectionate smile.
Boq'ta left, but Odo lingered as Garak noted the order in his computer console.
"How is your education of Bashir proceeding?" asked Odo.
Of course, as Terok Nor's security officer, he had observed these dynamics amongst Cardassians, and it was not as novel or foreign to Odo as it was to any of Bashir's compatriots, or even the Bajorans. There had been no examples of the practice regularly stationed on Terok Nor, but some had passed through – Lidora, a scientist, had passed through multiple times with her mentee, Yulik, and there had no doubt been other examples, whether they were of a shared gender or made up of a man and woman.
None had ever been interspecies, of course – it might be accepted for the dynamic to develop between Cardassians and Vulcans or Tellarites or even Klingons, but with Bajorans? The thought was almost laughable.
"Very well," said Garak. "He's quite a capable young man, astonishingly so, in contrast to his Human compatriots."
"I was surprised when the Major thought you must be responsible for his interest in the Cardassian war orphans," said Odo mildly. "I did explain that such… sentimentality was not in your nature."
"At least someone on this station knows me, Odo," said Garak, hand over his heart, and Odo scoffed.
"He's been back from Jumala two days," said Odo. "He seems… hopeful."
"Well, he's young, he can't help being a fool," said Garak, taking his seat and beginning to neatly cut out a pattern. "Jumala went well – no pure Cardassians there, only Bajoran-Cardassian hybrids, which helps, I'm told. Jumala is one of the better funded orphanages, and I have tried to explain to Bashir that part of the reason that the Cardassian children are treated so coldly is due to a lack of resources to share amidst even the Bajorans, but as I'm sure you can imagine, such common sense doesn't agree with him."
"The doctor isn't an orphan, is he?" Odo asked almost casually.
With someone else, Garak might have asked about the question, might have questioned the reason for its being asked, but he didn't have to simplify things for Odo. He was too intelligent for that.
"He is not," said Garak. "His parents are each alive."
"Doesn't talk to them, though, does he?" asked Odo. "He's never talked about his mother, but he made it sound like he and his father are estranged."
"The three of us might form a club," said Garak.
Odo snorted. "You and your father are estranged?"
"After a fashion," said Garak. "I am exiled, after all. What do you think will come of it?"
"Starfleet won't intervene," said Odo. "And as you've said, Bajor barely has enough resources to attend to the Bajoran orphans. The Cardassians and Cardassian hybrids have different medical needs, require different resources – and different means more: if not more stock, then more time, more work. They can't spare it, and as idealistic as the good doctor he is, he can't provide it all himself. You should take care, though."
"Take care?" asked Garak, tilting his head, and Odo smirked at him.
"Don't let him get too attached to any of those war orphans, Garak," he advised mildly. "He already has you co-parenting his regnars, doesn't he?"
Garak laughed, too amused to be angry, and he shook his head as he looked back to his work. "I shouldn't attempt to lay all the imagined suffering on my shoulders, Odo. Imagine all the extra work for you, if Bashir is permitted to bring a gaggle of young orphans into his care, and therefore, the care of the station."
Odo scowled at him.
"Say what you like about Truly Scrumptious and Caractacus Potts, Constable, but at least they're confined to Bashir's quarters, and occasionally, mine."
Odo levelled a look at him that communicated almost as much exhaustion as Garak felt. "Why has he named them that?"
"Please, don't ask."
He had considered that it might be something Bashir would consider, adopting some of the Cardassian children himself, whether he was able to ferry them to Cardassia, Vulcan, or nowhere at all. Now and then, he'd get a call, sometimes in the middle of the night, and he'd immediately go to answer it, and Garak would see the face of one of those unfortunate children, dressed in better clothes than they had been before, sometimes wrapped in the blankets Bashir had brought down to them, or combing out their hair.
Most of the time, it would be some minorly urgent medical complaint, but not always.
A few weeks ago, Bashir had woken in the middle of the night to one of these calls when Garak had been still awake and sewing, and had turned on the holovid to a breathless, tear-streaked young creature breathing heavily. The girl must have been seven or eight, and she'd been whispering, saying she didn't want to wake anybody, and she was sorry to call, but if she woke anyone again Cora would be so angry…
"Shh, shh, it's alright," had said Bashir, already sitting up, wrapped in Garak's robe. "Breathe. In, one, two, three… Out, two, three… That's it, Ruty, just keep breathing like that."
Garak preferred the nightmares to the others. Twice, Bashir had answered a communication, come over very cold, and immediately made another call – to one of the orphanages' educators, their facilitators.
"People don't care for the woes of unwanted children," Garak had told him. "They are unloved, and no one cares for them. Those in the world who take pleasure in their power over children know this, and take due advantage."
"I care about them," Bashir had replied fiercely.
"You can't protect them all."
"Yes, I can," said Bashir. "And I will."
The naivety was infuriating – the strength of purpose and the resolve was anything but.
Bashir had been making some progress with his little coterie of recent, and it was only another few weeks before they would come to a meeting with members of the Bajoran government and Starfleet, where Bashir would present his research, his data. And push for them to make contact with Cardassia.
In the meantime, things had improved no end for the children themselves, so it seemed, because each of them knew they could call on Bashir for assistance or guidance. Garak wanted to put a stop to it – not to the children's resources, but to their reliance on Bashir particularly. He had no shadows under his eyes and Garak had seen no sign that his cognitive abilities were impacted, but he had been sleeping only a few hours a night, almost as little as Garak slept himself, and it made him… irritable.
The Vulcan freighter would be coming through again soon – Garak had every intention of talking with their Vulcan friends, and perhaps seeing if one of them might be convinced to take a serious interest in the matter, Cardassian or Vulcan, and step in whenever they were nearby.
Bashir wasn't wrong, of course, attempting to address the whole matter with serious focus, to address the issue of the orphans as a whole and a collective, but that was not to say that a more individual focus might also be valuable, to consider bringing in those that might adopt or take an interest in one or a few children at a time.
It did make Garak wonder what manner of parent Bashir might be himself – in the event this dynamic of theirs went on, that they did return to Cardassia, it would be considered only proper that they have children of their own or adopt them. This, this focus on the war orphans now, this would do good things for Bashir's reputation even as an alien, as a foreigner, if they did adopt.
He didn't know that Bashir would want for children of his own – Bashir had idly explained that he took a few different suppressants, one to limit his ovulation and menstrual cycle, another to retain his testosterone levels, another still to retain a sufficient oestrogen level in the soft tissues around his cunt, that he not have trouble with thin skin or a lack of lubrication.
Pregnancy in Humans could be a uniquely damaging event, he had informed Garak, and listed off a frankly horrifying litany of permanent health complications that could arise in the aftermath of even a healthy and ordinary Human pregnancy, even when someone was not using testosterone as a matter of course.
Most of those health problems could be mediated by modern medicine – most of them.
"If stretch marks bothered me, I wouldn't have sex with you," he'd said the other morning while combing his hair. "I don't know, it's more the parasitic element that bothers me."
"Parasitic, Doctor? Pregnancy is a perfectly natural process."
"Well, if you think it's so natural, you can hook another living creature up to your organs and let it feed off your blood and energy," Bashir had replied. "Let it warp your body, let it wreak havoc with your internal chemistry, let it stop you from working because everyone expects you to prioritise it over your own life."
"Curiously charged language for a doctor."
"My body is my own before it's a doctor's body," said Bashir. "Besides, if I ever did choose to get pregnant, I don't know what the genetic profile would look like, how much it would reveal. I didn't expect it to ever be feasible to have children without being discovered."
"And now?"
"If we go back to Cardassia, you mean? Cardassia, where alien spouses are thought of as playthings more than active partners, especially soft-skinned aliens like me? The pro-eugenics Cardassia that might be so pleased to have a successfully genetically enhanced superhuman in their midst, they might just use me as chattel?"
"You do exaggerate, my dear," said Garak, even though he was closer to the mark than Garak liked.
Not with every Cardassian, and not even the majority of Cardassians, but it wasn't the majority of Cardassians who might work in interspecies medicine, and Tain wasn't the majority of Cardassians.
Garak was distantly aware that Tain probably had a chart in his head from some years back as to what women might result in the most ideal children between them and Garak. If he ever went home, he wondered what calculations might go into his assessment of Bashir.
"Do you want to get me pregnant?" Bashir had asked.
"No," Garak had said immediately, too quickly, the negative too revealing in its speed and its bluntness. Bashir had looked back at him as he'd come away from the mirror, holding the comb loosely in his hand.
"I wouldn't be a good father," Bashir had said. "I'm good with children – not as good as you are, but I am. But it's easy to be good with other people's children. You don't have to prioritise them unless you want to. When they're your own, that choice is taken away."
"It isn't," Garak had replied. "I believe we might both find some evidence of the fact in our own lives."
Bashir had laughed a bitter laugh, and pulled on his jacket to go to his work.
"Our children would be either tremendously lethal, or unspeakably compassionate," Bashir had said mildly. "Between your tutelage and mine."
"And if they were both?"
Bashir had raised his eyebrows, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at Garak quite seriously, although his lips had curved up at their edges. "They'd be all the more dangerous for that, Garak."
"We'll put that in the pros column, shall we?"
Garak thought about having children, at times, living in his home, eating that which he cooked them, taking the lessons he taught them as Tain had taught him. Not irregularly, the thought occurred, and Garak felt ill enough to take an anti-emetic.
He had not pried out the particular details of Bashir's parentage outside of their decision to have him genetically enhanced, but judging by Bashir's particular coolness about the subject, his own feelings were not far off from Garak's.
He would hardly make decisions for Bashir, but—
Suffice to say, in the event they ever had children together, Garak would ensure they first had no grandfather left on his side of the family tree.
It had been a long day.
He had barely slept last night, less than three hours – Garak had been making pointed comments of late, but it wasn't about work, or at least, not only. Even when he went to bed earlier, he just tossed and turned until he got up and started doing something, no matter what that something was. Garak only knew because they were sleeping together, because most nights in the week Julian slept in his bed or Garak slept in Julian's.
Julian knew no one could tell when he was sleeping less. He wasn't like other people, didn't show the signs of it that they did, only started yawning when he'd gone over a day or two without it, and the only difference it made was that he was more irritable than usual.
It was all very well saying he needed to rest.
He'd never been good at resting.
Not working, yes. Playing, yes. Eating, reading, doing a different project, playing sports, having sex, yes, he was good at all that.
Resting was meant to be for the brain as much as the body, though, and he had never been very good at putting his brain to rest. He wasn't that far off from thirty, and he didn't think he'd ever learn, at this point.
He was just thinking that tonight, he would rest. Tonight, he would go to Garak, and tell him he wanted to go to the holosuites, and ask Garak to do everything he could to stop Julian from thinking. To make him rest. To quieten his mind so that he would actually sleep tonight.
Palis had been good at this – she'd make him dance, and it didn't matter that he wasn't a ballerino. She'd threaten to whip his feet if he wasn't sufficiently en pointe, and she'd bark orders at him until he pliéed, pirouetted, moved just so.
He'd never been able to ask someone else – but he could ask Garak, he knew that.
He was almost terrified and almost titillated just imagining what sort of paces Garak would put him through – make him run laps? A game of hide and seek with high stakes? Would he whip Julian?
It didn't end up mattering.
The computer's voice said: "Incoming communications from Vaneel, line 259."
"Computer, accept call," said Julian, turning back, and he was surprised to see Adorak Lora on the screen, another Cardassian at her side. The boy must have been eleven or twelve, he guessed, and Lora was protectively framing his body with her own, taller than he was.
There was a lot of noise behind them, people bustling back and forth. Julian could see a few Ferengi waiters, and in the background, a bar with a Rakhari pouring drinks.
"Lora, where the Hell are you calling from?" he asked. "Are you in a bar?"
"I'm sorry, Doctor, I know it's late," said Lora, keeping her grip loose on the boy's shoulders. He hadn't seen him before, but he knew that a boy had recently been transferred to Vaneel from resettlement center in Tozhat Province – a much more rural center than the city in Vaneel. "But I didn't know who else to call."
"You must be Rugal," said Julian. "You're the one that likes Terran strawberries, aren't you?"
Rugal, whose face had been a mask of anxious uncertainty, softened, and he showed the barest of little smiles. "Yes, sir," he mumbled.
"Rugal was transferred here a few months ago," said Lora. "There's a Bajoran couple interested in adopting him – he was adopted before by Proka Midgal and Berela, but his adoptive parents died and he ended up going back to the resettlement centre this year."
"Oh, Rugal, I'm sorry to hear that," said Julian. "My condolences for your loss."
Rugal didn't say anything. Julian didn't say out loud how unusual it was that a full-blooded Cardassian should be in such high demand by one Bajoran couple and then another, but he didn't need to say it. Lora's eyes were flinty, and her lips were scowling coldly.
"They came to the orphanage today, Doctor," said Lora. "These new would-be parents of his. We listened at the door."
"Now, Lora," said Julian, while giving her a thumbs up and nodding his head approvingly. "You oughtn't have done that."
Rugal laughed, the sound aborted and shy, but it was good to see him smile, even as he leaned back into the older girl's chest. Lora's smile was thinner, but undeniably present.
"I wanted to call you right away," said Lora. "Madam Turin wouldn't let us – refused even when I got Pinar to say she needed to ask you a question about her foot, said we had to wait until Monday. After Rugal was gone."
"She what?" asked Julian, feeling temper rise in him like boiling water.
"They called him a savage, Doctor," said Lora coldly. "Or, said that he wasn't a savage, and that it was remarkable of him, that he should overcome his natural—"
"Go home," Julian said crisply, standing to his feet. "Are you far from the orphanage?"
"Just two streets away," said Lora. "I clean here sometimes."
"We'll discuss that after," said Julian sternly, and Lora gave him a cool look back, but didn't look offended. "Go back home, tell Madam Turin I'm on my way."
"But she said—"
"Has anything I said sounded even remotely like a request?" demanded Julian, and Rugal faltered, shrinking against Lora's belly, and Julian felt a twist of nausea in his own stomach.
"No, sir," said Rugal. "Sorry, sir."
"No, I'm sorry," said Julian, softening his voice, gentling his tone. "You two did really well to call me, especially so fast. We'll sort it out, alright? I'll be there right away. You two did well."
He almost slammed his chair into his desk as he got to his feet, and Jabara looked at her with her eyes wide.
"Send a message to Ops," said Julian. "Tell them I've gone planetside, non-medical emergency."
"You want me to keep a medical bay clear?"
"Depends on how much my temper gets tested," muttered Julian, and when Jabara raised her eyebrows, looking amused as much as anything, Julian exhaled. "I'm joking."
"I hoped you were. Do you want me to join you?"
"No, Jabara, but thank you. I should be in as usual tomorrow."
"It's your day off," she reminded him.
"Right," he said, picking up his medkit and stalking out onto the Promenade.
"Ah, Doctor!" said Garak cheerfully. "I was just thinking that perhaps we might—"
"We're going to Bajor," said Julian, grabbing the older man by his upper arm and dragging Garak to fall into step with him, and Garak stumbled, but he rallied and began to keep Julian's pace, more of a furious march than a jog.
"You have your emergency kit," said Garak mildly. "Ought I bring mine?"
"Where are you two off to?" asked Kira.
"Why don't you come with us and find out?" barked Julian. "It's your planet."
Garak turned to look at Julian, but Julian wasn't interested in his questions right about now.
"Alright," said Kira evenly, and fell into step on Julian's other side.
