Lora didn't notice Limor Prang as he entered the shop. Garak watched her continue to work, her brow furrowed in careful focus as she machine-sewed a set of trousers. She leaned back once she'd finished them, drawing her hand over the side, and Prang came closer.

His pulse seemed to be non-existent, matched as it was to the ambient air around them, and although Garak had long-since learned – albeit not until after he'd finished his education at Ba'Marren, until he was an adult in his own right and ought have known better already – not to be tricked by the lack of pulse.

The pulse was the closest thing a Cardassian – or indeed, anyone - had to a soul, and it was wholly unlike the concept most other humanoids carried with themselves, most of all because it actually existed. Every being alive had a unique electromagnetic field – it was not so lofty or imaginary as the thing that he'd heard some people refer to as an aura, but instead, was made up of the simple currents that circulated through a living body, those that charged the neural pathways and gave it thought, life, consciousness.

The regnar was a simple creature, and just as it could change the colour of its skin, it could change the apparent nature of its pulse, too, that it should blend in with all around it and become not just invisible, but impossible to sense by instinct – or, more accurately, with the sensitive skin on the inside of the eyeridges, on the spoons of their heads or chests, on their tongues.

Garak had learned from a regnar, learned to mimic it without, for years, knowing exactly what it was doing, but once he was a junior probe, once he spoke seriously with Tain, with Prang, with other agents of the Obsidian Order, he began slowly to understand.

When a being disguised its pulse, it was difficult to convince the brain that the being was truly there. Even whilst looking directly at a Cardassian who was doing as Prang was doing – he was in the middle of Garak's shop, after all, not even hiding himself in shadows or utterly muting the sound of his footsteps – one's brain didn't want to accept the fact of the matter.

It knew, without consciously knowing, that the air ahead of it was empty of all life – therefore, how could a man be standing there?

Prang looked to Garak, met his gaze, and Garak returned his stare and then looked back to Lora.

"Hm?" he hummed, and Lora looked up.

At first, she looked past Prang, but then she frowned, tilting her head, and glanced around the shop. Her gaze flitted over Prang, even rested on him for a moment but then kept moving.

The pulse was not the only aspect of someone's body a Cardassian could be trained to sense and disguise – they were more sensitive to its presence than most other species, could disguise it where others could not, assuming they were aware of its physicality. There were currents on the air, moving through, and although Prang's body seemed non-existent to a thinking brain, tricked as it was by his lacking sign of life, he could still be seen, would still have been heard were it not for how quietly he breathed, and he created a disturbance of the air that came through.

Lora's every sense was telling her that something was wrong, that someone was there, and yet she could not quite comprehend, could not quite understand, that Prang was before her. Funny, that even a Cardassian brain could be so soundly tricked into not seeing what was directly before it.

"Lora," said Garak softly.

Lora stood to her feet, stepped forward… And as she stepped near to Prang, she saw him, but he felt the shift in the energy on the air, knew that Prang had let her see him, know his presence.

"Oh," she said, blinking a few times, not able to understand exactly what had happened, and she looked from Prang to the space around her, and then back to Prang. "I didn't see you there, Legate."

"I have a light step," said Prang. "I wonder, child, would you get your master and I some tea from the Replimat?"

Lora raised her chin, looked between Prang and then Garak, who inclined his head. "Yes, sir," she said quietly, and moved away, although not without glancing back at Garak with curiosity writ in her features, her brow slightly furrowed.

"You'll be receiving your student back with bruises," said Prang matter-of-factly.

Garak raised his eyebrows. "Dukat laid his hands on him?"

"I did," said Prang. "He maligned Cardassia, Elim. Implied that she was due to collapse, and as a result of our expulsion from Bajor, at that. Damar would have beaten the boy himself had I not intervened – I presumed you had no desire for me to permit him to do so, or to allow Dukat."

Garak pressed his lips together, gave a neat inclination of his head. "I am grateful, of course," he said quietly, slowly, but he studied Prang as he said it, looking for clues in the other man's face, knowing he would find none.

How many times had Tain thanked Prang for taking Garak's education in hand, when he was Bashir's age? It was difficult to know, but undoubtedly, it had happened more than once. Not for the sake of Garak being disciplined, of course, but nonetheless, Bashir and Garak were alike in more ways than one.

"Was he good?" asked Garak.

"He was really quite adept," said Prang softly, with a slight smile on his face, as he clasped his hands in front of his belly. "I won't specify the details – he might lack the strength of our Cardassian memory, but he was smug as an Orion Peacock, postured as much as Dukat did himself, and with a similar flair. The boy is a raconteur, and doesn't shy from singing his own praises, or so I hear."

"He'll tell me," agreed Garak.

"You needn't beat him again, when he does," said Prang. "I might take offence, Elim, if you treat my discipline as insufficient."

"Aren't you soft in your old age?" asked Garak teasingly, an edge of steel reinforcing his words, arching his eyeridges. "Campaigning for mercy on behalf of my student? I'll decide what discipline suffices him, Limor, and if he's earned more than you gave him, I'll ensure he knows it."

"I thought I'd never hear my name from your mouth again," said Prang.

That was oddly sentimental, and Garak shifted on his feet, examining the other man.

"I'm not going to kill you, Elim," said Prang.

"That is a relief," whispered Garak. "I'm sorry to say I don't believe you."

Prang's steps closer were deliberate and calculated, and Garak didn't step away as he grew closer. Garak had never been a tremendously tall man, average height for a Cardassian, but where Tain was exaggeratedly short, plump, compact, Prang had equally exaggerated features, being so tall and so broad, simultaneously quite slim and yet commanding so much space.

"I'm not going to kill you, Elim," Prang repeated.

"Is there a reason, then, that you're standing quite so close?" asked Garak, and part of him itched to tell Prang that he oughtn't be using his forename, that he shouldn't be allowing Garak to use his own, that they were far removed from all that, and Garak hadn't yet earned his return home. "Are we going to dance? Embrace, perhaps, as old bro—"

Prang's hand was unfathomably gentle, a squeezing weight, on his shoulder.

"I know," he said simply.

Garak stared at Prang's neck, and then looked up at Prang's face. Prang had always been very good at wearing his face in a neutral mask, painting it with emotions only when he desired to show them, and Garak saw a great many emotions now. He saw the twist and scowl of Prang's mouth, the flare of his nostrils, and most of all he saw the burning, fiery anger in Prang's eyes.

Garak swallowed down his nausea, and smiled. "I'm always curious to know what you do, Limor."

"Does it please you to know that even Enabran Tain feels guilty for his sins?" asked Prang in a low voice. "He's been over-imbibing in recent years – one night, he confessed a good many of them to me."

Garak raised his chin. "He told you he was my father?"

"Elim, I have known he was your father since before you were born," said Prang coolly. "He told me the rest."

Garak moved to pull away from him, but Prang grasped him by the wrist as though he were little more than a recalcitrant child, pulled him back.

"Limor—"

"I left," said Prang. "The night after he told me, Elim, I arranged for my transfer. My relocation to Vulcan is permanent, as is my transfer from the Obsidian Order to the Cardassian Embassy on the planet. My wife and our youngest children, as well as my eldest daughter, are soon to join me there."

Garak couldn't speak, couldn't think, couldn't force his traitorous mouth to obey his mind. Nausea was bubbling in his gut, under his very skin, and he wanted to scream, to lash out and destroy everything around him, even to destroy Prang. He did nothing, did none of it: he simply stood there, stock-still. He could scarcely breathe. His lungs ached.

"What is it, Limor, that you think you're telling me?" asked Garak in a whisper. He meant to speak louder. He couldn't quite manage the force needed to push the voice any louder from his throat.

"Enabran Tain was once my brother," said Prang. "Or so I thought." Prang let Garak's wrist go, and took a step back. Lora was coming across the Promenade. "Now he is alone, serving an exile all of his own. Let him die in it, Elim. You don't owe him a prodigal return. If you wish to return to Cardassia's arms, that's all well and good, but he is not your father in any true sense of the word, and you need never return to him. Least of all with your young man in tow."

Garak's world felt as though it were turning on an axis, and he stared at Prang, his brow furrowed, his lips parted. "Limor—"

Prang was already stepping away from him. "Do be kind to the boy, Elim. He's experienced pain enough."

I've not been a boy for a long time, Limor, Garak didn't say.

"I will attend to the good doctor as he needs attending, Limor," Garak said instead. "You wouldn't ask me to lower my standards for you, would you?"

"Thank you, child," said Prang, taking a cup from the tray Lora had brought in, and he sipped at it. "How go your studies?"

He quizzed her as rigorously as he quizzed anybody, and Garak almost wished to worry about it, about how he'd tested Lora on her sensitivity and was now interviewing her as to what she was learning from her new apprenticeship, but when he'd been but a probe, Prang had been the same with him, with other probes…

And he was the same with all children.

He was a strict man, his silence only raising the apparent heights of his high expectations, but he punctuated his silence just as often with crisp praise as he did with more questions.

Garak could barely concentrate on their conversation, and he buried himself in the most complicated embroidery he had to hand.


Quark's was very busy, and the Cardassians dominated a side section on the upper level. Dukat had wanted to be in the middle of the fray on the ground floor, but this part of the room had been Odo's idea as he'd come through Quark's "coincidentally" as the whole of the Cardassian contingent came in, and this way, they were nowhere near any of the main entrances to the bar, nor positioned in such a way where anyone could come up behind any of them without others seeing the approach.

Moreover, being on the upper level, they were able to look down at the Bajorans below – the unfortunate mirror of that, of course, was that Bajorans were able to look up at them, with mingled disgust and distaste and anger.

Julian sat on one of the benches against the wall, directly between Prang and one of Pa'Dar's secretaries. He'd sat on the edge at first, angled his chair so that he could keep an eye on everything below, but the way people were looking had made him uncomfortable, and that aside, Dukat had kept making excuses to stand to his feet and get behind him, leaning on the railing and touching Julian's sore shoulders or nudging his upper arms.

The secretary was a plump and kindly man who'd apparently done three years of medical training before he'd undergone a severe illness that had significantly damaged his immune system, and meant he had to transfer out to study accountancy instead – his name was Varda, and he wore corrective lenses that clipped to his eyeridges, not dissimilar to old Terran spectacles.

"It was a delicate procedure, treating the ocular degeneration without doing any damage to the rest of my system – the steroids devastate me a bit, you see, and when they tried to do it manually, my whole body just, ah. Went a bit haywire. Ha!"

Julian got the impression Varda didn't get out much, but he didn't mind, and he examined the lens with interest when he unclipped it and gave it to Julian to examine.

"My teacher has something like this," said Julian. "He uses it for small text or very tight beadwork – he's alright so long as he's somewhere well-lit, but once he's working with something reflective or with a backlight, like a console screen, he tends to eyestrain. He uses it to read at night, too, though he tries not to let me see that."

Varda laughed, clipping the lens back on. "How old is he?"

"I," said Julian, and then glanced back to Prang. "Fifty?"

Prang delicately stifled a laugh, his lips pressing together as his eyeridges raised. "Doctor Bashir, I'm one-hundred-and-four."

"… Sixty?"

"Doctor." Student modifier, one for youth, and another that was affectionate, but it was in a teasing way. Julian was fairly certain he'd heard Garak use it for Caractacus.

Looking around the table, he saw that some of Prang's men – not Provor, who was at a dabo table with a few of Dukat's crew – were smirking down at their drinks, and Dukat was smirking very obviously.

Damar said, when Julian met his gaze, "I'm sixty-five."

"Are you younger or older than him?" asked Julian.

"What do you think?" asked Dukat, smirking.

"Younger. He has a more dignified presence than you do," said Julian, and Dukat's face fell even as Prang's men fell about laughing, and so did a few of Pa'Dar's men too, Varda included. Damar seemed embarrassed, almost bashful, ducking his head, but his lips were shifted into a smile.

"Garak's older than you," said Julian. "And you're, what, sixty-one? So is Garak seventy, eighty?"

"How old are you?" asked Damar.

"Twenty-nine."

Damar coughed, and spat out his kanar. "Twenty-nine?" he repeated.

"They live half as long as we do, Damar," said Dukat, his elbow touching against Damar's as he leaned back in his seat.

"How old are your crew members? The others?" asked Damar, seeming fascinated – it was the most he'd spoken tonight so far, and Julian met his gaze with interest, not used to seeing him motivated or engaged with something other than Dukat's orders.

"Jadzia's the same age as me," said Julian. "You know Odo, it's been about thirty years since he landed – Kira's, what, thirty-five? Sisko's nearly forty. The Chief's forty-one – he's going to be forty-two in a few months."

Dukat was laughing. "Why, you're all children."

"If we're all children, what does that make you?" asked Julian, arching an eyebrow. "The average Bajoran comfort woman," he didn't use the Cardassian word, but the Bajoran one, the one that actually called it rape, and watched them all go stiff and stop laughing, "was usually under thirty – half of them under twenty."

Dukat's smile dripped off his face, replaced with a look of more dangerous smugness as he leaned forward. "What does that make your teacher?" he asked quietly.

"It makes him wanted, Dukat," whispered Julian, in the same implicatory tone Dukat was using. "He's never needed to strong-arm anybody into his bed, never needed to imply they'll come to some harm if they don't."

Dukat chuckled. "Is that what you think I do, Doctor? This Federation propaganda that all Cardassians—"

"Not all Cardassians, just certain ex-prefects," Julian interrupted him, and then smiled dazzlingly when Dukat's lip twitched toward a snarl.

Varda cleared his throat, putting his hand on Julian's back, and Julian hid his wince at the way he touched his bruises with the casual, friendly touch, leaning back in his seat.

"I'm given to understand that Human ideas of same-gender partnerships are much like that of Vulcans," said Varda. "That they are seen neutrally, treated in much the same way a natural partnership might be."

Julian wouldn't have caught it, if he was relying entirely on the UT – natural partnership might have even been translated as heterosexual, although he'd have to open up his translator logs to actually check. The word for natural that Varda had used didn't have any religious connotations like it might in other languages.

Garak used it when he was talking about flowers and cross-pollination, and he'd referred to Caractacus and Truly as a natural pair – a breeding pair, but he used it for stackable glasses and some of his pincer moves at kotra and latrunculo too. It didn't mean breeding, it meant… interlocking. Implied completeness.

There wasn't anything unkind in Varda's tone, either.

"Yes, that's right," said Julian. "I suppose a Vulcan would tell you that while a partnership between two men or two women mightn't be natural in the way one between a man and woman might be, they can still parent children together, still love one another, still serve their—" He almost said communities. "States."

"Parent children?" Varda repeated, seeming interested and baffled, and Julian heard the intonation he used, emphasising the personal pronoun – parent their children, but the way the pronoun worked for children, it meant or implied blood or familial relation.

"I mean, um, they can care for the children of siblings or cousins," said Julian, "if not adoptees."

"Ah," said Varda, nodding his head. "I suppose it is logical."

Kardasi had a few words for logic – this one was Julian's favourite, the one that came from Vulcan, and was very similar to the Standard one.

"Cardassia does allow same-gender partnerships? Enjoinments?"

Varda seemed surprised. "Why, of course," he said. "Why shouldn't we?"

"It's just not a marriage," said Prang.

"Enjoin doesn't have the connotations in English it does in Kardasi, you know," said Julian. "To enjoin on someone is to tell them they have something they must do, a responsibility, but legally, an enjoinment is a… it's a ban, an injunction."

"How are the connotations different?" asked Damar.

"I— Well," said Julian. "Being legally bound to someone through marriage or engagement is a commitment of the, the self. It's not signing up for a list of prescribed responsibilities."

"I thought your people said vows?"

"Well, we do, of course. To love the other person, to stand by them in sickness or in health, in wealth or poverty, in—"

"Isn't all of that obvious?" interrupted Damar, looking at Julian with something that resembled horror now. "What about your duty to your children, to your respective families, your people, your Federation?"

"What does that have to do with it? A marriage is two people sharing their lives together, not a merging of government departments."

"What's the difference?" asked Varda. He didn't ask it as urgently as Damar did, but the question seemed just as genuine.

"I, well," said Julian. "Love? And it's personal, they're personal vows, they're between two individuals. You're not marrying someone's family or their job or where they were born, you're marrying them."

"You cast these things off, then, upon marriage to another?" asked Damar. "You're no longer the product of your birthplace or your family, you abandon your workplace and abdicate your responsibilities?"

"Well, no," said Julian, aware that he was in too deep here, and that trying to argue your way out of Cardassian bureaucracy was a bit like trying to wrestle your way out of quicksand. All you could do was give in and carefully extract yourself. "What about… children? Your children, they're not the product of your workplace, are they? Or your parents?"

"Of course they are," replied Damar. "My children and my wife live with my parents."

"Right," said Julian. "Well, I live across the universe from my parents, so if I had children, they'd live with me. They might see me as a doctor, might even visit my workplace, but they wouldn't be the product of my workplace. I suppose we almost think of a relationship between two people in love, a marriage, as a child of its own. Its own product, between just those two people."

Damar narrowed his eyes, and took a sip of his kanar. "That's depraved," he said.

Julian couldn't help how he started laughing, Damar said it so bluntly, and when Damar looked offended, he shook his head. "Sorry, sorry, Damar, I just… I'm not laughing at you. Just at cultural differences."

"An enjoined couple serves the state," said Varda pleasantly. "My partner is a clerk at the central port authority, I'm an accountant in the Councillor's office. We help one another with our work, where needed; we pay our taxes together, serve and compete as a joined pair."

"And you have no children?" asked Julian.

Varda chuckled. "Of course not, Doctor – you weren't listening when I listed my retinue of health complaints as a young man? Even were a woman willing to marry me, what right would I have to deprive her of her chance to seek out a worthy father? Jaral was born with a visual impairment – we met when collecting our lenses – and various joint issues that are equally resistant to medical treatment, and between his genetic defects and my own, we're each ill-suited to marriage, so we're enjoined together."

Julian opened his mouth, closed it. "But that's…"

"There's nothing to worry about, Doctor," said Varda, squeezing Julian's upper arm and giving him a warm, friendly smile. "My brother and sister have a great many healthy children between them, and Jaral has a dozen nephews."

"Didn't you want children of your own?" asked Bashir.

Varda blinked. "Of course," he said, looking at him as though it were some sort of non-sequitur. "But it would have been irresponsible to try – and I'd never have received dispensation."

"Dispensation," repeated Julian.

"It will of course be different for you, a Federaji," said Varda, gesturing vaguely. "If you and your teacher decide to enjoin, I suppose you might have a surrogate or some such off-world nonsense."

"Why would he need a surrogate?" asked Dukat, louder than he was speaking before, and Julian set his jaw. "These off-worlders are strange in more ways than one, Varda – the doctor is perfectly capable of carrying his own children."

Julian didn't meet Varda's gaze as Varda looked at him with renewed, eager curiosity. "Womb transplantation?" he asked.

"Home-grown," said Julian, as casually as he could manage.

"It can be inseminated in the usual manner, I suppose?" asked Dukat.

"I fail to see how it's any of your business how I can be inseminated or not," said Julian.

Damar looked down Julian's body, lingered over Julian's crotch. "But you have a—"

"And if I do?" asked Julian sharply.

Damar blinked at him, seeming surprised, but not angry, in the face of Julian's defensiveness. "But don't you people make milk for your children? How could you do that?"

They were all looking at him with variations of curiosity and interest, except Prang, whose expression revealed nothing, and Dukat, who was looking at him with a mix of superiority and uncomforting salaciousness.

"Well, I'm sorry to break it to you, gentlemen, but in this case the dreaded Federaji simply outdo you," he said finally, with a small smile, and the Cardassian gesture of helplessness he'd learned before. "Perhaps in the event Cardassia ever forms a proper alliance with the Federation, we'll be able to share some of our medical knowledge, get you into the 24th century with the rest of us."

It broke some of the tension, and a few of them lost interest, went back to their conversations.

He'd won that round – Dukat looked displeased, but Damar and Varda both looked their variations of engaged, interested, confused.

Prang touched Julian's neck – it was approving, he thought, just a little touch before he drew back his hand.

"It's late," said Julian, getting to his feet and moving between the two tables. As soon as he was within reach, Dukat touched his body, slid his hand possessively over his hip, and Julian responded by pretending to lose his balance and knocking Dukat's drink, so that it poured into his lap.

Dukat let out a sharp growl of frustration, standing to his feet.

"Oops," said Julian sarcastically, and kept moving past him.

Garak, predictably, was waiting in his quarters. He was already sitting in Julian's bed, wearing his own robe and pyjamas, and he was wearing the lens over his eye, his PADD in his lap, reading.

Caractacus and Truly were sleeping against his neck.

"Would you kill Dukat if I asked you to?" asked Julian.

"I'd kill almost anyone if you asked me to, my dear," said Garak evenly, not looking up from his book. "Is that a responsibility you're ready for?"

"Does it have to be?" He was stripping off his clothes, setting them aside. The warmth in his quarters was a wonderful relief – it had been warm in Quark's, especially between Prang and Varda, but not as warm as it was in here, and the air had been much dryer. "You're my teacher – can't you take responsibility for me?"

"Mmm, you make the choices, and I take responsibility for them? What a curious suggestion," said Garak. "There's a word for that, but I don't believe it bears much similarity to a typical romantic engagement."

Julian fell forward onto the bed, his face against Garak's thighs, and Garak took one hand off of his pad, curling his fingers through his hair. Julian sighed, then groaned, as Garak's fingers traced lower, pressing on the bruises all around the base of Julian's neck.

"Prang plead for mercy on your behalf," said Garak.

"There's no point in that," Julian mumbled against his lap. "You're going to beat my arse black and blue."

"I suspected I would be duty-bound to do so as soon as Prang lobbied for you. Would you like to discuss this evening first?"

"Dukat just outed me to every Cardassian on the station."

"Councillor Pa'Dar was there?"

"Pa'Dar was out to dinner with Rugal and Lora. But this was everyone else – some of Dukat's crew, some of Prang and Pa'Dar's contingent. Do you know Varda?"

"The record-keeper?"

"He's an accountant."

"Fat little man? Old, wears corrective lenses?"

"Mmm."

"Why do you ask?"

"He's nice," said Julian. "He said he and his enjoined both have genetic defects. That that's why they don't have children."

"That bothers you."

"Yes, it bothers me."

Garak didn't say anything more, just began to gently stroke the back of Julian's neck, and then slipped his hand up and into Julian's hair. Julian turned his head, looking up at Garak's face. It was, of course, entirely neutral, revealed nothing, and it wasn't even static or overly neutral – what gave him away was how quiet he was being, how he hadn't gotten up to see Julian, Hell, how he hadn't even taken off the corrective lens, which he normally did once he realised Julian was there.

"What's wrong?" asked Julian.

Garak furrowed his brows, tilting his head slightly to the head. "Wrong, my dear?"

"I'm sorry," said Julian, pushing aside Garak's PADD and unclipping the corrective lens, putting both of them aside. Garak lifted his head as Julian straddled his lap, careful not to dislodge Caractacus and Truly, and Julian cupped his cheeks. "Tell me. Tell me what's wrong – tell me how I can help. Is this about your nightmare the other day?"

Garak opened his mouth, and his eyes searched Julian's face, but then flitted down. Very slowly, he put his hands on Julian's thighs, slid them up to grasp at his waist, and then bent his head to rest his forehead on Julian's chest. Julian leaned forward, the regnars between them but not being crushed, and rested his chin on top of Garak's head, wrapping his arms around him, sliding his hands up and into Garak's hair.

"I'm afraid, my dear," said Garak quietly, "that I am not of a mood to discipline you this evening."

"I'll live without a few more bruises for now," said Julian. "I suppose Prang made things easier on you. He's— He's a good man, isn't he? He was nice tonight. He was… He let me sit between him and Varda, so that Dukat wouldn't grab at me. He laughed when I guessed your age and was way off."

"He's not a good man," said Garak. "But he has a code of honour and duty he adheres to."

Julian pressed his lips into Garak's hair, rubbed his nose through the strong, silken fibres. "Is there anything I can do? If you don't want to talk about it, a massage, sex?"

"Are you so arrogant to believe that whatever ill mood you're imagining of me might be fixed by something you can do for me?"

"No," said Julian softly, "but you stayed up waiting for me to come back, so obviously you were imagining something I could do for you."

Garak exhaled, and tightened his grip, pulled Julian closer. "My dear creature," he said softly, "were it the case I required soothing, your presence would be enough."

Julian kissed the top of his head.

"Stop it."

Julian laughed, and pressed his knees in against Garak's hips, leaned against Garak's head. Garak's breath was hot against Julian's chest, and apart from Garak, Julian could feel the regnars, too, the contented purr they were letting out at the warmth of and comfort of where they were.

"Will you run a dermal regenerator over my back?"

"No."

"Garak—"

"After I have heard precisely what you've said today, my dear, in full, I shall decide what discipline you're in need of – and with that done, I'll see if you deserve to heal from them naturally or have them regenerated away."

"I was worried you'd say that," said Julian, and slowly shifted onto the bed beside Garak, moulded himself to the other man's side, rested his chin on Garak's shoulder and wrapped Garak's arm around him, one of his own banding over Garak's belly. Caractacus raised his head, and he and Truly shifted over slightly, squeezing themselves in between their shoulders like the gasp was a crevice in a rock, and Julian couldn't help but laugh.

Garak touched their noses together, so that the central ridge tickled against the tip of Julian's.

Julian meant to ask, to try to ease against him, try to get Garak to relax, to talk, but it didn't work – he was a little bit drunk, and tired.

He fell asleep almost immediately, and didn't wake until morning.


When Garak woke in the middle of the night, he sat up in bed, and looked down at Bashir.

He still smelt slightly of ithkara, its sweetness clinging to his breath, and he was sprawled under the sheets with his rest resting on the pillow. Caractacus had crept about to the other side of his head, burying himself in his hair, and Truly was curled up against his neck, her scales changing to a soft, even brown to match his skin.

He didn't vomit, managed not to, but he couldn't linger in the room and its sweet, comforting heat, no more than he could watch the sweet, comforting creatures sprawled in bed beside him.

He put on proper shoes, but only his robe and a scarf over his pyjamas – he was perfectly modestly attired, and although the station was freezing cold, he used the turbolift alone, and came across no one as he moved through the other part of the Habitat Ring.

Prang didn't look surprised when he opened the door and saw Garak standing there.

He looked at Garak, taking him in, no doubt seeing the chalkiness to his scales, the dryness of them, heard his slightly elevated heartbeat, heard his faster breathing.

"What do you mean," asked Garak as he crossed the threshold, the doors closing behind him, "by what you said?"

"Elim," said Prang, "if you—"

"We are not friends, Prang," said Garak. "You and I are not old allies, and we are no longer commander and probe, no longer even fellows of the same organisation. I, an exile, you, as good as – we no longer share the association of Tain in common. There is no reason you should use my forename."

"Ah," said Prang, and smiled.

"Ah?" demanded Garak, stepping forward, and Prang raised his chin, staring down at him.

"You're angry," said Prang. "You want to be angry with someone. Well, Elim…" He spread his hands. "Here I am."

He dodged the first punch, and on Garak's attempt at the second, he threw Garak against a table. Garak whirled on him, caught the other man's foot with his own, but Prang stood his ground and shifted his knee, forcing Garak's out at the joint and then catching him under the elbow. Garak hissed in pain and then a stabbing pleasure as the wire intensified the signal, and this time, Prang caught him under the neck.

It was a blur of motion, of movement, and it was stupid of him, stupid and foolish and obscene that he even thought to try, because he might easily have bested Tain, bested many of his fellows in the Obsidian Order, but he was far from the best amongst them, and Prang was always at the top of the chain. Middle-age hadn't changed that.

It couldn't have gone on for very long, less than ten minutes, if not less than five, but it ended with Garak forced against the wall with Prang's forearm over his throat and his fingers pressing on a delicate point on the side of his hip, and Garak was gasping for air.

Garak's eyes were teary, although no wetness had yet fallen onto his cheeks, and he felt as though the room were very small and closing in on him, his heart pounding, his breathing laboured and fast.

Prang said, "It wasn't your fault."

"Wasn't my fault?" Garak repeated, and when he laughed, the sound was painfully loud, echoing off the falls, and insufferably wet. "Wasn't my fault."

"Elim, it wa—"

"You didn't know?" Garak demanded sharply, and Prang leaned back from him, taking the hand off his throat. Garak remained against the wall anyway, his shoulders pressed tight to the hard steel, as hard as he could press there.

"I didn't," said Prang. "I knew you were Tain's bastard. I didn't know the rest."

"And the others?" asked Garak, arching his eyeridges.

Prang's features, almost imperceptibly, tightened.

"And the others?" Garak repeated, louder this time, almost shouting. "The young men Tain took under his wing, not we Sons of Tain, but the others, the ones who sought his sponsorship for Ba'Marren or some other institute – did you know about them?"

"You were a child," said Prang, a delicacy in his voice – Prang's voice was always quiet, but never had it sounded so fragile to Garak's ears. "They—"

"How many were sixteen?" demanded Garak. "Fifteen?"

"You were in his household, living in his home, and he—"

"He was the head of the Obsidian Order!" Garak hissed, shoving Prang hard in the chest, and better fighter or not, Prang stumbled back from him. "And every time, every time, he picked boys like me – boys from the lower classes, boys who knew they had no better options, boys who knew to be grateful. You knew that."

"It wasn't the sa—"

"It was exactly the same," Garak snapped.

The world felt as tight and constricted as a needle's eye, and he couldn't breathe, couldn't think. When he stumbled, head spinning, Prang caught him under the elbows. "Elim?"

"I, that's, you really—" He couldn't string two words together, was babbling like an idiot, and the wire was flooding his brain with heat and endorphins to try to account for the pain, and his distress was apparently so intent – how ridiculous – that the wire was giving him enough to almost threaten his consciousness. His vision kept darkening at the edges as he did his best to calm his breathing, and to his intense dislike, Prang was scowling down at him with focus as he pressed two fingers up under the ridge adjoining his neck, feeling for the pulse of his heart.

"Is your wire working as it should?" asked Prang.

"Let me go," said Garak. He meant to pull away, but his head was spinning and he couldn't convince his feet to move. Prang stared at him, his lips slowly parting.

"Elim—"

There was a chime at the door, and it was the impetus Garak needed to draw away, collecting himself sufficiently to open the door with a forced smile on his face, no matter that his skin was burning with heat, endorphins rushing through his vein, the wire a throbbing pulse in the back of his head.

"Constable Odo, good morning," he said brightly.

"Garak," said Odo slowly. "There've been… noise complaints."

"Prang and I are old friends, Constable," said Garak, tilting his head. "Would you begrudge a lonely tailor a friendly wrestling match with an old opponent?"

"Friendly?" asked Odo, arching blunted brows, and Garak didn't need to look at Prang to know he raised his own eyebrows in response.

"You have witnessed Cardassian wrestling before, I presume," said Prang witheringly. "Garak here has only Klingons to spar with – he might be an exile, but even I wouldn't sentence him only to that."

"Hrmph," said Odo damningly. "In your pyjamas?"

"You'd rather we dirty our clothes?" asked Garak. "In any case, Constable, our play is at an end. If you'll excuse me?"

Odo scowled at him, his eyes narrowing, but he stepped back to allow Garak past.

Garak managed to walk somewhat straight and tall until he got to the turbolift, whereupon he half-collapsed against the wall, elbows rested on the support bar, even as he mumbled his number back to Julian's quarters.


By the time Garak was back from wherever he'd slipped out to in the morning, Julian was showered, dressed, and in the process of gently putting Caractacus and Truly into their tank, where several tube grubs were waiting for them, hidden in amongst the flowers and under the rocks for them to seek out.

"Good morning," said Julian.

"Good morning," said Garak crisply. Julian heard the sound of him taking off his shoes, and he was surprised when he turned to look that Garak was still in his robe and pyjamas. "We'll discuss your conversations yesterday over breakfast, Doctor," no affectionate addition, modifier for student status but not for youth, so that it felt strangely cold. "You're not on shift until late this afternoon?"

"No, I'm on the late evening shift," said Julian softly. "I've got research to work on, I'm hoping it'll be a quiet night."

"It's good to enter the day with an intention in mind."

"Are you feeling better?"

"Much. We'll eat in the Replimat," said Garak, and gave Julian a severe look, a smile curling his lips. "I want you to go to the replication unit downstairs and replicate an implement for your punishment. Choose your own specifications for it – but, Doctor, I do expect it to be an implement appropriate for the discipline you've earned. If I find you have replicated an item with the intention of making things easy on yourself, I will not be pleased, and that will be reflected in the punishment I give you. Do I make myself clear?"

Every word was cool, calculated, and deliberate, and when Julian shivered, heat rising in his neck and up to his cheeks, Garak smiled a little wider, showing his teeth, his head tilting to one side.

"As crystal," said Julian breathlessly.

He came closer to Garak, who looked at him with that same frightening, predatory coldness in his eyes, and Garak tilted his head to the side, eyeridges raised in expectation. "Is something unclear in the instructions I've given you?"

"What has gotten into you this morning?" asked Julian, leaning in toward him, and Garak caught him by the jaw before he could kiss him on the cheek. Julian exhaled breathlessly, standing up on his tiptoes.

"Now, my dear," said Garak softly. "I won't ask you again."

"I didn't ask you to," said Julian. He pressed hard on the centre of Garak's wrist, forcing his fingers to relax, and Garak gave an irritable growl, but before he could retaliate, Julian kissed the centre of his palm. He didn't know what to make of the furious, concentrated look gave him except that it turned his blood hot, and he chuckled as he drew away. "Think of me when you shower, won't you?"

Garak's gaze was hot on his back as he went out.

It was half an hour later that they met in their favourite table at the Replimat, the one that was on the Promenade walkway against the pillar. Julian liked it so he could see everyone walk past; Garak liked it because they could listen to other people without them easily eavesdropping on them.

Garak made no mention of Julian's replicator order as he set a plate down in front of him – a plate of mahshi, which made Julian beam – and settled across him with his own.

He'd replicated a paddle, and then he'd gotten nervous that it was too smooth, too simple, not severe enough, so he'd replicated another, with holes.

Garak said, "Lost your tongue to a passing cat, my dear?"

"No," said Julian. "Just waiting for you to start – isn't that proper etiquette?"

"Careful, Doctor," said Garak softly, and it made a shiver run down Julian's spine, especially because Garak was smirking as he said it. "Tell me, then."

"I didn't know Dukat was an off-worlder," said Julian. "His accent is Cardassia III, right?"

"Very good," said Garak.

"He called me by my title and first name, when he stepped out of the docking bay. I responded in kind."

"What modifiers did he use?"

"None at first," said Julian. "He started neutrally, so I was neutral back, just loud about announcing his first name, which I knew would annoy him. He asked where Pa'Dar was, and I said he wasn't available – I made the faux helpless gesture. He said he'd heard I was studying Kardasi – he used a semi-formal pronoun, not the professional or diplomatic ones, the everyday ones. He modified for age, but he used the right gender, and he didn't add a modifier for me being an alien, either, but he looked at me. Stared down my body like he was trying to eat it with his eyes."

Garak chuckled, sipping his tea.

"So I said, I didn't know you didn't grow up on Cardassia Prime."

Garak's lips shifted. "You avoided adjusting the pronoun to reflect Dukat's age?"

"I'm twenty-nine, he's barely sixty," said Julian. "Lifespan for lifespan, we're not actually that far off from one another."

"A curious logic indeed," said Garak, "and not one that will get you far on the homeworld."

"We're not on the homeworld," wheedled Julian, echoing Garak's phrasing and watching the way it made him smile. "We're on DS9."

Garak huffed an exhaled noise of amusement. "Go on."

"Dukat said… I lack the privilege of your upbringing, Doctor. I grew up in a simple, static home – my youth lacked the excitement of yours, I'm sure, travelling from planet to planet, house to house… Fitting that you should settle on a station, ever in motion, the people always changing." Julian did his best to mimic the slight vibrato quality of Dukat's voice, and judging by the way Garak laughed openly, he managed to get it close to the mark.

"A rather sophisticated insult for Dukat," murmured Garak. "Not of his or Damar's making, I would wager. He really put all those redundancies on your title?"

"It cuts him closer to the mark than I could have hoped that he's so sensitive about his age," said Julian, and Garak hummed. "I said that he could… You could always travel now. Make up for lost time."

Garak gave him a queer look.

"Yeah, I knew it didn't make sense exactly."

"What does that mean? Make up time?"

"It means… Make up for lost time… If the past has gone by whilst you've neglected something, you can do it now, and it will be almost as though you did it in the past. Taking the opportunity now will be the same as if you did it then."

"In what way, precisely? Time is quite linear, my dear doctor – if you do something tomorrow, it makes no retrospective impact on you not having done so today."

"I… That's not what it means, though, Garak, it's more about the fact that it's worth doing something today you didn't do yesterday."

"Well, of course," agreed Garak, "but why bring yesterday into it? That day is gone and past."

Julian sighed, leaning back in his seat. "Fine, fine. Then I said, I'm sure the military would get on without you. And he said, But it wouldn't, Doctor – not all of us can be so easily replaced with the next child out of Starfleet Academy."

Garak's laugh was short, aborted, had an amused bitterness to it that Julian didn't know what to make of.

"And then he added, Although I'm sure you wouldn't encourage anyone to harm you, and necessitate such a replacement."

"That's more in line with my expectations of Dukat," murmured Garak. "You can't teach a man subtlety, but even a man like him can manage blunt implications."

"I didn't know what to say, so I smiled."

"Good," said Garak, approving.

"And then I said," Julian went on, "You're worried if anything happened to you, there'd be no one good enough to serve as your replacement?"

He glanced up at Garak's at face, and was exhilarated to find sparkling, glittering approval in Garak's eyes, the mischief he knew Garak for very obvious there.

"Yes…?"

"I had no idea the Cardassian Military was under such strain after the Occupation, and had been made so weak." Garak's smile faded somewhat, and his gaze became a heavier weight on Julian's gaze. Swallowing, he glanced away from Garak, but when the other man stepped slightly on his foot under the table, Julian met his stare again. Not quite able to keep the shame out of his voice, he said, "The weight of Cardassia must be heavy on one man's shoulders."

Garak put down his knife and fork, and settled his hands in his lap, sitting up very straight. "I see," he said quietly. "Did Prang explain precisely the problem with what you said?"

"Damar called it a grievous insult. When he grabbed me, I didn't realise it was to beat me, I thought he was going to kill me, I didn't… I wasn't trying to insult Cardassia, or the mil—"

"Now, don't be a fool, Doctor," said Garak sternly. "You knew as soon as you mentioned the Cardassian expulsion from Bajor that your words had wider connotations – and then to broaden your insult from the military to the Empire herself?"

"If he mentioned the Federation that way—"

"The Cardassian Empire is not the Federation, and our culture is not the same as yours," Garak interrupted him. "As well you know."

"Yes," murmured Julian.

"Go on, then. Damar took you in hand?"

Julian nodded.

They didn't stop talking until Julian had gone through the whole of his discussions last night, too, although that was quicker, with more short interruptions for education rather than lecture. Garak was holding himself stiffer, more severely than usual, and there was a certain particular irritation in his voice when he scolded Julian for eating too fast.

"Come, then," said Garak.

All his usual warmth and charm was gone as he led the way to his quarters. Holding his bag to his side, the paddles a weight inside, Julian followed with his head slightly bowed – heat pricked his skin, his cunt alive with want, but there was something underneath the arousal, a certainty that Garak was really upset about this, really very angry.

Not angry.

Disappointed.

Odo looked their way as they passed, and Julian didn't meet his eye.


"Strip," ordered Garak, taking the bag, and watched Bashir obey.

The bruises on the back of his neck and tops of his shoulders were slow to heal, were deep enough that they'd take a few days without intervention from a dermal regenerator, and a part of Garak almost wished Damar had bent the young man over and attend to him properly, more assiduously than Prang had.

Prang was a stern taskmaster, but he saw Julian Bashir as more child than man: Damar would have beaten him in the blunt, simple way of a blunt and simple man, with no desire to soften the blows as an allowance for Bashir's ignorance, ignorance he didn't truly have, so long as he focused, so long as he controlled himself.

There was slick on Bashir's thighs, and Garak ignored it as he opened the bag.

The two wooden paddles were not of a design he was familiar with, square with a rounded handle to grip them with. One had a piece of leather cushioning on one side, crossed over with a textured stitching that Garak felt under his fingers; the other was slightly heavier, and twelve holes, three rows of four, were bored through the wood.

"These are intended to be alternated, or used at once?" he asked Bashir, who blanched.

"I," he stammered, "I, I was worried— I replicated the first one, the soft paddle, and then I was worried that it was too soft, even with the wooden side, so I, um, I replicated the other one."

"In short, you didn't follow my instructions," said Garak.

Bashir stared at him in dismay. "What?"

"I instructed you to replicate one implement, singular, that was appropriate for your punishment," said Garak. "You have replicated two."

"I, well, I didn't know which was—"

"I gave you a choice, Doctor, on the expectation you would rely upon your own judgement," said Garak sharply. "Instead, you have abdicated that choice, and now you pass it to me. Were you not joking when you said you wished for me to take responsibility for all your choices?"

"What? No, Garak, that's not true," said Bashir. "And it's not fair. You're my teacher, you're taking some responsibility for me, and I'm grateful, but I'm still my own man."

"Your own man who doesn't follow instructions," said Garak. "Neither the instructions themselves, or the spirit of them. Have you done this to spite me, Doctor, or are you simply showing you lack the capacity to choose for yourself? That you need someone else to do it for you?"

There was a rage in Bashir's eyes now, one that Garak would ordinarily be pleased to see, but at this moment made him want to snuff out that fire.

"No," he said coolly. "No, teacher, I don't need you to do it for me." Sweeping forward, he snatched the leather paddle out of Garak's hand and tossed it across the room, landing in the basket Garak used for his laundry. "There," he said, lips curled in something almost like a snarl. "Decision made."

"Making up for lost time?" asked Garak coolly.

"Better late than never," Bashir retorted.

"Over my desk. Hands flat."

Bashir faltered, glancing to the desk, and for a moment, the anger flitted away. "Could I be over your knees?" he asked. "Please? I—"

"What ever gave you the impression this was a negotiation?" asked Garak in a whisper.

There was an uncomfortable note in Bashir's expression, a pain Garak didn't recognise or mark as familiar, but he didn't want at the moment to coddle Bashir's feelings or treat him gently. The room was uncomfortably small, Garak too large for its confines, and he only wished to set this punishment aside so they could each move on with their lives unburdened by it.

"To insult the Cardassian Military is very easy," said Garak deliberately. "It and the Detapa Council make up two very large strands of Cardassia's command, and we might make as many generalisations or mild insults as we like as to its soldiers, its structure, the errors in judgement of its commanders. But to imply it is soon to collapse is to imply a pillar of Cardassia is soon to collapse; to imply such a thing is the precursor to speaking it into existence."

The paddle landed with a mighty thwack against Bashir's bare backside, and Bashir sharply howled, the noise muffled in the crook of his shoulder. Bashir was bent over, his arse out, his hands flat on the table, but Garak didn't expect that to last – he'd be down on his forearms, soon enough.

"To bring in the Cardassian expulsion of Bajor, in front of a crowd of Bajorans, no less, deepened the cut of the insult."

"But Major Kira—"

The paddle came down again, once on the left cheek, then on the right, and Bashir's sounds of pain were sharp and full of biting agony. His arse wobbled with the force of the blows, and where the paddle landed, Garak could see the darkening of the flesh, the show of the red underneath the brown of Bashir's skin, the colour cooler on his backside than on his face, but growing warmer now.

"Are you Major Kira?"

"No." A very hard blow, this one underneath his thighs, and Bashir sobbed out sharply, but then corrected himself: "No, sir."

"Are you Bajoran?"

"No, sir."

"Are you Cardassian?"

The hesitation first, and then, "No, sir, but I'm… I'm a Cardassian student."

"Yes," Garak agreed.

"It hurts your reputation if I show you up."

Garak sighed impatiently. "Yes" he said, voice full of expectation. Bashir was breathing heavily, his thighs slightly apart: between his legs, Garak could see where the handsome brown of his lips gave way to a darkened pink within, and he wanted to bury his cock there now, wanted to spear Bashir open and fuck him as his discipline, but he knew that was no real punishment for him, not in the way this was.

"It's…" Bashir faltered. "It's rude?"

Garak landed a flurry of blows this time, and Bashir let out noise after noise, each of them pooling hot between Garak's legs, but his cock didn't spark to life. There was too much lingering noise, too much static, in his head for him to manage it in the moment.

"I shouldn't have said Cardassia," Bashir hurried to say when Garak stopped for a moment, his breathing ragged, his voice tearful. "When I used, when I used the poetic, it implied the whole of Cardassia, past and present – and it was an insult to imply Cardassia could be carried by one man, any individual, but especially that phrasing, that word. It wouldn't have been, been good, if I'd just said the Military, but it would have been better."

"And?" Garak prompted.

"I don't know, Garak, I don't know—"

"Very well," said Garak, and this time brought the paddle down in the middle of Bashir's arse, against where his cunt lips were open too, and Bashir's scream of pain was an animal, wounded thing.

"I don't know," Bashir snapped when he stopped again. "I don't know, I don't know, just tell me, just—"

"Use your brain, and see what comes to you."

"It was rude!" Bashir almost shouted at him, turning his head and looking back at Garak with a sort of desperation burning in his wet eyes. Was this what Garak had looked like earlier, looking up at Prang? "It was rude, I was rude, that's— It hurts your reputation, it could have hurt negotiations, about, about the Bajoran orphans, I don't know, Garak—"

Garak didn't stop this time until Bashir stopped repeating: "I don't know."

It took some time.

He was working mechanically after a while, not concentrating, not focusing – Bashir's arse was a galaxy of bruising, dark red circles showing where the paddle's holes had hit, and Bashir was crying, but making next to no noise.

Weeping, really.

When Garak stopped, he didn't start to talk, just sobbed into his arms, and it was such an ugly sound Garak almost wanted to hit him until he stopped, but he didn't. He wanted to be sick, but he wasn't. He almost wanted to die, and he didn't do that either.

"In the event," whispered Garak, "that you fall on Cardassia's tender mercies, my dear Doctor, what do you think will happen if you're known for wishing her out of existence?"

Bashir didn't answer.

He kept gasping, hiccoughing into his hands, his shoulders racked with the sobs.

"Do you think she will accept you?" asked Garak. "In the event the Federation casts you out, my dear, and Cardassia refuses you, where will either of us go?"

Bashir slumped, falling to his knees and half-leaning up against Garak's desk. He looked tremendously small, all the wind gone out of him, arms wrapped in about his knees, face against the wood panelling. "I wanted to be over your lap," he whispered, so low Garak could barely make out the words, his voice hoarse from crying out. "Why wouldn't you let me? Why are you being so fucking cold?"

"This is as cold as I ever am, Doctor."

"It isn't," said Bashir, and looked up at his face. "It isn't, and you know it. This isn't about me and what I did. This is about whatever the Hell you were doing this morning, and that you're too much of a coward to tell me about!"

"Don't call me a coward, Doctor."

"Why? Because it's what you are?" Bashir demanded, and he stumbled as he got to his feet, his knees weak, but he managed it anyway, stood in front of Garak, wet with snot and tears and sweat. "You could have sold me for your welcome back and you didn't, because you're scared to go back alone; you could have joined us last night or when I went to greet Dukat, but you're frightened they'll embarrass you, upset you, the way they work to embarrass me; you could tell me what the Hell you've been remembering, and you'd rather beat me without touching me, without holding me, without letting me know it's you. We might as well have asked Damar in to do it!"

Garak's hand moved fast, but Bashir's moved faster, and Garak felt the whole of his genetically enhanced strength as Bashir wrenched Garak's hand back, making him grunt sharply – he did it harder than he had earlier to kiss his palm.

"I could end you," Bashir whispered. "It's not in my nature, Garak, and I'm not trained for it, but for all that Cardassian muscle and strength and heavy tendons, I could snap your neck just as easily as you could snap mine. I feel like you don't understand what I'm trusting you with when I invite you to hurt me – is it easier to understand if it's the other way around?"

Garak tried to wrench free his hand but Bashir responded by bending his fingers back, and the wire turned the pain into so much pleasure that stars danced in front of Garak's eyes. His knees went weak, but didn't quite buckle.

Bashir let him go.

The wire's pleasure flooded out of him all at once, and suddenly Garak felt nothing but cold, exhaustion, and quiet, full-body agony – and most of all, he felt a wrenching heartache, seeing Bashir dejected in front of him, and whispered, "Oh, my dear. You oughtn't trust me."

"Yes," said Bashir tightly, and wiped his hand over his face, streaking al the mess on it across the back of his arm instead. "You've proven that tonight, haven't you?"

Garak took him by the upper arms, and Bashir's face crumpled as Garak held him there, his head bowing: the noise he made, a ragged sob, was a disgusting, wet sound, and it made pain and nausea alike flare through Garak's body. The walls weren't closing in any longer, and he was no longer too large – he was tiny, miniscule, and Bashir was an impossible weight in his arms, liable to crush him with his sheer immensity.

"I'm sorry," Garak whispered, feeling cored open and empty of everything, the agony burning through his body with the force of a sun, head throbbing, heart searing. "Oh, my dear, I'm sorry, can you ever forgive me?"

Bashir's head dropped to Garak's shoulder, and Garak was careful where he held him, pulling the younger man against his chest and feeling the heat that radiated from him, taking in his scent, his sweat-sweetness, even as his lips brushed against the side of his temple.

"Please don't let me go," said Bashir in a very low voice. "I need… your hold. Tight. For a while. And your— your weight."

Garak almost said he needed precisely the same, but he held back from the impulse as he drew Bashir over to the bed. With one hand, he reached for the dermal regenerator in the side drawer, and Bashir slapped his hand away.

"Julian—"

"Leave them," said Bashir. "I earned them."

Garak held him as tightly as he dared, and a part of him marvelled at the way Bashir didn't shatter in his hands, no matter that Garak was shattering even as he held him.


"… not going to be able to make my shift," Julian said lowly. "No, it's nothing a day's bed rest and a few relevant hyposprays won't cure, I have everything I need here, and Garak's going to look after me, in any case. He'll call if we need further assistance."

Garak was silent as Julian put his comm badge aside.

"Bath," said Julian.

"I already—"

"So did I," Julian interrupted him. "That was before all this."

"I will hurt you," said Garak softly. "I've hurt you now – I'll hurt you many times again. Do you understand that?"

"I've ruined your life," retorted Julian, and watched the way Garak's face changed, watched his lips part. "Isn't that true? Haven't I ruined all your priorities, stopped you being what you were, your plans, what you would have done? Don't talk to me about hurt, Garak. You haven't the slightest fucking idea what I know about hurt."

"You haven't ruined my life," said Garak quietly. "I had scarcely any life left before you insinuated yourself into what remained."

"Well, isn't that marvellous for both of us?" asked Julian, and stood to his feet – or, more accurately, he put his feet on the ground, and immediately dipped forward, catching himself with his forearm on the side of the bed before he hit the ground. Garak came around the bed and helped him up, supporting him toward the bathroom. Garak spoke a command for the taps to start flowing, flooding the room with hot water and with steam, and he gently pushed Julian in against the sink, Julian's elbows resting on the counter.

He'd barely been able to sleep with the sheer agony of it, and it was stupid of him to refuse the dermal regenerator the first time, but he'd done it primarily out of spite, not because he actually wanted the bruises. Prang's punishment had been nasty: Garak's beating had only not broken the skin because Garak was so practised as giving beatings, and Julian didn't much want to think about that.

"Will you accept the regenerator now?" asked Garak. There was a horrible tightness in his voice.

"I will," said Julian, and the door chimed, and he groaned.

"Doctor Bashir, Mr Garak?" came Odo's voice, and Julian let out a loud sound of frustration, taking up a towel and wrapping it around his waist. He grunted at the way the fabric – Cardassian towels were not made with soft, Human skin in mind, and were more akin to sandpaper than any towel Julian had ever used – scratched over his abused skin.

"Julian—"

"Shut up, Garak," said Julian, and opened the door, leaning heavily on the doorframe. He knew exactly what he looked like, skin still damp with sweat – he and Garak hadn't really slept, either of them, just lied down together for two hours or so – his eyes red-rimmed and dark, his lips bitten and bruised. "Good afternoon, sir," he said venomously to Commander Sisko, who was looking from him with raised eyebrows to Odo, who was standing very stiffly. Behind them, Kira was stamping her foot. "Has Constable Odo, by any chance, made some sort of unfounded accusation based on my calling in ill for my shift?"

"Constable Odo," said Sisko, putting his hand on Odo's chest before he could start talking, "expressed concerns."

"You expressed concerns," said Julian. "Concerns about Cardassian discipline within a student-teacher dynamic? Concerns about Garak's state of mind, given this morning?"

He had no idea what had happened this morning, but judging by the way Odo's face shifted, the way he shuffled his feet, he was on the money there.

"Yes," said Odo.

"Your concerns are noted," said Julian, "and I appreciate that you care. But all I want right now is to take a hot bath and—"

"Did he beat you?" demanded Kira. Standing between Odo and Sisko, she demanded of Garak over Julian's shoulder, "Did you discipline him, Garak?"

"Do you think this is public enough?" Julian asked, turning back to Garak, who raised his eyebrows and wore a smile because Julian was smiling too, albeit in the slightly feral, Cardassian way he'd learned to take on only recently. "We'd be better off on the Promenade, surely?"

"On one of the balconies, perhaps," suggested Garak. "I had known that the Federation was oddly liberal in its public display of relationship disputes, but—"

"Relationship disputes do not include physical attacks," said Kira sharply.

"Under Federation bylaws, Major, they in fact do," Julian corrected her, crossing his arms over his chest. "There are multiple cases that allow for sadomasochistic play and different standards of relationship discipline, including corporal punishment, for any Federation citizen and their partners, which doesn't stop being the case for Starfleet officers. Presuming said corporal punishment is consensual and not coerced, and conducted in a way not to cause permanent injury or death, the only restriction stands for when such things are likely to interfere with the course of an officer's duties, which this hasn't, and won't."

Julian met Sisko's gaze, and said, "Again, sir, I appreciate everyone's concerns, but Garak's discipline wasn't the cause of my calling in ill, it was part of the cure."

He watched Sisko's eyebrows raise at the lie, watched his head tilt to the side.

"I'm tired," Julian said, which was true. "I've spent the past few days splitting my brain open between the Cardassians and my work, I'm overstimulated, and I was going to spend the whole of this evening burying myself in research. The pain focused me the same way an hour or two of playing racquetball would have – pain is pain. It focuses the mind, releases endorphins, allows for a certain clarity of mind. To notice, for example, when you've overworked yourself sick. If it's really that much of an imposition, sir, I can work out the shift after all, but I—"

"No," said Sisko. "No, Doctor, we've discussed balancing your work out a little. I'm glad you're taking your health seriously. I wanted to come with Odo to check on the two of you, so that this could remain among senior staff."

"And what, you just came for the show?" Julian asked Kira, who gave him half a snarl.

"Why are you defending him?" she asked him sharply. "Are you so into this Cardassian game that you'll just let him abuse you?"

"Major, he's not abusing me," said Julian. "He was about to lift me up and place me into a bath when you three interrupted."

"Show us the bruises," said Kira.

"You want me to show you my arse?" asked Julian.

Kira's jaw dropped.

Julian inhaled slowly, doing his best to look as uncomfortable and embarrassed as possible as he looked to Sisko, and asked in a quiet voice, "Are you ordering me to show you my arse, sir?"

Sisko put his hand on the back of her shoulder, and Kira leaned back. "I think we can dispense with that for now, Doctor."

Sisko was convinced, and it was damn hard to convince Sisko. Kira didn't like it, hated it, but he'd stopped her here.

Odo wasn't fooled in the least. He was looking between Julian and Garak with an almost-neutral expression on his face, which for Odo meant a very suspicious face. Odo's lips were twisted.

"I'll work out the shift," said Julian quietly. "After a bath, I'll be better anyway."

"You don't have to," said Sisko.

"No, I will," said Julian. "I don't need anyone spreading rumours about this, and I assume it was Nurse Jabara that called you, Odo?"

Odo made a vague grumbling noise, standing up straight.

"Do you have anything to say about the whole of the station assuming you're abusing me because you're a Cardassian?" asked Julian, not turning to look at Garak.

"My dear, I warned you when we began this interrelation of ours that this sort of prejudice was precisely what you could expect. I imagine tensions are particularly high, watching you conduct yourself so expertly amongst other Cardassians, at that."

At the small of his back, Julian put up his middle finger, and Garak didn't verbally respond, but Julian felt the movement as he adjusted his stance, and heard his clothes shift as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Did Garak put those bruises on your shoulders?" asked Kira.

"No, Legate Prang did," said Julian.

"You let Prang do that?" asked Sisko, and Julian exhaled.

"Sir," he said, "I'm doing what I have to do. I can't get what I want to get for the children on Bajor by being Human, and I can't get it by being Federation."

"So you're becoming Cardassian?" asked Kira.

"They don't see me as Cardassian," said Julian "They see me as an alien who's playing by their rules to get what he wants – and because it appeals so much to their reptilian egos, they'll hand it over. Not because it's the right thing, not because it's moral, not because they care, but because they get to see me make an idiot of myself. No matter what you think, Major, Garak's an exile. He has no more power here than the rest of us."

"What a resounding recommendation," said Garak cattily.

"Hate the truth, don't you?"

"When used as such a blunt instrument," was the retort, and Garak even injected a pantomime of hurt into the words as he turned and went into the bathroom to shut off the water. If they lost the Federation and Cardassia, the two of them could join a fucking acting troupe together.

Julian smiled, a genuine smile this time – or at least, more genuine than the other one.

Kira said sharply, "Do you think you're any better than a collaborator?"

"I don't think I'm better than anybody," said Julian. "You think it doesn't humiliate me when Dukat puts his hand on my arse, when Prang twists my neck in two in front of everyone in the docking ring, when every Cardassian looks at me like I'm a lemur doing a dance?"

"You're the one choosing to sell your dignity."

"Major—"

"No, no, Commander, she's right, I am," said Julian. "But you don't care about my dignity, Major. You couldn't give a monkey's whether I'm embarrassed or not, what it does for my reputation – you just don't want the Cardassians to have the satisfaction, but I don't care about their satisfaction. I don't care what their feelings are, positive or negative. All I care about is Rugal and Lora, and all the other children. Now, may I please take a bath?"

Kira looked upset.

Julian felt guilt gnawing in his chest, looking at the pain in her expression as she pulled away first, the twist of her mouth, the furrow of her brow. He wondered how she'd feel, if it all came out, if Julian did go to Cardassia.

Would she still think this was true, believe at least it was partially true, or would she think he'd only ever cared about the children in the first place because of himself?

Kira stalked down the corridor, and Sisko and Odo nodded to him.

When the doors closed, Julian dragged the towel away from his body, making his way into the bathroom, and Garak reached for him, touching the side of his face.

"She's right," said Julian.

"Half-right," said Garak quietly. "Right in all the ways that don't matter. You care about those children, don't you? Isn't that why you're using your Cardassian etiquette in the first place? If you hadn't opened that door, Prang and Damar would have no reason to expect Cardassian discipline of you."

"You would," said Julian.

"Cardassians don't have private selves separate to their public selves," said Garak.

"Liar."

Garak smiled at him. "You conducted yourself very well. You're a natural deceiver, my dear."

"Leave enough bruises that I can show them if I'm asked," said Julian quietly. "It'll make you look better if they're lighter than what Prang gave me."

"Do you want me to look better than Prang?" asked Garak with a strange woodenness in his voice.

"I don't know," said Julian slowly. "Was it Prang you were arguing with this morning?"

"Bend over," said Garak.

"That's a yes, then," he muttered, and put his elbows against the counter. "I just want to sleep."

"To utilise one of your charming Terran aphorisms, my dear, there is no rest for the wicked."

"Do you think the ends justify the means?" asked Julian, resting his forehead against his arms, and he groaned as the dermal regenerator began to hum, feeling the uncomfortably visceral sensation of blood draining rapidly out of the damaged flesh, skin knitting together underneath the surface.

"I have never considered the particular value of justification," said Garak, laying a gentle hand on Julian's lower back as he moved the regenerator slowly over the skin. Because the bruising was so deep, he had to work very carefully, at a very slow pace, and the sensation was— Intense. Not painful, exactly, but very intense. "It seems to lack a certain pragmatic value."

"Vulcans have their logic, Ferengi their profits, Klingons their survival of the fittest, Humans our individualism, and so on, and so on," mumbled Julian. "But Cardassians have their pragmatism."

"What's the difference, dare I ask, between logic and pragmatism, as you see it?"

"Brutality," said Julian.

"Perhaps you're right," murmured Garak, and his fingers were resoundingly gentle as he drew his fingertips over a mostly-healed patch of skin, where the bruising was so light now that the touch only stung a little, and Julian shivered, cheeks burning hot at the relief of it as Garak soothed the pain away. "I don't know, my dear, if the ends justify the means, if to be justified is to feel good and comfortable about our decisions, about what we have done. But I believe you just told Major Kira precisely what my thought on the matter is: your feelings, your guilt, are irrelevant. Would you break away from me, from every other Cardassian, if it meant giving up your devotion to the orphans on Bajor?"

"No," muttered Julian.

"The more we move in this direction," Garak pointed out, "the more you will be forced to rely on Cardassia when the Federation discovers your deception. The more suspicion your life now will be considered with, in retrospect."

"Yes," said Julian. "If, by the way. Not when."

"There are other ways you might help those children," said Garak. "Step back now, rely on the Vulcan contingent. Call on the Vedeks to counter-counsel for the removal of the Cardassian children from the planet, for the sake of the Bajoran children there."

"That will hurt them," said Julian. "It's one thing, getting the Vulcans to take them, and having it known but unsaid that neither Bajor or the Cardassians want them. It's another for the Bajorans to say they don't want them, only to force the Cardassians to take them."

"But it will remove you," said Garak, "from the equation."

Garak's hand was in his hair, pulling Julian's head up, and Julian met his gaze in the mirror.

"There are other methods we might find," said Garak softly, "but the facts of the matter are the same. It is likely that, having begun this relationship, this project, as you have, that continuing your involvement will mean the smoothest transition elsewhere for the Cardassian orphans on Bajor possible – equally, my dear, it spells out the certainty of your loyalties being questioned. And your colleagues, much as it might infuriate you, are quite right to question them: you are not acting as an individual. You're acting for a collective good, and working alongside Cardassian officers, sacrificing your own individualism to the Cardassian rhythm, your pulse in flow with theirs. Will you stop?"

"No," said Julian in a low voice, keeping Garak's gaze.

"For Cardassia," said Garak, and Julian raised his head higher, swallowing.

"For our children," he murmured, and Garak nodded his approval. "Now," said Julian, "will you tell me what's going on with you?"

"You guessed correctly," said Garak primly. "Prang and I argued."

"About?"

"The past."

"The Cardassian self isn't fractured by such petty concerns as the passage of time," said Julian sarcastically, mimicking the cadence of Garak's voice. "The Cardassian memory, my dear doctor, is precise, and lacks the failing of the average Human mind, wherein memories become more distant, hazier, less reliable, with time. Such as it is, our past is as meaningful as our present."

"I do so love to hear you paraphrase me, my dear doctor," said Garak softly.

"Prang wasn't a friend of your least favourite uncle."

Garak exhaled. "He was a friend of my father's."

"Which father would that be? Tolan, Branadon, Estek, Tagan, or Calyx? The factory foreman, the teacher, the gardener, the military officer?"

Garak didn't say anything.

"Is it really so unthinkable to tell me the truth about something that's hurting you?" asked Julian.

"The man who raised me was Tolan Garak," said Garak finally. "He was the maintenance foreman for the whole of the Tarlak Sector of Cardassia City, although he was so accomplished a gardener and horticulturist that he not irregularly assisted in other sectors, such as the Coranum Sector, and the sector where we lived, the Paldar Sector. Tolan Garak's sister, Mila, was my real father's housekeeper."

"Was he a good man?"

"Tolan Garak?"

"No," said Julian. "Your father."

"No," said Garak. "No, he was not."

"And Prang was his friend?"

"Prang was once his closest friend and confidant," said Garak, "as much as it might be said my father ever had friends at all."

"Did he beat you?"

"I was a Cardassian child," said Garak. "Beatings were amongst acceptable discipline."

"Did he beat you," asked Julian slowly, "the way that you just beat me?"

"I am sorry," said Garak, and finally drew the dermal regenerator away from his skin, stroking his palm over the stinging heat of the mild bruising left over Julian's backside.

"I know," said Julian. "And if you weren't such an idiot, Garak, you'd probably notice that I've already forgiven you."

"Do you think that's wise?"

"No," said Julian. "I'm not wise. That makes us— reptiles of a scale. Bath. Please?" He let out a sharp noise of surprise as Garak swept his arms under him, pulling Julian up off the ground, and Julian laughed helplessly, putting one hand on Garak's shoulder to steady himself as Garak carried him, bridal style, toward the bath.

"You said I was about to do to this, hm?" asked Garak softly. "You wouldn't have me make a liar of you, would you, Doctor?"

"Oh no," said Julian. "God forbid you make a liar of me, Garak. That's the sort of thing a man should do for himself."

Garak lowered him into the bath, and Julian groaned softly at the biting kiss of the hot water on his skin, and then leaned back to watch as Garak stripped off his clothes.

"Do you still love me?" asked Julian.

"Quite fervently," said Garak. "It's getting to be a chore."

"I love you too," said Julian, smiling a Cardassian smile, and Garak smiled it back.


At 1800 hours, Odo's comm link interrupted him as he was just walking into Quark's.

"Doctor Girani to Odo. Chief? Doctor Bashir advised us he was going to come along to his shift after all, but it's been half an hour and he still isn't here – and he's not answering his comm."

Odo's suspicion, which he'd been nursing all day, inflated in his chest, and he stepped toward Quark's bar, waving off Quark as he opened his mouth to start lying about something.

"It could be that the doctor is still asleep," said Odo. "He was exhausted earlier."

Quark raised his eyebrows, and once more, Odo waved at him sharply to keep quiet.

"The computer says he's not on the station, sir."

Odo and Quark shared a look, Quark's of dangerous curiosity, Odo's one of alarm.

"Computer," said Odo, "locate Doctor Bashir."

"Doctor Bashir is not on the station."

"Locate the tailor Garak."

"Garak of Garak's Clothiers is not on the station."

"Excuse me, Doctor," said Odo, and tapped his comm. "Odo to Major Kira."

The comm chimed, but nothing went through.

"Computer, locate Major Kira," said Quark, dread in his voice, now, as he looked sideways at Odo.

"Major Kira is not on the station," said the computer.

"Where are the Cardassians?" asked Odo.

"They've been in their meeting rooms all day," said Quark. "Except for one or two of the Vulcan ones, and Dukat and Damar ate lunch here earlier, but I haven't seen them yet. They're Cardassians, Odo, they work long hours – I wasn't expecting to see any of them for the end of day drinks 'til 2000 hours at least. Odo! Odo, wait!"

Odo didn't look back as Quark called after him, stalking out of Quark's and across the Promenade. Garak's shutter was down, but the side door was open even though it was marked as Closed and the lights were dimmed inside.

"Miss Adorak," he said, and Lora looked up from where she was working.

To Odo's surprise, Pa'Dar and Rugal were inside too, the two of them playing kotra together as Lora worked.

"Constable," said Lora. "What's wrong?"

"Where are Garak and Bashir?"

"Major Kira called them an hour ago," said Lora. "She wanted to talk to Julian about an argument they'd had earlier, to clear the air, asked him to meet her in the contemplation gardens – Garak said he'd walk with him."

"Thank you," said Odo.

"Chief—"

"Excuse me," said Odo quickly, and tapped his comm as he went onto the Promenade again. "Odo to Commander Sisko. We have a problem."


When Julian woke up, he found that the room was cold, and he half sat up, blinking. He felt uncomfortably groggy, his head thick and slow, and he wiped at one eye.

"Computer, what's the temperature in here?"

"The temperature is twenty-two degrees Celsius," said the computer, except that she didn't.

Julian sat up straight, staring around the room, at its Cardassian architecture. He was sitting in a single bunk, and the blanket thrown over him wasn't the heavy but breathable thing he slept under in Garak's bed, but a fleecy blanket.

A set of clothes was waiting for him, folded – they weren't his own, and they weren't a uniform either, but Cardassian civilian clothes. Julian knew as soon as he touched the stitching on the shirt hem that it was replicated, but he recognised the design from Garak's folder for him, and they were made to his measurements.

"Doctor," said a cheerful voice from the side comm, one that he didn't recognise. He was a Cardassian, spoke Kardasi, had an accent like Garak's. "Once you're dressed, why don't you join us on the bridge?"

"Who are you?" asked Julian. "Where am I?"

"On a ship," said the voice. "We're a few hours over the border into Cardassian space – my name is Enabran Tain. Take as much time as you like, child. We're in no hurry."

Julian scrambled to put on his clothes, head spinning. "Where's Garak?" he demanded.

"Garak?" repeated Tain. "Oh, I'm sure he's about somewhere. Hurry up and join us, and perhaps you'll find him."

"Prick," Julian muttered.

"Prick," corrected Tain primly, adding a modifier for seniority and age.

Julian almost started laughing. Maybe he was getting too Cardassian after all.