#how does it feel to see that the tables have turned garak?

[startrek-by-secret]

Nothing better than Julian and Garak being in suits and constantly fighting while Julian flirts himself through the entire holosuit program

[bijoumikhawal]

A devil like you

(Read on AO3)

It was a crass little game. Well, kotra wasn't- while Garak's eyes often dilated at tense parts, enraptured by the prospect of winning and loosing, nothing came of it. It wasn't that thrilling.

Not by itself.

The dice had been a tongue in cheek gift from Jadzia at her Trill New Year's party. Sisko had gotten a similar pair, and judging by the tops of Kira's ears, so had she.

Julian had set them on the table, sober faced, as Garak set up the kotra board.

Garak kept a straight face as he looked them over. "I don't know how you expect to incorporate these into a game that doesn't use six-sided dice."

"They're for after the game." Julian leaned to the side, picking up his tea from the side table. "The winner- no, loser, rolls. Whatever the result is, is what the winner gets to do them, if they like it."

"And if the winner doesn't?"

"The loser rolls again."

Garak tilted his head, demeanor cool in sharp contrast to his gaze. "Does kotra bore you, doctor?"

"No. But a change of pace is always welcome." Julian's own demeanor was betrayed by a pounding heart.

Garak's mouth twitched into a smile, and he inclined his head. "Well then. Let's get started, shall we?"

Kotra usually lasted two or three hours between them.

This game went on four hours, twenty-seven minutes, and fifty-three seconds- ending with all of Garak's pieces captured, or backed into corners.

Julian had played well, but not aggressively. There had been a chance Garak would win. It wasn't fun otherwise- and it wasn't like Garak seemed too put out by loosing.

He leaned back, reciting the polite ending of the game that Garak had drilled into him. "Thank you, as always, for the exercise in wit."

"Of course." The dice were comically large, so Garak only picked up one. "And thank you for the lesson in grace."

The die, in turn, were actions and objects. This one was action. It spun over the table, landing on a simple, if crude depiction of two people entwined. Garak's face remained unmoved. The second die landed on "blindfold".

Garak's hand stuttered in mid air.

Julian watched him carefully as he got up out of his chair. Garak’s eyes flicked away from the dice, tracking him.

Intent. But carefully neutral.

Julian pulled out Garak’s basket of remnants and carefully selected a soft brocade already cut to a good size. Crossing back to the table, he carefully drew the cloth over his friend's face, tying it firm. "Not too loose?"

"No."

Julian circled the chair, already burning with anticipation. Yet more heat flared in him as he drank in the sight. Garak, sitting, docile, a sense stripped away from his use. A weakness created. "Perhaps I should tie your hands too." 

Garak was rubbing his fingernails back and forth over the upholstery. "With my clothes still on?"

Julian smiled. "Alright, good point." He grabbed Garak’s wrist, guiding him to the bed.

Garak sat primly, and began undressing himself. Julian began shedding his own clothes too, grateful he'd worn a shirt that fastened- he didn't have to break his gaze on Garak. Though he couldn't see, his movements were smooth. It wasn't a typically seductive display- but Julian wasn't always typical.

It took Garak longer to undress than him, simply because he wore so many layers. Julian considered telling him to stop at his "supportive garment"- the cool, clinical term Cardassians used for what really amounted to a corset- but let him be. He could explore that later.

Garak's knees parted after he finished, already anticipating.

"Ah, I'm sorry if it's a disappointment, but that's not how we're doing this."

The top of Garak's brow ridge twitched. "But the dice-"

Julian sat in his lap. "The dice don't specify who is doing what. I feel well in my rights to interpret them, seeing as how I won." He grabbed Garak’s hand and guided it down. "Now, I'm sure I don't need to tell someone older the importance of preparation?"

Garak's fingers sank into his cunt. Julian rolled his hips down on them, biting his lip. He watched Garak’s lips part- the motion of vague shadows just inside them giving away that he was scenting the air. Usually he was only so obvious about it when surprised.

"I have told you you should savor your meals more." Garak said, almost bored, almost professorial. "It seems that would benefit you in other areas as well- I've never laid hands on you and found it this wet before."

"Hm." Julian leaned forwards, pushing Garak down by the shoulders. "Is that fault mine, or have the rumors of Cardassians and their lengthy foreplay been greatly exaggerated?" Julian rolled his hips down on those fingers again, watching the faint blue flush that appeared not long after he'd brought out the dice deepen.

Garak hummed, the sound blending with the rumbling noise that betrayed Cardassian arousal. "I believe the problem lies within that- little problem of cross cultural communication."

"Yes. You do have to make an effort to reach people where they're at." Julian said dryly.

Garak laughed. "Reach is hardly a problem for me. And you're well aware of that." 

Julian pulled at Garak then, encouraging him to switch their positions. "Do I? I think my memory needs to be jogged."

Garak braced his arms by Julian's shoulders. He was still scenting so obviously. "Well, doctor. I can certainly help with that." His hips pressed against Julian's, and he everted. His cock left a slick trail that crossed Julian's hip.

Garak muttered his annoyance, and Julian laughed.

"Did being blindfolded make you more confident, dove?" He couldn't help it- not even a month ago Garak had dismissed the idea of being able to evert directly inside your partner as a ridiculous fantasy in the vast majority of circumstances, given many Cardassians supposedly abhorred oral. "I- ah!"

Garak had shut him up by properly positioning himself and sinking inside him.

Julian closed his eyes a moment and let out a long breath. The feel of Garak inside him... Julian's sexual history hardly lacked variety. And, in that variety he found it hard to do any sort of "ranking". But... he was, to put it delicately, incredibly fond of many things about Garak.

Garak's breathing was already trembling. Julian opened his eyes.

Garak's breathing wasn't the only thing trembling. His arms, where they held him up just above Julian, were shaking.

"Garak?"

Garak’s breaths were deep, but thankfully even. It became clear he was making an effort.

"Garak."

Julian’s hand alighted behind Garak’s head, fingers resting on the knot he'd tied- only for his wrist to be grabbed.

"I'm fine, doctor. This is merely- intense."

Julian pinched the knot between his fingers before letting go. He rested his hand on the back of Garak’s neck instead, fingers slipping through dark hair to gently scratch at scales. Garak let out the shudder that broke through the trembling.

"Relax your arms." Julian pulled at his elbow, encouraging it to bend. "There? Isn't that better?"

Garak grunted against Julian's neck, giving a gentle roll of his hips. Julian clenched around him, pulling a sharper sound out.

"More, Garak. You know how I like it." Julian bit the ridges running up his jaw.

"How demanding." Garak muttered as he acquiesced with firmer, more frequent rolls of his hips against Julian.

Julian amended his future plans- next time, he would not only bind Garak and blindfold him, he'd gag him too, and figure out just how much it took to milk a Cardassian dry. With his clothes still on, indeed.

Julian moved his hips to meet Garak, the image filling his mind for a moment- Garak struggling even as arousal took him, complaining, unable to complain, laying wrecked and stinking of sex. The red suit would be good- Julian adored it, almost too much to ruin it. His hand squeezed the back of Garak’s neck, making him tremor with pleasure again.

He teased the neck ridge before him with his mouth.

Garak's hips froze a moment. "Ah, my dear-"

"Getting close already?" Julian gave his scales a nip, still holding him close. "Don't worry, Garak. You won't disappoint me. I wouldn't let you."

Garak's teeth clenched around nothing. His cock throbbed harder inside Julian.

Julian's other hand wandered down, squeezing Garak’s ass and pulling his body hard against Julian's. "Keep going."

Julian muttered in Garak’s ear- more, harder, you know the angle I like, use it. He could feel tension growing in Garak- not just the tension of his arousal. He wanted something.

Julian knew exactly what it was, and kept it to himself. For the moment.

Garak's body, heavy and solid, pressed onto him, always brought Julian a thrill. Having that weight over him, at his command, was a true delight.

"Doctor- my dear." Garak's voice was desperate in his ear.

Julian hooked one leg over Garak’s hip. "Go on, dove. Be good to me- give me everything you have."

And then he bit Garak's neck ridge, ravenous, hand tightening on the back of his neck as though the thought of escape was something Garak could even fathom.

Garak let out a choked noise as his irllun flared inside Julian, his hands scrabbling against the sheets, tearing them. Julian could taste something vaguely metallic- he hadn't quite meant to go that far. He moved his hips up against Garak, holding him with even pressure as his torrential, leisurely orgasm rolled through, grinding the tip of his cock against Garak’s scales.

It didn't take him long to follow.

Garak laid on top of him, body limp. Julian carefully unclenched his jaw- there was only a little blood, not enough that it was trickling away. He pressed a fingertip against the edge of the wound. Garak let out a sound that was almost a whimper.

A vague guilt rose in Julian, but he pushed it away. "I didn't think it'd taste like that."

Garak's breath, shaky, ghosted over Julian's skin. "Ever the scientist."

Julian looped his arm around Garak’s back as he sat up. "Of course." He let Garak slump back a bit, enough that Julian could see his face. "Thank you, as always, for the lesson in wit."

In lieu of the proper reply, Garak groaned.

[walkingstackofbooks]

DS9 3x01 & 3x02 The Search thoughts (I'm re-watching, so there may be future spoilers)

Part One

Loving Jadzia's hairstyle

The Defiant! :D

Eddington, you slimeball

"I wonder when I started thinking of this Cardassian monstrosity as home?" I love how well Jake knows his dad, and can pinpoint it

"Maybe I'm your friend, and maybe I want you to see that you are still needed here no matter what some idiot Starfleet admiral might think." I really like Kira/Odo, actually. It keeps checking out this early on

I love how they always have to contrive a reason to bring Quark along. And by they I mean both the DS9 crew and the episode writers

"Rom only has a son to think about. I have a business." Checks out.

Honestly, this does kind of feel like Sisko's just bullying Quark

"I've downloaded as many of my files from the station as I can." Since we now know Julian's memory is Excellent, I kind of wonder if this is laying the groundwork for Sisko to assume that any knowledge Julian does have comes from the aforementioned downloaded files, rather than wondering how he knows it. (That was an awful English sentence, sorry.)

Sisko's and Kira smiles when Odo calls in :3

"Odo!" Lol Quark is genuinely so excited to see him

AND THEY WERE ROOMMATES!!!

"Am I glad to see you." This is all very Quodo

I love how ominous the searching ships manage to look

Quark is in his element here

"Can I speak freely?.. What the hell is WRONG with Starfleet?!!!" Kira is always incredibly wonderful

OHHH I forgot this would be the hallucination one!

"NO-ONE is expendable." Doctor Bashir my beloved <3

"Prepare to leave orbit, Major." "Commander!" "As you were Doctor." I just really love this interaction. Julian's always gotta save everyone <3

Part Two

"Odo this isn't a police interrogation." XD This is just how he interacts with people tho

"He really is happy to be here." Kira knows him so well <3

Female changeling immediately going for a link against others' protests. She justifies it with "He's been gone too long. He needs to remember, if only for a moment" - but I'm sure she's very eager to learn everything you can from him as soon as possible

Jadzia and Miles just turning up felt way too convenient the first time watching this... Now it's understandable.

This Garak is made from Julian's thoughts of him. This Garak says, "I've missed you."

I'm still feeling betrayed by Starfleet here, even though I know none of this is real 😅

Sisko's imagination suggests he expects to be disappointed by Starfleet...

"The urge to return home was implanted in your genetic makeup." These people really love genetic manipulation, huh?

>>>>> OOOOF I HAVE NEVER MADE THE CONNECTION THAT THEY ARE FIGHTING GENETICALLY ENGINEERED BEINGS FOR BASICALLY THE ENTIRETY OF DS9.

"You see, I have a dream. A dream that one day all people, human, Jem'Hadar, Ferengi, Cardassians, will stand together in peace around my dabo tables." Oh, Quark....

Julian getting in the Jem'Hadar's face to protect Miles :3 "That's enough." I love it when he's furious

Garakkk what are you dooooooing???

"I pretend to be their friend... and then I shoot you." Ah, that's what you're doing. XD Garak's one-liners are always top-notch

Garak dying in Bashir's arms is everything. Time to go read a lot of fanfic.... <3

That Vorta is weirdly uncaring about Odo, having seen the other Vorta's reaction to him later in the series.

This is EXCELLENT - although I think it definitely confused me having memories of this episode later down the line but not remembering it had been in a dream. But yes, VERY GOOD. (Not least because of the Garashir, I'm sorry, what can I say, I'm a person of simple pleasures.)

[ettaberrytea]

Oooo for the WIP Ask Meme tell us about Star Trek: Cardassia!

This is the one that I have over 20 outlines for that I was complaining about a few days ago. It is meant as a hypothetical new Star Trek tv show set right after DS9.

Major Kira, Quark and Jake join Garak on Cardassia. Kira is looking for answers to the identity of the dead version of herself that she saw in the episode “Second Skin,” and she needs to convince Garak to help access the Order’s subterranean archives. Jake is looking for answers to what happened to his dad. He's hoping that he may find stolen Bajoran texts that could help him bring his dad home. Quark is listless since Odo left and has decided, half out of the goodness of his heart and half out of desire for capitalistic world domination, to bring Quark’s to Cardassia and provide a means for the locals to trade salvage and labour for his merchandise. Garak, who feels that really he ought to end his life at what he sees as the rational end to his tragedy, keeps finding one more thing to do before his final event. He finds himself in an awkward friendship with Dr. Parmak. Dr. Parmak is in no position to help Garak, and frankly isn’t particularly sound of mind either, along with everyone else who survived.

Star fleet is offering “aid.” The Klingons are offering “security.” Everyone from con artists and fraudsters, to enterprising scholars of varying degrees of morality seem to suddenly have a reason to set up shop. Hundreds of Bajoran apostles show up to search for the lost orbs of prophecy. The surviving Guls, Directors, Archons and lesser government officials are all scrambling over each other to form government. At the centre of it all is the mystery of the sealed and booby-trapped Obsidian Order tunnels that still await the return of the late Director Tain.

Oh, and the protagonists manage to converse with Sisko at some point, who's still chilling with the wormhole aliens, and they go on a trippy, meta adventure to an American scifi film set in the 80s.

Most of this wip is just half formed ideas scribbled on various peices of paper. Here's a snippet of Sisko in the wormhole:

“Does this expanse go on forever?”

“What is forever?”

Sisko sighed deeply. He wasn’t sure how he was getting a headache without a corporal body.

“If I pick a direction and start walking, will I ever get to anything other than nothing?”

The misty form of Sarah frowned in confusion.  

sisko was pacing.

“The Sisko is disconcerted by our -void-“

“Yeah, you certainly could put it that way”

“The Sisko is having trouble assimilating into non-linear space”

“I don’t belong here.”

He started to run.

“The Sisko is of us. The Sisko must belong!”

“Let me out”

“The Sisko must un-tether himself from linear time.”

“Jake!”

“Let go, the Sisko”

“Kassidy!”

“Let go!”

“Help!”

As he ran, the light void turned to dark. Soon he was stumbling about, unable to see.

A light appeared in the distance before him. He ran towards it.

“Hello there.”

The voice was not like those of the prophets. It was grounded like voices on the temporal plane. 

Sisko looked around him and his surroundings created themselves as his eyes moved.

“Hello?”

There was a long table of food before him. It was mainly sandwiches and sliced up fruit.

“Would you like some coffee? I just made a fresh pot.”

“Coffee…”

Sisko looked in the direction of the voice. A black woman in her mid forties wearing a dark purple robe and a large, matching hat that looked sort of like a huge, circular graduation cap. She held out a paper cup of coffee towards him. Sisko took it. 

“Thank you.”

“You seem lost. Are you an extra?”

Sisko frowned. “An extra what?”

The woman laughed. “I mean are you a part of the background characters?”

“The… where am I?”

“Craft services.”

“What sort of services?”

“You’re where the food is, honey. Where are you trying to get to?”

“I’m trying to go home.”

“Which parking lot?”

Sisko stared at her blankly. The woman furrowed her brow and came around to the other side of the table. “Are you not feeling well? Let me help you find the exit.”

Sisko perked up at that word.

“Please! I just need to leave.”

“Come over here. Do you see that sign taped to the wall? It’s got arrows. Do you see the one that says main exit? Just keep following the signs and you’ll get to the door you probably came in. Then turn left and you’ll be heading in the direction of the main gates. Do you want me to walk with you?”

“Thank you,” said Sisko. “I can manage.”

As he walked, he started to feel light like a balloon. The hallway started to meander much more than any earthly hallway ever would and it was alive, rippling and bending. He found himself upside down, gripping the floor tiles with his finger nails, his body like a sheet of paper in a breeze. The outside door appeared, floating in emptiness. He launched himself towards it, floating like on a space walk. His inertia carried him to it and he grabbed the door handle and struggled. It opened.

[elemental-queen-writes]

Transcript copy/paste of moments where Julian Bashir is a badarse doctor, and why he’s the best doctor in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.

(Episode: Dax. Dax is on trial. Penalty is death.)

TANDRO: Yes? Well, exactly how does the Trill brain work? BASHIR: It's quite complicated, actually. First of all, there are two cerebral nuclei. TANDRO: Two? BASHIR: One in the symbiont and one in the host. TANDRO: Two brains. And these two brains talk to each other? BASHIR: Like two computers linked together. TANDRO: That's very clear, Doctor. Thank you. Now, in your investigations, were you able to analyse the separate wave patterns from each of these brains? BASHIR: They don't function separately. TANDRO: I didn't ask you how they function, Doctor Bashir. I asked if you could analyse the two distinct patterns. BASHIR: I just don't see the relevance of TANDRO: Could you? BASHIR: Yes. TANDRO: And have the brainwave patterns of the symbiont changed since it joined with its new host? BASHIR: With the available evidence, there's no way of telling. TANDRO: What's your best guess? BASHIR: I wouldn't care to guess.

.

(Episode: The Wire. Julian is talking to Garak in his quarters about the malfunctioning implant in his brain)

GARAK: It's too late, now. My body has become completely dependent on the higher endorphin levels generated by the implant. BASHIR: So, that's it then. You're going to just give up and let them win. GARAK: Them, Doctor? BASHIR: The Central Command, the Obsidian Order, whoever it is who exiled you here. You're just going to roll over and die, let them destroy you, give up any hope of ever seeing Cardassia again. GARAK: Doctor, did anyone ever tell you that you are an infuriating pest? BASHIR: Chief O'Brien all the time, and I don't pay any attention to him either. GARAK: Has it ever occurred to you that I might be getting exactly what I deserve? BASHIR: No one deserves this. GARAK: Oh, please, Doctor. I'm suffering enough without having to listen to your smug Federation sympathy. Do you think because we have lunch together once a week, you know me? You couldn't even begin to fathom what I'm capable of. BASHIR: I'm a doctor. You're my patient. That's all I need to know.

.

BASHIR: Listen to me, Garak. Right now I'm not concerned with what you did in the past. I'm simply not going to walk out of here and let you die. We need to turn that implant off and whatever withdrawal symptoms or side effects you may experience, I promise I'll help you through them. I need to know where that triggering device is. Where is it? GARAK: The desk, second drawer.

.

GARAK: I don't want to be calm, Doctor. I've been calm long enough. Look at this place. It's pathetic. To think that this is what my life has been reduced to. This sterile shell, this prison. (Garak smashes a flower vase) BASHIR: Take it easy, Garak. Look, you're obviously experiencing some side effects from the deactivation of the implant. GARAK: Ridiculous. I feel more clear-headed than I have in the past two years. Two years. What a waste these past two years have been. (Garak overturns a table) GARAK: There was a time, Doctor, oh there was a time when I was a power. The protégé of Enabran Tain himself. Do you have any idea what that means? BASHIR: I'm afraid I don't. GARAK: No, you don't, do you. You don't know much of anything. Tain was the Obsidian Order. Not even the Central Command dared challenge him. And I was his right hand. My future was limitless until I threw it away.

.

BASHIR: And so they exiled you. GARAK: That's right. And left me to live out my days with nothing to look forward to but having lunch with you. BASHIR: I'm sorry you feel that way. I thought you enjoyed my company. GARAK: I did. And that's the worst part. I can't believe that I actually enjoyed eating mediocre food and staring into at your smug, sanctimonious face. I hate this place and I hate you. BASHIR: Okay, Garak, that's your prerogative. Now I really think you should lie down. GARAK: Get away from me. BASHIR: Garak. (Garak comes at him in fury and they break furniture.) BASHIR: Garak, stop this. I don't want to hurt you. (Garak is about to strangle Bashir when he has a fit) BASHIR: Bashir to Infirmary. I need an emergency medical team in Garak's quarters now. 

.

GARAK: Elim destroyed me. Before I knew what was going on, I was sentenced to exile. And the irony is, I deserved it. Oh, not for the reasons they claimed, but because of what I had tried to do to Elim, my best friend. BASHIR: Why are you telling me this, Garak? GARAK: So that you can forgive me. Why else? I need to know that someone forgives me. BASHIR: I forgive you for whatever it is you did. GARAK: Thank you, Doctor. That's most kind. BASHIR: See that he rests comfortably. I'll be back within fifty two hours. JABARA: Where are you going? BASHIR: To find the man responsible for this. 

.

TAIN: I never had to order Garak to do anything. That's what made him special. So, you're saying if you don't get the information, Garak dies?

BASHIR: That's it.

TAIN: Well, we can't allow that can we? I'll see to it that the necessary data is transferred to your station's computers.

BASHIR: Thank you.

TAIN: Don't thank me. I'm not doing Garak any favours. He doesn't deserve a quick death. On the contrary, I want him to live a long, miserable life. I want him to grow old on that station, surrounded by people who hate him, knowing that he'll never come home again.

BASHIR: What a lovely sentiment.

TAIN: And it's from the heart, I assure you. And now, Doctor, I really think you should be going.

BASHIR: One last thing.

TAIN: Make it brief.

BASHIR: Garak mentioned an old friend of his the other day, a member of the Obsidian Order. I was wondering what happened to him.

TAIN: Did he give you the name of this friend?

BASHIR: He said it was Elim.

TAIN: (chuckling) Elim?

BASHIR: Mind letting me in on the joke?

TAIN: I can see that Garak hasn't changed a bit. Never tells the truth when a lie will do. That man has a rare gift for obfuscation. Doctor, Elim is Garak's first name. Now run along home. And please, tell Garak that I miss him.

BASHIR: I'll be sure to give him the message. Computer, one to beam up. Energise.

.

(Episode: Crossover. Kira and Julian are sent to the mirror universe in an accident.)

KLINGON 2: Another extra worker for you. A Terran who doesn't know the rules. ODO: Well, we'll see to it that he learns them. What's your designation? BASHIR: Bashir. Julian. ODO: Is that a joke? BASHIR: I don't know. Is it? (Odo slaps him.) ODO: No joking. That's my Rule of Obedience number fourteen. Now, what's your designation? BASHIR: I don't have a designation. ODO: I don't have a designation, sir. BASHIR: Another Rule of Obedience? (Odo slaps him again.) ODO: I don't have a designation, sir. BASHIR: I don't have a designation, sir. ODO: Now why is that? BASHIR: I don't know. And frankly I don't even know what I'm doing here. ODO: You're here to process ore. Have you ever done that before? BASHIR: No, I haven't. ODO: Have you ever worked in the mines? BASHIR: No. ODO: Then what have you done? BASHIR: I've been practicing medicine. (Odo slaps him again.) ODO: Did you forget the Rule of Obedience number fourteen? BASHIR: It's not a joke. I'm a doctor. ODO: Well, Doctor, don't forget to scrub before you operate. (Bashir sees O'Brien.)

.

(Bashir finds O'Brien working on a panel.) BASHIR: O'Brien? You've got to help me. O'BRIEN: I don't see you. You're not here. I'm just trying to seal this thorium leak. BASHIR: Look, I don't know my way around these conduits but you do. My O'Brien does. Just tell me where the runabout pads are. I know you, Miles O'Brien. Somewhere inside of you is a shred of decency. There has to be. O'BRIEN: I am a decent man. I just, I just. You don't understand. I can't help you. I can't. They'll kill me. BASHIR: You're already dead. I'm sorry you don't see that. The life inside every human being here, every Terran, died here a long time ago. (Bashir gets into another conduit.) O'BRIEN: That's not the right way. Just tell me one thing. Is there any room over there on your side for me? BASHIR: You want us to take you with us? O'BRIEN: I've no reason to stay here. BASHIR: Starfleet would probably have a big problem with that. To hell with them. Let's go.

.

(Episode: Life Support. Bareil is brought back from the dead)

NURSE: We're ready to begin the autopsy, Doctor. BASHIR: Release the stasis field. Let's begin with a neural scan. I want to map his central axonal pathways, find out where the breakdown began. NURSE: Shall I begin taking neural tissue samples? BASHIR: Looks like the damage began in the parietal lobe, spread through the rest of the brain in a retrograde manner. (Something flashes on the screen) BASHIR: Wait a minute. A neuron just fired in his cerebral cortex. There it is again. His nerves. His nerves are still transmitting electrical impulses to his brain NURSE: How can that be? His brain activity level is zero. His nervous system should be completely inactive. BASHIR: I don't know but it means his body's still capable of sending messages to the brain, even though the brain can't process them. The radiation he was exposed to might have fortified his peripheral cell membranes. If we can regenerate his pathways with his own neuron cells, we might be able to revive him. NURSE: What about brain damage? There's been no oxygen to his brain for almost forty minutes. BASHIR: But he's been in stasis for most of that time. That, combined with the strengthening of his cell membranes might buy us the time we need. (Later) BASHIR: We'll have to direct a burst of electrical energy into his cerebral cortex. If the burst is the proper intensity, it should create a cascade effect within the brain and the neurons might resume their normal firing pattern. Okay. Let's close up the cranial cavity. (Later) BASHIR: The neurogenic stimulator is in place. Let's try a fifty millivolt burst. (Twitch) BASHIR: Increase it to sixty. (Twitch) BASHIR: Seventy. NURSE: That's five millivolts above what normal tissue can withstand. It'll burn out his cerebral cortex. BASHIR: If I'm right, the inaprovaline drug I gave him should provide additional resistance against the excess electro-stimulation. Seventy. (Jerk, gasp.) NURSE: Doctor! (Bareil opens his eyes.) 

.

WINN: And I am grateful you were not taken from us, Vedek Bareil. BAREIL: My work here is not yet finished. WINN: No, it is not. We must resume the negotiations immediately. We can't risk losing the momentum we've established. I would like to send a coded message to Legate Turrel and invite him to come to DS Nine to continue the talks. BASHIR: Wait a minute. Bareil's in no condition to conduct negotiations. WINN: Bareil will simply be advising me. I will conduct the actual talks. BASHIR: I'll allow it as long as your visits don't tire him. WINN: Agreed. Vedek, we will talk again soon. 

.

BAREIL: Turrel is trying to get a concession from you that I already rejected. Tell him that the question of Cardassian property on Bajor was already dealt with in the Armistice talks four years ago. Don't worry, he'll still pay the reparations. WINN: What about this question of mining rights? His attention has been wandering. He's in pain. Give him more of the drug. BASHIR: He's had enough. WINN: Then you'll need to give him something else. The negotiations resume in less than six hours and we still have forty pages. BASHIR: Listen to me. I don't care about your negotiations, and I don't care about your treaty. All I care about is my patient, and at the moment he needs more medical care and less politics. Now, you can either leave here willingly or I'll call security and have you thrown out. KIRA: You won't need to call them. I'll do it myself. WINN: Put yourself in the hands of the Prophets, Bareil. They will not forsake you. BAREIL: Yes, Eminence. 

.

WINN: Are you going to call security and have me removed from this room now, Doctor? BASHIR: It hadn't occurred to me. Yet. WINN: How is Bareil? BASHIR: The organ replacement surgery went well. He's still unconscious, but he should be awake within the hour. WINN: Oh, good. There are still several points I have to discuss with him before the next negotiating session. BASHIR: That's why I'm here. When you see Bareil, I want you to tell him that you don't need him, that you can complete these negotiations without him. WINN: But I do need him, Doctor. BASHIR: I realise that. But I want you to tell him that you don't. WINN: You seem to be asking me to lie. BASHIR: I'm asking you to free Bareil of his obligations to you. The only way he'll accept that is if you tell him he's no longer needed, that you can go on without him. Now, if that's a lie, then so be it. WINN: That doesn't sound like a Starfleet officer. BASHIR: I'm a doctor first. And right now, I'm trying to give my patient his best chance to live. The only way to do that is to put him in stasis. Bareil knows that, but his desire to complete these negotiations is so strong that he's forcing me to keep him conscious and mentally alert, even though it may kill him. WINN: None of us wants that to happen, Doctor. But if I'm not mistaken, the decision regarding Bareil's treatment is up to him. BASHIR: Yes. As the patient, it is his right to make that choice. But I'm asking you to help me change his mind. Eminence, you're the Kai. These are your negotiations. Let this be your moment in history. Finish the talks on your own and you won't have to share the credit with anyone. WINN: You say that as though success is guaranteed, Doctor. BASHIR: Of course. If the talks fail, you'll need someone to accept the blame. A scapegoat. You're a coward. You're afraid to stand alone. WINN: Bareil's already made his decision, Doctor. I won't interfere. And Doctor? I won't forget what you've said here. BASHIR: Neither will I. 

.

KIRA: It's the other half of his brain, isn't it? But you can still help him can't you? You can replace the other half of his brain with a positronic matrix. BASHIR: I'm sorry, Nerys, but this is where it ends. KIRA: What do you mean? BASHIR: I won't remove whatever last shred of humanity Bareil has left. KIRA: But you can do it. WINN: Perhaps, child, it is time to listen to Doctor Bashir. KIRA: Sure. You've got your peace treaty, your place in history. You don't need Bareil anymore. WINN: Believe me child, I share your pain. But I think the Prophets are calling to Bareil. I will see to it that Bajor never forgets him. Doctor. (Winn puts her hand on Bareil's chest for a moment, then leaves.) KIRA: Julian, you can't give up now. You have to keep going. BASHIR: Nerys, if I remove the rest of his brain and replace it with a machine, he may look like Bareil, he may even talk like Bareil, but he won't be Bareil. The spark of life will be gone. He'll be dead. And I'll be the one who killed him. KIRA: But if we do nothing he'll die. BASHIR: That's right, he will. But he'll die like a man, not a machine. Please, don't make me fight you on this one. Just let him go. KIRA: How much time? BASHIR: All brain activity should cease within the next three hours. KIRA: I'd like to stay with him until then. BASHIR: Of course. 

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(Episode: Distant Voices. Julian is battling a psychic attack from a Lethean, which are nearly always universally fatal.)

ALTOVAR: What do you think you're doing? BASHIR: The mistake I made was trying to repair the station from Ops. It may be the nerve centre of the real world, but this is the centre of my world. ALTOVAR: Get away from that panel. BASHIR: Or what? You'll kill me? Go ahead. What's stopping you? You've had plenty of opportunities so far. I don't think that it is as easy for you as you say it is. (The lights stop flickering) BASHIR: Ah. You know, you don't look half as threatening in normal light. (The monitors show Bashir on a biobed.) ALTOVAR: Take a close look, Doctor. You're dying. Why can't you just accept it? BASHIR: Because that's what you want me to do. You may be inside my head, but you don't know me half as well as you think you do. Take Dax. I do have feelings for her, but the important thing is she's my friend. You know? Friend? And I wouldn't exchange that friendship for anything. As far as my career is concerned, I may have been a good tennis player, but I'm a great doctor. Maybe I could've been first in my class, but it wouldn't have changed anything in my life. I still would've chosen this assignment. This is where I belong. Computer, activate quarantine field three J. (Altovar is behind a forcefield.) ALTOVAR: You can't do this. BASHIR: I can do anything I want. It is my mind. Begin sterilisation. (And Altovar evaporates)

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(Episode: Our Man Bashir. Julian is playing a Bond like holosuite program that Garak breaks into. A transporter malfunction has stored the patterns on five senior staff as characters in the game. The safeties are off, and if they leave, the program could destabilise and the patterns will be lost.)

GARAK: You expect to take on Noah and his men with that? BASHIR: It's my fantasy. Trust me. GARAK: No! This has gone far enough. It's time to cut our losses. BASHIR: We can't do that. Kira or Dax might GARAK: Yes, they might be killed, and that is unfortunate. But there comes a point when the odds are against you and the only reasonable course of action is to quit! BASHIR: Quit? GARAK Yes. BASHIR: Is that what they taught you in the Obsidian Order? To give up when things get tough? GARAK: As a matter of fact, they did. That's why I've managed to stay alive while most of my colleagues are dead. Because I know when to walk away. And that time is now. And you'd know that, Doctor, if you were a real intelligence agent. BASHIR: Oh, so that's what this is all about. The fact that my fantasy happens to step on what you consider to be your private domain. Well what's the matter, Garak? Have I bruised your ego by play-acting at something you take so very seriously? GARAK: That's something else you've yet to learn, Doctor. A real intelligence agent has no ego, no conscience, no remorse. Only a sense of professionalism. And mine is telling me that it's time to go. Computer! BASHIR: Don't. GARAK: Or what? You'll kill me? BASHIR: If you call for the exit, you might kill Sisko and the others, and I'm not prepared to risk that. GARAK: I'm afraid I don't believe you'll pull that trigger. BASHIR: I wouldn't be so sure about that. GARAK: It's time to face reality, Doctor. You're a man who dreams of being a hero because you know, deep down, that you're not. I'm no hero either, but I do know how to make a choice, and I'm choosing to save myself. Computer, show me the mechanism (BANG! The bullet grazes Garak's neck) BASHIR: You'll be fine. It's just a flesh wound. GARAK: That was awfully close. What if you'd killed me? BASHIR: What makes you think I wasn't trying? GARAK: Doctor, I do believe there's hope for you yet. BASHIR: I'm so relieved. Now, we have to get to the control room. Are you coming or not? GARAK: Well, who am I to question Julian Bashir, secret agent? Lead on. 

.

SISKO: You expect me to believe that? You are Julian Bashir. A man who has spent his entire life dedicated to fighting against BASHIR: Yes, but all that's about to end now, isn't it? You're going to destroy this world and start a new one. What's the use of me continuing to defend a doomed planet? Can you see the sense in that? SISKO: No. BASHIR: No. I'm an intelligence agent, and if there's any one thing I've learnt, it is that there comes a point when the odds are against you and there is no reasonable course of action but to quit. How do you think I've managed to stay alive so long when all of my compatriots are dead? It is because I have known when to walk away. 

SISKO: You make a very interesting argument, Mister Bashir. But I'm afraid I've been looking forward to killing you for a long time. BASHIR: You need to move beyond that. You need to start thinking about your new world order. You may even need someone like me. (Bashir has moved near the control console) SISKO: If you think that by going over there you are going to destroy my control console, you're wasting your time. BASHIR: I don't intend to destroy your console, Doctor. I intend to use it. (Bashir presses the large red button.) DAX: You've just activated the final laser sequence. KIRA: You've destroyed the Earth. 

.

(Only Everest is above sea level on the map.) EDDINGTON [OC]: The holosuite now. BASHIR: Thank you. GARAK: Interesting. You saved the day by destroying the world. BASHIR: I bet they didn't teach you that at the Obsidian Order. GARAK: No, no. There was a great deal they didn't teach me. Like the value of a good game of chance, or how indulging in fantasy keeps the mind creative. BASHIR: Lunch tomorrow? GARAK: Of course. But why don't we have it at your place, in Hong Kong. Unless, of course, this was your last mission. BASHIR: Oh, I think it's safe to say that Julian Bashir, secret agent, will return. 

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(Episode: The Quickening. Julian and Jadzia find a planet where everyone is born with a fatal disease that kills them in the final stage.)

BASHIR: Then there is a treatment for the Blight? TREVEAN: There is no cure. It's always fatal. BASHIR: I'm sorry, I don't understand. I thought you said you could have helped her. TREVEAN: Why are you here? DAX: We received a distress call. We're here to help in any way we can. BASHIR: I'm a doctor, and I have access to sophisticated diagnostic equipment. TREVEAN: We had sophisticated equipment once. Do you think our world was always this way? Two centuries ago, we were no different from you. We built vast cities, travelled to neighbouring worlds. We believed nothing was beyond our abilities. We even thought we could resist the Dominion. I see you've heard of them. Then take care not to defy them or your people will pay the same price we did. The Jem'Hadar destroyed our world as an example to others. Bring me Milani's child. More than anything, the Dominion wanted my people to bear the mark of their defiance. So they brought us the Blight. (The baby has blue veins.) TREVEAN: We're all born with it. We all die from it. When the Blight quickens, the lesions turn red. Death soon follows. Some in childhood. Most before they can have children of their own. Only a few live to be my age. BASHIR: Trevean, if you tell us what you know about the Blight, we may be able to help. TREVEAN: No. You should go. If the Jem'Hadar find you here DAX: We're willing to take that risk.

.

BASHIR: I remember running a haematology scan on Epran the other day. There were changes in the viral base-pair sequence, and I didn't know why. DAX: There's no way you could've known it was because of our instruments. BASHIR: I should have put it together. DAX: That's not fair. BASHIR: Isn't it? I'm going to tell you a little secret, Jadzia. I was looking forward to tomorrow, to seeing Kira again and casually asking, how was the nebula? And oh, by the way, I cured that Blight thing those people had. DAX: It's not a crime to believe in yourself, Julian. BASHIR: These people believed in me and look where it got them. Trevean was right. There is no cure. The Dominion made sure of that. But I was so arrogant I thought I could find one in a week. DAX: Maybe it was arrogant to think that. But it's even more arrogant to think there isn't a cure just because you couldn't find it. 

.

(Bashir walks through the street, and the people are not pleased to see him. Eventually he arrives at the mural.) EKORIA: I'm glad you got a chance to see it before you left. (She's quickened) BASHIR: Ekoria. EKORIA: I thought I'd make it. I really did. BASHIR: I'm sorry. EKORIA: Don't be. You gave me hope. I haven't felt that since before my husband died. Goodbye. BASHIR: Ekoria, wait. 

.

(And now Ekoria is giving birth.) BASHIR: Push! Good. Good. Now breathe. Don't stop breathing. Don't stop breathing. Breathe. I can see his head. And push! Push! Yes, push. Yes. Yes. (New life has arrived, crying, and with no lesions.) BASHIR: My God. That's why there's no antigen in your system. It's all been absorbed through the placenta. Ekoria, he doesn't have any lesions. He doesn't have the Blight. (Bashir gives her the child. She looks at him and dies.) 

.

(Bashir shows the baby to Trevean and his attendants.) TREVEAN: You found a cure. BASHIR: It's not a cure, it's a vaccine. Every pregnant woman should be inoculated with it as soon as possible. It won't help them, but it will protect their babies. TREVEAN: Our children won't have the Blight? BASHIR: The vaccine isn't difficult to make, but seeing that everybody gets it will be a huge task. TREVEAN: Oh, not a task, a privilege. Can you show me how to make it? BASHIR: I was hoping you'd ask that. (Bashir hands the child to Trevean. 

.

COMPUTER: Nucleotide sequencing complete. Viral reproduction normal. BASHIR: Let's try an A to C base pair reshuffling. SISKO: Doctor. I read your report. Good work. BASHIR: Thank you, sir. COMPUTER: Nucleotide sequencing complete. Viral reproduction normal. BASHIR: People are still dying back there. SISKO: Yes, but their children won't. BASHIR: That's what I keep telling myself, sir. (Sisko leaves.) BASHIR: Initiate reshuffling sequence. 

.

(Episode: Body Parts. The O’Brien’s baby has been transferred to Kira, due to an accident.)

BASHIR: Kira almost had us clear of the asteroid field, and then the deflectors became overwhelmed. We were side-swiped by a rock the size of this room. A fuel pod exploded and Keiko was thrown against the bulkhead. She had a concussion, broken ribs, internal haemorrhaging. I managed to stabilise her but the baby's autonomic functions were failing. I had to find another womb for the baby, and the only two people available were Major Kira and me. SISKO: I think you made the right choice, Doctor. O'BRIEN: But the Major's Bajoran. How can she carry a human child? BASHIR: I had to stimulate Kira's estrogen and progesterone production, and administer high doses of tesokine to enable the baby to metabolise Bajoran nutrients. SISKO: But the bottom line is it worked, right? BASHIR: Right. O'BRIEN: So, when will Keiko will be strong enough to take the baby back? BASHIR: Well, Keiko should be up on her feet in a day or two. However, the baby O'BRIEN: What? BASHIR: Major Kira will have to carry the baby to term. You see, Chief, Bajoran women carry their children for less than five months. Because they have such a short gestation period, they vascularise very quickly. Mother and child form a complex interconnecting network of blood vessels. In order to transfer the baby back to Keiko, I would have to sever those ties, which would likely cause massive internal haemorrhage in Kira and a severe respiratory trauma for the baby. O'BRIEN: So, what you're telling me is that Major Kira's going to have my baby? 

.

(Episode: Looking for Par'Mach In All The Wrong Places. Julian is treating the aftermath of Klingon sex, after two Klingons hook up with station residents.)

(Quark is battered, bruised and happy) BASHIR: A compound fracture of the right radius, two fractured ribs, torn ligaments, strained tendons, numerous contusions, bruises and scratches. What have you been doing? QUARK: You mean, what have we been doing? BASHIR: Never mind. I don't need that particular image running around in my head. I'll just treat you. (Dax and Worf enter. His hair is dishevelled and they both have scratches.) BASHIR: What happened to you two? WORF: We, er. DAX: Well, er, if you must know BASHIR: No! No, er, I don't need that image either. In fact, I'm going to stop asking that question altogether. People can come in, I will treat them, and that's all. Please, have a seat. I'll be with you in a minute. 

.

(Episode: Rapture. Sisko has been zapped with something that gives him visions from the Prophets, but it will kill him)

BASHIR: Well, there are no signs of any permanent neural damage, although I am reading some odd synaptic potentials. Let me ask you something, does my uniform look any brighter to you?

SISKO: Yes, everything does. Colours seem more intense and shapes more focused.

BASHIR: It's called post-neural shock syndrome. Your neural pathways were overloaded by the plasma burst. All external stimuli are going to seem more pronounced. It's going to take a while for things to settle down though, so I'm going to put you on restricted duty for the next three days. And if you experience any other side effects such as headaches, dizziness, even nausea, let me know immediately.

SISKO: Yes.

BASHIR: In the meantime, enjoy the show.

.

(Sisko goes over to a couple.)

SISKO: There's no need to worry. The katterpod harvest will be much better this year. (to another) You don't belong here. Go home.

(A headache hits, hard.)

BASHIR: Captain?

WHATLEY: What's wrong?

SISKO: I'm fine. Admiral.

WHATLEY: What is it, Ben?

SISKO: Your son. You can stop worrying about him. He forgives you.

(Sisko goes into the Infirmary.)

WHATLEY: How the hell did he know that Kevin and I weren't getting along?

BASHIR: He's the Emissary.

.

BASHIR: That should do it. I'll have the test results in a few minutes.

WHATLEY: Well, that wasn't so bad, was it?

KIRA: Captain?

SISKO: Cardassia.

KIRA: Sir?

SISKO: That's where it was going. The cloud.

WHATLEY: What cloud?

SISKO: I was on Bajor. B'hala had been rebuilt. The people were in the streets, celebrating. But then a shadow covered the sun. We looked up and saw a cloud filling the sky. It was a swarm of locusts, billions of them. They hovered over the city, the noise was deafening, but just as quickly as they came, they moved on. Now I know where they were going. Cardassia.

KIRA: What do you think it means?

SISKO: I don't know.

KIRA: At least the swarm was moving away from Bajor. That's a good sign. Isn't it?

SISKO: But what do these locusts represent? And why Cardassia?

WHATLEY: You were dreaming. And dreams don't always make sense.

SISKO: This was no a dream.

BASHIR: Captain, why didn't you tell me about these headaches of yours?

SISKO: I guess I was too busy.

BASHIR: Well, if you'd stayed busy much longer you could have died. The area of unusual neural activity has increased another eight percent. As a result, your basal ganglia are starting to depolarise. I'm going to have to operate, try to repolarise your neural sheaths.

SISKO: How will that affect my visions?

WHATLEY: That's not really the issue here, is it?

SISKO: It is to me. Doctor?

BASHIR: Well, there's no way to tell for sure. But I assume if I can complete the procedure, your brain activity will return to normal and the visions will stop.

SISKO: Then you can't do it.

WHATLEY: Ben, that's ridiculous.

BASHIR: If I don't operate, sir, you could die.

SISKO: I understand that. But something is happening to me. Something extraordinary. I have to see it through.

BASHIR: His entire central nervous system is depolarising. We have to operate immediately.

WHATLEY: Then what are you waiting for?

KIRA: Captain Sisko made it clear he didn't want surgery.

KASIDY: What are you suggesting, Major? We stand around and let him die?

KIRA: It isn't about what I want or what you want, it's about Captain Sisko. And he told us he doesn't want anything interfering with his visions.

WHATLEY: Major, these visions may be important, but I think we're all in agreement here that they are not as important as Captain Sisko's life. Start the procedures.

BASHIR: It's not that simple. Captain Sisko refused surgery and I can't go against the decision of my patient. Not without the express consent of his closest relative.

JAKE: I guess that means it's up to me. Dad, I know you want to see this thing to the end, but I need you. I'm sorry. Do what you have to do.

BASHIR: Prepare for surgery. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you all to leave. Nurse.

.

SISKO: No. No! You took them away.

BASHIR: We had no choice. You were dying.

SISKO: I almost had it. Almost understood it all. Now it's gone.

.

(Episode: In Purgatory’s Shadow. Worf and Garak find that Julian is in a Dominion internment camp, and now so are they.)

MARTOK: Before this asteroid was converted into a prison, the Dominion used to mine ultritium here. There was no dome. Each of these barracks had its own life support system embedded in the walls. GARAK: And Tain was able to modify that life support system and create a subspace transmitter? MARTOK: Yes. There's a crawl space just behind those panels. He spent hours in there working every day for months on end. Cardassians. They're clever people. Especially that one. But in just a few days at best, he'll be dead. WORF: Then it is up to us to be clever. ROMULAN: (woman) They're releasing him from isolation. MARTOK: Good. WORF: Who? MARTOK: A friend. (Martok and the Romulans leave, Worf and Garak follow)

GUARD: Move! (A Federation officer in old style Starfleet blue uniform is thrown out into the light. Doctor Julian Bashir.)

.

GARAK: I should never have come here. I should have let that monster die forgotten and alone. BASHIR: Frankly, I'm glad you came. Misery loves company. GARAK: All my life I've done nothing but try to please that man. I let him mold me, let him turn me into a mirror image of himself, and how did he repay me? With exile. But I forgave him. And here, in the end, I thought maybe, just maybe, he could forgive me. BASHIR: From what I've seen of him over the last month, he doesn't come across as the forgiving type. GARAK: I've been a fool. Let this be a lesson to you, Doctor, perhaps the most valuable one I can ever teach you. Sentiment is the greatest weakness of all. BASHIR: If that's true, it's a lesson I'd rather no learn. MARTOK: I thought you might want to know. If you wish to speak to Tain do it now, before it's too late.

.

(Episode: By Inferno’s Light. While Julian’s double is bringing sandwiches, those in the camp try to escape)

[Barracks]

MARTOK: He's taking too much time. BASHIR: How long has he been in there? WORF: Close to an hour. BASHIR: Garak? How's it coming along?

[Crawlspace]

GARAK: I only wish I were still a member of the Obsidian Order. This would make a wonderful interrogation chamber. Tight quarters, no air, bad lighting, random electric shocks. It's perfect. BASHIR [OC]: Sounds like you're enjoying yourself. GARAK: If you'd like, I'd happily trade places with you.

[Barracks]

BASHIR: I suppose you could give me a crash course in Cardassian field engineering. I should be ready to take over from you in what, five or six weeks?

.

(Bashir opens the panel and Garak is quickly out.)

GARAK: That was thoroughly unpleasant.

BASHIR: Are you all right?

GARAK: I am fine. It's just much hotter in there than I thought. I got a little lightheaded. Give me a minute and I'll go back in there.

BASHIR: No, you need more than a minute. Your pulse is racing. I don't want to think about your blood pressure. Maybe you should wait until tomorrow.

GARAK: Do you want to get off this hellhole or not?

BASHIR: You know I do.

GARAK: Then let me get back to work.

BASHIR: Rest for five minutes. And from here on in you can take a fifteen minute break every hour. Doctor's orders.

.

[Barracks]

BASHIR: I'm afraid that's the best I can do. Does it feel any better?

WORF: Much better.

BASHIR: You're not a very good liar, Mister Worf.

(Bang, thump, thump.)

MARTOK: What was that?

WORF: It's coming from inside the wall.

BASHIR: Garak.

MARTOK: How long has he been in there?

BASHIR: About half an hour. Garak? Garak, what is it?

MARTOK: Tell him to stop before they hear him.

BASHIR: Garak, the panel's open now. You can come out. We've got to get him out of there.

[Crawlspace

]

BASHIR: Garak. Garak, you have to stop. You're making too much noise. Garak. Garak.

GARAK: The light. The light went out.

BASHIR: I know. Come on. I think you can take your break a little early.

[Barracks]

(Garak is put to bed, eyes staring.)

BASHIR: It would appear that he suffers from an acute form of claustrophobia. It's a wonder that he lasted as long as he did.

WORF: Then one of us will have to finish reconfiguring the transmitter.

BASHIR: And who would you suggest could do that? (silence) Exactly.

MARTOK: If Garak can't contact the runabout, we're not going anywhere.

.

[Barracks] ROMULAN: Jem'Hadar. BASHIR: Can we get him out? ROMULAN: No time. (Three Jem'Hadar enter.)   JEM'HADAR: The Cardassian. Where is he? BASHIR: Outside, I suppose. (Bashir gets knocked down.) JEM'HADAR: He is not outside. (The search begins) JEM'HADAR: Move. (The Breen stands up.) BASHIR: What do you want with him? [Crawlspace]

JEM'HADAR [OC]: He is to be put to death. [Barracks]

GUARD: Sir.

(He's found the key to the panel.) JEM'HADAR: If you wish to live, explain this.

JEM'HADAR: I'll ask you for the last time. What is this? BASHIR: It's either a self-sealing stem bolt or a reverse ratcheting router, I'm just not sure. (The male Romulan is vapourised.) JEM'HADAR: She is next. GUARD: Sir. If you'll allow me? (He's moved Tain's bunk away from the panel.) [Crawlspace]

(Garak hears the panel being opened and turns off the light.)

(The soldier peers into the crawlspace.) JEM'HADAR: What do you see? GUARD: I see nothing. It's dark. (The Breen takes the officer's gun and vapourises him with it. The guard gets up and kills the Breen as he also gets shot. Meanwhile the third Jem'Hadar is struggling with the female Romulan. Bashir stabs him in the neck with the piece of metal.) ROMULAN: My people have a saying. Never turn your back on a Breen. [Crawlspace] GARAK: Doctor, would you keep the noise down? I'm trying to work in here. BASHIR [OC]: Garak, how many transtator circuits have you got left? [Barracks] GARAK [OC]: Three. BASHIR: Well, work fast, because pretty soon we're going to be up to our necks in Jem'Hadar.

[monoxidecahedron]

drunk on you (julian bashir x elim garak)

wrote a thing for deep space nine (because garashir my beloved), it's long, so i broke it up into two parts. here's the first one, it's 2k words and tw for blood mention, other than that it should be fine! enjoy!

“Mister Garak,” Julian Bashir slurs, leaning against said man’s couch, “has anyone ever told you how very precious you are?”

Garak tilts his head in that Cardassian way of his and gently pulls the bottle of kanar out of his drinking partner’s grip. “I do believe you’ve had enough, Doctor. You of all people should know how potent this sort of drink is in Humans.”

Julian offers him a loopy grin. “Aw, come on, Garak, it’s only two glasses, I’m fine,” he protests. His point is undermined by the fact that he keeps swaying unsteadily as he sits cross-legged on the couch cushion, not bothering to try and stabilize himself. Garak presses his lips together and tries to put on an exasperated expression. He thinks he does fairly well- in any other case it would’ve been impeccable acting, but the glass of kanar he’s already had makes the amusement he’s feeling shine through a little more than he’d like.

His friend doesn’t notice, lost in the alcohol and too busy further destabilizing himself, giggling as he tilts closer and closer to Garak next to him. “Whoa,” he mutters as he tips out of balance, twisting at the last moment and landing with his head in Garak’s lap. Garak freezes, and he has the odd urge to slowly raise his hands in a placating gesture, as if to demonstrate he doesn’t mean this beautiful creature in his lap any harm.

He doesn’t. There isn’t much reason to, anyways. They’re alone in his quarters- no one to be suspicious of him except, of course, himself- and it’s not like he’d hurt Julian anyways. Or want to. The man himself doesn’t seem very worried; in fact, there’s a fond look in his eyes, an adoring, trusting, almost-loving sort of look that he hasn’t seen directed at himself in a while. People look at him, yes, but always with fear or distrust or hatred tainting their expressions. Take your pick of reasons- Tain’s man, Obsidian agent, Cardassian, rumoured spy- but it’s always there, lurking beneath a thin veneer of politeness (or, more likely, outright glaring, veneer nonexistent).

Julian, though. Julian Bashir has always trusted him, from the moment he sat across from him in the Replimat to the time Garak raged and flipped tables at him to now, alone with him and drunk and vulnerable and feeling totally, utterly safe. It almost makes him uncomfortable, seeing the extent to which Julian trusts him. He knows he  doesn’t deserve it, knows the doctor’s illusions of his mysterious but altogether clean past would shatter upon hearing of even the most irrelevant of errands he ran for the Order. Still, even with no small amount of guilt, he savors the kind curve of Julian’s mouth when he catches sight of his Cardassian friend.

Julian, not bothering to get off Garak’s lap, giggles and reaches up. He almost flinches away instinctively, but all Julian does is tap his nose once. “Boop,” he says with yet another giggle. Garak raises an eyeridge.

“And what, exactly, does that mean, Doctor?”

“Nothing.”

“I see,” Garak says, leaning back against the couch and looking around the rest of the room, content to sit in silence for a while.

“No- wait, it’s an Earth thing,” Julian says hurriedly, as if Garak had threatened him.

“Ah, I believe I’ve heard of it,” he responds absentmindedly, reaching down to thread his fingers through Julian’s hair.

“You’re lying,” Julian pouts. His mood suddenly turns serious, and he peers intently at him. “Why do you always lie to me, Garak?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t take it personally, my dear,” he says. He’s vaguely aware that he keeps forgetting to add “Doctor”, but at the moment Julian is warm in his lap and his mind is foggy and he can’t bring himself to deny this simple affection. “It’s simply a habit of mine.”

Julian hums in acknowledgement, but doesn’t seem to have anything to say to that. He makes a grab for the kanar bottle, still in Garak’s other hand, and sits up, taking another drink before the bottle’s taken away again.

Garak, kanar in hand again, chides, “ Julian. You really should stop,” but for once he feels relatively safe and isn’t cycling through all the reasons he should stay far, far away from the Doctor and the tangled mess of feelings that come with him and so he tips the bottle up.

He sighs afterward, setting the bottle on the coffee table in front of him with a satisfying clunk , other hand still in Julian’s hair. Julian’s got a face full of anguish when he looks down at him, and Garak tilts his head, inviting him to explain. He shakes his head, but a moment later he lets out a long breath and says, “He annoys me so much.”

Garak laughs. “There’s a lot of men who annoy you, Doctor. You’ll have to be more specific.”

Julian goes on as if he never heard him. “Really, though, I wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s splendid, you know?” He gestures wildly on splendid, somehow managing to smack Garak in the face and nearly overturn the kanar bottle sitting on his coffee table. “So mysterious.”

Garak, clenching his jaw against the bitter taste of jealousy, manages to get out an “I see”, but it doesn’t really matter; Julian’s far gone at this point and continues to ignore him, lost in thoughts of this mystery man.

“He doesn’t love me,” he says, giving Garak heartbroken puppy eyes. “He doesn’t love me… he said he hated me, once. He was lying. I think. He always lies but he doesn’t lie sometimes and it’s so confusing- Garak, it’s so confusing. ”

“He doesn’t sound all that nice.”

“He isn’t, really- he’s nice to me, though. Makes me feel nice.”

“That’s nice, then.” Even with years of Obsidian training, it’s still a concerted effort to keep his voice steady. Damn Federaji , damn Humans, damn this particular Federaji Human with his honeyed smile and his charming naivete and his slender body and his brilliant fucking arguments and-

“He’s brilliant, did you know?”

“You seem to have forgotten you still haven’t told me who he is, dear,” Garak says. It’s an indulgement he can’t help but allow himself. He’s lost his Doctor; what’s one little word?

“I don’t know who he is, either.” Garak makes a questioning face. “I don’t know if he knows who he is either. He’s kind of lost. Stuck.”

“Ah.”

“It’s a sad thought.”

“That your-” he pauses for a second- “that he’s stuck?” He feels silly, trying to talk to an obviously drunk, in-his-head Julian who keeps ignoring him. He might as well have put on a movie and tried to talk to the characters.

“Most people have never heard their friends’ actual voice,” Julian says. Garak pauses, considering. It’s an interesting sort of thing to think about, if (as Julian said) a bit sad.

“I learned Kardasi for him,” he continues. And that’s even more interesting- this man speaks Kardasi? He dismisses a thought before it can form. Some aren’t worth entertaining, even for a moment; hope is a dangerous thing, flighty and tempting and ultimately disappointing, and he isn’t such a fool as to invite that sort of creature into his head.

“I learned it for him,” Julian repeats. “It’s a very nice language, you know. Very interesting. I speak it to my friends and no one notices. He didn’t notice either.” So he talks to the mystery man. Hm. He starts to analyse the information, mind almost subconsciously going through the steps and piecing together what he knows. So far, very little.

“Tell me about this man,” he says.

Julian gives him a little head-tilt. “Whatever do you mean? I’ve been telling you about him,” he says. Garak can’t tell if he’s genuinely confused or if alcohol makes him more of a little shit than usual. It’s certainly making himself more impatient.

“I mean that I don’t know who this man is, and if you’ll excuse my bluntness, I would like to know,” he says shortly.

Understanding seems to dawn in Julian’s eyes. “Oops.” Scale-less arms wrap around his neck and he pulls himself up and before he’s got a chance to think bad idea bad idea bad idea soft lips are on his and suddenly all he can think is OH! and Julian’s kissing him harder and maybe the Humans were on to something with their kissing because dear god it’s so good and he leans closer and Julian hums against him and

crash

He’s on the floor, rubbing at his shoulder, at the place where Garak shoved him away. “Garak-”

“Out.”

His eyes widen. “Garak, I’m so sorry,” he says, but his words are slurred and bad idea bad idea bad idea is rushing through and he gets up off the couch ( my dear Cardassia what have I done ) and picks Julian up and goes for the door ( damage control damage control ).

“No- Garak- wait- no don’t leave me I’m sorry we can talk about it-” the door slides open with that same mechanical beep-whoosh as he approaches- “Garak, please- you can’t just leave me out here-”

“I can and I will, Doctor,” he grits out. “You’re drunk. Go home.” Bashir is set down just outside his door.

“Garak- Garak wait- no-” the door starts to slide shut again- “Elim!”

whoosh-click.

He sighs heavily, leaning against it, head in his hands.

bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea

~~

The pieces of the kanar bottle are sharp as he picks them up off the floor. Julian’s momentum had knocked it against the opposite wall, shattering it, breaking it beyond repair just as surely as he’d broken any semblance of camaraderie between them, and now they lie glimmering in the window's meagre light. He can’t simply leave the pieces on the floor, jagged and dangerous- can’t keep seeing Bashir, all of our usual engagements will have to go, and then some- and so he picks them up, slowly, even though they slide against his palm when he closes it around them, edges breaking skin when he shifts the wrong way ( it’ll hurt, yes, but I can deal with it, I can deal with it, I’ll have to deal with it ).  He can’t feel it, can’t feel much over the roaring in his head- Tain’s voice, of course it’s Tain’s voice, it’s always Tain’s voice- you knew this would happen, it’s your fault, you knew you shouldn’t have gotten closer to him don’t be so selfish now look what you’ve done. He’s gone and deluded himself into wanting someone like you and he’ll never have happiness and it’s your fault your fault your

There’s a sharp pain and the feeling of cold blood trickling down his hand. The glass piece slides out of his grip and lands on the carpet, dripping in the stuff and staining the carpet.

He huffs. Control, Elim. Control is the key. The memories seem to dissipate as he shakes his head, along with Tain’s admonishments.

There’s a knock at his door. Doctor Bashir. He’s the only person who actually knocks, like the Humans used to in the old days before automated doors. He’s also the only person who’d want to come see him in his quarters. “I’m not here!” Garak calls.

There’s a thump that sounds suspiciously like a human fist hitting the door in frustration, a groan, and then Bashir calls, “Let me in, Garak! I just want to talk!”

Unfortunately for the doctor, talking is the last thing he wants to do. Bashir keeps yelling, desperation seeping into his voice, but he simply turns and continues picking up more pieces of the glass bottle. There’s a flash of pain and then cold blood dripping from a fresh cut ( go talk to him, what the fuck are you doing, he wants you, go out there and just take him ) and he shakes his head, sighing, but he tips the piece into the bag he’s using to hold them all because he can’t just leave them on the floor ( the fuck do you mean just go out there and take him you can’t do that you’d destroy him, you know it, you and all your secrets and your cruelty would crush his bright-eyed smile ) and it’s always the harsher voices that are loudest but this one’s right. He can’t give in to the man outside his door, has to not be selfish for once in his entire bloodstained life and so he just keeps going, collecting cuts as he handles the edges of what used to be a beautiful, whole bottle and grits his teeth against the sting.

Eventually, footsteps sound, padding away from his door, and he sighs and slumps against the edge of the coffee table. It digs into his back scales uncomfortably, but he can't bring himself to move.

...

hooray! tumblr didn't kill my formatting (i think)! part two will be up soon, i pinky promise i'll deliver this time i swear it. comments fuel my soul and my writing if you reblog i am legally required to love you forever same goes for comments x

[littlewalken]

TZN Exclusive Interview: Andy Robinson

On Garak, "Star Trek", "Dirty Harry" & Sci-Fi Idealism

TrekZone Network sat down with Andrew Robinson, who played the Cardassian Garak in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", in Hamburg prior to the "Evening with Andrew Robinson", organized by FKM Events. We talked about Garak's past and future, Robinson's current projects and the idealism of science fiction fans.

TrekZone Network: Is this the first time you are in Hamburg?

Andrew Robinson: No, I was here 12 years ago for a convention with another organizer. So this is my first time back in 12 years, I believe.

Andy Robinson at the FKM Evening in Hamburg

TZN: Long time.

Robinson: It has been a long time. And as they say, a lot of water under the bridge...

TZN: You have been to Germany in the meantime?

Robinson: Yeah, I've been here several times. For one reason or another and in several different places. I have come here for a whole bunch of reasons. Even just as a tourist. But I have never made a film here or anything.

TZN: Your first stint as Garak was in the third episode of "Deep Space Nine". When you first got that role, did you anticipate or did you know that it was going to be a recurring role?

Robinson: No, not at all. Originally, the role of Odo, that Rene Auberjonois played, came down to three of us. Myself, another actor and obviously Rene. Then Rene got the role. Then they asked me to come in a few weeks later to read for this other role, which I thought was just going to be one episode. But it turned out that they were looking for a way to get the character of Doctor Bashir more involved with the show and so they, they were testing a storyline for Doctor Bashir and obviously the storyline was: he meets this older Cardassian, presumably tailor. Is he a spy? Who is he? This very mysterious person, the last Cardassian left on the station.

They wanted to see if there was any chemistry between Siddig and myself as actors. And of course we hit it off immediately. We had a great time with each other. And so it was based on that when they saw that episode, I think it was "Past Prologue", and they saw that we were working well together then they decided to add more episodes of Garak. Which I am eternally grateful for.

TZN: Do you regret that you were not cast as Odo?

Robinson: No, no, no, no. Not at all. As an actor, and an actor of a certain age, after a while you become very philosophical about these things. And genuinely so. Whoever gets the role, that was their role, you cannot feel remorse or try to second-guess or be bitter. And it always is the right actor as far as I am concerned and certainly with Rene it was the right actor. He was wonderful as Odo.

TZN: The part as Garak turned out to be rather substantial as well, of course.

Robinson: O, Garak was one of the best characters, I mean this, he was one of the most enjoyable, fully satisfying characters I have ever played in my life. And the fact that it is the only time in my life, too, as an actor, that I was able to develop a character over a seven-year period, and not be overused. By that I mean often if you are a regular on a series, they run out of things for a character to say and to do, and so the character just ends up repeating himself/herself, and the actions and the plotlines and after a while it becomes what they call the law of diminishing returns. The character becomes reduced. With Garak, because I was not a regular character, I appeared occasionally, I think I was in 39 episodes, and when I appeared, it was for a reason. Almost always it was for a reason, There are a few episodes when I wondered what I was doing there... But that always happens and at least they paid me, so that was fine.

TZN: Is there anything you would have liked to do as Garak on screen? Or any aspect of his character, his personality, that you would have liked to develop?

Robinson as Cardassian Elim Garak

Robinson: They did start this love story. But then they could not find the right actress. And so they had this one actress playing Ziyal and they did not like her, so they had another actress playing Ziyal who looked like my granddaughter, so that made me feel a little perverse. Then they just decided to forget about it. But it would have been wonderful to have had a bittersweet love story, someone who breaks Garak's heart, who tries to unlock the mystery romantically and cannot do it.

It is one of the reasons I wrote the book, to explore that part of Garak, Garak's heart. Because as an actor, you fall in love, well you do not always fall in love with your characters but the ones that you do fall in love with, it is a very deep relationship that you have with the character, and the character does take on a life on its own. Because as an actor, that is what you try to do. You try to transform yourself into this character's life. Obviously, I am not Garak, I am not Hamlet, but you find those places within yourself that can make that transformation.

I was not a "Star Trek" fan when they hired me. I had no idea what the "Star Trek" universe was, who Cardassians were, who Klingons, Romulans, I had no idea about any of that.

TZN: You had never seen anything, never heard about it?

Robinson: I had heard about it but never saw a thing. And a Cardassian? I had no idea what that was.

TZN: Then the makeup was applied...

Robinson: Yeah, right. But they did show me the episode, in "Next Generation", I think David Warner was the first Cardassian or was Marc Alaimo the first?

TZN: Marc Alaimo.

Robinson: Yeah, but it was that two-parter where David Warner's Cardassian character is torturing Picard and I thought, well, that is a really interesting-looking guy. That was the first episodes that peaked my interest. I thought, they deal with substantial things. And the acting was wonderful. Of course, David Warner has always been one of my favorite actors.

So I started writing a diary. As if Garak had a diary and I would write things, and I would make up things about him. And it is what you do, it is what an actor does sometimes for any character. You try to create a story, a life for this character. And when the series was over, I realized there were still things I would have loved to say about Garak and that is why I wrote the book "A Stitch in Time".

TZN: Did you start with the diary when you recognized that Garak would not be a one- or two-episode thing but a recurring role?

Robinson: Yeah, exactly, I think I started in the second year. I also started it when I started being invited to conventions and I realized, after two or three conventions, there were four or five questions people who would always ask me. How long does it take, your makeup... But I thought, would it not be interesting if I if at the conventions did something different. And so what I would do is that I would get up and I would read excerpts from these diaries. It became enormously popular, and that in a sense spawned a lot of things, then as actors we all started saying, well, maybe there is something that we can do rather than just get up and talk about our makeup and so forth. And that unleashed a whole bunch of stuff. Even Siddig and I wrote a play together that we did at several conventions and it was really a rather challenging play, dealing with string theory...

TZN: What was it about? I read just before this interview that you had this play...

Andy Robinson in Hamburg in June 2008 (Photo credit: Klaus Wittmack)

Robinson: Well, basically Garak and Bashir meet up in this place and it is like, nobody knows, but it looks like a convention with "Star Trek" fans there. And so they had to conduct this very tricky business in front of these people sitting at tables and sitting in chairs watching them. It was very, very, very postmodern. (laughs)

And there was a time when we were working on the play in front of an audience, too. Towards the end, when we finally got it written and got it right, that was when it was at its best but while we were experimenting with it, I think a lot of people fell asleep. (laughs)

Getting back to those diaries, [Michael Scott] co-wrote a book with Armin Shimerman ["The Merchant Prince"] and he said to me, "You should turn this into a book!" and that was when I did. And it was actually the first "Star Trek" book that was written without what they call a ghostwriter.

TZN: Are you thinking of writing another novel about Garak?

Robinson: No. I actually have said everything I could possibly say about Garak. I really have. Plus, if I did, I would then because of the corporate nature of Pocket Books, the Simon and Schuster division that does the "Star Trek" books, I would then have to follow all these other books that have been written about Garak and that does not interest me at all. Because the story I came up with was actually, oddly enough close my story, especially when Garak was a young man.

TZN: You did write another short story though, right? Set after the book.

Robinson: Right.

TZN: That was the last thing we have heard from Garak. In that story, he is not in a very positive state of mind and not in a good place.

Robinson: No.

TZN: So if we could jump forward in time, to a time and place after that, where would we find Garak?

Robinson: Dead. Honestly, because when I wrote that novella, first I was interested in putting - because I live part of the year in Paris -

I was interested in having Garak in Paris and see what that was like. Paris is like a museum now, and I thought that they would have really preserved it in 400 years and it would have become the museum of the world. But when I got Garak to Paris, it became very depressing. That is why I think he was not in a great state. I realized that if I had have written much more about Garak, he probably would have had to die. I do not want to go into why because it is all political and you are not here about politics. (laughs)

TZN: When did the producers tell you about who Garak's parents were?

Robinson: The big reveal was of course with Enabran Tain, who was the head of the Obsidian Order. I know that the mother appeared at one point when they were on Cardassia in that last series of episodes that I was in and that they ended up at Garak's mother's house, hiding. But the story of Garak and his parents really is what I myself put together, in terms of the relationships.

TZN: Did you have a hunch though that the storyline could develop into the direction of Enabran Tain being revealed as Garak's father?

Robinson: O, no! It was a big surprise to me. It was great!

TZN: Just like for the viewers.

Robinson: O, yeah, absolutely! But that is how I felt every time I would get a new script from the writers because the writers loved writing for Garak, that was the pleasure. It was evident that they liked writing for Garak because of the language, the dialogue that they would give him which was so delicious and so much fun and very ironic. One of the things you certainly know is that in America irony is not at the top of our list. As a people we do not really appreciate ironic humor. I think that one of the things that made Garak popular is the fact that he did have a sense of irony. That to everything he said there was a twist and there was always a subtext. And indeed probably he was lying but enjoying it and enjoying the fact that he was lying and seeing how far he could get away with it and who was gullible and who was smart.

Andy Robinson in Hamburg in June 2008 (Photo credit: Klaus Wittmack)

TZN: There was this one episode with the implant, "The Wire". That embodies everything you just said.

Robinson: Yeah, and that is by far my favorite episode.

TZN: We asked our readers to hand in some questions for you beforehand. One of them is: how long did it take to apply the makeup?

Robinson: At the beginning, it took about four hours, I would say. And then they got it down to about two hours. Towards the end they got more dexterous, thank God, because sitting in the chair for four hours meant that I would have to come in long before dawn and it was just excruciating, it was horrible. Even two hours was bad enough. It is the only thing about Garak that I do not miss at all.

TZN: Did the makeup inhibit you in the way you could express yourself?

Robinson: Well, that is the great, mysterious thing about working with a mask like that. For one thing the technology is very good, there were I think seven prosthetic pieces and they were all very flexible, very pliable and so you put it on and you think, my God, it is like this corpus, you're encased in it. But then you were fine, you could move. You were not, you were not limited the way Rene was limited with Odo because he could not eat, he lost a lot of weight. That is something I should have done!

But he had to take his lunch through a straw and so he could not move much at all because it was a mess. If he marled just a little bit, then he would have to sit in a chair and have to go through a whole process to get it back to that smoothness. That obviously was not my problem. My problem was the claustrophobia that I have, which I experienced actually last night. I went to a bar in Paris with some friends to watch the French lose to the Dutch. (laughter) Really lose. And deservedly so, I mean it. The French should get rid of that coach of theirs because he is awful.

I was at the bar and everybody was crowding in around me, I had to leave at the interval, go home and watch it on my own television. That was the thing about the Garak makeup. That was one thing but then this heavy wig that they put on top of me and then, because they wanted Cardassians to look big, they made the costumes out of the material that you make furniture pads, furniture textiles, and so all the costumes were very heavy and once you zipped them up it was like you were in a sauna, literally.

Actually that is where I lost a little weight, a lot of water weight anyway. When you get under the lights, underneath the makeup and the wig and the costume, there were rivers of sweat, I was soaked underneath. Not very glamorous (laughter) and I certainly did not smell like a flower.

TZN: I have got another reader question here, that touches a different subject. Did you know that there is speculation about Garak's sexuality?

Robinson: Oh, yeah. I started it.

TZN: Really? Then this might be interesting to this reader. He calls himself your gay fan Dominion and he asks a lot of questions like: Why haven't we seen a gay character in "Star Trek"? Have gays become extinct in the 24th century? Do you think there will ever be a gay character in "Star Trek"? Do gays not belong in "Star Trek's" future?

Robinson: O, yeah. There will be gay characters. Certainly now there will be, for one thing, America is still very puritan, we are very squeamish when it comes to sexuality. I remember when I very first played Garak, I played him gay! I thought this would be great! He sees this young man, this young, very attractive doctor on the station, he is lonely, he is the only Cardassian there, this doctor is curious about him, and if you remember, this was a great moment because Sid totally went with it! When he comes up and he puts his hand on his shoulder, Sid did this great thing, it was this sort of an electrical charge that went through him and so I played him totally gay in that episode.

Garak's First Scene

Of course the producers did not actually tell me not to play him gay but then they started writing him a little more macho and more like a Cardassian. But I said, "Listen, one of the great things about Garak is that he is not Gul Dukat, he is not one of those macho, militaristic guys, he is your finesse Cardassian." So we struck a compromise but I was always very clear. I did not get into it in the book. Quite frankly, I was going to go in that direction. I had written a whole thing about Garak's sexuality because I felt that Garak was sort of - talk about bisexual, I think that he was multisexual, essentially that anything that moves is fair game for Garak. He has a voracious sexual appetite.

But as I say, especially on American television you have the odd gay character now but it is all going to be just cosmetic. In terms of commercial television ever getting into real sexuality, that is not going to happen. "Star Trek" is very conservative, there is a conservatism about "Star Trek" that I think "Deep Space Nine" in a sense went against. It defied that conservatism. "Deep Space Nine" was not as black and white as the other "Star Trek" shows. It was different. It was not people in a rocket ship doing one-night stands on a planet to planet to planet, coming in and battling the evil aliens or some kind of monster or whatever. It was a community unto itself on the edge and this is what I loved about the show, every one of the characters on "Deep Space Nine" had a moral dimension about them. Each one of them was in touch with their dark side.

That episode "In the Pale Moonlight", when Garak introduces Captain Sisko to the concept of realpolitik, that okay, if you want to get rid of the Romulan threat, what you do is, you kill them. And you kill them in a not very nice way. So you just eliminate your enemy. Of course that is not fair play, that is not the American way. I was surprised, I loved that episode because it was very mature in that sense. It said you have to grow up, this is the world you live in now. And of course the world we live in now is very morally ambiguous to say the least.

I rambled, I am sorry. We went away from sexuality but I think there has to be more gay characters. I do not know what this movie is going to be like but this movie I believe is about Starfleet academy?

A gay Sulu? According to Robinson an interesting idea

TZN:It is a prequel. It is not entirely set on Starfleet academy but shows the young crew in their early years getting together.

Robinson: Right. For instance, I wonder, George Takei, who has come out, who is an openly gay man, and actually now I think he and his partner are going to get married since the California Supreme Court has now finally legalized gay marriage. But I wonder where they are going to go with his character in this prequel. It would be very interesting.

TZN: You did some work behind the camera as well. You directed I believe an episode of DS9. How was that for you, the experience to suddenly tell your colleagues what to do?

Robinson: Yes, right. It is funny, it was very different getting on the other side of the camera and not just working with the other actors, I mean they were fine. But it was the first episode I really had a lot of trouble with because it was my first episode ever directing something. And of course when you are directing "Star Trek" you have the added dimension, the added complication of the special effects. Although they have great special-effects people and you just get out of the way and let them do their work but still you are always trying to visualize what the picture looks like as a director.

But I must say that directing the "Star Trek" episodes really in a sense changed my life because it was the first time I started directing. From there I went on to a lot more directing, mainly theater because I have always been more of a theater person than a film person. And that really gave me the courage to continue in that direction as a director which I have and which has actually led to my current position. I am a fulltime teacher now. I run an acting program at the University of Southern California. And that all came out of directing.

TZN: You have been an actor, you have been a director, you have written a book, actually is there anything artistic you would still like to do? Singing maybe?

Robinson: No, I do not think so. Actually, it is true, it is interesting you should say that. I would actually love to do a musical. I really would love to do a musical, you are absolutely right. I would love to do one of these great musicals. But I still go back and forth. I am going to do a play this summer in San Francisco as an actor. I will continue to direct. I do not know how much longer I will run this program because I created this actor-training program and that was exciting.

I am going to be actually talking about that today. I work with young actors in terms of how does one train to be an actor, what is it that one does? I am being able to put some of my own ideas and thoughts about what actor training is into a coherent program that goes over three years, that trains professional actors. That has been very exciting. That is part of who I am but I think the territory of being an actor is that you do reinvent yourself from time to time. You have to reinvent yourself from time to time. Not to change, you really have to transform because that is the business.

TZN: In your career, you played many roles, and you guest starred in "Bonanza".

Robinson: No, you could not possibly remember! That is incredible. No, o my God, how could you... That is amazing. Yeah, that was the very last season of "Bonanza", too. And I think it was my first work in television.

TZN: How was it to play with such very famous actors like Lorne Greene?

Robinson: Well, see, it was very nice. They are household names but I had just come off from doing my first film with Clint Eastwood. So playing with Clint Eastwood was like playing with God. And then everyone else, they are wonderful actors, but still, my first film experience was the "Dirty Harry" film and that was extraordinary. I must say I enjoyed doing "Bonanza" because it was a show that had gone on forever. I helped kill it because that was the last season... Having the experience of doing "Dirty Harry" which was a feature film, that interested me a lot more than doing television.

Andy Robinson in "Dirty Harry"

TZN: You did very many TV series. The list of your guest appearances just goes on and on and on.

Robinson: Yeah, I did and most of the time I was the villain. That was courtesy of "Dirty Harry". After I did "Dirty Harry" nobody could see me as playing anything but the villain.

TZN: Is there any of these series that you would have liked to be on as one of the lead actors or main cast?

Robinson: In America, there is a series that just ended. I do not know if it is here, I do not know if it has come here. They did five years of it. HBO has these. I do not know if you know Home Box Office? It is a cable network in America. They had these series, "The Sopranos" was their flagship, their famous series. But they had another series called "The Wire". Have you ever heard of "The Wire"?

TZN: The title sounds familiar but that is all.

Robinson: It is interesting because you had me talking about that episode of "Deep Space Nine" that is called "The Wire", that was my favorite episode. Well, this series, "The Wire", is probably the best television series I have ever seen in my life. It was a brilliant series that took the city of Baltimore and it investigated the city of Baltimore in a dramatic series format on every level from drug dealers to police to schools to unions and it was an amazing series. I do not know how it got done because in America we are not big on socially-relevant thematic. We want our entertainment to be pure and uncluttered with things we have to think about. But this was a brilliant series and I, every time I watched the series, thought, o my God, I would love to be on that series! That was one of the few things I ever watched where I felt that way. I hope it comes here, I am sure it will come here. It has to. If it does, you must watch it because it is extraordinary.

TZN: I am afraid we have to wrap up already. One last question: Is there any question that you would really particularly badly like to answer but have never been asked?

Robinson: Wow. I have to say I think I have been asked every question that I can possibly imagine. Short of questions that I would prefer not to get into. No, I do not think that there is. I do not think that there is at all. I find that "Star Trek" fans for the most part, especially in Europe, are relatively sophisticated. I think that there is an idealism about following a series like "Star Trek", especially in this world.

Can we imagine ourselves projected into 24th or 25th century or wherever and still functioning. Obviously, it is weird. As you said earlier, here we are, four- five hundred years later and where have all the gay people gone? Where have all the people of color gone in a sense. That has always been something. What has indeed happened to poverty and what has happened to racism and fundamentalism and terrorism and all the things that bedevil us. I really do hope that science fiction continues to evolve and the way certain writers have challenged themselves to think about what happens to all of these social issues in the future and how we project solutions for them or perhaps not solutions but perhaps just accommodations, how do we learn to live with each other because in the end I think that that is what the "Star Trek" series perhaps offers its best insights about. Then I think that it is also great dramatic material which is the great question how do we learn how to live with each other without violence and without predatory behavior.

TZN: That ends this interview on a very thoughtful note, I think. Thank you very much.

Robinson: It was a pleasure, thank you, it has been great.

[writingsfromstarfleet]

Safe Space - Elim Garak X Reader

A/N: For a lovely Anon, as always please enjoy and I hope it’s what you wanted! You lot too, thank you for reading! X

TW: mentions of self harm/depression etc. so if that makes you uncomfortable, please skip this one! Know also that if you’re going through anything like this that you are loved and you are wonderful x

Life, in your case, had been easy in the eye of others. For years, your family had been a part of Starfleet, and it was practically paved in stone for you to follow in their footsteps. You were academically gifted, and not to mention the few hobbies you had on the side, too. To others, your life was idyllic. A loving family, a good education, a career. Nothing in your life was anything less than perfect.

Except it was.

You struggled with what people couldn't see, and it had affected you greatly. For years, you had dealt with declining mental health issues, despite your best efforts to not let it stop you from achieving what you wanted. In lieu of it all, however, you had secured yourself a place on Deep Space Nine, studying and working alongside some of the most talented minds in  Starfleet.

Over the course of your stay there, you had made friends along the way who you knew would be for life. Your closest friend, however, came in the form of the stations resident Cardassian, Elim Garak. An unlikely bond, you clicked with him after he opened up to you about his own struggles, and you knew in that moment he was going to be your safe place.

And he was. Every time you had an issue, regardless of how big or small, Garak was there for you through it all. Where you would be without him, you didn't know, nor did you want to know. Garak was more than happy to help you with anything and everything, and always reassured you that he would never judge you. Thus, you did. You told him everything, and each time you were met with kindness and understanding, a shoulder to cry on.

Though, things did begin to go bad again. Your mental health had taken a dip, and you had managed to convince yourself that you had no right to be aboard the station, that you were taking up someone else's place. You convinced yourself that there were smarter and better qualified people at the academy waiting for your job. You convinced yourself that your friends weren't really your friends, that they simply put up with you. Through it, you played off to your friends that you were fine, a false smile plastered on your face and laughter that was less than genuine leaving your lips. Every single day, it became almost routine and began to get exhausting.

Often, you thought of Garak. Your brain told you that he didn't really care, just like the others; it told you that you shouldn't bother him with your problems when he could have things he's dealing with himself. Which is why, as you sat in your quarters, you looked down to your healed scars, and you took a turn for the worse.

Garak wondered where you were, usually you would meet him at this time every day for a drink, and his shop felt empty without you sat on the couch bugging him to finish up. He told himself you were caught up with work, as most of the crew had been recently. Carrying on working, he couldn't quite shake the feeling that something was off. It was only when it reached the hour mark that he decided to shut up shop for the day and venture off to your quarters. You were far more important than any pair of pants.

Hearing the door ring, you decided to remain quiet, not bothering to even check who was there. You were lay on the bed, the cuts on your legs stinging and your eyes sore and red from crying. You were hardly in a state to see anybody anyway. Still, the door persisted. Very quietly, you sighed and, climbing under the covers, you shouted for them to enter. In walked Garak, and in seconds he was by your side.

"Is everything alright, Y/N? I missed you today." he spoke softly, placing a hand on your forehead as if checking you were well.

"M'fine, just tired..." your voice was muffled and quiet, and Garak became concerned. You most certainly were not your usual self. You snuggled yourself into the blanket, and Garak's hand moved to your shoulder.

"Alright. Are you going to tell me what's actually happened, then?" The tone of his voice made clear to you that he didn't believe anything you were saying. It's true what they say; you can't kid a kidder. He looked down when you didn't answer, unsure of what to say next. His eyes wandered to the small stain on the floor just beneath the bed, and he darted his eyes back up to yours, which were currently focused on the side table.

"I'm sorry," you began, sensing there was no point in arguing; he knew exactly what had happened. "I really am, I just-"

"You need not apologise to me," he cut you off, pulling your head up from its place half under the cover to make you look at him. "Nor do you have to explain. I understand. I only wish you had come to me sooner, you're too dear to me to ever have you in such a position where you feel this is the only way out."

You blinked back a few tears, and he cupped your face with one hand, his free hand coming to rest lightly on your leg, which was still under covers. You flinched, and he sighed to himself. He knew from your past conversations that you had harmed previously there, and sensed that was what had occurred this time. You sniffed, and moved aside slightly, a silent invitation for him to join you. Garak wasted no time in rising from his kneeling position to sitting atop your bed next to the covers, which you still had wrapped firmly around you, not wanting him to see the mess. You brought yourself to his side, and his arms found their way around you, one resting at the small of your back and one running through your hair.

A fair few minutes of silence passed, Garak offering as much comfort to you as he could. The silence wasn't uncomfortable, either, it was welcomed, and you stayed there in his arms for what felt like forever before you felt confident enough to speak up.

"I'm sorry, Garak. I know you always say to come to you, and I don't really know why I didn't. I was convinced everyone doesn't want me here, including you, and I guess it just scared me.. it sounds pathetic, doesn't it," you interrupted yourself with a small chuckle; saying it out loud made it sound ridiculous.

"Does that sound as foolish to you as it does to me now you've said it?" Garak's words sunk in, and you admitted to yourself it did indeed sound awfully idiotic. "I understand these feelings, I understand how hard they can be to deal with, Y/N, you know that. And I know that often, you can feel that there's no other way out than to harm yourself. But I do want you to know that, as powerful as those thoughts can be, they are not the answer. Always, they are incorrect. We love you, all of us. There's not a single person I know who says a bad word about you. Never feel alone, Y/N, we're all here for you. This was never the answer. Promise me it will never be the answer you choose again."

"I'll never be able to thank you, you know," you started, voice a little louder this time. "You're wonderful."

"As long as you're alright, that's thanks enough, my dear Y/N."

Lifting your head to look at him, you shifted and smiled to him. His face softened at seeing you smile, glad that he had managed to make you smile, at least.

"You do have a way with words, Garak. Somehow you always have the right thing to say, and it's always what I need. I promise you, this won't happen again."

It was Garak's turn to smile, for he knew that you were telling him the truth. After all, you can't kid a kidder.

[shiftingslightly]

tw for blood at the end, nothing major just cuts. also sorry about the abrupt fandom change

Mister Garak,” Julian Bashir slurs, leaning against said man’s couch, “has anyone ever told you how very precious you are?”

Garak tilts his head in that Cardassian way of his and gently pulls the bottle of kanar out of his drinking partner’s grip. “I do believe you’ve had enough, Doctor. You of all people should know how potent this sort of drink is in Humans.”

Julian offers him a loopy grin. “Aw, come on, Garak, it’s only two glasses, I’m fine,” he protests. His point is undermined by the fact that he keeps swaying unsteadily as he sits cross-legged on the couch cushion, not bothering to try and stabilize himself. Garak presses his lips together and tries to put on an exasperated expression. He thinks he does fairly well- in any other case it would’ve been impeccable acting, but the glass of kanar he’s already had makes the amusement he’s feeling shine through a little more than he’d like.

His friend doesn’t notice, lost in the alcohol and too busy further destabilizing himself, giggling as he tilts closer and closer to Garak next to him. “Whoa,” he mutters as he tips out of balance, twisting at the last moment and landing with his head in Garak’s lap. Garak freezes, and he has the odd urge to slowly raise his hands in a placating gesture, as if to demonstrate he doesn’t mean this beautiful creature in his lap any harm.

He doesn’t. There isn’t much reason to, anyways. They’re alone in his quarters- no one to be suspicious of him except, of course, himself- and it’s not like he’d hurt Julian anyways. Or want to. The man himself doesn’t seem very worried; in fact, there’s a fond look in his eyes, an adoring, trusting, almost-loving sort of look that he hasn’t seen directed at himself in a while. People look at him, yes, but always with fear or distrust or hatred tainting their expressions. Take your pick of reasons- Tain’s man, Obsidian agent, Cardassian, rumoured spy- but it’s always there, lurking beneath a thin veneer of politeness (or, more likely, outright glaring, veneer nonexistent).

Julian, though. Julian Bashir has always trusted him, from the moment he sat across from him in the Replimat to the time Garak raged and flipped tables at him to now, alone with him and drunk and vulnerable and feeling totally, utterly safe. It almost makes him uncomfortable, seeing the extent to which Julian trusts him. He knows he  doesn’t deserve it, knows the doctor’s illusions of his mysterious but altogether clean past would shatter upon hearing of even the most irrelevant of errands he ran for the Order. Still, even with no small amount of guilt, he savors the kind curve of Julian’s mouth when he catches sight of his Cardassian friend.

Julian, not bothering to get off Garak’s lap, giggles and reaches up. He almost flinches away instinctively, but all Julian does is tap his nose once. “Boop,” he says with yet another giggle. Garak raises an eyeridge.

“Nothing.”

“I see,” Garak says, leaning back against the couch and looking around the rest of the room, content to sit in silence for a while.

“No- wait, it’s an Earth thing,” Julian says hurriedly, as if Garak had threatened him.

“Ah, I believe I’ve heard of it,” he responds absentmindedly, reaching down to thread his fingers through Julian’s hair.

“You’re lying,” Julian pouts. His mood suddenly turns serious, and he peers intently at him. “Why do you always lie to me, Garak?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t take it personally, my dear,” he says. He’s vaguely aware that he keeps forgetting to add “Doctor”, but at the moment Julian is warm in his lap and his mind is foggy and he can’t bring himself to deny this simple affection. “It’s simply a habit of mine.”

Julian hums in acknowledgement, but doesn’t seem to have anything to say to that. He makes a grab for the kanar bottle, still in Garak’s other hand, and sits up, taking another drink before the bottle’s taken away again.

Garak, kanar in hand again, chides, “ Julian. You really should stop,” but for once he feels relatively safe and isn’t cycling through all the reasons he should stay far, far away from the Doctor and the tangled mess of feelings that come with him and so he tips the bottle up.

He sighs afterward, setting the bottle on the coffee table in front of him with a satisfying clunk , other hand still in Julian’s hair. Julian’s got a face full of anguish when he looks down at him, and Garak tilts his head, inviting him to explain. He shakes his head, but a moment later he lets out a long breath and says, “He annoys me so much.”

Garak laughs. “There’s a lot of men who annoy you, Doctor. You’ll have to be more specific.”

Julian goes on as if he never heard him. “Really, though, I wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s splendid, you know?” He gestures wildly on splendid, somehow managing to smack Garak in the face and nearly overturn the kanar bottle sitting on his coffee table. “So mysterious.”

Garak, clenching his jaw against the bitter taste of jealousy, manages to get out an “I see”, but it doesn’t really matter; Julian’s far gone at this point and continues to ignore him, lost in thoughts of this mystery man.

“He doesn’t love me,” he says, giving Garak heartbroken puppy eyes. “He doesn’t love me… he said he hated me, once. He was lying. I think. He always lies but he doesn’t lie sometimes and it’s so confusing- Garak, it’s so confusing. ”

“He doesn’t sound all that nice.”

“He isn’t, really- he’s nice to me, though. Makes me feel nice.”

“That’s nice, then.” Even with years of Obsidian training, it’s still a concerted effort to keep his voice steady. Damn Federaji , damn Humans, damn this particular Federaji Human with his honeyed smile and his charming naivete and his slender body and his brilliant fucking arguments and-

“He’s brilliant, did you know?”

“You seem to have forgotten you still haven’t told me who he is, dear,” Garak says. It’s an indulgement he can’t help but allow himself. He’s lost his Doctor; what’s one little word?

“I don’t know who he is, either.” Garak makes a questioning face. “I don’t know if he knows who he is either. He’s kind of lost. Stuck.”

“Ah.”

“It’s a sad thought.”

“That your-” he pauses for a second- “that he’s stuck?” He feels silly, trying to talk to an obviously drunk, in-his-head Julian who keeps ignoring him. He might as well have put on a movie and tried to talk to the characters.

“Most people have never heard their friends’ actual voice,” Julian says. Garak pauses, considering. It’s an interesting sort of thing to think about, if (as Julian said) a bit sad.

“I learned Kardasi for him,” he continues. And that’s even more interesting- this man speaks Kardasi? He dismisses a thought before it can form. Some aren’t worth entertaining, even for a moment; hope is a dangerous thing, flighty and tempting and ultimately disappointing, and he isn’t such a fool as to invite that sort of creature into his head.

“I learned it for him,” Julian repeats. “It’s a very nice language, you know. Very interesting. I speak it to my friends and no one notices. He didn’t notice either.” So he talks to the mystery man. Hm. He starts to analyse the information, mind almost subconsciously going through the steps and piecing together what he knows. So far, very little.

“Tell me about this man,” he says.

Julian gives him a little head-tilt. “Whatever do you mean? I’ve been telling you about him,” he says. Garak can’t tell if he’s genuinely confused or if alcohol makes him more of a little shit than usual. It’s certainly making himself more impatient.

“I mean that I don’t know who this man is, and if you’ll excuse my bluntness, I would like to know,” he says shortly.

Understanding seems to dawn in Julian’s eyes. “Oops.” Scale-less arms wrap around his neck and he pulls himself up and before he’s got a chance to think bad idea bad idea bad idea soft lips are on his and suddenly all he can think is OH! and Julian’s kissing him harder and maybe the Humans were on to something with their kissing because dear god it’s so good and he leans closer and Julian hums against him and

crash

He’s on the floor, rubbing at his shoulder, at the place where Garak shoved him away. “Garak-”

“ Out .”

His eyes widen. “Garak, I’m so sorry,” he says, but his words are slurred and bad idea bad idea bad idea is rushing through and he gets up off the couch ( my dear Cardassia what have I done ) and picks Julian up and goes for the door ( damage control damage control ).

“No- Garak- wait- no don’t leave me I’m sorry we can talk about it-” the door slides open with that same mechanical beep-whoosh as he approaches- “Garak, please- you can’t just leave me out here-”

“I can and I will, Doctor,” he grits out. “You’re drunk. Go home.” Bashir is set down just outside his door.

“Garak- Garak wait- no-” the door starts to slide shut again- “Elim!”

whoosh-click.

He sighs heavily, leaning against it, head in his hands.

bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea

~~

The pieces of the kanar bottle are sharp as he picks them up off the floor. Julian’s momentum had knocked it against the opposite wall, shattering it, breaking it beyond repair just as surely as he’d broken any semblance of camaraderie between them, and now they lie glimmering in the window's meagre light. He can’t simply leave the pieces on the floor, jagged and dangerous- can’t keep seeing Bashir, all of our usual engagements will have to go, and then some- and so he picks them up, slowly, even though they slide against his palm when he closes it around them, edges breaking skin when he shifts the wrong way ( it’ll hurt, yes, but I can deal with it, I can deal with it, I’ll have to deal with it ).  He can’t feel it, can’t feel much over the roaring in his head- Tain’s voice, of course it’s Tain’s voice, it’s always Tain’s voice- you knew this would happen, it’s your fault, you knew you shouldn’t have gotten closer to him don’t be so selfish now look what you’ve done. He’s gone and deluded himself into wanting someone like you and he’ll never have happiness and it’s your fault your fault your

There’s a sharp pain and the feeling of cold blood trickling down his hand. The glass piece slides out of his grip and lands on the carpet, dripping in the stuff and staining the carpet.

He huffs. Control, Elim. Control is the key. The memories seem to dissipate as he shakes his head, along with Tain’s admonishments.

There’s a knock at his door. Doctor Bashir. He’s the only person who actually knocks, like the Humans used to in the old days before automated doors. He’s also the only person who’d want to come see him in his quarters. “I’m not here!” Garak calls.

There’s a thump that sounds suspiciously like a human fist hitting the door in frustration, a groan, and then Bashir calls, “Let me in, Garak! I just want to talk!”

Unfortunately for the doctor, talking is the last thing he wants to do. Bashir keeps yelling, desperation seeping into his voice, but he simply turns and continues picking up more pieces of the glass bottle. There’s a flash of pain and then cold blood dripping from a fresh cut ( go talk to him, what the fuck are you doing, he wants you, go out there and just take him ) and he shakes his head, sighing, but he tips the piece into the bag he’s using to hold them all because he can’t just leave them on the floor ( the fuck do you mean just go out there and take him you can’t do that you’d destroy him, you know it, you and all your secrets and your cruelty would crush his bright-eyed smile ) and it’s always the harsher voices that are loudest but this one’s right. He can’t give in to the man outside his door, has to not be selfish for once in his entire bloodstained life and so he just keeps going, collecting cuts as he handles the edges of what used to be a beautiful, whole bottle and grits his teeth against the sting.

Eventually, footsteps sound, padding away from his door, and he sighs and slumps against the edge of the coffee table. It digs into his back scales uncomfortably, but he can't bring himself to move.

subscribe to the fic here to be emailed when it updates! part two is coming soon, projections indicate about three days

[philosopherking1887]

First line challenge

Thanks for tagging me, @sapphosewrites!

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have fewer than 20, just list them all). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line.

I interpreted “first line” generously... these are more like first paragraphs, or first few lines if the first is a short line of dialogue. Putting the quotes under a cut because this got quite long.

My first lines seem to fall into 4 categories (though the fourth only has one instance):

(a)  Line of dialogue: 4, 6, 7, 9, 14, 19 (b)  Description of a relevant background state of affairs: 2, 5, 10, 12, 17, 18, 20 (c)  A present, occurrent event that starts the action, always immediately followed by a statement relating it to a more general state of affairs: 1, 8, 13, 15(?), 16; 12 could actually be considered a mirror image of this pattern (d)  Description of setting: 11

Do I have a favorite? Maybe #5... but that might just be because it belongs to what’s currently my favorite fic of mine. Does anyone else have a favorite?

Tagging @conceptadecency, @damnhardwork, @delicatetrashstranger, @korvidaee, @richardcampbellganseytheiiird, @vermin-disciple, and anyone else who finds this amusing...

1.  Julian was fully awake the instant he heard the door chime of his cabin aboard the Defiant. That was one of many curious perks of his genetic enhancements: no sleep inertia. Zero to sixty in no time flat, as they might have said in the old automobile days.

2. Jadzia loved dirty gossip (a trait she had inherited primarily from Curzon, but also, in varying degrees, from all her other previous hosts, with the notable exception of Tobin). She loved offering advice, solicited or un-, on other people’s love lives. She was a proud, unrepentant busybody. But now, in spite of all that, she found herself regretting having busybodied herself into the position of Julian’s sole confidante about his relationship with Garak.

3.  “Everything’s gone dark. I can’t see you. Are you alone?” “Yes. There’s no one else but you and me.” Julian would think about that later—what it meant that Garak wanted him to stay, had lied to his old mentor and superior, the man to whom he said he owed everything.

4.  “…then she grabs my wrist, and puts my hand on her arm, and says ‘You have very steady hands.’ At this point I was completely baffled. How’m I supposed to respond to that? So I said, ‘Well, they get the job done, I guess. But right now the most important job is bypassing the plasma emitter.’ And then, out of nowhere, she says, ‘I assure you I’m quite fertile.’”

5.  Since being exiled to Terok Nor, Garak found that he had nothing but time. That was more true than ever now that he had been sentenced to six months in a holding cell on this State-forsaken station.

6.  “So, Katara… I’ve been thinking.” “No, you shouldn’t try riding the unagi again,” Katara said absently, not looking up from her work.

7.  “You wanted to see me, Commander?” “Sit down, Doctor Bashir.” “Is everything all right?” “Everything except your head, apparently.”

8.  Katara swept through the halls of the Fire Nation Royal Palace like a hurricane, hand perched threateningly on the skin of water at her hip, while Aang followed in the path she had cleared, apologizing hurriedly to disconcerted servants and indignant officials standing pressed against the walls to let her pass. Katara had no trouble finding her way to the infirmary; she had spent a fair amount of time there in the days after Sozin’s Comet, helping to tend Zuko’s wound from Azula’s lightning, as well as the less life-threatening ailments of the combatants from the Day of Black Sun who were being released from Fire Nation prisons on the orders of the new Fire Lord.

9.  “Ziyal?” She turned and spotted him, and her eyes lit up. Garak closed the distance to her table and she stood, a smile breaking over her face like the sun scattering thunderclouds over the desert.

10.  Three years after the end of the war, Aang was finding himself feeling perversely glad that he had only been twelve years old when he’d had to master three elements in less than a year and save the world from a power-mad Fire Lord, because if he’d been just a few years older he would never have been able to focus.

11.  It was another sultry day on Ember Island, where the Avatar’s family had joined the Fire Lord’s for a brief holiday at the royal family’s beach house. The heat was verging on uncomfortable for Katara, who was used to the chill of the South Pole.

12.  It wasn’t often that all the heroes of the Hundred-Year War could gather in the same place at the same time, but they managed it for the fifth anniversary of Zuko’s coronation.

13.  Zuko lit four candles on the altar in his cabin and sat half-lotus on the bench in front of it to meditate, as his uncle had taught him, as he had done every evening for the past three months aboard the Wani. Or rather, it should have been evening, but so near the North Pole at the summer solstice, the sun never quite set, but hovered at the edge of the horizon even at midnight.

14. “We could call it the Fifth Nation.” Aang made this suggestion to Zuko as they walked back from an informal tour of Cranefish Town, which before today Zuko had never seen, to the hotel where they were staying.

15.  As it turned out, Katara was the first to have the opportunity for a night alone with Zuko—which she thought was only fair, since it was Aang’s impulsive kiss when he was alone with Zuko that had started all of this.

16.  Iroh looked away when Ozai put a hand to his son’s face—but even as he did, he swore that he would never look away from Zuko again.

17.  In the Fire Nation, unlike in the other nations, the solstices are not festival days. Most of the archipelago is arrayed along the equator, so the length of the days does not change appreciably over the course of the year. What distinguishes the solstices is that the tilt of the planet makes the angle of the sun’s rays more indirect than at any other time of year, while it is strongest and most direct during what the hemispheres call the equinoxes.

18.  Zuko was accumulating epithets, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

19.  “Do you think something is going on between Mom and Dad and Uncle Zuko?” Kya asked, apparently out of the blue.

20.  Zuko had given Aang every argument he could muster for why he had to kill the Fire Lord.

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

After The Dawn

Hello, hello! I am indeed still around, and sometimes even do non-work-related stuff. About, oh, 2 years ago, this got sent in as a prompt, so have a little 4 times + 1 thing, for the occasion of me processing my recent DS9 comfort-rewatch (by which I of course mean “mostly spending a lot of time gazing adoringly at Kira Nerys and crying”). As far as I recall, I’ve never actually posted anything from my giant decade plus WIP pile of Trek stuff, so this is a first - I hope it doesn’t disappoint.

The prompt was “five different sunlights”. So here are five snapshots of Kira Nerys from joining the resistance to DS9 and beyond, ~4400 words. Veers into Kira/Jadzia because I’m hilariously predictable. Also includes brief appearances by (in order): Lupaza, Furel, Shakaar, Damar, Garak, Kaksidy, and Jake. Mentions of several others.

Contains discussion of the occupation of Bajor and canon character deaths, but nothing explicit I can think of to warn about.

---

After The Dawn

1. 2356

The raid was long over but her fingers still shook – cold, always because of the cold, never from fear. Every so often they would twitch more decisively, as if recalling the sensation of the phaser rifle she was just barely big enough to hold jerking to life in her grip. But then they’d travel to her right ear of their own accord, tracing the lines of her new earring. A proper d’ja pagh all of her own, with the symbol of the Kira family emblazoned in the metal – echoing the beautiful engraving she’d always admired on her father’s. 

Lupaza had worked through the night to make it for her, by the feeble light of one of their few still-working heaters, with skill that seemed otherworldly to Kira (who, though by far the youngest among them, knew better than to ask about anyone’s life before joining a resistance cell). Lupaza, who had looked at the scrawny thirteen-year-old hanging around their camp, and who’d chosen to believe in her, and speak up for her. Who’d presented her handiwork to ‘their newest member’ at sunrise, during the change of guard at the mouth of their current cavern hideout, letting the winter light glimmer on its silvery surface for all to see. And Kira had beamed at her, not caring about who’d been around to witness it or how young it may have made her look. 

I’m in the Resistance, she wanted to shout over and over again until the reality truly set in, flooded and near-overwhelmed by the newfound sense of belonging and pride and brightly burning defiance mixing in her chest.

Again and again her fingers went – over the cuff hugging the shell of her ear snugly, down the single deceptively delicate chain, to the simple but beautiful main piece. She could almost believe it was still warm to the touch, heated by the orange-glow burn of Bajor’s atmosphere on Cardassian hull metal – made from stolen Bajoran ore, mined with stolen Bajoran labour. It was only right and just that it be returned this way. The rest of the beritium hull salvage they’d stripped from the ship would be used for lining the walls of their hideout, shielding them from sensor sweeps and the bite of the winter cold alike. But this small bit of it was a shield all Kira’s own.

It was a comforting presence, a slight but grounding weight with a depth of meaning that its size belied. Lupaza smiled at her fascination and distraction every time she happened to pass by, promising she’d get used to it. Furel agreed, for once without a trace of a joke in his voice, and slapped a hand on her bony shoulder with a gruff: “You’ve more than earned it, kid.” 

Shakaar himself, in between whatever it was his leaderly duties entailed, took a moment to consider her. “It suits you,” was all he said on the matter, though if he meant the earring or the phaser Kira had for the first time stuck in her own belt instead of giving it back after cleaning was anyone’s guess. Then, turning to leave, he added, “Good job out there.”

There was something like sadness behind all of their eyes. Kira chose not to see it, or dwell on it.

She was in the Resistance.

She didn't even know if any of her (many) shots during the ambush had found their mark, but it didn't seem to matter. She could, she would help protect her father and his little garden, scrounged up, cobbled together, but growing. Protect her remaining brother, for the one she had failed to. She would honour her mother, the bravest woman I've ever known, Nerys. She saved us all, at great cost to herself.

Whenever her fingers floated back down and twitched for want of a rifle trigger again, she told herself to be patient. There would be more work for her, more chances to be useful, more chances to prove herself. No more sitting idly by, and no more fear.

-

2. 2369

Even after weeks on the station Kira had yet to manage to sleep through an entire night, but she sincerely doubted it was the bed's fault. Sure, the Cardassian-designed beds in the Cardassian-designed quarters on the Cardassian-designed station left much to be desired, but they certainly beat the ground of a half-frozen cave. And yet here she was, with endless damn bunking arrangements as one of the most frequently brought-up complaints among the crew body. Why and how those PADDs always seemed to end up on her desk was anyone's guess. She'd been prepared for a more administrative role, yes, but…

“The time is oh-six-hundred hours,” the computer helpfully informed her.

Kira huffed, and tossed aside another PADD with a blinking Request denied, then shrugged on her uniform jacket and made to leave her quarters for a quick breakfast.

It was still an odd thought that took getting used to: her quarters – hers alone; a viewport in the bulkhead, allowing her to see the stars and, when the rotation was right, Bajor’s own familiar sun from a very new perspective. Regular meals thanks to Federation engineers patching up Cardassian replicators and whipping them into shape. Shops and eateries opening on the Promenade. The ruinous mess the Cardassians left behind them slowly coming together again into something functional. Kira permitted herself a wry twist of the mouth at the thought – hopefully the planet the station had formerly orbited could manage to do the same.

The discovery of the wormhole brought fascinating, colourful crowds to the station so quickly and in such volumes, she didn't envy Odo at all. Even the small segment of the Promenade she saw on her way from her quarters to the replimat was enough to reinforce, every morning, that this was no longer Terok Nor: grey in every way imaginable, filled with throngs of terrified, beaten-down Bajoran workers and their Cardassian overseers, delighting in the former’s disposability.

The small but lively, chattering crowd in the replimat seemed to underscore all of her thoughts – no more waiting in line for gruel with the exhausted shift that had just left ore processing.

“Good morning!”

Instead, a friendly Federation face. The pattern of spots that ran down the sides of Lieutenant Dax’s face and down her neck was fascinating to Kira still – not Bajoran, and certainly not the grey, flared bony Cardassian necks that had made up most of Kira's world up until not so very long ago. She had to stop herself from staring often, even though, judging by that smirk, the Lieutenant did not seem to mind. She appeared to relish attention in general, of all kinds. Kira ducked her head, and tried to focus on the replicator instead.

“Something wrong? Quark interfering with the menus again?” Dax was right behind her, peeking over her shoulder, eyebrow raised, and smiling. Somehow she always seemed to be doing that.

“Oh, no, nothing like that, thankfully. Still not quite used to this, is all.” She shuffled her feet and made no real move to complete an order.

“Hm. Well, if I may, Major, I’d recommend the raktajino for early morning starts like this.”

“Raktajino?” Kira repeated oafishly, biting back the Early!? her mind had immediately supplied.

“Klingon coffee. Try it – I think you’ll like it.”

Kira was sceptical, but Dax seemed to be very sincere – so after a few button presses she found herself holding a large mug of something hot, dark, and quite thick. She wrinkled her nose and took a sip.

“It’s, uh… strong.”

“Hits the spot, right?”

The crooked, almost sly smile on the Lieutenant’s face was contagious. Kira didn’t even feel like bringing up growing up under an occupation-enforced famine as an excuse for her own lack of a developed or sophisticated palate or culinary taste in general.

The drink did have a real kick to it, and Kira took another sip. “Yeah, it does.”

“Just don’t go overboard with them – let me tell you, I made some grave mistakes there right after I became a host. Curzon,” Dax smirked, shaking her head, then waved at the table they’d found themselves next to. “Mind if I join you?”

Kira thought about it, but only for a moment.

“Not at all, Lieutenant.”

And ah, there it was then, as soon as they sat down: the small, incessant, bitter sting of you knew what they were doing to us and you sat by and did nothing that insisted on making itself known at very inopportune times. It was, however, becoming more bearable by the day and with every individual met, every new reassurance that they were here now, despite everything, to make a good start. Together.

When the Cardassians came they were helpful and charming too, nagged the little voice at the back of her mind. But this couldn’t be like that, and just looking at Dax was enough to… well, perhaps Kira was being a naive fool, but there seemed to be ground to build here, and she found herself willing to try. And after all, she knew she herself was ready to do anything, to lay her life down for Bajor. She just needed to be pointed the right way – or, rather, she needed to be able to point herself the right way. Now that knowing who the enemy was and who the enemy could turn out to be had gotten more complicated. Still, if nothing else: she wouldn’t let it be a repeat of anything, and she was prepared to be a thorn in anyone’s side, Federation or provisional government or otherwise, for as long as was necessary. 

“You seem to be mulling over something grim already. Everything alright?”

The concern was genuine enough, but Kira had no idea how to even begin to explain all of it, even if she’d wanted to.

“Just thinking about some complaints about quarters I need to handle,” she lied smoothly – or what she hoped was smooth, anyway.

Dax caught on, and backed off. Lifetimes of experience to thank – or perhaps Kira was just that easy to read. A transcript of Trakor’s annotated ninth prophecy just waiting on a lectern, as Lupaza would say. 

“Sure. Let me know if I can help.”

“With station admin? Aren’t you a science officer?”

“Absolutely. But it's in all our best interests to get this place running as smoothly as possible as fast as possible, right?”

Kira narrowed her eyes at her, entirely unconvinced. “Right.”

“Fine,” Dax threw her hands up in the air in a very silly, exaggerated gesture, “I admit it, I’m after juicy gossip. There’s bound to be quarter reassignment requests in there! What could be juicier?”

Kira couldn’t help but bark out a laugh, then. “You are ridiculous.”

Dax grinned right back. “Glad to be of help. Let’s get to Ops, you can tell me all about it on the way.”

When Kira got to her feet, both she herself and the entire day – if it could truly be called that on a space station – felt somehow lighter already.

-

3. 2372

It was swelteringly hot under the sun of some new, as of yet unnamed planet, in the midst of a survey mission that had already gone on longer than scheduled. Hardly Kira’s idea of a good – or productive – time. 

The place was an unpleasant dustbowl broken up by stray glass-encrusted rock here and there, and Kira was surrounded by a bunch of bustling, tricorder-armed Starfleet explorer types she would have sneered at, not so long ago – but many of whom she’d now consider fast friends. She’d hardly consider herself an ideal choice for helming this particular mission, but Sisko had been insistent, and so here she was. It would appear that, if nothing else, it gave her time to indulge in reverie – a truly rare occurrence.

The unfamiliar stars of the Gamma Quadrant, unimaginably far from everything she’d ever known, could now be reached within seconds, thanks to the wormhole – more proof of how the Prophets kept looking out for Bajor in sometimes quite unexpected ways. And Kira, as Bajor’s official representative on the mission, was determined to do her best to facilitate and build upon their efforts.

“Take a look at this, Major!” It was Dax calling her over, her tricorder beeping over some bizarre green-magenta form of plant life she found beneath a rocky outcrop a little off the not-so-alien dirt path Kira was stomping down. 

“What've you got for me, Lieutenant?”

“Some kind of elaborate root system stretches on for more than a kilometer underground, running beneath the very acidic soil, with an impressive – and perfectly symmetrical – array of large tubers.”

Kira shot the sensor readings a look. “Huh, could’ve fed a whole resistance cell for an entire winter on nothing but a few of those.”

She frowned as soon as the words left her mouth – Jadzia Dax, decorated Starfleet science officer and dedicated, studious initiate who’d earned the approval of the strict Trill Symbiosis Commission, certainly hadn’t had such prosaic, practical implications of her findings in mind. For a very, very brief moment, Kira felt a sting of embarrassment – but then her mind snapped decisively back into its standard guarded, resolute position: she had nothing to be embarrassed about.

Dax, as had somehow become a somewhat frustrating habit of hers, seemed to be able to encompass Kira’s entire internal dialogue with a glance. But somehow she did it… gently, without making Kira feel small or inadequate in any way. No smug Starfleet superiority here, even with all the accumulated bragging rights of all the lifetimes under her belt. And – perhaps most importantly – no trace of pity to be found. Instead, a wellspring of enthusiasm.

“Their composition is interesting, I agree. Starchy, and rich in several key proteins – this has potential for significant contributions to agriculture. I bet Keiko will love to get her hands on this – see what she can set up in one of the hydroponics bays.”

Her smile was as bright as the orange-tinted light of the unfamiliar sun, but Kira took up the challenge of matching it.

Jadzia leaned in, almost conspiratorially, “Help me catalogue it?”

“I, uh, don’t really know what the procedure–”

“No worries, I’ll walk you right through it. It’s fun!” Kira’s scepticism must have been written all over her face. “I swear it is! I’m not just saying that, you’ll see.”

“Not to mention,” Jadzia winked, “it’ll get us under some nice shade and right next to a cooling unit.”

“You are incorrigible.”

“And you love it.”

Kira couldn’t disagree.

-

4. 2375

The weak, grey light of Cardassia Prime’s sun filtered through the slits in the cellar windows – if they could even be called that.

Another very literally bleak dawn. No contact with the Federation. No hope of reinforcements, or extraction, or help of any kind. Negligible chances of news from Deep Space 9, of the fleet, of Odo’s health, of anything at all. And here, far behind enemy lines, Kira and her unlikely comrades presumed dead, their network of allies and carefully-hidden carefully-built-up resources destroyed, all three (three) survivors hidden away in the capital of a people she’d once have termed her worst enemies, relying on the goodwill of an old woman.

Kira, a veteran of hopeless causes, had been in worse spots – but not many.

Whatever Damar’s less… pleasant compatriots had thought, she found no joy in any of it. Not even a flutter of satisfaction at all the irony the situation was positively dripping with. It was enough that it meant that twice now she’d been witness to oppression and destruction on an immense scale – civilisation-ending, one might term it. It was wearing, and wearying, no matter who it happened to.

Would she have cheered for the destruction of Cardassia as little as a handful of years ago? Perhaps, if it would have meant Bajor being left alone. The moral quandary aspect certainly wasn’t something she wanted to be thinking about at the moment.

While the others seemed to still be asleep, Kira lay on her back on one of the thin blankets Mila had provided them, and thumbed almost idly through a list of signals intercepted nearby, identifying potential sabotage targets. There were still things three people with extremely limited resources could do to make themselves useful - or disruptive, depending on your perspective. 

Two Jem’Hadar barracks complexes (a hatchery would be better, and far less dangerous). A comms central (they might not have the proper tools available to make it truly worth the risk). Long-term storage warehouses (they needed to maximise short-term effects on the Dominion occupiers, not minimise the chances of Cardassia’s eventual recovery). Weapons manufacturing plants (tempting security gaps during shift changes, but still far too well-guarded for the three of them to take on alone). A power distribution junction (...remote, potentially high-impact, and definitely worth looking into). Kira made a note to ask Garak for any further details he could muster about it.

She should have, perhaps, been saving her strength, getting what rest she could while she could. Restless, that was what she was, even with all her experience and her awareness that so, so much of a resistance fight was simply spent waiting, biding time. With another brief glance around the murky room, she gave up even the pretense of repose, and got up to stretch her legs and pace out her nerves.

Garak was asleep in his corner, or at least pretending to be. Whatever suited his purposes best.

“Commander,” came a low murmur from the other side of the room: Damar, sitting up on his own improvised bed, very much awake. The Starfleet rank still sounded strange to her, but Kira could appreciate the way Damar made sure to respect it from the start, and never allowed himself a slip. “There’s something I’ve wanted to talk to you about. If you have a moment.”

“Somehow I have both far too much and far too little time these days. What is it?” She asked quietly, stepping closer, though the chances of Garak actually sleeping through whatever their conversation was going to be were negligibly low – as were the chances of him ‘waking up’ before they were done.

“I know it might not make much difference. And I do not ask for your forgiveness, or understanding. But I wanted – no, needed to tell you this. I'm sorry – for what I did to Ziyal.”

Her mood miraculously sank even lower. “For murdering her, you mean,” Kira didn’t even try to hold back the bite, nor had she ever been one for softening any blows.

Damar’s lips twisted. “You are right to call it what it was. Hiding from the truth won’t accomplish anything anymore. I killed her, and I deeply regret it.”

Kira said nothing, and Damar continued. “I’m not asking you for anything, believe me. But I hope… she can become a herald, of sorts. Her presence can live on in our alliance, a spirit of cooperation, and a new dawn for both our peoples.”

It was hardly the first time Damar made her think there could be a future for Cardassia after everything, one of reinvention and coexistence. Even Kira, with her underdeveloped imagination (Jadzia's efforts notwithstanding – ah, there was the stab of that hastily half-handled grief), could let herself imagine it.

Kira nodded, and pursed her mouth. Forgiveness wasn’t something she felt was hers to give, even if she wanted to. Maybe it wasn’t anyone’s.

“Nice speech, Damar,” she said, flatly. Ground out, almost. “It’ll be good for you, to’ve had the practice.” Then, after a moment of consideration of what she was prepared to give: “I hope I'll get to hear you make more of those someday soon. And I hope Cardassia will get to hear them, too.”

It only took another tragically small circle paced before the weight in the room became unbearable. Kira decided to make for their somewhat improvised refresher and what little privacy could be scrounged up – and caught Garak watching her, lying motionless but as alert as ever.

She silently met his eyes, then turned away.

-

5. 2376

The first day of her long-awaited leave dawned beautiful and clear. It seemed a small thing, to be sure – but perhaps the Prophets, prompted by their Emissary, had had a hand in making it so. No matter the reason, the sun shone on a Bajor that was growing prosperous and whole in ways Kira had feared it wouldn’t ever be again. 

The document that had just brought peace to two quadrants of the galaxy was called the Treaty of Bajor. There was talk, increasingly common and growing louder, of reactivating Bajor's suspended Federation membership application, and Kira had been made aware of the validity of her Starfleet field commission and the implications on her future career. The Vedek Assembly would be announcing their choice of the new Kai within the week. The soil beneath her feet was healthy, fertile, fully reclamated and ready for planting. There were now schoolchildren on Bajor who had never lived under the occupation. 

And there was Kira, who had helped liberate it, and hadn’t lived on it since.

This was the first time she’d returned to her home planet after the formal end of hostilities with the Dominion, and all that that had entailed. The light of B’hava’el was strong but not harsh – the same sun Kira had spent most of her life under, but that had never hit her more differently than it felt now. B’hava’el, that she had now seen from so much closer and so much further away – had, in a horrifying, memorable incident, helped prevent the destruction of, even. Her! Not just scrappy little Nerys from the Shakaar resistance cell anymore, small enough to slip through narrow passages in the labyrinthine caves of the Dahkur province and gaps in the Cardassian sensor nets alike.

She was Colonel Kira Nerys, commander of Deep Space 9, and, as a dear lost friend had made sure she was aware a while ago, a public figure in her own right. Ah– her own importance was something she would need to confront some other time, perhaps, right after she somehow went head to head with her grief. Ezri had been dropping some suggestions, in her capacity as a counselor, for all of the senior staff and beyond. It would be foolish not to consider her recommendations, both as the commanding officer and as a friend.  

Kira was well aware she had lost so much and so many. And she could sit down and catalogue the losses on a PADD, like freighter cargo inventory, but what for? She had gained, too, and lost again, and gained yet more. Like waves and eddies, pulling along a lightship on its way through the stars.

“Prophets help me if I try being a poet, too,” Kira mumbled to herself. Maybe she would take up writing tortured metaphors about the Prophets watching over and guiding ancient Bajoran star sailors on their journey all the way to Cardassia, for better or worse. 

A stray breeze toyed with the chain of her earring, carrying the scent of ripening moba fruit, and as she crested the hill, the outline of a house well under construction came into view.

“I'm sorry, what was that?” Kasidy asked from just behind her, Jake right at her side, holding her arm.

“Just thinking aloud. Nothing important. Anyway… where did you want to start?”

Her two companions caught up to her quickly enough. The gasps of surprised joy at the sight of all the progress that had been made on the house were by themselves more than worth the trip planetside.

“Well,” Kasidy began, “we have all the plumbing specifications and details all worked out thanks to the local architect you recommended – thanks again, by the way. I think… the kitchen should be first.”

It was an obvious tribute. A longing and anticipation there, too. Kira's heart ached just a bit stronger then, for a beat or two. She nodded, scrolling down a PADD loaded with floor plans and interior concepts. “I know some people who can help with that, too. Ceramics and pottery artisans, and a few others. I’ve got some favours to call in.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Kasidy started, but didn’t get too far.

“Yes I do, Kas. We’re going to see this through, and we’re going to see it done properly.”

“Only the best for the Emissary?” Jake asked, pointedly. There wasn’t bitterness there, though Kira would have understood it, and perhaps expected it, from a young man longing for the return of his father. 

“For a dear friend and his family,” Kira corrected. “But – yes, I’m sure they’ll be happy and honoured to contribute. Now, Julian and Ezri will be down with the next transport, just in time to meet us for dinner in the village. We have a few hours to handle things here, check on the progress so far, make notes – any complaints or requests you might have. Remember, I’m here to make sure they listen to you.”

They started down the path into the almost startlingly green valley, Kira catching herself marvelling along the way at the visibility of all the growth and healing made possible by the hard, dedicated work of so many. Who knew what could be in store for an old civilisation of artists, architects, and philosophers, forced to reinvent itself, and the sometimes tenuous connections to vast stretches of heritage that Kira herself had grasped at in various ways for most of her life, born into struggle and desperate, determined rebellion, like so many others. 

Well. Nothing to stop her from trying her hand at poetry, after all.

She felt her lips twist wryly at the private joke – she knew her place and her strengths. And she thought she could say she knew herself, too – precious knowledge, by any accounting. She knew there'd be no rest for her, not really, as long as there was something to be done for Bajor, and for her station, and for her unlikely family, wherever they might end up, scattered among and beyond the stars.

But Kira allowed herself a moment, gazing up in what she imagined might be the direction of the wormhole’s entrance.

[ace-aro-fandroid]

I wrote a (parody) Star Trek episode

I guess this counts as my first fanfic. I wrote a Deep Space Nine Lwaxana Troi parody episode. It’s too long, it’s pure fucking genius, you should read it, and I’d like it to be performed, thank you.

(The station is bustling. The Klingon Parade is happening today and people are arriving from everywhere. At Quark's, Quark is trying to sell vaping devices to some Klingon children.)

QUARK: Will news articles come out in a few months about how these are mysteriously killing people? Maybe. But right here, in the glorious now, you can look like an Luranian mist-breather! Capitalism reigns!

KLINGON BOY 1: Get out of our faces, Ferengi petaQ! My father says you're nothing more than a peddler of flim-flam! You have no honor!

(The children beat him to death, but Odo is here. Odo pulls the blood-drenched Klingons off of Quark, who has five broken arms. But he is saved.)

QUARK: Oh, what a relief to see you, Constable! I was beginning to think I'd never -

ODO: HHHHRMPH!

(Odo ignores him and walks slowly towards the camera, past Quark, who trails off. Quark shrugs and heads back to the bar. Odo s t a r e s i n t o t h e d i s t a n c e.)

(O'Brien is drinking alone. Kira and Jadzia talk nearby. Jadzia is vaping.)

KIRA: I can't believe you bought one of those.

JADZIA: I like it.

KIRA: Haha. You know, It might be deadly.

JADZIA: Deadly can be fun.

KIRA: Ferengi are terrible.

JADZIA: Terrible can be fun.

KIRA: Haha. Aren't you a woman?

JADZIA: Aren't I?

O'BRIEN (in the middle of a drink, spitting synthale all over the table): Well, Quark certainly owes you one, doesn't he?

ODO (shaken out of some reverie): What?

O'BRIEN: You alright, Constable?

ODO: I am extremely edgy on principle, but... recently I've found myself being... even edgier...

O'BRIEN: I can't say I blame you. I'd feel the same way in your shoes.

ODO: Is that some sort of joke, Chief? I thought I told you these aren't REAL SHOES.

O'BRIEN: No, I just mean... Oh, no one's told you...

ODO (curmudgeonly): Told me WHAT.

(Lwaxana enters the Promenade. It's Lwaxana time. Patrons begin to flee.)

LWAXANA: I HAVE ARRIVED AND I AM LWAXANA TROI, (daughter of the Fifth House, holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed). NEW WIG. SPARKLES. I'M HERE TO READ MINDS AND FUCK CURMUDGEONS AND I'M ALL DONE READING MINDS

(Odo stares at Lwaxana in horror, long musical sting, opening credits play)

(Back in the Promenade, Lwaxana has wrapped herself around Odo)

LWAXANA: You are sad, aren't you? Sad man. Tell me why you're sad.

ODO: Madam Ambassador -

LWAXANA: No worries. You don't have to speak for the next three days. I will interrupt everything you say.

O'BRIEN: Um, I've just remembered I have to go take Molly to therapy. Keiko and I tried to decide on a family movie last night and they say the damage may last for a lifetime.

KIRA and JADZIA: Haha we should go too.

ODO: But -

KIRA and JADZIA: Hahahahahahahahaha

(they and their significant glances exit)

(Quark has approached.)

QUARK: Madam ambassador, aren't you looking lovely tonight?

LWAXANA: Yes, I am but you are ugly.

QUARK: Haha, brilliant. Do you want to buy this?

LWAXANA: No.

QUARK: I promise you. You'll love it.

(His earnestness is irritating, but intriguing.)

LWAXANA: Okay fine what is it?

(Odo has one second to be relieved as Quark leads Lwaxana over to the bar.)

SISKO (over commbadge): Sisko to Odo.

ODO: Go ahead, Commander.

SISKO: You're needed in the infirmary.

ODO: On my way.

(In the Infirmary, everyone is dying of Vape Fever.)

BASHIR: I don't have an explanation for it. Except that I know all the symptoms and exactly what could have caused it.

SISKO: What could have caused it?

BASHIR: These vaping devices are made of some kind of weird metal. It has traces of xyphilonium, a Cardassian material.

SISKO: You mean everyone has been vaping xyphilonium?

BASHIR: It appears so.

SISKO: Good thing I told Jake not to vape and he certainly listened to me. Who could have done this?

ODO: Well my sources gave me information that hasn't made sense until now. It seems someone has been ripping parts out of the station's hull. Quark must be using the station's hull to make vaping devices.

SISKO: Go tell him that is very dangerous, but don't arrest him or anything.

(Back in Quark's)

LWAXANA: I KNEW YOU'D COME BACK. Look what I bought from Quark.

(She clamps something around Odo's arm)

LWAXANA: It's a manacle that works on changelings! Now you can never escape me! This is charming! I am well-balanced!

ODO: Wait... this is made of xyphilonium too. QUARK!

QUARK: Yes?

ODO: Exactly how much of your merchandise is made out of the hull of the station??

QUARK: Well, all of it, of course! I didn't think it would be a problem.

(An explosion rocks the station. The lights go out.)

(In Ops)

KIRA: I'm getting reports that 3,000 people have been blown out into space. The hull integrity of the station is at negative 5 percent. If we don't do something soon, we'll all be torn to shreds!

SISKO: I need answers, people!

JADZIA: I have an answer. It's science-y and it takes longer to say than to do.

KIRA: That won't work. This station is Cardassian and it sucks!

JADZIA: Well what about this?

O'BRIEN: Yes and if we add something else it will work. I can help. I have to open this dangerous computer panel to do it. Don't tell Keiko.

BASHIR: Keiko is unhappy.

O'BRIEN: Shut up!

SISKO: Let's get to work!

(In Quark's. The lights are out. Quark is rushing drinks around to weeping customers.)

ROM: Brother, we don't have enough synthale without the replicators. Maybe we should suggest other drinks to our customers?

(Quark lights Rom on fire.)

LWAXANA: Tell me about your problems. You are edgier than usual.

ODO: I am not.

LWAXANA: But of course you are! I can always tell.

ODO: Yes I am sad.

LWAXANA: You know, Odo, in retrospect, I should not have manacled you to me.

ODO: I agree.

LWAXANA: And the real reason I came here is that I am also having a crisis. Good thing you were here.

(an emotional moment (?))

SISKO: Sisko to Odo.

ODO: Go ahead Commander.

SISKO: The station is about to explode. Evacuate everyone. You have five seconds.

(They begin the evacuation. It is the third one this week.)

(In Ops)

JADZIA: It's not working.

O'BRIEN: Dammit!

KIRA: 200 more people have suffocated without life support!

(Garak has appeared)

KIRA: Garak! What are you doing here?

GARAK: Well I thought this thing I knew might be of some help. I could have offered it sooner but I was.......

GARAK: ...

GARAK: ...

GARAK: ...

GARAK: ...hemming some pants.

SISKO: And you think this thing will work.

GARAK: Commander, if it didn't, I wouldn't be much of a...

GARAK: ...

GARAK: ...

BASHIR: Garak!

GARAK: ... tailor, would I?

SISKO: Well, do it!

GARAK: Right away!

(Outside shot of the station. Sisko voice-over)

SISKO: Thankfully everything is fine now, just in time for the Klingon Parade. Good thing, too, because I have to throw the opening pitch in the Klingon baseball game. Next time there's an inside shot of the station everything will look exactly as it always does.

(Inside shot of the station. He's right!)

(At Airlock 3.)

ODO: Well, you are leaving.

LWAXANA: I am, but you will always love me. I'll be back.

(It is a threat. She will be back.)

ODO: Thank you for telling me about your crisis, Madam Ambassador.

LWAXANA: Of course! That's what I'm here for!

(she winks, then kisses Odo, winks again, and leaves. Odo looks bewildered)

QUARK: Well, good thing everything turned out alright!

ODO: You almost murdered everyone on the station!!

QUARK: Almost.

(Everyone in the Promenade chuckles. Oh, Quark. You scamp. Everything is fine and Quark is not arrested.)

♫ BUH BUH BUH BUUUUUUH BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH BUH BUH BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH ♫

[a-stitch-in-time-and-space]

Queers in Space (DS9 Edition) Part 1 (Seasons 1-midway season 5)

Continuation to Queers in Space (TNG)

Benjamin Sisko: Similar to Picard's Captain-Gender, Sisko is Dad (some characters, like Julian, might occasionally look at him and think Daddy, mainly when he's being Righteous). He’s very caught up in caring about everything and is just happy he’s got such a large family (although he wishes there were more babies he could dote on). What he otherwise really loves is getting pegged by beautiful women.

Kasidy Yates: Speaking of women who peg...  She uses she/her pronouns and “woman” but her relationship to gender is like... not relevant. Not needed. Whatever. Call me whatever and I'll respond to it. And she's pan. She's been in space for long enough to have realised that attraction is attraction. Chaotic bench, I love her.

Jake Sisko: he's a burgeoning bisexual, Byron is his literary inspiration and he's the only man on DS9 who's pretty consistently half-well-dressed (you cannot change my mind about this). He and Nog have tested kissing. Mayhaps they may try out more in future.

Kira Nerys: Her lesbianism was so powerful that she was barely allowed to interact with other women (mirror!Kira may have been a bad bisexual trope, but she was also far closer to the truth). Not just a lesbian, but stompin' about in her butch boots and padded shoulders for the first half of the series, damn! All those guys she keeps dating are her beards.

Jadzia Dax: Omnisexual, poly, genderqueer babe - the poly part is why I cannot fully ship her with Worf, even though I love that she’s with a partner she can spar with (in ahem multiple ways). The whole point of trill is to experience life to the fullest and Jadzia takes that brief very seriously (that is canon!). At heart she's also very romantic. The fact that she and Nerys don't seem to have any storylines together is homophobia.

Julian Bashir: Trans, queer, dork. He canonically comes aboard knowing nothing about himself or the universe, he's just here to learn and have a good time and be an idealistic hero and accidentally fall in love with both his best friend and a lizard spyman and we're here cheering that wonderful foot-fetishist on like proud parents (Benjamin has literally sat him down to give him his blessing, but also express his confusion about his tastes).

Elim Garak: Blessed by the mouth of Andy Robinson himself, omnisexual and into Julian and down to clown and generally just a chaotic energy of fun and murder and sex, in whatever order. I read a thing about Cardassians choosing gender through specific make-up and the blue mark on the forehead, and they're all intersex and honestly Yes This! Garak opted out. He dresses like the genderqueer slut icon he is.

Miles O'Brien: I could go 50 different places with him. At first I wrote him off as a straight cis guy, but then as DS9 went on I became less sure... for one, there's Julian and the poly marriage with Keiko and Nerys. For two... it'd be fun if he were gendershrug. “I'm an engineer, I haven't got time to think about that” - does this open up the possibility that in the future all humans choose their own gender? I mean, the federation is supposed to be a form of minor utopia, so yes, and Miles just never got around to it and never will.

Keiko O'Brien: My poly, pan queen. I didn't see her and Nerys coming at aaaall and may I just say I am thrilled. It's what she deserves. She has two hands and a large heart (and a large bed too). She's a lady, but by now I've entirely decided that cis just doesn't exist at that point in the future. Gender is A Choice and she liked the sound of woman and like with everything else she liked the sound of, she grabbed it with both hands and went “mine” (she did that with Miles and Nerys as well).

Worf (Part 2): Ds9 is when Worf got more interesting to me. He was fine on TNG, but here, my word. Both the worst and the best. Okay, yes, he's very monogamous, I will relent. But also he's got a much bigger bi energy going for him, which I celebrate. On that note, if Garak isn't his type, what kinda person is? I'm assuming he's just not into Cardassians as a rule, because of their culture-biases. He likes a partner who'll punch him in the face before propositioning with all their cards on the table. What he needs is to get pegged.

Odo: Ace and aro. He’s full of love. In order to mimic “solids” he tries to make sense of his emotions from their perspectives and so comes to the conclusion that he definitely isn’t allowed to love Quark and definitely ought to be in romantic love with Nerys, but once he understands himself better, he doesn’t feel such a need to limit himself. He has unlimited hands you guys!!!! (sometimes he has no hands, but that doesn’t limit him either). He’s tried out various body shapes, and he likes the sound of “man.” He can’t place his finger on why, and honestly he doesn’t have to. It’s his identity. Hope he realises how loved he is.

Quark: He thought he was your average straight man on the station, but ds9 has a way of bringing out your true colours and it turns out he’s in love with an occasional bucket of goo. He expresses this by snarking at aforementioned goo-man. This isn’t even me, this is just... canon facts. Ferengi have strong binary genders. Quark is a man, but he’s later not-so-secretly sympathetic towards people who veer away from binary gender, such as...

Rom: Is “not having the lobes for business” code for being trans-femme? Kinda feeling it is. In a way it’s harder to be trans-masc, simply because afab people in Ferengi culture have a much harder time escaping the home planet in order to explore themselves, and Rom will eventually launch a campaign for equality for trans Ferengi (what is “trans” in Ferengi?) Also he’s more ace than he realises. He has urges (that one episode... definitely proved that), but they’re not directed at anyone. He likes being loved. Surprisingly sex doesn’t play as big a role in that as he might’ve thought it would.

Nog: "Doesn’t have the lobes for business” but is kinda chill about gender. Probably due to having grown up amongst other humanoids. Especially come starfleet academy he fully embraces gender and sexuality definitions as being “eh” to him. It’s not his interest, so he doesn’t define it. That being said, he’s also somewhere along the bi/pan spectrum.

Leeta: Pan-ace. She likes a certain amount of attention, and she has strong sensual attraction and she doesn’t mind sex, but as long as she’s loving and loved, she’s happy. After dumping Julian (like they both deserve), she gets a bunch of sugar-parents, who pay her school for her. It’s like hunger games out there, with how every one of them tries to impress her the most. She likes the attention and she loves studying, she can do it all. Be a bombshell and a smart cookie.

Gul Dukat: His gender and sexuality are “idiot clown-man.”

[gaslightgallows]

First lines meme thingie

I got tagged by @teadrinkingwolfgirl! 

Rules: Post the first lines of your last ten fics read or written and then tag others to do the same.

I haven’t read anyone else’s fics in ages (mea culpa) so I’m really doing this to remind myself of what WIPs I’m supposed to be working on. XD

Tagging! @firesign23, @rivendellrose, @cigaretteburnslikefairylights, @pendragyn, @kiwimeringue, @timetravelbypen and anyone else who’d like to play!

The Patience of Angels (Good Omens)

“Right,” shouted Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies and Prince of the First Circle of Hell, “shut up, you lot!”

The rabble quieted down, but not without trouble – Hastur had to set a few unruly demons on fire before Beelzebub could finally make themself heard without screaming. They settled into the chair at the head of the long, long table, with Hastur at one elbow and Dagon at the other, and surveyed the assembled with resigned disgust (which was the most neutral emotion Beelzebub could summon).

Every demon with any scrap of authority was there, every prince and duke and a bunch of other ranks besides, by Satan's own order. Except for Satan himself, of course. He hadn’t been to a board meeting in a year, which wasn’t like him – he usually at least came to the once-a-year all-staff meetings. But the boss was still sulking and licking his wounds after that business in Tadfield. Beelzebub supposed he had the right to sulk; after all, six thousand years of planning had been flushed straight down the toilet, all because of one disobedient brat.

There was something marvelously poetic in that, somewhere, but Lord Beelzebub did not possess a poet’s soul. (Though they had possessed a few poets, over the centuries, but they hadn’t picked up much in the way of insight.)

Sideways (MCU, Stoki)

Loki was not expecting to see Captain Rogers again – vastly preferred not to see him again, in fact, along with the rest of the Avengers – and when he did, the first thing he thought was that wasn’t sure about the new beard.

Thankfully, Captain Rogers couldn’t see him, so he didn’t have to concern himself with the captain’s feelings on the matter.

In theory, the less Loki had to see or hear or be aware of Earth, the better. In practice, he'd learned enough about humans to realize that it was at least prudent to keep tabs on Midgard and its infuriatingly stubborn inhabitants. Unlike Odin (not quite late, not quite lamented, safely and comfortably sequestered away in the most inconvenient corner of the palace dungeons), Loki did not have the ability to see and hear all things within the Nine Realms, so he’d had to take the Gatekeeper into his confidence.

Heimdall was... he wasn’t entirely sure what Heimdall’s opinion on the matter of Loki pretending to be Odin was. He recalled the first time he took the throne—

‘Took.’ It was given to me, justly, by Asgard’s own laws of succession and by order of... the queen.

—when Heimdall obeyed his commands up until the moment Loki relieved him of his duties. He knew better than to make the same mistake twice; Heimdall had guarded the Bifrost for longer than Loki had been alive, and he’d learned a thing or two about the watcher’s loyalties. With the true king alive but incapacitated and Thor having abjured the title, who was there left to be king, save Loki?

And it clearly didn’t matter to Heimdall that Loki was technically supposed to be dead.

Upon the Mountains, Like a Flame: Chapter 10 (MCU)

"Are you truly going to prevent Loki from using his magic to defend himself?"

"I have said that I will. It is the only possible way of ensuring a fair fight, especially if Loki and Sigyn are to face Theoric together. Unless you wish to make it that easy for Loki to defeat him. His power has grown--"

"No," said Frigga, "he hasn't." She sounded tired. "He had help. From whom or who, I know not, but I do know the scope of our son's power."

Odin stopped his disgruntled pacing and turned to face her, and suddenly Frigga felt very cold. "Are you certain? We have never been entirely sure what manner of power to expect from one of his... lineage."

"If Loki had learned by nature how to shield his appearance and his identity from us both, he would have used it – and crowed about it – long before now. As it is, he can transform himself into any number of animals in order to bedevil his brother, but we always know it is him. And before you ask again," she continued, "no, Sigyn did not help him. This manner of magic does not belong to her."

Odin conceded that point, at least. "Sigyn's preference would have been to slip away from Asgard between dawn and morning and never look back. And you would not have been able to find her, I think, any more than I would have. And yet... she stayed."

"For Loki."

"For love of him," Odin sighed, feeling old, as he had when Loki had pleaded for Sigyn's hand in marriage. "They make a frightening pair, those two.

The Art of Weaving (Sequel to “The Art of Spinning”) (MCU)

“He lacks compassion.”

“Lacks...” Thor stopped dead in his tracks. “Father, he spent a month caring for Mother and wouldn’t leave her side even when I wanted him to come to Svartalfheim with me. He helped me free Jane from the Aether and find a way to defeat Malekith that saved the last of the Dark Elves from slaughter, when you and I would have gladly let them all die.”

“And what has been the result of those good deeds? A long-dead race returned to the Nine Realms, upsetting the balance of power even further, and my heir abandoning his birthright to waste the next century in the company of a woman who will be gone in a blink.”

Thor remembered his brother’s parting words, the tight, sorrowful embrace, and the lock of hair Loki had given him. “He gave up his chance for freedom. He accepted responsibility for his crimes, even though we know now that he was being manipulated. What more would you have from him?”

“Nothing. I am grateful to have my youngest son back. But I would have my eldest reclaim his place as well.”

But Thor shook his head, and stepped away from his father’s fond hand. “I can never be the king you want. Loki can. He is like you in ways that I am not.”

Odin went suddenly still. “What do you mean?”

“I lack your ruthlessness.”

L'éternité de la damnation, l'infinité de la jouissance (Crimson Peak)

It had been two years. Two years of independence and travel and writing and of seeing the world. Her life would never be normal again, but at least now it felt charmed instead of cursed. At least during the day.

At night, she still dreamed of red-soaked white nightdresses, and of Lucille Sharpe haunting the crumbling halls of Allerdale. She woke with the taste of blood in her mouth, and visions of Thomas screaming in hell.

She didn’t know if he deserved that. He had done terrible things, but how many had been of his own choosing? He had not been a good man, but he had so desperately wanted to be.

Demon in My View (Good Omens)

Normally, Aziraphale was loath to part with any of the books in his collection – though he was not above going against his own grain for people whom he knew would love and cherish the tomes almost as much as he himself did – but in this case, he was delighted to make an exception.

"No charge. No, I absolutely insist. After all, my dear boy, they were meant to be yours."

Adam thanked him politely, and then asked, "Do you still have that wicked flaming sword?"

Aziraphale winced a touch at the adjective but let it pass. "No, no, I'm afraid not. I was required to give it back."

"That's not fair. It was yours, Crowley said it was. And you did help save the world with it. They should give it back to you."

"Well, perhaps they will, one day."

And His Feet Were Made of Clay (Good Omens)

The bookshop of A.Z. Fell was closed. It was the middle of the day and every shop surrounding it was open for business, but most passersby didn't seem to notice the bookshop, and the ones who did weren't surprised that it was closed. In fact, if you examined the diaries of London citizens going back to eighteen hundred, you would find countless entries complaining about the fact that Mr. Fell and Co. (Aziraphale had added the 'Co.' in the eighteen-forties, when he realized he needed to start pretending to be his own son.) never seemed to be open, and that when they were, the very nice gentleman inside was always curiously reluctant to actually sell you anything.

The thing that Aziraphale had always liked most about his corporation was that it looked human. It lacked basic human needs and drives, but it could simulate and perform those functions with perfect adequacy, and really, that was beside the point, because it looked human. It looked unique, the way humans did. Looked like God the way humans did, and the way angels most emphatically did not. Angels had been created by the Almighty with a variety of ineffable functions in mind, and what they looked like when they weren't cramming all their eyes and wings and wheels into a chunky bipedal casing with odors and fluids reflected those functions.

Humans, as near as Aziraphale had been able to figure out in six thousand years of watching, had no preordained function. God had made them because they were fun and that was enough, and he rather liked that about them. Envied that about then, even. (Envy wasn't something he was supposed to admit to, but he lied to himself about so many other things that he simply couldn't have this one on his conscience.)

Although if they did have a function, he was convinced that they existed for the sole purpose of making more of themselves.

A Pause From Thinking (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

“Doctor, I appreciate the courtesy call, but it this is some sort of human mourning ritual, I’m really not interested.”

"I didn't think you'd be interested in mourning. I just thought you might want some company. A loss is a loss, after all." Julian poured out the whiskey and handed Garak a glass. "Here's to terrible fathers."

Lots of Rules and No Mercy (sequel to “I Say, Why Not?”) (Tron) 

It was about a month after Alan was first able to communicate with his security program that Tron made the request—not out of any doubt in his user's abilities, but out of respect for the human he looked to as both creator and guardian angel.

"His name was Ram," said Tron, the words appearing on the screen beneath his angularly-rendered face, his voice coming through the headphones like an echo of Alan's own voice. "We were in the MCP's holding cells together for a while. He was just an actuarial program, but he was good at the games and..." The blocky, pixelated face didn't convey one-tenth of the emotion Alan was sure he could hear in the program's tight, gruff voice. "He was a good friend."

"I'm sorry." Alan felt silly, even after a month, apologizing and offering sympathy for the erasure of a program. He was a software engineer after all—he'd been writing and rewriting and erasing programs since high school. It had never been that big of a deal before. "I'm sorry, Tron."

Tron seemed to gather himself together. "Alan. Can you resurrect him?"

Alan stared at the face on the screen, unsure of what to say. He knew Tron couldn't see him or his expression of dumbfounded shock, but the silence said enough. "Forgive me," Tron murmured, seeming to bow his head in the way that made Alan the most uncomfortable. "It was impertinent of me, I shouldn't have asked—"

"It's not that," Alan blurted out. "It's just—I wouldn't know where to start," he added, trying to ignore the uneasy thrill of his creation's simple faith in him.

The Goblin Emperor’s Garden (The Goblin Emperor)

It became Maia’s habit, following the drama of his first Winternight as emperor of the Elflands, and once his wife-to-be decided that he no longer needed quite so many dancing lessons, to hold small intimate suppers one evening a week in his private dining room in the Alcethmeret. Sometimes he entertained several people, sometimes only a few, but nearly every week, Csethiro Ceredin was at the table.

If it was only the two of them at supper, she sat opposite him, where he had the privilege of listening to her speak until the small hours of the morning on all manner of topics, while he forgot about his meal and tried not to drown in her brilliant blue eyes. If there were others at table, she sat at his right, and though she had other social obligations on such evenings, it was worth it to Maia, to be able to sometimes, quickly and surreptitiously and not always entirely secretly, squeeze her hand under the embroidered tablecloth.

His secretary and all of his nohecharei always noticed, and he suspected that they desperately wanted to tease him about it. His nephew Prince Idra also always seemed to notice, and as he and Maia grew closer, Idra did not hesitate to tease him.

“You should be careful,” Csethiro playfully warned the prince, one night after the rest of the guests had taken their leave and the three of them were alone at table, lingering over dessert. “For someday your uncle will find you a wife, and you will make just such a fool of yourself, and he will be as shameless in laughing at you.”

Idra and Maia both blushed, stamping their utterly dissimilar features with a moment of family resemblance. “If I am so fortunate as to someday have such a wife as to be worth making a fool of myself over,” said Idra, half-bold and half-shy, as only a fourteen-year-old boy could be, “I should thank my uncle profusely for his choice, and not mind the teasing.”

“Well spoken, cousin,” Maia said gratefully.

[sigynpenniman]

A Minor Injury - Garashir Fluff

Author note: I’ve been writing this weekend, this is what came out. Very early Garashir - think a couple days after Past Prologue. There’s not necessarily any canon support for Garak having any problems with doctors, but Garak definitely has some anxieties beyond just the claustrophobia. We don’t ever see him interact with any doctors who aren’t Julian, so I’m declaring “The ground is soft and I am ready to dig” with this one. Danny accuses me of projecting but...of course not. Me? Projecting? never. Also, watch as I learn how to use the read more feature, and keep the 15 mile long posts off everyone’s dashes!

You’re bleeding.

Garak looked down. A thin trickle of red liquid ran down the back of his hand. He winced as the cut began to sting. One slip with a cutter...

It’s fine. It’ll heal. You don’t need treatment. Minor injuries do not justify medical intervention. Keep working. Stop crying, Elim. Stop whining, Elim. Carry on with your work.

No. That is over. He’s not here to tell you what to do any more. Garak breathed and looked around his shop. This is your life now.

He looked at his hand again just in time to see the blood threatening to drip onto the pale fabric beneath. He grabbed a bit of fabric from the scrap pile and mopped the blood from the back of his hand.

It doesn’t matter what Tain would have told you. This is your decision. Does that need treatment? Garak processed the thought. It was a minor cut. Images flashed through his mind, memories the last time he needed medical treatment. A military doctor, leaning over him. It’s not that bad. You’ll live. This is going to hurt. He could still feel the nearly unbearable pain of the blade slicing into his skin, the sensation of the small chip of metal being removed, the burning, burning of the antiseptic.Do not show pain. Do not show fear. He could remember, as much shame as it carried, the feeling of a single tear biting at his eye. The sharp bite of a needle going through his skin as the doctor sutured the gaping wound in his thigh.

Garak centered himself again. No, this definitely does not need treatment. He did his best to get back to his work. By the time he pulled himself out of the memory, the blood was beginning to drip again. The fabric he was sewing on was blue, pale blue, and the red dripping down his hand threatened it. He would have to stay on top of it to keep it from damaging the fabric, but that was manageable. Stitch, cut, mop up the blood, stitch, cut, mop up the blood. He carried on this way for at least 15 minutes.

That really should have stopped bleeding by now. Garak night not have known much about medicine, but he knew that cuts were not supposed to bleed forever, and he couldn’t keep up with the dripping forever. He took a deep breath. This is not Cardassia, and this is not the occupation anymore. The doctors here are from the federation. It was time to take this to the infirmary, no matter how much he disliked the idea.

He carefully put down his tools, shut the shop, and stepped off in the direction of the infirmary. He was struck as soon as he stepped in by how different the room looked than he remembered. Everything was brighter and cleaner than it had ever been before. The air smelled of antiseptic. Antiseptic. He was sure he could feel the stinging in his thigh again. He could feel his heartbeat rising, rising-

“Excuse me, sir? Are you in need of treatment?”

The clear, high pitched voice of a young Bajoran woman spoke from his left. He turned to make eye contact with her and carefully prepared his words, so as not not to stutter.

“Yes, thank you. I seem to have cut my hand. It seems to be bleeding a bit more than it is supposed to.” The young Bajoran woman smiled and motioned for Garak to follow her.

“Doctor Bashir will be with you in just a moment” she said, her voice cheerful and bright. How can anyone in a hospital, a space of such pain, be so happy - wait, Bashir? The doctor. The handsome one. The one you met yesterday. Garak had forgotten. The young Bajoran woman led Garak over to an examination table and motioned him to sit on it. She turned and walked away from him, still smiling. Garak’s heart was racing, blood pressure rising. The room suddenly seemed small, smaller than he remembered. No, Elim, the walls are not closing in on you. He tried to distract himself from that particular panic by focusing on the other one. Prepare yourself for the pain. Do not show pain. Do not show anxiety. You are an agent - no, former agent, of the Obsidian Order. You do not know fear. Ha. If only that were true.

“Mister Garak!”

He’s more handsome than you remembered. Garak did his best to affect a smile.

“Just Garak. Plain, simple, Garak.” You’ve definitely said that before. “Hello Doctor.”

Julian nodded in deference. “Right. I remember you saying so. How can I help you today, plain, simple, Garak?” he asked. He’s smiling. He looks kind. No. That’s a lie. It’s always a lie with doctors. There are no kind doctors. The walls are closing in on you. Leave. Get out now.

“Thank you for your concern, Doctor, but I think this may have been a false alarm. I assure you, I am just fine. I think I’ll be going now, if you don’t mind.”

“Nice try, Garak. You came in here for a reason.” The doctor arranged his body between Garak and the door. “What was it?”

Run. He’s pushing too hard. He’s got intentions. Who knows what they are.

“I found our conversation the other day most interesting. I simply wanted to say hello.” Garak lied. Julian’s body language softened.

“It’s alright, Garak. You’re safe here.”

Do not show weakness.

“Of course I am, Doctor. Why would anyone suggest otherwise?”

A corner of the doctor’s mouth turned upwards. The expression was almost affectionate. “I can’t imagine who, Garak. So, since that’s established, do you want to tell me what brought you here?”

Fine. You win, Doctor.

“I seem to have injured my hand while cutting some fabric. I’m sure it would have been fine, only…it seems to continue to bleed, and I wouldn’t want to get blood on the fabric.”

“Of course not.” Julian added with a knowing nod.

Show him the hand. No. Show him the hand.

“Let’s see that hand.”

Garak hesitated. You’re going to have to show him the hand. Prepare for the pain.

Julian took a step closer to his patient. “It’s alright” he said softly. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Garak lifted his hand hesitantly towards the Doctor. This is going to hurt. Garak held his breath, anticipating the discomfort, the feeling of a hand wrapped too tightly around his, the feeling of his joints creaking and aching under uncareful handling. The doctor wrapped his hand around Garak’s and drew it gently towards his face.

That’s different. Julian traced a finger along the edge of the wound, studying it intently. Garak took a deep, shaky breath. The doctor’s fingers were gentle against his skin. Garak’s stomach fluttered. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had touched him so tenderly. He had prepared himself so intently, but there was no pain, no manhandled discomfort here – only a kind of physical kindness. It was a completely unfamiliar sensation. He raised his eyes to the doctor’s face. Julian’s expression was soft and focused. Garak was sure he was looking at the most beautiful man he had ever seen. The doctor turned the injured hand over in his and met his patient’s eyes.

“It’s only a minor cut,” he reassured. “The back of the hand is dense with blood vessels, so it tends to bleed more than you might expect. I’ll have you back to your sewing in no time.”

Garak nodded. He was unable to really speak. Julian rested the injured hand back in his patient’s lap. He turned to wall behind him and produced an unfamiliar instrument, and completely familiar rag. So much for a painless experience. Garak flinched. He had almost accepted the doctor’s kindness, but the memories kept flooding back into his mind. It burns. Please stop. Oh, shut up. Do you want to die of an infection? Julian lifted the injured hand again. He happened to wrap his fingers around it in such a way that they caught the pulse point on the inside of Garak’s wrist, and he paused when he realized his patient’s pulse was racing again.

“This all makes you rather anxious, doesn’t it?” he asked.

“Anxious? Me? Never, Doctor.”

Julian raised an incredulous eyebrow and went to press the damp cloth against Garak’s hand. He felt his patient flinch, again. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated gently. Garak looked unconvinced.

“It’s just bacitracin, Garak. It’s not going to hurt. I promise.” Julian tenderly cleaned the dried blood from around the edges of the wound, and smiled a little as he felt Garak’s hand relaxing into his. “See?” he added, in a tone of “I told you so”. Content with the state of the wound, he lifted the unfamiliar instrument.

“It’s a dermal regenerator,” Julian answered the unspoken question, doing his best to keep his patient’s barely hidden fear at bay. “It won’t hurt either.”

You’re acting like a child. Garak watched the doctor pass the instrument, just as painlessly as he had promised, over the wound. The cut on his hand slowly disappeared. You’ve embarrassed yourself here, today. Good luck recovering from this.

“How’s that?” Julian asked with a smile, releasing Garak’s hand. Garak studied the skin on the back of his hand. It’s like you never even cut yourself. Impressive. He flexed the hand back and forth a bit, and nodded contently.

“Much better. Thank you, doctor. And I would like to offer my sincerest apologies for how I acted here today. It’s unforgivable.”

Julian’s expression softened again. He rested a hand on Garak’s shoulder.

“The Cardassian military didn’t produce particularly compassionate doctors, did it?”

“No, Doctor. It did not.”

Garak could feel the weight of the other man’s hand on his shoulder. It was a heavy, comforting reminder of a safe presence. Garak wasn’t used to feeling safe in anyone’s presence. It crossed his mind that he would prefer to be in this particular presence as much as possible.

“You have nothing to apologize for, Garak. Certainly not for being afraid. But I assure you, you will never have anything to fear from me.”

Garak’s heart flickered. The doctor was so handsome, and there was something about the kindness in his green eyes that made him irresistible. Oh wow, he has green eyes. Garak hadn’t fully noticed them before.

“Thank you, Doctor. You’ve been very kind to me.” Kinder than anyone has ever been before. Kinder than you can process.

“Everyone deserves a little kindness, Garak. No exceptions.”

You’re in love with him. Oh, You bet I am.

“I ought to thank you for your excellent care, Doctor. Would you, perhaps, allow me to take you to dinner?”

Julian smiled broadly. He looked as if he had been waiting for the question.

“I would love to, Mister Garak.”

Good job, Garak. Look what happens when you actually let people see what you’re feeling. He’s actually going to have dinner with you. Maybe more than once. Play your cards right, Garak. Maybe this is a presence you can keep close after all.

Aren’t you glad you decided to seek treatment for that hand?

[randomnessunicorn-imagine]

If I may I would love to request another Garak imagine, perhaps featuring Odo and Julien as the readers best friends? :) The reader is part of Engineering and has a lot to do but feels like they get nothing done even though pulling double shifts so she's pretty down. Garak along with her friends try to get her to telax for once.

{ Yes, you can ask whatever you want.

I love them all, Julian is a sweetheart and Odo is my hero of DS9!

And Garak is just the plain and simple Garak. }

◈  ELIM GARAK ◈

No, no, what you are doing is total wrong.

At first, he thought you were avoiding him, or you did not want to talk with him, he did not imagine you did all that extra job and he thought you were spending your free time with someone else. 

Such a jealous lizard, even if he keeps being plain and simple, he does not confess his feelings but he observes you and he makes his theories but they are not true because you would love to spend time with him, you work a lot –more than you should do-. 

Then he understood it’s not your fault… Well, it’ s actually your fault because anybody forced you to work so much. Are you a masochist? What do you want to prove? He does not think this is the proper way to show how great you are, maybe it’s the most stupid way!

He will have an enigmatic conversation with you about how you are ruining your life for nonsense reasons, then he invites you to dinner with him and Julian and he won’t accept a no as answer. Friends are more important than job and so if you won’t come today, then you won’t come the other days since you don’t care about anything else that’s not your job.

Garak does not want to be mean –maybe he actually wants to be and he is, but he is so playful and gallant when he speaks and you can’t say if he is joking or if he’s serious, it’s such a mystery, reading his mind is hard. You are worried he is serious but you also think he’s bluffing and so you don’t know what to do because you don’t want to lose him, not when you have gained his friendship and it was hard, really hard. You would lose everything you have won until now. 

After this conversation, he tells you the hour of your date and he greets you because he has things to do now but he hopes you have understood his words. 

You know you can’t say no. You know you have no work to do this evening and you know that you are acting like an idiot these days. He is right, this makes no sense and you are the one to blame.

So you go to your quarters to take a nap before the date begins, because then you will use the plates like pillow and the table like a bad. No, this would not be nice at all.

.

◈  JULIAN BASHIR ◈

He is the doctor here and what you are doing is not healthy at all, so he prescribes you some rest and relax, maybe also a vacation on Risa can help. It’s not a bad idea, everyone loves that place. You will work so much better after a worthy holiday.

In addition, you and Julian can make a visit to the Holodeck and create a spa program with massages, hot baths and sauna. He would like to participate, he is your friend and so he won’t leave you alone. Let’s relax together!

Really, he can’t see you so stressed and anxious and he does not even understand the reason why you are over working. It makes no sense, it’s not the proper way to show your abilities, you’re still great, even O’Brian says you’re doing a good job, and he’s the chief, he does not speak if it’s not necessary, you know. 

Since he can’t convince you with good manners he will be more severe and he will order you to take a break. You know he can do it and you can’t deny what the doctor says. Seeing his grin, you understand you have no choice and you have to give up because this guy is very determinate when he wants to be.

Well, at the end you decide to follow his advice because you finally realize you are falling apart and your health is more important. You can’t do your best if you feel sick and tired. You’re still a human and not a machine or a superman so you need to charge your human battery. That’s life, it’s like this for everyone and so let’s go to Risa. 

Julian has really created that program and he can’t wait to test it and being massaged by all those pretty holo-ladies of Risa. You also can have pretty holo-people who spoil and massage you. 

.

◈  ODO ◈

Actually, he does not think you are over working because he always does. He always works a lot and his job is his life, he takes his job very seriously and so he admires you because you love your job, too.

We have to say that his situation is different, he does not really need to rest, he has to turn into his liquid form after 16 hours of solidness and so he can’t really feel tired or exhausted. You are a human and so it is different, you need to rest and to sleep.

After some time, noticing the circles under your eyes and the fact that you work during your free time and you make extra job even when nobody asks you, Odo starts worrying. Well, he does not want you to get sick and then you won’t be able to do your job as you want if you are tired. It makes no sense.

You look like a zombie and Odo can’t barely recognize you, your state is very worrying and he asks you if everything is fine. You know, you can’t lie to him, he hates liars and he can understand by himself that you are over working without reasons. Just tell him the truth.

You explain to him that you feel uncomfortable and you want to be appreciated for your skills, you are very insecure and you don’t think you are very good or capable. Odo says that you would not be here if you were not able and then you should ask to O’Brian, he is the chief engineer here, he can tell you if you are doing your job in the proper way and it does not seem O’Brian complains about you.

Odo can understand you because his job is one of the most important things in his life and he wants to do it in the most efficient way and you also think he’s great and you want to be like him. He is glad you think it about him but maybe you should think more about your health and feelings, because your job should make you happy and satisfied. You can be professional and good even without exaggerating or getting sick. 

Now promise to Odo you’ll go to sleep or he will be the one to escort you there and you have no other choice than follow him.