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Foreign Bodies

Summary:

Twelve years ago, Elim Garak went under deep cover as a Bajoran tailor.

Then Julian Bashir ruined everything.

Notes:

This is the direct follow-up to Inside Out.

Chapter 1

Notes:

Teaser.

Chapter Text

Dust motes twinkle under the red subterranean lights, drifting down like snow. His first sight of snowfall had been during a winter evening on Qo’noS, of all places. The flakes had been as big as eyeballs, forming embankments of frozen sludge at the sides of the road. As he chases the memory, it leads to the scrap of another, then another, until he’s lost. Thank the triumph of kanar for once again dulling the edges of his mind.

The dust motes whirl through the air in the violent sweep of Tain’s arms. He’s mid rant, gesturing to the battle arrayed on the kotra table while Garak retreats to the desk on the pretense of refreshing his glass. As he pours from the aged, black bottle, careful not to spill, he keeps Tain in his periphery. Never a good idea to turn one’s back to Tain while he’s in one of these moods. He’s been known to throw things. 

Then Tain goes quiet, and there’s a scraping sound of a kotra piece moving across the board. Tain grunts in satisfaction. Ah, Garak laments. For all that raving, he still found it. Tain plucks up the captured legate and dangles it. “Look, Elim!” he says, grinning as if it were a squirming insect he was holding by the leg. “This is you.

He tosses the kotra piece with an indifferent flick of the wrist. It bounces on the handwoven rug to land at Garak’s feet. 

Garak’s grip tightens around the kanar. He turns to Tain and meets his smile. He can handle losing gracefully, but it’s easier still with the prescience that this will be the last time. “Really, Tain,” he begins, stooping to retrieve the discarded kotra piece. The rug spins and blurs. He’s much too drunk to pull off this maneuver. “You’re getting clumsy in your old age.”

He spots the piece again, farther away, separated by the gulf of his own inebriation. Garak makes an uncoordinated grab for it and falters. 

It’s gone. The kotra piece, the rug. The carpet beneath him is now teal, patterned in geometric shapes. Tacky is his first thought. No sensible Cardassian would be caught dead decorating their home with anything so banal. He straightens at once and a wave of disorientation washes over him. It isn’t from the kanar; he’s suddenly and most unpleasantly sober. The tips of his fingers sting where they’re holding the glass.

Garak glances down. What had once been a glass of kanar is now a mug of red tea, its steam acrid and inviting. The ceramic scalds his skin.

His skin.

The hand curled around the mug is pinkish white like raw, uncured rokat, devoid of scales and covered in patches of fine—not fur, no—mammalian hair. Garak nearly drops the mug, but his training keeps his grip locked in place. Redleaf tea sloshes over the side, burning his knuckles. Garak winces. Yes, most definitely his hand.

His eyes lift, drawn to the reflective surface of a portal. The window opens into a black, endless field of stars. Garak raises an eyeridge. His mirror image answers by quirking an eyebrow.

Leaning forward, Garak stares at the too-smooth face, at the faint lines around the eyes, at the wrinkles bridging an unadorned nose. Something has gone wrong—catastrophically so. Palandine should be here. He should be able to remember where he is, how he got to this place with its ugly carpet, Cardassian architecture, and foreign starscape. But the living chamber appears to be empty, and if the tea and the robe he’s wearing are any indication, he isn’t in immediate danger. There’s no need to panic. 

Tentatively, Garak brushes a cheek with his free hand and favors his reflection with a jaunty, experimental smile. “Hello, Elim,” he says. He barks out a startled laugh.

His voice, at least, is the same.