Chapter Text
Julian Bashir sat at his desk practically vibrating with barely repressed frustration. He looked at the chronometer on his computer for the fourth time this minute, convinced he was in some sort of temporal anomaly with how time seemed to be moving backwards. This shift had been hair pullingly slow, no urgent cases to take his mind of the furtive glances of the nurses, no one howling in pain to mask his colleagues' surreptitious whispers. Logically he reasoned it could be much, much worse, he still had his job and his medical license not to mention his freedom, which is much more than he thought he would have.
Gratitude should be what he was feeling, logically, but genetically enhanced or not Julian Bashir was still fundamentally human and humans can be illogical, irrational creatures. All he felt now was alone. Even his colleagues in command seemed to treat him differently. Jadzia looked on in pity sometimes but he could tell she was reassessing him from the ground up, rewriting her vision of him as a naive young pup. Miles had a newborn and hadn't much time for him, even if he had, Julian found himself questioning the strength of their friendship. Was he only a coworker to pass time with in the holosuites? Someone to tolerate but never let close? Someone who could be easily replaced by a double ganger and be better for it?
The rest of ops weren't really that close to him at all but he didn't know if he felt a greater distance now, a cold divide between them, or if he was just imagining it, seeing what he expected to see. Regardless it was better than a vocal minority of the other members of starfleet who had been flagrantly displaying looks of utter contempt and open hostility, he'd had names called at him, insults spat at him passive aggressively behind his back. It would explain the notable decrease in people coming to the infirmary he thought as his leg bounced in agitation.
He wondered for a moment if this is what Garak felt all those years living among the Bajorans, persona non grata, an exile. A pit formed in his stomach and his bitter resentment bubbled up through him like tar. Garak of all people should know how he felt, should be there for him as Julian was for him. No such luck, Garak had slunk off to God knows where, everywhere he'd look for him he never seemed to be, all his com messages requesting lunch had gone unanswered. It hurt. It hurt more than any other person combined. Julian felt a fool for thinking this was the one person who actually saw him as a true friend, and felt stupid falling for an old spy's manipulation. Clearly he was only a connection to be used, and now that he'd lost favour with Starfleet he was no longer useful and dropped as a lost cause and a waste of time.
The pit in his stomach grew wider, he was standing on the precipice of despair, staring into the gapping maw of depression and only his willful insistence on being useful in his profession kept him from falling into the abyss.
But the infirmary was empty and the ever intensifying compulsion to seek the shelter of his own quarters, away from the prying eyes of others, was becoming increasingly hard to resist. He checked the time again and groaned, his head in his hands, leg bouncing faster. There was only fifteen minutes left, but he could swear it had been fifteen minutes for the last three and a half hours. The recycled air seemed to hiss its own disquiet from the vents, grating on Julian's nerves, the air stale and cloying, the white light from his screen burning into his vision.
The agitation peaked, anxiety propelling him out of his seat, making his choice to leave, if they needed him for an emergency, they could com him. The door swung open to the office and he strode past his nurses whispering amongst themselves, aiming straight for the entrance where he suddenly collided bodily with one Elim Garak. A Terse “Sorry” was uttered before Julian realised who it was he bumped into. When he did notice he stood stock still.
“Doctor Bashir” Garak said, detached and formal. Julian hesitated for a moment, shock momentarily abating his bitter anger. Then it hit full force like a punch to the gut, and he grasped onto the anger like a lifeline because the alternative hovering just on the horizon looked an awful lot like the beginnings of a breakdown.
“Garak” he bit out coldly and used every ounce of willpower left in his system to step around him and away, the one person he wanted so desperately to want his company, to have his back, had made it perfectly clear that he wanted none of it. He would not lose what little he had left of his dignity crawling toward unopened arms, begging for scraps of a friendship that was only ever illusory.
“Doctor I was hoping to catch you before the end of your shift.” Garak called, his voice gaining a glimmer of uncertainty. Good. Julian kept walking.
“If you have a medical complaint the Bajoran nurses will be all too happy to assist.” The snidery in his voice was evident, he knew all too well Garak would rather suffer through pain and injury than to let himself be examined by anyone other than himself and the momentary smug sense of power felt dizzying.
“There are still over ten minutes of your shift left Doctor, has your augmented status now made you exempt from fulfilling your starfleet duties.” The trained assassin went straight for the jugular, his words a knife, his voice regaining enough volume so that people on the promenade began to look.
Infuriated dread froze Julian's progress, alternating flashes of hot and cold warring for dominance. He forced in deep lungfuls of air, his thread of control slipping.
“Perhaps such things are beneath you now?” Garak continued, an air of false levity entering his tone.
Julian rounded on him, eyes alight with fury “Beneath me?” He seethed between clenched teeth. “And here I thought it was I beneath you.” He spat “But as always perhaps it is a different story when you actually want something from me.” The venom dripped from his words as he began to stalk back up to the cardassian.
Garak straightened but the mask that came up to cover his shock was a fraction of a second too late.
“Have I finally, momentarily regained some of my usefulness for at least the next eight minutes that you’d grace me with your illustrious company?” Julian got up in Garak's personal space and used what little height he had over him to loom.
“I see that since your reveal as an augment you've let your bedside manner slip, are we all now expected to endure a doctor that feels it appropriate to try and intimidate their patients?”
Julian reeled back a step as if he'd been slapped, his anger fell through his fingers and hurt stepped to the forefront, eyes searching the Cardassians, betrayed. Garak caught the look and his own projected anger faltered as Julians slid his back into place.
“Fuck off Garak.” He spat and turned to leave. Baulking in startled outrage Garak forgot himself enough to let Julian get a good few meters ahead of him before, snapping out of it, he rushed to close the distance and grabbed him by the arm.
“Get off me!” Julian shouted turning, pushing Garak into the bulkhead, but Garak didn't let go, his arm still outstretched, clinging onto Bashir's, a desperate need gripped him that he could not process. He knew something significant was occurring, he could almost taste the vulnerability in the air and trying to mask his own was difficult enough without having to deal with another's.
He gripped the arm like he gripped the only other thing he was sure of. Argument. The easiest thing to process in the tumult of this exchange, the feelings were complicated, debate was not.
“Adding injury to injury I see, I suppose violence is in the nature of an au-”
“Augment?!” Julian’s voice reverberated around the promenade, somewhere deep inside he knew he was making a scene, but for all he was perceiving it might as well be only the two of them. “ Well all the more reason to let me go!”
The dam of his anger was crumbling, each word eroding away the structure, the only thing holding back a torrent of pain. He paused, panting. “Wouldnt want to be treated by an augment would you?!” a deep breath “Like no one does on this station!” The shout was broken, it seemed to come from another throat, another person, far away. Surely that wasn't his voice, pathetic and wavering. But no it was his, as he observed open mouthed shock strike Garak dumb, his grip gone slack. Pulling back, yanking his arm out of Garak's grasp Julian stalked away.
Footsteps vibrated through the floor a couple of seconds before Julian flew forward, slammed painfully against the bulkhead of an alcove. The shadows concealed the pair from the pedestrians hurrying by, fear urging them to turn a blind eye, hurry on, not be caught between the rage of a rumored spy and a human augment.
Julian tried to push away from the cold metal pressed against his face but Garak’s weight crushed against his back, suffocating. Disorientation made his vision swim briefly as Garak flipped him over to face him, his arm across the Doctor's chest, pinning him. Julian knew his scowl did nothing to hide his feelings, he could not see Garak's expression mere inches away through unshed tears.
The sight cracked Garak's resolve to remain angry, but it was the only outlet he had for the mixed and complex feelings that churned like blades in his chest cavity. After so long compressing them the pressure had built to unstable levels. He had to turn the release the valve on this, like venting excess plasma, dangerous and ugly, but oh so necessary.
“Such melodrama, you'd think the revelation was the end of the world.” he sneered.
Indignant perplexity flashed on the Doctor's face, momentarily beside himself.
“I was almost arrested a week ago! I almost lost everything! Everything I've ever worked for! My job, my medical licence, my freedom!” With that last shout the Dam finally broke, his anger evaporating, leaving the cold core of despair in its place. His face slackened and voice dropped, losing all of the vehemence that drove it, reforming into something broken, beseeching, his large eyes roaming over the Cardassians face looking for any flicker of understanding.
“But you didn't.” Garak replied softer, no longer able to maintain the cool ambivalence to keep the Doctor at bay, no longer able to conjure a shield of rage to hide behind. The Doctor's eyes, so open, so vulnerable, a glimmer of the naive boy he'd once been reflected in their shine. The tension seeped out of his body, the arm holding the Doctor pinned loosened, his defenses once again proved to be made of nothing but paper where Julian was concerned.
“Barely.” Julian breathed, “Garak I have lived in constant fear my entire life about people finding out.” He lowered his voice to a whisper “ People like me have been…disapeared.”
Scarastic skepticism entered his tone “By the federation? The sanctimonious utopia where everyone is welcome?”
“Theres no proof of course, but all those captured were not seen again, no records at all.” And the fear Garak saw in Julian confirmed its veracity, he let his own shock seep through. Julian took a deep breath “ The eugenics war left its mark on earth, people…Starfleet are terrified of the past repeating itself.”
Silence stretched between them as Garak took it all in.
“ It's only because of a backhanded deal between my Father and Starfleet that I got to keep my freedom at all. I was ready to hand in my badge before that odious little rat could report me.”
“Rat?”
“Doctor Zimmerman.”
Recognition flared in Garak's eyes “That person that was going to make an EMP of you?”
The Doctor nodded, deflated, eyes cast down losing the energy to even look him in the eye.
“How did he find out?” Garak asked, gaining a bitter little laugh from Bashir.
“My mother talked about my augmentations to my hologram thinking it was me.” Jullian huffed a humorless laugh.
“Careless.” Garak replied, blank.
A wry hum of agreement slipped out of Julian.
“I'm lucky Miles was near when it happened, I wouldn't have been in any position to do anything about it, I had a bit of a breakdown.”
Only the sound of shuffling of fabric penetrated the silence as Garak shifted, uncomfortable, he looked with apprehension at Julian.
“I didn’t hear of the details of these events, I only read the report of the outcome.” He sounded at once apologetic and a sliver defencive.
Julian scoffed “Well when was I meant to tell you? You've made it quite clear you wanted nothing more to do with me since the ordeal of the camp.” some of the consternation returned to his face “You've avoided me at every turn.”
A look of regret crept over Garak's features.
He had felt nothing but anger in hearing, second hand, the news of Julian's augmentations except perhaps resentment and wounded pride. The idea that the once most feared and efficient interrogator in the Obsidian order had been tricked by a federation poster boy stung like salt in a wound. He'd never felt so obsolete. Worse still was the revelation that despite his natural reticence, he of all people had let Julian in on his life by degrees then all at once by letting him witness Tain's shri- tal, something that was only permissible to family by blood or marriage. He had let him know him, see him as no one had ever had, but Julian did not feel close enough to let him in. It had pained him to think his stubborn and traitorous feelings he harbored for years were indeed one sided.
Garak had become frightened by his lapse at the camp, his misstep. If another Cardassian had found out what he had done, disrespected the great Enabrain Tain in such a way over a human of all things, a human that in five years never gave any indication that his feelings were reciprocated, Garak would have been exiled twice over. Sentiment as ever was his greatest weakness, a lesson that seemed to constantly slip from his eidetic memory. No more. He decided to finally push away from the good Doctor and began trying to rebuild his walls while his grief conjured the afterimage of Tain's ghost leering down at him from the shadows. Telling him in no uncertain terms how much of a disgrace he was, laughing that the supposed loyal son of Tain had become a mere federaji pet. Misery had eaten at him then, as the loneliness crept back in, sowing doubt into his social retreat, craving fiercely the comfort of his friend. Then vindication had arrived,hot and bittersweet. The whispers of the Doctor's augmentations began worming its way through the station, and he felt the momentary rush of victory. There it said, look how foolish you were thinking that this creature was worth betraying your values, becoming soft. It might have been all a lie, this friendship that you so desperately clung to, that you let sway you from your purpose, clearly the boy was more adept at deception than you’d given him credit for.
But in looking into those open hazel eyes pouring with unchecked emotion, he could see the grief swimming within, the loneliness that echoes his own, the fear the man had carried all his life apparently that he would be caught and punished for the crime of existing. His anger at the Doctor's revelations had withered on the vine fairly quickly when he found out, only to sour into bitterness and resentment as he sat alone in his quarters licking his wounded pride. A resentment that now seemed blatantly childish. There were plenty of secrets Garak had kept from the man from sheer necessity, and here he was judging the Doctor for doing the same. Shame engulfed him suddenly, once again in his efforts to shield himself from his own weaknesses he had only made matters worse. First with the implant and now here with the only person on the station and maybe even the Galaxy he would call a friend. The one person that had been there for him at his lowest and had not had the favour returned for him.
All his instincts were telling him to keep quiet, deflect, maybe throw in a joke to lighten the mood. But he knew that wasn't going to cut it, and a sudden nauseating wave of self loathing buoyed him enough over his own pride to force out “I apologize Doctor for my absence.” It was an active effort to speak the words aloud, it was going against his very nature to be so forthright, but this was important, he had to persevere. “I…I'm afraid I did not handle the events of the camp well.” There is a beat of heavy silence during which Julian's eyes slowly begin to soften.
“You know me well enough by now to understand that I do not appreciate people seeing my… vulnerabilities.” he gritted out between clenched teeth and took a breath. “Some vulnerabilities I regrettably could not conceal.” His face twisted in sudden distaste before relaxing into something more open.
“Some. Some I willingly revealed myself.” Julian's mind went back to Tains Shri-Tal, he knew at the time that his viewing it would have been seen to be illicit in the eyes of Cardassia. An outsider, a federation human eavesdropping on the most private moments of the great Enabrian Tain. Not even taking into account the revelations they contained and their significance.
“It is the most-” Garak mouth opened and closed, the words that were rushed out coming to a complete and utter halt.
“I should have concealed-” again the words were stuck to the inside of his throat as if braced, and frustration rose in Garak, agitation clear as day alighted his face, his grip on Julian tightened with the effort of ejecting the words.
“You have already seen me at such lows, I would not subject you to-” Again he faltered and his eyes pressed closed, he breathed deep and forced “I should have been there for-” nothing. Defeated, he let out the breath.
“I should have been there.” he sighed, not looking at Julian.
Julian relaxed his stance leaning into the bulkhead, all his previous tension evaporated as Garak's words from the camp flashed into his mind ‘Sentiment is the greatest weakness of all’. He heard the words that Garak could not say, his need to hide from weakness, and if sentiment was weakness, he'd been hiding from Julian, pushing him away, afraid of the vulnerability.
The very real sentiment.
Julian sighed, realising admission of wrongdoing was not Garak's strong suit and the attempt spoke volumes.
“It's alright.” His lip quirked upwards and a sliver of levity threaded its way into his voice. “Maybe next time.”
Garak grabbed onto that sliver desperately, brightening “Oh? Do you have any more life changing secrets to reveal?” He teased.
“I'd have to kill you if I told you.” Bashir smirked.
“Turning into quite the black horse doctor.” A smile threatened Garak's lips.
“Dark horse Garak, the saying is Dark horse.” and a real smile broke out on Julian's face for the first time since his outing.
After a moment, bonelessly being propped up still by Garak's arm, Julian sighed “I could do with a drink, or seven” he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands as if to ward off a headache, just like the one that had Garak crawling out to the infirmary last minute to try and avoid as many people as possible.
“Perhaps that wouldn't be such a bad idea for myself either as it seems the infirmary is no longer an option.”
Julian rolled his eyes “You know full well that it's still open, you're perfectly capable of walking back there now and getting treated.” Which only earned him a look of incredulous disapproval.
“Hardly Doctor, I won't subject myself to the tender mercies and scorn of the Bajoran nurses, I have no wish to be stared at or made a spectacle of. Quarks, I suppose will have to suffice in the self medicating department.” Julian grimaced.
“I’d rather not go to Quarks, because I don't want to be stared at or made a spectacle of.”
There was a pause “What do you propose then?”
Julian breathed deeply, considering. “Well, I happened to have procured a couple of bottles of kannar a good while back that I was going to gift to you, but then you landed yourself in prison and things since then, rather got in the way.” Julian put on an air of glibness, but the regret at how things had gone between them underscored it all.
“We could go to my quarters and make sure they don't go to waste.” He said tentatively, one eyebrow raised. “That is if you don't mind drinking with an augment.” A small look of challenge flashed in his eyes, the moment of truth, was it unsalvagable? He hoped beyond anything that it was salvageable, that Garak could put aside his disgust of his enhancements the way Julian forgave him for his past, and they could at least go back to speaking terms. He felt like he had when he first came onto the station, friendless and avoided by all but one man, and now he waited with baited breath to see if that same man would offer his company one more time.
“You know Doctor, genetic engineering is not illegal on Cardassia, there is no stigma attached to it, it's just very expensive for the average person to afford, and thus rare to see.”
A look of blank confusion took over Julian's face and he blinked a few moments as even his augmented brain struggled to process the information.
“Garak you just spent the last ten minutes shouting insults at me in the middle of the promenade all centered around my augmentations. You seemed disgusted.” Garak had the good grace to look sheepish for a moment thinking of the selfish reasoning for his bitterness compared with the ordeal the Doctor had to endure, before he schooled his features into controlled nonchalance.
“I was merely trying to provoke you into conversation.” Julian baulked in outraged exasperation and so he amended “I may have overstepped.”
“You may have?”
“Perhaps.”
“Perhaps?”
“A very small possibility, I like to keep an open mind about these things.”
A bark of laughter burst out of Julian before he even knew it was happening, it felt like a great big pustulant boil had popped and leeched the poison out of him. One of the most bleak moments of his life suddenly flipped a switch and turned on the light. Could it be that easy? One shouting match and everything was right as rain again? Who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth?
“Well then my dear Mr Tailor, onward.”