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It had been three days since Garak had spoken to him.
Actually, it had been a good deal longer than that –– Julian had been in the Gamma Quadrant, trying to cure the Teplan blight, for over a month. They had last spoken the night before he’d left on what was meant to be a week-long assignment but had, obviously, ended up taking much longer.
He’d been looking forward to coming home and seeing Garak, having missed him terribly during the month he was away. He’d spent the trip home on the runabout daydreaming of their reunion until Kira teased him mercilessly for his distraction.
Garak hadn’t met them at the airlock, which was not so very unusual; even though everyone knew about their relationship, they did try not to be too obvious in public, and he was a private person by nature. But Julian had sent him a comm message from the runabout, once they got through the wormhole to let him know that he was home, and he’d expected Garak to show up at his quarters in short order.
He hadn’t appeared, nor had he given Julian any sort of response. Julian could see that the message had been read but there was no reply. After several hours, Julian had gone so far as to ask the computer whether Garak was on the station and was told that he was in his shop.
Julian had thought about going to see him, but the truth was that he was tired. It had been a long month, working very long hours and living in rather uncomfortable conditions, and he was... well, he was sad, because he’d saved Ekoria’s baby but she wouldn’t watch him grow up, and so while he’d been praised by the Teplans for his work, he still felt himself to be a failure. He didn’t have the energy to figure out what was going on with Garak.
I’m going to bed early, he finally messaged Garak, when 2100 had come and gone and he’d still received no reply to his earlier message. Lunch tomorrow?
He woke in the morning, somewhat refreshed after ten hours of sleep in his own bed. He felt he could still sleep longer, and he needed a few good meals to replace the weight he’d lost while living on field rations, but that shouldn’t be hard on the station. He rolled over and reached for his PADD.
Garak had read his message at 2126 the night before. He had not responded.
Something was clearly wrong. Garak had never just not responded to him before. Their entire relationship was based on conversation and a certain amount of conflict. It was one of the things Julian found most reassuring about it. With Palis, he’d always had to guess at what she was thinking and feeling. Garak was evasive in certain areas, such as his health, but he generally found ways to make it very clear to Julian if something had upset him.
Julian supposed he was making it clear now, but he had no idea what the cause of it was. He hadn’t even been here the past month, so how could he have possibly upset him?
Julian sighed and got out of bed. He was on leave for the next two days, but he had his report to write. He might as well get a head start on that, and of course he had no intention of giving up on finding a cure for the blight.
He spent his morning writing. At lunchtime, he got dressed and headed to the Replimat. He got his food and claimed their usual table with the blue irises, sitting so that he could keep an eye on the Replimat’s entrance. It was harder than he expected, though, since to his surprise, people kept coming up to welcome him back to the station. Those included people he knew well, such as his staff, but also a number of station residents and Starfleet crew members he didn’t know as well. It was gratifying, really, but it meant that he almost missed Garak entering the Replimat and getting his food to go.
“Garak!” Julian said, getting to his feet and dodging around two of his Bajoran patients with a mumbled apology. “Garak!”
Garak turned, and Julian faltered. His expression was... frosty, to say the least. “Did you get my message?” Julian managed.
“I did, Doctor. I’m afraid I do not have time for lunch today. As you can see, I will be taking my food back to my shop with me.”
“That’s okay,” Julian said, soldiering determinedly on. “What about dinner tonight, then? My place. Or yours, if you prefer,” he added, because Garak often preferred the climate settings in his own quarters at the end of a long day.
Several beats of silence passed. Julian didn’t get the impression that Garak was thinking the invitation over, so much as letting him stew in his anxiety. Finally he said, “No.”
That was all. No explanation. No offering of an alternative. Just a flat, “No.”
Stunned, Julian watched Garak turn and walk away. He went back to the table to find that everyone else had scattered, probably to allow him the polite fiction that he hadn’t just been completely stonewalled by his own lover in public. There was a lot of food on his tray, but he couldn’t stomach any of it. He put it all in the recycler and left the Replimat.
He suddenly felt quite ill. A little desperately, he cast around for a place to be alone and finally stumbled into the observation deck. It was deserted this time of day, and Julian sat, staring out the viewport.
What had he done? What had happened to turn Garak so cold toward him? What had he done? After a lifetime of social missteps, he was accustomed to not knowing why some people reacted poorly to him, but in all the years of their friendship, Garak had never made him feel like this. He felt like the rug had been pulled out from beneath him.
What had he done?
Two days later, he still didn’t know. But subsequent messages had gone unanswered, and Garak had proven quite masterful at never being anywhere that Julian was. Julian had tried going into his shop, but Garak had ignored him entirely, to the discomfort of both Julian and his other customers, until he’d finally just left.
It was shocking how much it hurt. Julian had never liked being ignored; the silent treatment had been a favorite technique of his mother’s when he was growing up, and it made him feel... well, it made him feel worthless. And now, it seemed that Garak had made the decision to end their relationship –– and not just their romantic relationship but their friendship as well, which had meant so much to both of them –– and Julian didn’t even know why.
On Julian’s third evening back on the station, Miles showed up at Julian’s office, where he was listlessly running nucleotide sequences. “Come on, we’re going to Quark’s,” he announced. “And before you try, I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer. You need a beer, a good meal, and a game of darts.”
“I don’t see how that is going to help anything,” Julian grumbled, but he let himself be dragged away from his console. The numbers had started to blur together, anyway.
Quark’s was bustling that evening. They claimed their usual dartboard, and Miles went to get a round of drinks. Julian threw a few darts on his own, practicing being just off enough. It had been a little while since he’d had to pretend like this; he’d gotten sloppy on Teplan after Jadzia had left, much less worried than usual that anyone would notice if he was too fast or too smart. Miles returned with their drinks and the two of them settled into a game.
Two drinks and several rounds of darts in, Miles cleared his throat. “So... not that I really understand anything about your relationship with Garak, but... things seem to be a bit... icy between the two of you right now.”
“You could say that,” Julian muttered, and let fly two darts in a row.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know, Miles,” Julian replied, lining up for his third. “You’d have to ask him. He isn’t talking to me.”
“What, at all?”
“At all,” Julian confirmed, going to collect his darts. “I have no idea why. I haven’t even been here, so I quite literally have no clue what I could have done to piss him off so badly that he’s apparently decided to end our relationship and never speak to me again!”
“Whoa, whoa,” Miles said, taking Julian by the arm. He gently extracted the darts from Julian’s balled-up fist. “Hey, it’s okay.”
“It’s not, though,” Julian muttered. He sat down heavily at their table and took a deep draught of his Romulan ale. “I know you don’t get it, but that relationship was the best I’ve ever had. And now it’s over and he won’t even tell me why.”
Miles sighed and sat down across from him. “Listen, the way Garak’s behaving is not... good. But I might have a little insight about what happened.”
Julian glanced up in surprise. “You do? What?”
Miles hesitated for a moment. “Julian, how did you handle things with Garak when you decided to stay in the Gamma Quadrant?”
“Handle things?” Julian repeated, confused. “What do you mean, ‘handle things’?”
Miles shrugged. “Well, for example, if it had been me on that mission, and I’d stayed behind to, I dunno, fix a planet’s subspace relays or something, I would’ve recorded a message for Keiko, letting her know what was going on and telling her roughly when I thought I’d be back. I’d make sure to tell her I loved her and Molly, too. And I’d’ve asked Dax to make sure she got the message once she returned to the station.”
“Oh,” Julian said faintly. That seemed... so obvious, in hindsight. “I didn’t do any of that.”
“I had a feeling,” Miles sighed. “Especially since Dax mentioned that Garak contacted her a couple days after she and Kira got back to ask where you were.”
Julian winced. “Oh.”
“Yeah. None of this excuses the way he’s treating you now,” Miles added hastily, “but I think, maybe, that... hurt his feelings. And probably embarrassed him, too.”
“Yes. I imagine you’re right. Oh God.” Julian covered his face with his hands. “I really put my foot in it.”
“Little bit,” Miles agreed, getting up to have his own turn at the board. “But he’s also throwing a completely disproportionate strop. And let me tell you, as someone who’s been married for a bit, the silent treatment is never a good way to handle things. What you did was thoughtless and inconsiderate, but he’s deliberately hurting you, and as your friend, I don’t love it.”
Julian shook his head. “No, you’re right. But I need to try and make this right, if he’ll let me. And if he doesn’t, at least I know what I did. Thanks, Miles.”
“Don’t mention it.” Miles paused to throw, and then went and retrieved the darts. “Can’t believe I’m giving you advice on your relationship with Garak,” he muttered. “Just to be clear, it’s not because I like him, I just can’t stand watching you moping about the station.”
“I understand,” Julian said, draining the last of his beer. “I appreciate it all the more, in fact. This round’s on me.”
Julian threaded his way through the crowd and up to the bar, where he ordered another round. He leaned against the bar while he waited; after a moment, he felt a strange prickling on the back of his neck, as though he was being watched. He turned around and glanced up, only to see Garak at a table on the second level. Watching him.
The moment their gazes met, Garak looked away. But it was too late. The facade of indifference was broken. Julian was suddenly all the more certain that Miles was right. It wasn’t that Garak didn’t care, it was that he was hurt.
Julian had the urge to do something about it right away, but he restrained himself. He didn’t run up the stairs to try and catch Garak before he could leave, and he didn’t go into his shop the next morning when he passed by on his way to the infirmary. He didn’t message him to apologize or stake out the Replimat with the hope of seeing him again. Instead, he waited. He waited, and he thought about how he had felt when Garak had been missing in the Gamma Quadrant: worried and helpless and angry at Garak for being so ready to answer Enabran Tain’s call. He thought about what little he knew about Garak’s upbringing, and how he never seemed to have any happy childhood stories to share –– not even ones that were clearly lies. Julian didn’t have that many himself, but he had a few.
He would not have pegged Garak as being conflict avoidant, because he was so ready to challenge Julian’s opinions at every turn. But of course, none of that really meant anything, did it? It wasn’t personal in the same way this was. Garak could reveal only as much of himself as he wished through their debates and even manipulate them for misdirection. For example, Julian was nearly certain that Garak didn’t enjoy The Never-Ending Sacrifice nearly as much as he said he did. He suspected that Garak favored some of the banned exilic writers far more. But in their debates, he could take any stance he wanted, whether he agreed with it or not, and wind Julian up without any real emotional risk to himself.
This was very different. This was the sort of conflict that required trust and vulnerability to resolve. It required both parties to believe that the other person had good intentions and a stake in repairing the damage to the relationship. In that context, Julian thought, it almost made sense that Garak would retreat into a protective shell. He could not bear to reveal to Julian just how hurt he had been when Julian had vanished for a month without so much as a subspace message to explain the situation.
Julian let two days go by. On the third, he took the morning off from the infirmary, dressed in clothes Garak had gifted him only a couple weeks before he’d left for the Gamma Quadrant, and went to the arboretum.
The arboretum was quiet, as he had expected. There was only one person there, tending to the plants in his raised beds –– a mix of Cardassian and Terran flora, tomatoes right next to red-leaf, lettuce interspersed with elta. The artificial sunlight was warm on Julian’s face and pervaded the room with a gentle glow.
“Good morning, Garak.”
Garak’s trowel never missed a single beat. He gave no sign that he’d heard anything. Julian hadn’t expected anything else.
Julian went to the replicator. “One red-leaf tea, unsweetened, and a Tarkalean tea, extra sweet,” he requested. Both appeared, and he took the red leaf tea over to Garak, setting it down on the edge of the raised bed.
There was a small table with four chairs off to the side, for picnics and the like. Julian dragged one of the chairs over so it was closer to Garak and set it down. He settled himself there with his tea and took a fortifying sip.
He had to hope that this was the right thing to do. If it wasn’t... well, then it wasn’t.
“I know you don’t want to talk to me,” Julian said. “So I’m going to talk, and I hope that you’ll listen. I am sorry –– really, truly, deeply sorry –– that I didn’t send any sort of communication to let you know that I was remaining in the Gamma Quadrant. I was completely absorbed with trying to cure the Teplan blight and I wasn’t thinking of anything else, but I should have been. I should have thought of you and realized that of course you deserved to hear from me. I’m sorry, Garak. It will not happen again.”
And then, he stopped talking. That was another piece of advice from Miles: Apologize and then shut the hell up.
Garak didn’t respond. He finished his planting and sat back on his heels, and still he didn’t speak. Julian forced himself to quiet stillness, even while a muscle in the corner of his jaw literally twitched with the urge to fill the silence.
Finally, twelve interminable minutes later, Garak finally spoke. “I didn’t know what to think when your colleagues returned without you,” he said then, still not looking at him. “I expected someone to let me know where you were and why you hadn’t returned, but no one did. And so after two days, I had to go to Lieutenant Dax and ask her where you were. It was humiliating. And the way she looked at me with such –– such pity!”
“Not pity,” Julian objected. “Sympathy, maybe, for having to put up with me.”
Garak snorted.
“I’m really sorry,” Julian said again. “I know that you must have been worried.”
“I was worried,” Garak muttered, looking down at his hands pressing into the dirt. “And I was angry, too. I’m accustomed to you being gone, of course, and I would never begrudge you your duty. But I usually know approximately how long the mission will take. Being left in the dark was... intolerable.”
Julian got up and went to perch on the edge of the raised bed, next to Garak. “I will do everything in my power to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he emphasized. “If I can’t communicate with you myself, I will try to get word to you through someone else. I promise. Do you believe me?”
Garak finally –– finally –– looked at him. He nodded sharply. “I do.”
“Thank you. Now, is there anything I can help with? I took the morning off from the infirmary, so I’m at your disposal.”
Garak looked surprised. “I was going to do some supplemental watering. Some of the Earth plants are a bit dried out.”
“I think I can manage that,” Julian said, and accepted the watering can Garak handed him. For a while, they were both quiet, and Julian considered the best way to broach the second part of the conversation they needed to have. His apology had been simpler, in some ways; he truly was sorry for his part in things. But he couldn’t let the events of the last week slide.
At last they were done. While they were washing their hands in one of the greenhouses, Julian asked, “Would you like something to eat? An ikri bun, perhaps?”
“Ikri buns are only to be eaten with gelat.”
“Well, I do believe the replicator has the pattern for both. I’ll join you.”
Julian took care of replicating the food and drink while Garak put away the gardening tools. Julian moved his chair back to the table and sat down, but he waited until Garak had joined him to take his first sip of gelat. It was bitter on the tongue, like unsweetened coffee, but in combination with the ikri bun, the flavors deepened, revealing heat and spices. “That’s lovely,” he commented.
Garak smiled, clearly pleased. “They are more than the sum of their parts, I find.”
Julian hummed in agreement, then set his ikri bun down. “There is something else I’d like us to talk about.”
Garak went very still. “I assume you are referring to my behavior since your return.”
“I am.”
“I am not... proud of it,” Garak said, haltingly. “I know that you would prefer to handle conflicts between us... directly. I didn’t know where to begin.”
“I think maybe it was more than that,” Julian said gently. “I don’t know much about your childhood, but I would guess that there was an... authoritarian figure? Perhaps your father or a –– a patriarch of some kind?”
Garak glanced at him, then gave a very small nod.
“And perhaps this person used these sorts of techniques on you, when you displeased him?” Julian hazarded. “He ignored you or maybe he isolated you?”
Another very small nod.
“My mother did the same,” Julian said with a sigh. “I think she sometimes felt it was the only way she could exert power in our house. We were often at the mercy of my father’s... whims, I guess you could say. She was extremely conflict-avoidant, so when she was angry, she just... shut down. But that was terrible in its own way. It made me feel worthless. Which is pretty much how I felt when you did it this last week,” he added, in a slightly sharper tone. “I couldn’t figure out what I’d done. Miles had to clue me in.”
Garak frowned. “Chief O’Brien knew?”
“Chief O’Brien has been married a while. He knew exactly what the problem was.” Julian sighed again. “One might argue that I did something similar to you by not communicating to you directly that I’d decided to stay in the Gamma Quadrant for a time. But I didn’t do it intentionally.”
“I did,” Garak admitted. “It wasn’t only that I didn’t know how to begin. I wanted to –– to ––”
“To punish me?”
Garak wouldn’t look at him. He nodded. “I know that it was... wrong. I knew that even while I was doing it. But I couldn’t make myself stop. I couldn’t... give ground.”
“There’s no ground to give, Garak,” Julian said — gently again, as gently as he knew how. “This isn’t a war. We aren’t on opposing sides.”
Garak looked far more astonished by that idea than Julian thought he should have been. “I’m... I have never had a relationship like this.”
“I know. It’s okay that we both have a bit of a learning curve here. But what happened this last week wasn’t okay. The way your father, or whoever it was, treated you wasn’t okay. The way my mother treated me wasn’t okay, either. And I don’t want us to treat each other like that.”
“I don’t want that, either,” Garak said. “I never, ever want to make you feel worthless. I... I am sorry that I did.”
“Thank you,” Julian said. “You’re forgiven.”
At that, Garak’s head came up. “I am?”
“You are. But please, can you promise me not to do it again? It was terrible, Garak. It really was.” Julian’s voice broke a little toward the end, and Garak’s eyes widened.
“Oh my dear doctor,” Garak said, reaching for Julian. In a moment, Julian was out of his seat and sliding into Garak’s lap, burying his face in Garak’s shoulder. “I am so very sorry.”
“Me too,” Julian mumbled. “I can’t believe I didn’t even have Jadzia pass you a message. I was just so completely focused on trying to solve the problem.”
“And did you?” Garak asked, pulling back to look at him.
“No,” Julian admitted, feeling wretched about it all over again. “Not the way I wanted to. I managed to find an inoculation that can be given to birthing parents that will pass to their children. The next generation of Teplans will be born healthy. But I couldn’t save any of their parents or their older siblings. There was this woman... Ekoria. I tried so hard. And her baby will live a healthy life, free of the blight. But without his mother. She hung on just long enough to see him born and then... and then she let go.”
He was weeping by the end of it, the release of a month of stress and exhaustion, of guilt and self-blame, that had never really ended because what he had needed, he realized now, was this. No number of hours running nucleotide sequences — which he had begun to suspect were never going to yield the answers he needed — could possibly compare.
“My dear,” Garak murmured, rubbing a hand up and down Julian’s spine. “I know you carry the world on your shoulders, but I’m quite certain you did everything you could. You couldn’t stay forever.”
“I suppose not,” Julian mumbled. “I haven’t given up, either. I’ve been trying ever since I got back. But nothing’s working.”
“Perhaps what you need is the perspective provided by a little distance,” Garak suggested, leaning back to look at him.
“I can’t just stop,” Julian said, almost panicking at the very idea.
“Not stop,” Garak replied, in a conciliatory tone. “But a break. You seem very tired, my dear, and I strongly suspect that is at least partly my fault.”
“I haven’t been sleeping well,” Julian confessed, letting his head fall forward to rest against Garak’s shoulder. “I did okay that first night back because I was so tired, but ever since...” He sighed. “Would you come over tonight? We could have dinner... talk... and you could stay the night, if you wanted?”
“I would like that,” Garak said, though he sounded hesitant.
“What’s wrong?” Julian asked, raising his head to look at him.
“Nothing, it’s just... is that all?”
“Is what all?”
“This!” Garak gestured between them. “It cannot possibly be this easy. I treated you abominably this last week, and you just –– we’re just –– you asked me to have dinner and stay the night, as though nothing was ever wrong.”
“I’m sorry,” Julian said, withdrawing to his feet. “I understand if you’re still upset ––”
“Not me!” Garak said, standing up. He paced away and then turned back. “Why aren’t you still upset? Why aren’t you –– you ––”
Garak couldn’t seem to form whatever word came next. Julian watched him struggle with it, and finally realized what he was trying to say. “Why am I not punishing you?”
“Yes!”
“Because I love you, darling,” Julian replied. “And that’s not what adults who love each other do. I forgave you, and you forgave me, and we’ve both promised to do better.”
“I promised no such thing,” Garak pointed out harshly. “I said I was sorry, but I did not promise to do better. I’m not sure that I can. I would like to, but nothing, nothing, in my life has prepared me for this. You said before that there is no ground to give, because this isn’t a war, and we aren’t on opposing sides. I understand that such relationships are theoretically possible, but I have never seen one like it.”
“Ever?”
“Ever! So you see, my dear doctor, I am a hopeless case.” He crossed his arms over his chest and widened his stance, as though preparing to — well, to hold his ground.
“Then I suppose,” Julian said slowly, “that it’s a good thing that those are my very favorite kind. I’m stubborn about them, you see. Some might say obsessive. I don’t know how to give up. And that goes double for the people I love.”
“I wish you would stop using that word.”
“Love?”
“Yes!”
“But it’s accurate.”
Garak didn’t respond. For once, he seemed at a total loss. He had not been so surprised the first time Julian had kissed him. Sexual desire, it seemed, was one thing; love and forgiveness was something else entirely, especially when he didn’t expect to die within a few days.
He held still as Julian put his arms around him and rested their foreheads together. Julian could feel the raised edges of his chufa against his own unadorned skin.
He had no idea what he was going to say until he opened his mouth. And then, unbidden, the words came to him. “You do not have to be good.”
Garak physically flinched. “What ––”
“You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.”
“Stop, please,” Garak gasped, but Julian was ruthless.
“You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile, the world goes on.”
Garak held himself rigid in Julian’s arms. “I have never heard a less Cardassian sentiment in my life.”
Julian considered this point. “I suppose not. Which does not, in my opinion, make it wrong. I love you. I forgive you. I ask that you try not to do it again. I would like to have lunch with you, and this evening, when we are both done working, I would like to have dinner and go to bed with you. That is what the soft animal of my body wants. You, close to me. I’ve gone without for long enough.”
“And if I agree to this,” Garak managed, in a voice that was unusually raspy, “you will take a break from trying to solve the problems of the universe for one night?”
“Yes.” If Garak needed to believe he was doing this as a favor to Julian, then Julian could let him believe that.
“All right.”
“Thank you.” Julian cupped Garak’s face in his hands and finally, for the first time in over a month, kissed him. It took time, but slowly, slowly, Garak relaxed, melting into the kiss and into Julian.
***
There was a notable cessation of sound as they walked into the Replimat half an hour later, hand in hand. It lasted for 2.1 seconds, and then resumed, a little louder than before. They ignored the buzz, ordered their food at the replicators, and took a seat at their usual table.
“What you said to me earlier,” Garak said, digging into his sem’hal stew, “you didn’t write that, did you?”
“I only wish,” Julian said ruefully around a mouthful of turkey and cheese and bread. Garak stared at him balefully until he swallowed. “No, it’s a poem called ‘Wild Geese’ by a woman named Mary Oliver. From three, four hundred years ago, I think?” It had been published just after the turn of the millennium in 2004, but even with Garak, Julian was careful not to let on that he could recall such facts too easily.
“I see. Do you know the rest of it?”
Julian was surprised –– and yet, not. Garak seemed to have found the words just as affecting as Julian had the first time he had encountered them, and possibly for similar reasons. He felt as though he had spent his entire life trying, and more often than not failing, to be “good.” To be told, with gentle authority, that he did not have to be, that he did not have to be anything more than his most fundamental self to be worthy of love –– that had, at the time, been a revelation. He still did not always believe it, but the poem lived in the back of his mind nevertheless.
Come to think of it, it was possible that he had thought of it in the moment not only for Garak’s sake, but his own.
“Yes,” he finally said, realizing he’d been quiet too long. “Would you like to hear it?”
“I would.”
Julian put his sandwich down, wiped his hands, and took a sip of his tea to clear his throat. “You do not have to be good,” he said, tempering his voice and holding Garak’s gaze with his own. “You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on.
“Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.
“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting, over and over again announcing your place in the family of things.”
Garak said nothing for a long moment, after Julian had stopped speaking. “A most un-Cardassian sentiment,” he finally managed.
“So you said.” Julian picked up his fork, looking down to hide his own vulnerability. He was suddenly afraid that Garak might tear into the piece as he often did with the literature Julian shared with him. He generally only shared fiction, which felt less fraught. To share poetry that spoke to his soul seemed... risky. But today, for once, doing so also felt worth the risk.
“And yet, despite that, it is rather... appealing.”
Julian raised his head to look at him in shock. Garak stared back for a moment, and then looked down at his neglected stew.
“I’m glad you think so,” Julian said at last, and together, they continued their meal.
Fin.