Chapter Text
In the early days of their friendship, Garak had a particular way of looking at Julian, as if he wanted to devour him whole. It had gradually faded out of frequent use over time; the looks Garak gave him now were softer, warmer. It was even a point of pride for Julian, that he was someone of whom Garak was willing to be openly fond.
He hadn’t even realized that he missed that old ravenous look, until seeing it on Garak’s face again made his heart rate jump into warp.
“Cardassians must have some foreplay beyond arguing, don’t they?” He had read enough Cardassian literature at this point to know what a certain kind of heated disagreement meant. If anything, that was another sign of how little Garak wanted this. He hadn’t argued ferociously against it, probably to avoid giving Julian the wrong idea.
“I’d hate to put you out of your comfort zone, Doctor. How do humans begin?”
Purposefully unhelpful, as far as responses went, but it wouldn’t be Garak without some needless deflection.
“Kissing, usually,” Julian said. There was more he could say—that in humans it stimulated the release of endorphins, oxytocin, and dopamine, that it involved the coordination of over thirty muscles—but Garak was looking at him like he was a feast and suddenly even swallowing seemed to take a good deal of effort.
“Go ahead,” Garak said, giving no indication that he intended to move himself, the unhelpful prick. He was leaving it to Julian to cross the proverbial Rubicon. (Julian should tell Garak about that idiom, come to think of it; he’d probably like that it ended in dictatorship.)
“Here I go,” said Julian.
“Do you?”
That was a challenge, and if there was one thing Julian lived to do it was rise to meet whatever challenge Garak set for him. He stood from his own chair, crossed the scant few steps to Garak’s, and awkwardly straddled Garak’s lap.
The choice to sit on top of him startled Garak. You could tell when he was genuinely surprised by the way his eyes went wide. Julian had wondered once if that was why he kept them purposefully wide in so many of his false expressions, in order to conceal a real tell.
Julian brought his hands to Garak’s face, and for a moment did nothing but rest there, memorizing the sensation of the hard ridge of scales beneath his fingertips. Slowly, delicately, he leaned forward, pressed their lips together, and pulled back.
His vision seemed full of nothing but Garak’s eyes, round and impossibly blue.
“You have lovely eyes,” Julian said, a little foolishly, and then there was the warm pressure of a hand at the back of his head, and their lips met again, once, twice, three times, until there was no pause of breath in between, no way to keep count as they melted together. Julian tangled his fingers in Garak’s hair, stiff from whatever product held it combed back, and enjoyed the scrape of alien scutes against his skin. Garak always complained about being cold, but Julian had never felt hotter in his life; every inch of him burned, and nowhere more so than where Garak’s touch seared his waist and neck.
Necks– now, there was an idea. Julian pulled away long enough to change his angle of attack and began mouthing his way along the ridge that ran from behind Garak’s ear down to his shoulders. He had no idea if it would be possible to leave a love bite there, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to try.
Garak made a delicious sound at that, which thrilled Julian right to his core. Self-contained, Cardassians are the people of discipline Garak was losing control.
Garak’s hands moved, plucking and pulling at the sleeves of Julian’s uniform.
“Off,” he ordered, and Julian didn’t need to be told twice. Obediently, he pulled back and hastily undid the front of his jacket, slipping it off his arms and letting it drop to the floor, his long-sleeved blue undershirt following quickly after. Garak’s hands immediately returned to Julian’s torso, stroking up and down his chest, passing over Julian’s nipples, once lightly and then again, harder, after seeing how the touch made him shiver.
“This is, ah, a little uneven, isn’t it?” Julian managed, patting ineffectually at Garak’s own heavy tunic.
“Was that a request, Doctor?” Garak purred. Hearing his voice like that, a low, sensual rumble, went straight to Julian’s cock, but the use of the title was jarring. On the whole, Julian generally kept his profession out of bed (barring one or two pre-negotiated roleplay scenarios that had happened with an interested partner). He wanted to know that he was being desired for himself, not because his companion had a particular medical kink they wanted sated.
Except they weren’t doing this because Garak desired it. They were doing it because of a prejudiced bureaucrat who couldn’t mind his own business, and the harsh reality of war throwing Garak unceremoniously into a second exile. Even if Garak was currently doing something extremely clever with his tongue that just about turned Julian’s knees to jelly, this was likely the only time they’d get to have this. Once for the paperwork, and then never again, while Garak in all likelihood distanced himself or lashed out to compensate for the forced vulnerability.
He still hadn’t taken off his shirt. He never did around Julian, at least not voluntarily. (Being changed into an infirmary robe while unconscious did not count.) Thus far, he had ensured that Julian never saw him undressed in their shared quarters, had never even so much as rolled up a sleeve. He didn’t want Julian to see him that way.
Fuck. This wasn’t right.
“Garak, stop,” Julian panted, and Garak paused his ministrations, tilting his head to look at Julian curiously.
It would be easy, dangerously easy, to keep going, to satisfy every bit of curiosity Julian had about Cardassian anatomy and every sordid fantasy he’d ever wanked off to, and none of it would mean anything at all, because Garak was only doing this as a means to stay alive.
If this was the point of no return, what lay beyond it?
Climbing off Garak’s lap was an even more ungainly process than getting into it had been. Julian’s ears burned.
“I… I can’t do this,” he said hoarsely, and looked away, unable to meet Garak’s eyes. He should go for his shirt on the floor, redress himself, but even the slightest movement felt heavy, weighted with lead. He could only stand there, hanging his head.
Garak, concerningly, said nothing.
“Are you angry?” Julian asked, and even in his own ears his voice sounded small.
A pause. He wondered if it was intentional, Garak giving him a moment to stew in his own insecurity on purpose. He probably deserved it.
“No,” Garak said at last. “You aren’t attracted to Cardassians. It’s hardly in your control.”
“Not attracted to–” Julian’s head shot up. “Is that what you think?”
Garak certainly looked serious, although the trouble was that his lies and his truths often looked more or less the same. His pupils were dilated, his breathing a little fast, his hair in disarray, but those were all points in favor of sincerity. Usually, unwanted vulnerability and embarrassment made him sharp-tongued and quick to strike, not bland and understanding.
“Or older men. I wouldn’t dare assume.”
Julian had heard Garak say any number of ridiculous things over the course of their time together on the station, from the very first moment when he had used a new suit as a pretense to lure Julian into his shop to just last month when he had tried to convince Worf that he had never heard of opera. Somehow, this was still one of the most absurd things to ever have come out of that lovely lying mouth.
There was really no excuse for what came out of Julian’s own mouth next, except that he was addled with feel-good chemicals and self-loathing and bafflement, and had just tied himself into knots about exploiting the man he was in love with, who he had always assumed had at least some vague awareness of his interest.
“I have been wanting to sleep with you for five years,” Julian said, and the words came out a little too fast, a little too loud. Garak’s eyes narrowed.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” There was the sharpness Julian had expected.
“Ridiculous? I’m the one being ridiculous? What could possibly make you think I’m not attracted to you?” It was Garak who had been disinterested, Garak who flirted but didn’t mean it. Julian’s own desires had always been humiliatingly transparent.
Garak scoffed. “If you were attracted to me, there would have been no doubt. You’ve never been afraid to make your interest in a woman perfectly clear.”
The statement itself was mild enough, but the disdain dripping from Garak’s tone transformed it into an insult. Julian glared.
“When exactly was I supposed to make a move on you?” he demanded. “During the first two years on the station when everyone still thought you were working for the Cardassians? While you were dying? When you tried to blow up a planet while I was standing on it and spent the next six months in custody?”
“And when was I supposed to intuit your interest? While you were chasing Lieutenant Dax, or while you were dating Miss Leeta?”
Julian threw up his hands. “When I proposed to you and told you that you were a good husband!”
He had meant the compliment, a little surprised but deeply grateful for the comfort offered after the nightmare. When Garak ignored it, Julian assumed he had made his ersatz husband uncomfortable, and dropped the topic.
If Garak was anyone else in the galaxy, he might have conceded at that point. Being Garak, however, he would never run out of arguments to make.
“You said your captain had ordered you to find me a solution for citizenship. Hardly the stuff of romance. I, on the other hand, honored your cultural traditions and got you a ring, which you appear to have lost.”
“Oh, I’ve lost it, have I?” Infuriated, Julian turned on his heel and stalked over to the bag that carried the few possessions he had brought with him from the station. The order had been to pack light; anything that could be replicated should be left behind.
He didn’t have much in the way of personal belongings that couldn’t be replicated. The only thing he always brought with him from place to place, that couldn’t be left behind, sat just inside the bag. He reached in and pulled it out, grip firm but gentle, then turned to demonstrate the proof.
In his hands was a worn brown bear, and around its neck, looped on a bit of ribbon for safekeeping, was a plain band, almost entirely black except for the thread of silver running through it.
“There!” he said triumphantly, holding his prize aloft. “Kukalaka has been keeping it safe for me.”
Garak was not merely wide-eyed with surprise; he looked absolutely thunderstruck.
“You kept it,” he said, with as much awe as if Julian had just cured a plague. (More, in fact, since curing a plague was the sort of thing people had come to expect from Julian, as much as playing racquetball or spending time with Miles.)
“You really thought I’d leave it behind?”
Garak didn’t answer that, although the truth was so self-evident he didn’t need to. Instead, he looked from Kukalaka to the discarded pieces of Julian’s uniform, as if puzzling out how they fit together.
“If, as you claim, you’ve been wanting this, why did you stop?” he asked.
Just the act of asking such a question was startlingly raw honesty, coming from Garak. Julian tried to match it with his own.
“I do want you… but only if you want me too. Not for a form, but for me,” he tried clumsily to explain, aware that it was only too easy to spook Garak off with the slightest whiff of sentiment.
“I could easily have forged the form.”
“I already told you, there would be consequences to falsifying the data.”
Garak considered Julian with the same expression he wore when Julian claimed to have solved an enigma tale. A little impressed, a little smug because Julian hadn’t gotten it exactly right, and beautifully fond.
“Doctor, I said yes because I wanted to. If there was any reluctance, it was in preparing myself to accept that this was the only way I could have you.”
Caught up in trying to win an argument, Julian hadn’t fully processed the implications of what Garak was saying. Now, it smacked him over the head. Garak wanted him . Garak wanted him, and had assumed that meant he couldn’t have him, and in the strength of that belief had missed all evidence to the contrary–as, it seemed, had Julian.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d call me Julian. Particularly while I’m half-dressed,” he said, gesturing down at his bare chest. ( You know how much I prefer you out of uniform , Garak had commented. If he really did mean it…)
Garak’s eyes tracked the movement of Julian’s hand. It wasn’t wishful thinking to read desire in his gaze.
“That might be a difficult change to get used to,” he warned.
“You can call me husband, if it’s easier.”
“Husband.” Garak met Julian’s eye, and his smile made Julian’s heart do a funny little flip into his throat. “My dear husband.”
“We’ve gone about this terribly backwards, haven’t we?”
“Anything for a good argument.”
Julian laughed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had done so, and it loosened something tight in his chest he hadn’t even known was there.
“Would you like to go on a real date with me sometime? Assuming we don’t all get blown to pieces by the Jem’Hadar.”
They would keep up their lunches, of that he was certain, but the tantalizing possibility of more was blooming, the nearly unfamiliar feeling of hope for the future.
“That’s a rather significant assumption. I would hate to keep the vice admiral waiting on your paperwork in the meantime. You know how we Cardassians pride ourselves on attention to detail.”
Julian was certainly in favor of the idea, but did feel compelled to point out, “You don’t have to do this.”
“Not in a chair,” Garak agreed, with an unimpressed glance at his seat, “but I think the bed poses some interesting possibilities.”
Could it really be so easy?
“You still haven’t said yes, you know. To the date. To sleeping with me. You never even really said yes to my proposal, you just showed up in my quarters with a ring and let me infer.”
“You never really asked,” Garak countered. “You simply declared that we should get married and started flinging soup.”
Julian considered arguing this. Then, slowly, deliberately, got down on one knee. (A human custom Garak didn’t know about or understand, and thus would delight in picking apart.)
“Garak,” he began, and wet his lips. “Life in Starfleet is full of uncertainty, especially in wartime. I don’t know what will come next. I don’t know if we’ll ever return to the station. I don’t even know where I’ll be posted next week. But I care for you, and I’d like to be with you, for as long as you’ll have me, in whatever way you’ll have me. Elim Garak, will you marry me?”
He had no new ring to offer, but held out Kukalaka, his constant companion and the only remaining tie to the child he had once been.
Garak smiled meltingly at him. “My dear, nothing would make me happier.”
“You liar. Plenty of things would make you happier.” An end to the war, for one; an end to exile, for another.
The smile shifted, growing much smaller but softer at the corners, becoming something more real.
“Yes, Julian. I will marry you.” He stood and took Kukalaka with reverent care, placing him gently on the chair while Julian rose from his spot on the floor.
They met in the middle for their kiss, this time, and Julian could feel the press of every finger against his bare back, the dig of blunt nails into his skin. (He should ask Garak to leave marks, he thought, somewhere conspicuous, so that next time he walked past Jellico the man might consider minding his own business.)
Garak’s mouth slid from Julian’s lips to his ear to murmur, “I believe I mentioned before that I think the bed is the most appropriate venue.”
Grinning impossibly wide, Julian stepped back and gestured with a broad sweep of his arm towards the bedroom door.
“After you, husband.”
“Thank you, husband,” Garak said, with a formal bow of his head.
There were far worse things you could do, Julian thought, than marry a good friend you were in love with.
They stepped forward together.