Fic I'll never write where Dukat decides the biennial Cardassian Festival of Whatever the Fuck (it is never actually specified) should be hosted on Deep Space Nine as a way of bridging the gap between the Cardassian and Bajoran peoples. Sisko and Kira are both Ehhhh about it, but Dukat is obnoxiously persistent until finally the Bajoran government and Federation higher ups are like “K”, on the condition that no Cardassian military (or Order) personnel be allowed. All security for the event will be handled by Odo and Starfleet. Dukat is suspiciously cool with this, which puts everyone on alert, but soon Cardassian vendors and decorators start showing up and they turn out to be pretty chill people, so they let it happen.
While the preparations for the festival are underway, another operation has started. A motherfucker from Garak's past is doing typical motherfucker things on the station. One of these things is scouting Garak's quarters, learning the layout, tracking Garak's routine. It becomes clear very quickly that the rapidly increasing number of Cardassians on DS9 is putting Garak on edge, though, because he seems to be fiddling more with his security protocols, so the motherfucker realizes they need to make their move and they need to make it fast.
They succeed. Sort of. With the circumstances as they are, they had to get a little... creative, but it should do the trick.
By early next morning, every PADD, screen, and computer system on the station is streaming seventy-two different poems on a constant loop. Love poems. Ardent, anguished, often utterly indecent love poems, all with the central theme of being about one Doctor Julian Bashir.
Quark is one of the first to notice the problem, being the type of asshole who opens early despite this only increasing his bottom line by a fraction of a fraction. At first, he's furious that his systems have been tampered with, but after reading a few lines of what his normal menu and advertisements have been replaced with, he's laughing, and by the end of the third poem, he's on the floor.
"Odo!" he shouts, banging on the bastard's door twenty minutes later. "Odo, open up! We've got a problem!"
Odo slinks under the door and slips up between it and Quark's pounding fist with a glare. "Quark! I'm not on duty for another hour. What could possibly be so urgent?"
Quark's sharp little rat teeth are splitting his face clean in half as he holds up the PADD. "Take a look."
Odo scrolls through a couple poems, then squints and scrolls through several more. "Erotic love poetry? I didn't peg you for the type."
"To like erotica? Hoo, I thought you paid better attention than that, Constable."
Odo returns the PADD with a dry expression. "To read."
"Oh, you're hilarious." He taps Odo's chest with the PADD. "The whole station is filled with this stuff. My bar, the Replimat, the Celestial Cafe, the promenade. Someone's either desperate to make a statement, or we've been sabatoged."
Dramatic sci-fi music swells and we get a close-up of Odo’s eerily hairless face and nasal cavity.
The next few hours are dedicated to trying and failing to seize back the servers and briefing the bridge staff on the situation.
"Are we sure these are all about Doctor Bashir?" Sisko's voice booms across Ops. He's on his second cup of coffee and a pile of useless PADDs lay beside him.
Julian has remained stoic throughout the discussion and he remains so now, avoiding eye contact with anyone who's smiling a little too wide. Like Jadzia. "Oh, definitely," she says. "He's mentioned by name in three of them, and several others make a point of highlighting the subject's 'golden sand dune skin', 'aristocratic' features, and 'voice that never stops singing.' Sounds like Julian to me."
A few snickers break out, but Sisko is taking the matter seriously. Thank fuck, Julian thinks. It actually looks like it's giving him a headache, which would make two of them if Julian was capable of having headaches. The captain's rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "And the source..."
"There's a clear data trail back to Garak's quarters. Whoever did this, they wanted us to know where it came from," Kira reports. A muscle jumps in Julian's cheek.
"I tracked Garak down for his statement on the issue," Odo says, gruff, "and he told me he had nothing to do with the virus. In fact, he denied ever having laid eyes on the poems in his life. He's claiming he's been framed." He rolls his eyes.
"Okay," Jadzia says, "we all agree he's lying, right?"
"But which part..."
"Oh, they're Garak's. I've read enough Lloja of Prim to be familiar with traditional Kardasi meter and syntax, and that isn't even going into all the parallels drawn between our doctor and Prime. Sand, heat, rainforests. Bit of Romulan imagery in there, too, if I'm not mistaken. A lot of flowers and vines. Wasn't Garak a gardener?"
"I see no reason why anyone would want to embarass themselves like this," O'Brien cuts in before Jadzia can make it worse. "Even if he is trying to distract us or something, this seems counterproductive in the long term. Everyone’s watching him now, not just us. The rumor mill is running rampant. Not exactly a spy’s MO."
"He did blow up his shop once."
"Because someone was trying to kill him," Julian pipes up for the first time, looking concerned. "Do you think this might be another cry for help?"
"Oh, it's a cry for something," Jadzia quips, and Julian shuts the fuck up.
"Dax," Sisko snaps, like the good benevolent Wormhole Alien Jesus he is, and Dax shuts the fuck up, too. Sisko gives them all the stink eye. "Constable, you're nearly as familiar with Garak as the doctor is," he says, and holds a hand up before any jokes can be made. "What do you think?"
"I don't think he's behind this, sir. None of the pieces add up, and he seemed genuinely agitated when I spoke to him, in his way. At present, I believe he is as much a victim here as the rest of us."
Sisko sighs. "All right. Do we have any idea who is behind this?"
The room is silent for a time, before Odo reluctantly answers for everyone, "Not yet, sir."
"Find out," Sisko demands, "and Chief, get these damn poems off of my reports. Dismissed."
Julian is out of the room before anyone else has stood up.
The rest of the day is spent ducking in and out of his office, only treating those who ask for him by name and keeping all conversations strictly professional. Any mentions of poetry, the festival, Cardassians, or Garak are firmly sidelined, and on a couple occasions, rewarded with a none-too-gentle hypo. He skips lunch altogether and extends his shift by two hours to avoid the dinner rush.
By the time he's leaving the Infirmary, it's late. Unfortunately for him, not late enough that the halls aren't still speckled with observers to his personal soap opera. With the Festival of Frank’s Hot Dogs less than a week away, DS9 is becoming increasingly crowded with tourists, mostly Cardassian, but a surprising amount Bajoran, too–apparently this festival was a rare bright point during the Occupation, when their oppressors were not only lenient with them for once, but generous with food and drink and freedoms. It doesn't hurt that the only Cardassians on board are civilian rather than military, so the atmosphere is rather more colorful, courteous and conversational rather than cold, dark and aggressive. It would make Julian smile if he wasn't so busy being gawked at.
"I don't see it," one Cardassian man grumbles and Julian's accursed augmented ears pick up. "He's even smoother than a Bajoran."
"Oh, yeah," his companion replies, "just think of how easily he'd slide around."
"Tanett!"
"Oh, hush, Grandpa. You're just xenophobic. He's cute."
"Well, you be careful who hears you say that. That Garak fellow is in the Order, you know. Ears everywhere. You don't want to know what things a man like that is capable of."
"Wasn't he exiled? Hardly intimidating now. Apparently all he's capable of anymore is whimpering over an alien like a pakrela."
Julian covers his ears and walks faster.
But that just brings him within range of a cluster of Bajorans. "Oh, there's the doctor now," one is saying, up on the balcony.
"The one the Cardassian tailor wrote about?"
"That poor fool. He thought they were friends, but here this whole time it was perverse. I can only imagine how much that hurts."
"Happened to my friend once. He thought a glinn was being kind because he was having a crisis of conscience and wanted to help him escape. No, he just wanted to–"
He could go to his quarters, but a flash of memory - Garak's bright eyes at the end of his bed, his figure encased in shadow - sends him in the opposite direction. Before long, he finds himself on an oft-unused Observation deck, since it offers no view of the wormhole or either Bajor or Cardassia's suns. It's blessedly empty, as usual, and Julian settles on a bench and stares into the dark nothingness of space for a long time.
At some point, he finds that his hand has retrieved the PADD from his medical bag, and the screen is lit up automatically with the first poem.
He reads well into the night.
—
The next morning finds Garak with a tall glass of rokassa juice and two eggs, staring intensely into a mysteriously operational PADD at the far end of Quark's bar. Quark pops out of his backroom like a jack-in-the-box.
"Ha! Well, if it isn't the man of the hour himself, gracing my fine establishment so soon after nearly destroying it. Do you know I've had to have menus printed, like we're in the dark ages? Do you have any idea how extensive my menu is? I ought to sue you for damages." He catches a glimpse of the PADD's screen and its decidedly unpoetic contents. "Hey, you fixed it? How?"
"It was just a simple virus. Viruses can be purged," Garak says without looking up. He barely seems aware of Quark's existence.
When no other words are forthcoming, Quark huffs. "Well, can you purge it from the rest of the station, then?"
"I gave the program to the Chief last night."
"And he didn't immediately come here to fix my bar? I'll have to file a complaint.”
Garak offers no reply. Just continues to stare into his PADD.
There are other customers he could be seeing to, but Quark can't pass up this golden opportunity. He's known Garak a long time and known of him even longer, and now that he has the guy's guts all neatly lined up on several dozen isolinear rods, he's never felt closer to the man. He makes a point of knowing things about his customers, but before yesterday, the most he knew about Garak was that he was an assassin, a tailor, a mean, weepy drunk, and friends with Bashir, Odo, and a smattering of other shopkeepers. That was it. But now...
He leans over the counter, closer to Garak's unblinking face. "You know," he says, with a smile rising slow on his cheeks, "if it's humans you like, I have a couple holosuite programs that might be just what you need."
Garak's gaze ascends as if on a motor, smooth and mechanical.
Good. He’s considering the bait. Now he just has to get him to bite. "All completely customizable. Skin, eyes, hair. You like long legs, they've got long legs. Scrawny, they're scrawny. Whatever you want. Although if you're really hung up on the one face, that can also be arranged. For the right price." When Garak just looks at him, Quark switches tactics. "Or maybe it's the uniform that does it for you? I've got 'em, but I'd suggest something out of my lingerie databases. I've still got some little Cardassian numbers filed away that I think even a man with your discerning tastes could appreciate. Just imagine, Doctor Bashir in a–"
He doesn't see the hand coming until it's already crushing his windpipe. Quark claws at it for several long, desperate moments while Garak continues to look.
Leeta scuttling over and yanking him away is what ultimately puts a stop to it, and it's while Quark is gasping in dramatic bursts of air that Leeta says in a rush, "Garak, please! Whatever he said, he didn't mean it!"
"Oh, I meant it," Quark coughs out with a high, strangled laugh, "he just didn't like it."
"Whatever conclusions you've drawn in the last twenty-six hours, allow me to dispel them," Garak says primly, as if he hadn't almost committed murder in broad daylight. "I am not a xenophile and I do not have feelings for Doctor Bashir. There are no less than two-hundred Cardassians currently aboard the station, and I assure you, none of them like me. Those poems were obviously planted."
Oh, but Quark is a little pissed now, unwise as that is. "Please, Garak," he says, "who has time to write that many poems about Julian just to mess with you? Two or three, maybe, but over seventy? If you're going to lie, at least don't insult our intelligence."
Garak's eyes flash and Quark ducks behind Leeta, repentant. Leeta sighs. "Garak, what's so bad about loving Julian?" she asks softly. "I thought the poems were really touching. It’s sweet how much you care for him."
But he's already staring into his PADD again. "I'm sorry, Miss Leeta, but I am a bit busy. Perhaps we can discuss my hypothetical feelings for your paramour another time."
"Julian and I have never been serious," she tries to assure him, but he's engrossed again, or at least pretending to be. Her and Quark share a look and leave him to it. Lesson learned.
"Let the bastard be pent up and miserable, then," Quark grumbles from the other end of the bar as he pours Table 3's drinks. A prickle on his neck has him looking up and there Garak's eyes are again, piercing, and Quark rushes off to deliver the drinks.
The three young Cardassians there are much more friendly. One has their nose stuck in one of the useless poetry PADDs while the other two smile at Quark while he sets out their orders.
"Three Raktajinos, extra bitter," Quark says, and is thanked. Polite. One even praises the drink's exoticness. Klingon coffee, exotic. Heh. "Your food will be out in a few."
Before he can finish turning, though, a hand is touching his arm. "What is the title of this anthology you include at every table?" the young man asks.
"Oh, that's not..." He sighs. "It's new. I can't remember."
"Find out for us, please," he says. "Works like these can be hard to come by on Prime and we make it our business to collect them. Whoever this author is, they're very unique."
"If these aren't banned on Prime already, they will be soon," his friend comments with a giggle.
"No doubt."
"'In my desolation, I am as weeds: Cut my roots and Let the waters take me, To drown and bloom anew, in You,'" the one with her nose in the PADD reads aloud, and shivers. "They'd burn the whole Central Archive down just for this one. It's so explicit."
"Let me see that," the boy demands, as the other one is already surging over to read over the girl's shoulder. Watching them fight over the PADD has Quark thinking back to the isolinear rods in his safe, and he hums thoughtfully, glancing over his shoulder.
Garak isn't looking.
—
Glinn Halon Duvur. Former underling of Gul Dukat. Out of uniform, vacationing on Deep Space Nine with his wife and nine children. Spends his days gambling while his kids play unsupervised in the holosuites and his wife visits old friends.
Beloved uncle sent to trial by the Obsidian Order in 2356 and executed that same day for crimes of attempted sabotage against Cardassia.
Garak watches the man wander down the promenade sans his proud lineage, jingling a fat little bag of gold-pressed latinum and yet-unconverted leks. He wanders out of range, so Garak switches to the next camera and there that unfortunate face is again. He drums his fingers on the desk. It won't be long now.
An alert rings in his ear and he almost initiates the shockfield on impulse, but the flash of smooth, brown skin on a monitor stays his hand. The knocking comes, and that haunting voice calls out, "Garak! Are you there?"
Garak rests his head next to the surveillance screens.
Predictably, the doctor tries to input his override, but the door remains shut. There's a long pause.
"Garak..." Julian sounds irate. Garak hums. "Did you deprogram my override code? Nevermind how illegal that is, that's dangerous! What if you're injured? Or fall ill?"
He says this just after attempting to abuse his station privileges for personal reasons. Infuriating hypocrite.
"Oh, my barging in at random, odd hours is no less than you deserve, Garak," Julian says as if in response to Garak's thoughts. "You set that precedent in our relationship yourself."
Terrible man.
"Fine. I'll give you some more time, since you want it so badly, but I'll be back and when I am, that override had better work. If it doesn’t, I promise there will be hell to pay, my friend."
Beautiful man.
"Goodbye, Mr. Garak."
Goodbye, Doctor.
Glinn Duvur dies two hours later of alcohol poisoning while his wife is in bed with Gul Rilimn's wife.
—
“I just can’t believe it,” Kira is bitching. Jadzia smiles and sips her drink, looking out over the Replimat balcony at all the happy brunchgoers. “A Cardassian writing poetry about something that isn’t conquest or the wonders of dictatorial rule or, at best, the pride of the traditional family nobly bowing and scraping. I’ve never seen it.”
“It would certainly seem to run counter to Cardassian values.”
“And about Julian!” she shrieks in her inside voice, slapping her hands down on the table. “Garak the spy, writing love poetry about Julian. Going on and on about his–his...”
“Ass?” Jadzia offers.
“Eyes. His eyes! Ohhh, I knew he wanted to have sex with him, everyone knew that, but to write about his eyes like... like that? It’s practically Bajoran.”
“That’s true.”
Kira stops long enough in her tirade to eye her, and presses her lips into a thin line. “How are you so calm about this?”
Jadzia takes another sip. “I’m just fascinated,” she says. “I’ll admit, I’ve been looking at this more through Tobin’s eyes than my own. Have I ever told you that he met Lloja of Prim during his exile?”
“He did not.”
“He did, and Lloja flirted with him outrageously. It was embarrassing, looking back. Of course, nothing ever came of it, because Tobin was always hopelessly blind to those sorts of things even without the language barrier, but his children liked to joke that many of Lloja’s poems were about him.”
Kira’s jaw is hanging. “Were they?”
Jadzia grins and shrugs. Kira laughs.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Perhaps,” Jadzia allows, “but I do wonder... Being able to call nervous, asexual Tobin the lover of Lloja of Prim would have been quite the notch in my belt. Think of the stories I could have told! And now here Julian is with the opportunity. I know it’s not the same, I mean, it’s Garak. But, you have to admit, to write about him like that...”
“He must really love him,” Kira finishes for her, stumped. “I just can’t wrap my head around it.”
“I didn’t see it, either,” Jadzia confesses. “I was still wrestling with the idea that they were actually friends. I thought their association was strictly professional and all the books and flirting were just a front.” She cradles her head in her hands suddenly and sighs. “Ugh, but those poems. The poems are so good! Kira...”
“I know,” she moans. “They’re heart-wrenching. Which one are you on now?”
“Thirty-nine. I came back home, but I came back gone.”
“Ouch.”
“I know.”
A shout from below interrupts them and they both shoot out of their seats. Below, a Cardassian man has just had a beam fall on top of him. Jadzia and Kira bound down the stairs to him, Jadzia already slapping a hand on her comm badge.
“Dax to Infirmary, a man has just been crushed, possibly impaled. Send a medical team to Replimat and be ready for emergency beam out.”
“Acknowledged, we’re on our way,” Girani says, but already Kira is looking up at Jadzia helplessly, the man’s wrist laying limp between her hands.
“He’s gone.”
“Shit!” Jadzia hunches over, hands on her knees. “That’s the third one today. Are Cardassians always this accident prone? No wonder you won the war.”
“No,” Kira says. “They’re not. You don’t think...”
“I don’t know,” Jadzia says grimly, and looks around at the crowd that’s formed. All Cardassian, all terrified. “But we need to find out.”
—
A Cardassian is sitting at the bar. This isn’t an unusual sight now, with the Festival of 90s Funk and Beyond coming up, but seeing one so young and looking so hunted is odd. Quark approaches him casually.
“What’ll you have?”
The Cardassian’s eyes dart. “Uh...” He leans over suddenly, cups both hands over his mouth, and whispers, “E. G. Special.”
Christ, these kids are going to kill him. “Coming right up,” he says in a normal person voice, and reaches under the bar for a glass. A little drink-mixing magic later, a beautiful fizzy blue drink is sitting between them, with an isolinear rod tucked neatly in the straw.
The Cardassian takes the drink between both hands excitedly, and Quark snaps his fingers in front of him. “Oh! Right,” the kid stutters, and all but launches the latinum at Quark’s face. “Thank you!” And off he goes, out of the bar with the glass still tight in his grasp.
“Idiot,” Quark mutters to himself, crouching carefully down to pick the latinum up off the floor without dirtying his expensive pants. “You’re supposed to take the straw, not the entire glass. That’s it, I’m switching to plastic. These little rebel brats don’t deserve my ni—Oh, hello, Constable! I didn’t see you there. What can I get you?”
Odo looks as unimpressed as ever. “That’s a funny question since last I checked, I don’t drink.”
“Ah, right, because you’re a liquid. How could I forget. You know, one of these days, I ought to serve you up with a little umbrella, see how people like it. I’d bet you taste bitter.” Odo harrumphs, and Quark makes himself busy with wiping down the counter. “Well, out with it then. What nefarious scheme am I up to now? I love to hear your little stories.”
Four isolinear rods drop onto the counter, right where Quark was just cleaning. “Hey now,” he says, throwing a performative glare at the changeling. “Careful. If you shatter glass in my bar, you’re cleaning it up.”
“I just had the most interesting conversation with the Tokal family,” Odo says, steamrolling right over him. “It seems their four darling children had somehow come into some questionable reading material. They tried searching for it in the Central Archives and yet, despite it being clearly Cardassian in origin, they could not find it. And I don’t need to tell you that when a piece of Cardassian reading material isn’t in the Central Archives...”
Quark, from his plastered position on the floor, stares up into Odo’s face directly horizontal to his and smiles. “What?”
“It’s illegal,” Odo sneers, stretching his body even further over the bar and nearly sending Quark starfishing.
“Okay! Odo! I get it! But what does that have to do with me?”
“Quark!”
“Okay, okay! Whatever it is you think I’ve done, I’ll stop! I’ll stop, okay?”
“I know you’re going to stop, because I am going to confiscate every copy of Garak’s poetry that you have absconded with and destroy them.”
Quark gasps. “Book burning? In this day and age?”
“Garak did not give his permission for you to sell his work! He didn’t even want anyone to see it in the first place! Those poems were stolen. Now, I expect a list of every person you sold a copy to and a full and complete refund to be issued by tomorrow morning. Do I make myself clear?”
Quark glowers. “You’ve made yourself something, all right.”
“Quark...”
“Okay! All right. Consider it done.”
-
Turora Lumok. Obsidian Order operative and old colleague. Usually in deep cover in the Organian sectre, but has abandoned post to explore the space station. Barren, unattached. Cold. A model agent, if you ignore her unfortunate habit of going rogue and eliminating civilians on a whim.
Recruited into the Order by Enabran Tain’s former right hand, Euluk Bucun, who was assassinated by Elim Garak in 2341 under orders from Enabran Tain for suspicions of treason. Turora Lumok disciplined shortly afterward by Elim Garak for complaining that she had wanted to be the one to kill that bitch.
Garak watches as the woman pretends to touch up her makeup while scouting for cameras. “Oh, Lumok, you always were woefully obvious. Have you been expecting me? I wonder why.”
Satisfied with the positions of the cameras, she puts away her mirror and strolls out of sight.
Garak shakes his head. “Fool. You forget how long I’ve lived on this wretched station. I don’t need to see you every second to know where you are.”
But then, the smell of antiseptic. Starfleet issue soap. Herbal shampoo, unique, robust. Gels. Oils. Sweat.
He’s near.
Forcing calmness with a deep, measured breath, he takes off his eyepiece and slips it into his sleeve. He pays for the food he barely ate. He stands. He turns.
And is promptly thrust into the dark, deep woods of Julian Bashir’s eyes. “There you are, Garak! I’ve been looking all over for you,” the doctor says as if it’s just a regular day on Deep Space Nine. His hot, mammalian body caging him tightly in place against the table betrays the ruse. “Who was it you were talking to?”
Garak tries to step around him. Julian steps with him. “Oh, only ever myself. Forgive me, but you’ve caught me just on my way out. I have a strict appointment at 2.”
There’s Julian’s hand now. On his shoulder. Garak is calm. This is normal. “Well, why don’t I walk you there then.”
“My dear Doctor, I couldn’t rob you of your meal. Clearly you’ve just walked in.”
“Actually, I’ve found I’m craving something a bit different now.”
Garak makes to step around Julian again, and still Julian’s steps match his. It’s like they’re dancing. He doesn’t let this deter him. He’s not sure he’s capable of letting anything deter him now, with his heart trying to pound out of his throat. He keeps stepping doggedly forward, and Julian keeps mirroring, still with that damned hand burning through his tunic. “Well, you only have so much time before you must return to the infirmary, I know. Do not allow me to delay you in securing a table at a different locale.”
“Oh, but you’ve already delayed me so long. What’s a few more minutes?” A peek of teeth, a hint of warning. “Though I will admit... I’m not sure how much longer I can wait.”
“Then don’t.” Finally, Garak manages to elbow past this madness and shoot out of the restaurant. The station is so crowded these days, it’s short work to get lost in it. In a sea of ridges and black hair, Garak slips his eyepiece back on and lets the wave take him.
“Garak!”
Oh, for the Union’s sake—
He does not run. He does not stumble. He walks normally and not desperately, keeping his eye on both the path to the turbolift and Lumok. She’s down the corridor now, pretending to check her makeup again like an imbecile. Just a few paces more. Almost there...
“Garak, you’re the best dressed one here! You are not difficult to spot, you ridiculous dandy! Oh, no offense, Ma’am. Lovely scarf. Excuse me.”
There.
In the reflection of the mirror, Garak makes eye contact with the rogue and taps in the correct sequence on the device sewed into the seam of his pants just as the turbolift doors close behind him.
Like that, Turora Lumok is beamed into space and dies instantly, without a soul to mourn her, and Elim Garak walks back to his quarters with a hand over his mouth and a warmth on his shoulder, without a soul to mourn him, either.
—-
The Festival of Fierce and Fantastic Frogs is two days away and already it is being protested.
Outside Quark’s Bar is a growing army of dissident children with voice amplifiers and holoprojectors shouting to the stars that if they don’t get their porn back, they’ll tear it all down. Signs are projected in the air with essays cycling through them that look to be several pages each, a small holographic fire barely reaching ankle-height is lighting up the length of the promenade, and – perhaps most disturbingly – a comically inaccurate approximation of Odo is rotating at the center of the group, fitted in the typical regalia of the Cardassian military and holding a Klingon bat’leth. It is certainly... something.
“They’re Cardassians,” Quark is saying as he pours out some root beers. “They’ve probably never seen a protest in their lives, they don’t know what they’re doing. The Union puts an end to things like this pretty fast on the surface.”
“Heh,” Jadzia says, “what happens on DS9, stays on DS9.”
“Where’d you hear that?” Kira asks.
“It’s something Julian likes to say. Basically, they figure they can get away with speaking their minds here.”
Kira drums her fingers on the bar, staring into the flailing protestors thoughtfully.
Right then, Odo arrives back on the scene. It looks like he’s trying to get through, respectfully, but the protestors are not making it easy. Jadzia and Kira come to his rescue just as about fifteen Cardassians start forming a blockade around him.
“I walked around as you do, investigating the endless stars,” one young woman is yelling at him while he stands there with big helpless baby eyes, “and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked, the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind!”
“I don’t know what that means,” Odo says consolingly.
“Clearly!”
“Okay, okay, let him through!” Kira wiggles her way between the crowd and Odo, snatching him by the arm like a fish with a hook. “He’s not your enemy here, he was just upholding your laws!”
“The Cardassian government has no jurisdiction on a Bajoran station!”
“He made his choices!”
“Beautiful Julian would be ashamed of you! Repent! Repent!”
Kira and Jadzia manage to reel him most of the way through the protesters and he shapeshifts the rest of the journey. The protestors try to follow, but Quark bustles over to stop them. “No, no demonstrations inside! Remember who your allies are,” he says, and they all cow back. “Thank you.”
Odo ripples his form a couple times to make sure everything’s back in the right place and harrumphs. “Allies, Quark?”
“Yes, allies. It’s terrible what you’ve done to them. You can’t police art, Odo–-this is culture we're talking about here, the very bedrock of society.”
“And I’m sure this virtuous attitude of yours has nothing to do with the incredible profit you made and lost at the expense of our mutual friend.”
“Oh, I did him a favor.” Quark uncaps another bottle of Kanar and gestures back to the entrance, with its swarm of frothing Cardassian children. “Look, he’s got fans!”
“How has Garak been handling all this?” Kira asks Odo, sharing a look with Jadzia. “I haven’t heard a peep out of him since he gave us that antivirus program.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Didn’t you have breakfast with him yesterday?”
“Hmmm, that would have been routine. Except he didn’t show. When I made it back to my office, I found a message from him apologizing, telling me he’s so busy with orders he’s lost all track of time.”
“How has he been getting commissions?” Jadzia asks. “His shop’s been closed all week.”
Odo rolls his eyes. “Oh, I’m sure the reality is he’s simply avoiding the issue. Dr. Bashir has informed me he’s been treating him like ‘the black plague’ as well.”
“Julian’s one to talk. He practically pole-vaulted over a vedek the other day to get away from me.”
“Speak of the devil,” Quark says, looking towards the door, and everyone turns just as the commotion starts–or, more accurately, the commotion abruptly stops.
The protestors have all gone quiet, in apparent awe as they part around Julian like the red sea around Moses. He’s smiling stupidly as he stands in the center of them, nodding at something a Cardassian man is exclaiming. It’s an incredibly awkward scene, and Quark starts choking at some of the things his ears are picking up. “They’ve deified him,” he tells them, and Jadzia bursts into giggles at the idea, but Quark isn’t joking. “Really. He might as well be one of the prophets to them. You read the poems. You know.”
Ugh. Kira wrinkles her nose in disgust. The worst kind of blasphemy–horny blasphemy. “What is he even doing here?” she asks.
“Getting his head inflated,” Jadzia says dryly, because now that Quark has mentioned it, it’s pretty clear from the shit-eating grin on Julian’s face that that’s exactly what’s happening.
“Poor Garak.” Quark says it absentmindedly, but the comment gets several eyes turned on him. He’s shaking his head as he watches the scene unfold. “First, he falls for a human… humiliating… but then that love becomes public knowledge and several young beautiful Cardassians decide that he’s onto something, and now that human is going to get more action in a week than he’s seen his entire life. I’ve witnessed the rise and fall of more than a few star-crossed romances, but this might just be the saddest.”
“Julian wouldn’t have an orgy the same week the whole station found out Garak’s in love with him,” Jadzia says, insulted on his behalf.
Quark hefts a tray up onto his shoulder. “He just did,” he says as he leaves to go do his job, and Jadzia whips her head around to see Julian escorting two attractive Cardassians away from the protest. Her jaw drops.
“Bastard,” Kira spits, surprising everyone, herself most of all. Those poems must’ve affected her more than she realized.
Odo clears his throat unnecessarily. “I’m no expert on the behavior of solids, but it seems to me that neither party is handling this situation well.”
“I’ll tell you how the pakrela should be handling this,” an older Cardassian sitting at the far end of the bar cuts in, with a twitch to him that makes it clear he’s more than a few deep. “He should be settling his assets, because he doesn’t have long now. Whatever his human is doing is the least of his worries. Ha. Hehe. Being a traitor wasn’t enough for him. No, now he’s gone and corrupted the next generation with his degeneracy. Exile was too soft a punishment. Uh-huh.”
Kira opens her mouth to tell him to fuck off, but Odo touches her shoulder. “You speak as if you know him,” he notes mildly, because of course, the exact reason for Garak’s exile isn’t public record. It’s barely even private record. The Order doesn’t work that way–or didn’t, as it stands. It is interesting that this man is acting like he has classified information despite being a civilian.
But then, sometimes day drinkers just like to spout speculation as fact.
The man looks into his glass and laughs at his reflection. “Who doesn’t know Garak these days? But that’s temporary. He’ll be forgotten soon enough, just like the Order.” He finishes his drink and gets up. He insincerely mutters some friendly Cardassian farewell and starts to walk past them, but Kira can’t let it go.
“Excuse me, but what’s your name, sir? You’ve been so informative.”
He looks at her for a long moment. “I don’t know,” he says, and elbows past the protesters.
—
“Solt Mebol, left behind a widow and child six years ago when he was tragically killed in a transporter accident. In reality, he accepted an undercover mission which required him to fake his death and have his bond dissolved. A significant sacrifice. Certainly not one many Cardassians could have made.”
The Cardassian stares at Garak sitting on his couch. Turning, he tries to exit his temporary quarters, but the door won’t open.
Garak tuts. “Oh, you know better than that, Mebol.” He taps his disruptor with his forefinger, resting harmlessly against his knee. “The festival isn’t for another couple days, yet here you are. Catching up with old friends before the festivities, I assume? Only I haven’t found you in anyone’s company but your own. You must be lonely. Please, let me alleviate your loneliness for a while.”
The Cardassian sighs at the closed door. “Solt, is it?”
“I can tell you the names of your wife and child as well, if you’d like, and the city they live in. Do you know your wife never rebonded? Unusual behavior for a Romulan. Quite dangerous, as I understand it.”
Solt steps carefully into the small living space and sits in the chair opposite Garak, with the coffee table between them. “As one of the last living members of the Order, I don’t suppose you would consider letting me go?”
Garak smiles pleasantly. “I would be delighted.”
“Would you? I had a deal with Central Command and they’ve been good to me so far. You, however, have been known to…” He eyes the disruptor casually turned in his direction.
“Yes, I imagine I must be something of a mystery these days to my people. I have been… squirrely, is what I suppose a human would say, and I must as well now that I’ve been painted with their brush. Oh, it is an incredible sin, I know. That I should enjoy the company of an attractive alien while in exile.”
Solt snorts. “You expect me to believe those poems were the natural result of a fling?”
“I don’t expect you to believe anything you do not wish to. I only say that it’s convenient that I should be seen as even more traitorous just as a swarm of Cardassians should enter the station.”
“What’s convenient is that you’re still alive. You have friends in high places willing to go to bat for you, in spite of everything you’ve done. It’s a disgrace. You are a selfish disloyal anarchist and no one is holding you accountable, because you just happened to be good at your job once and everyone likes the idea of having you as a potential weapon should the need for one arise. Until then, they’re content to keep you in a cabinet collecting dust and sentiment. You can wave that disruptor all you want, but we both know you make a poor operative now. You’re in love.”
Garak is still smiling, but Solt can see the signs of a grimace. Dusty, indeed. Too passionate. Too human. “I’m hardly so foolish. You know better than I the dangers of such things in our line of work. You’re little better than a puppet now that you’ve had a whiff of the truth, Mebol.”
“You’re right.” Solt attempts to raise one eye ridge, despite it being unfit for such maneuvers, and leans forward towards that disruptor. “Pull my strings, then, and let’s test that grip Bashir has on yours.”
—
Kira crashes into Garak’s quarters and kickflips past all his booby traps like Indiana Jones’ hotter cousin.
“What the fuck, Richard?” is basically what she says, only it’s in character, so it’s more like, “What the fuck, Garak!”
Garak spins around in his maniacal villain chair with a look of surprise. “How did you get in here, Major?” Miles bustles his way in after her with his impractically enormous toolkit, and Garak lets out an, “Ah,” then, sedately, “I suppose Dr. Bashir filed a complaint about my tampering with the door codes. Of course, there’s a perfectly logical explanation. You see, it–”
“This isn’t about door codes, Garak,” Kira yells. “What I want to know is why our best suspect for the sudden influx of murders on the station was just found drowned in his own toilet!”
“Oh my,” Garak says. “What an unfortunate end.”
“Don’t play dumb. Not now. We know what you’re capable of, but we’re good people and we didn’t want to accuse a victim until we had exhausted the rest of our line-up. Only, interestingly enough, they’re all dead, so now…” she marches over with the fury of the Prophets on her heels and stands imposingly over him, her teeth clenched, “here we are.”
“That is interesting.” He runs a hand down a roll of fabric in his lap, smoothing it. “I suppose you must have some of that ironclad evidence that the Federation so treasures.”
Kira glares at him.
Garak feigns looking around. “Oh, but I can’t help but notice the good Constable isn’t here with you. What could that mean? Surely not that you broke into my quarters without due cause or a hint of warning–at your own word, not even to fix my glitching door. For all you knew, I could have been in here writing one of my vaunted Bashir epics.”
Kira’s hands are in fists now. “The evidence we have would be more than enough to have your face plastered on every viewscreen in Cardassia and you know it.”
“The Federation and Bajoran legal processes do seem a tad inefficient in moments like these, don’t they?”
“Okay,” Miles cuts in, because he has Turbo PTSD and is not in the mood for a flare up. “I think I'll just wait in the hallway, then. Holler if you need me. Good luck, Major.”
Kira and Garak spend a few moments watching him waddle out of the room and then go back to staring each other down.
“Look, you ass,” Kira starts, “we couldn’t link every victim to the Cardassian government or some third-party organization, but we were able to link enough of them to recognize that these aren’t just random nobodies having ‘accidents.’ Someone was able to break into your computer and embarrass you and you don’t like that so you’re pitching a fit. I can’t have Odo arrest you – yet – but I can tell you to cut it out. This vigilantism isn’t helping–”
That gets a reaction. “Vigilantism!”
“Well, what would you call it?”
“Self-defense.”
“They attacked you?”
“Possibly.”
“Goddamn you, Garak! Just… don’t do this anymore, okay?”
Garak looks at her with innocent astonishment, like he’s still bewildered by her totally plausible accusations. “Well. You have my word, I suppose,” he says, bemused.
—
Gul Skrain Dukat. Blessed with a wife, seven children, two sets of living parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, minus one father. Habitually cheats with lower ranked military officials, slaves, and barely legal adults, unbenownst to his family. Father was interrogated by Elim Garak and executed by the Union over live broadcast in the year 2350 for the crime of being a piece of shit.
Elim Garak was shortly thereafter levied with an amateurish execution attempt by Gul Dukat. It failed.
The second attempt will succeed, but at a great cost.
The Festival of Filthy Fucking Foot Fetishists has officially begun, but Garak is struggling to feel any enthusiasm. He is surrounded by his people. The station has been dimmed by 15% to better suit Cardassian eyes and misting stations have been set up in limited locations. Extinct and invented flowers crafted by Cardassian and Bajoran artisans decorate the banisters and doorways. A wash of blue, green, and sparkling gold lights up every direction. There is the smell of freshly prepared Cardassian sweets on the air, a gentle warmth suffuses the atmosphere, and children are laughing on the promenade. It’s the first time the station has felt not just tolerable, but nearly pleasant, in years.
But then, Garak has never felt particularly welcome among his people. As a child, he was an orphan generously cared for by service workers and sponsored by a government official, and as an adult, he was a member of the Order, which granted him more fear and loathing than it did admiration and respect. Companionship, in its truest form, was a rare thing to come by and not something he was encouraged to come by at all.
Perhaps that is why Dr. Bashir blindsided him.
In any case, Garak is delicately balanced on the line between proper misery and numbness. He gave up imbibing around the same time that he gave up the implant—or rather, the implant gave up on him—but he’s on his third cup now, wandering through the festivities with no particular direction in mind. The exact spot of this last operation isn’t important, only the timing.
He finishes his drink while a group play a spirited game of cold moba in front of him. It shouldn't be long now.
All the nearby screens suddenly flicker from the event schedule to Dukat’s sharp grin and Garak hums. There we are. He knew the bitch wouldn’t be able to resist showing his face.
“Welcome everyone to the biennial Festival of–” a baby wails, “generously hosted here on Deep Space Nine by Bajor and the Federation, and of course organized by our own prodigous Detapa Council. Ah, that wormhole… quite the view, isn’t it?”
Garak looks around for another food stall that serves alcohol.
There aren’t any stalls in his immediate vicinity, but there is a young Cardassian couple marching towards him while making dogged eye contact.
Oh no.
Garak starts to make a break for it. Not too fast, it won’t do to cause a stir, but there are a number of very good reasons for him to stay far away from any Cardassians who might recognize him right now. Especially if the source of that recognition is those damn poems he was too stupid and sentimental to destroy.
Before he can make it more than a few steps, however, he looks up to see another few Cardassians working their way towards him, also making eye contact.
No, no, no.
He makes to move towards the stairs then, only for his eyes to land squarely on him.
Him, wearing the silky green outfit he lovingly crafted for him a few months ago. Him, shining in the festival lights, casting him in an even more arresting shade of gold than usual. Him, looking determined and coming straight towards him.
Oh, fuck no.
“Garak,” Julian calls out, likely reading the panic on his face and stance and soul.
“Today, I am not a Gul, though,” Dukat is saying. “I am but a humble representative of the Cardassian Union in its totality, and as such, I would like to thank Colonel Kira Nerys and Captain Benjamin Sisko for their hand in this week’s festivities. They have been nothing if not accommodating these last few weeks while our coordinators ran rampant through their halls.”
He should have accounted for the possibility of this. Thinking of Julian had become excruciating as of late, but that was no excuse. Whatever interaction Julian had been hoping to have with him couldn’t be allowed, not now, and not only for the sake of Garak’s traitorous, disgusting feelings. Even if it would give the sweet man closure, it would not be worth his life.
“Now, it may be a bit unorthodox, but I thought it would be only fitting if the first Reenactment was carried out by our benevolent hosts, and the Lakarian City Acting Troupe were all too happy to take them under their wing.”
More eyes are turning towards the screen now, the laughing and playing and sloshing of cups quieting down. Julian is nearly with him, his approach halted only by the gathering crowd, and Garak can only pretend to be interested in Dukat’s speech while he racks his brain desperately for a solution. Any solution. Anything.
“I trust that the history of Cardassia is in capable hands.”
The screen flickers again and changes to a shot of one of Quark’s holodecks, where a lone Bajoran man stands in a beam of red light.
A hand grabs Garak roughly by the arm, and he nearly cries with relief when he sees that it’s Lumok.
Well, Lumok with the face and attire of a Bajoran, but that ever-present spark of unchecked malice in her eye is quite unmistakable to someone who worked with her for over a decade.
“Surprised, you ugly old regnar?” she asks under the actor’s impassioned opening monologue.
He sucks in a breath as the sharp edge of something presses into his back. “Impossible. They found your body caught on one of the station’s spires.”
“A simple bait and switch,” she purrs, pressing the weapon closer, slicing through his tunic. A pity. This was one of his nicer ones. “You’ve gotten sloppy.”
He manufactures a smile. “A knife, then? A favorite of yours, I recall, but terribly messy for such a public venue. Not to mention if your aim is even an inch off, I’ll be in and out of the infirmary within the day, as if nothing at all had happened.”
“Don’t lecture me,” she growls. “You can’t do that anymore. You’re not anyone to anyone. Your master is dead, and what did you do the second you were off leash for the first time in your life? You went and choked yourself on the first Starfleet sotl you could find. You’re pathetic.”
It took incredible effort to keep his eyes from rolling to the back of his skull. “Oh, just stab me already.”
“I’m not going to stab you. I’ve done a bit of outsourcing, in fact.” She slid the knife from his lower back to his side and looped her arm through his, pinning him in place with a wide smile. “All I had to do was suggest to my new friend that you were infiltrating the Federation. That you were poisoning them against Bajor from the inside, uniting Cardassia and Starfleet in a secret alliance under the guise of wooing the CMO. No, no, you won’t be killed by one of your peers. Your death will be at the hands of a perfect stranger. A pointless death for a pointless man.” She leans in and whispers into his aural ridge, “It always was so easy to make people hate you.”
The next few seconds are a flurry of chaos. One second he’s watching as Human, Bajoran and Cardassian actors alike are all holding hands and reciting ancient poetry and the next he’s on the floor with a searing weight bearing down on him from calf to shoulder. There are screams and footfalls coming from all directions and Odo’s voice is immediately discernible shouting over the commotion. His back is on fire, he can’t breathe, and there’s a slash in his side, but he doesn’t miss the thump of Lumok’s body a few feet away, dead before she hits the ground.
“Garak? Garak?” the weight on him is speaking frantically, pawing at his head and shoulders. The weight shifts and the hands flip him onto his back. Those same hands pat him down, blazing a path down his chest and his stomach and his sides, stopping at the superficial gash near his rib, and Garak knows who this is before he even opens his eyes.
“Garak,” Julian sighs with relief. Garak was meant to be dead by phaser blast right now, but instead Julian Bashir is smiling down at him like he’s important, kneeling beside him, his hands on him, branding him with their incredible heat. It shouldn’t be possible. No one could be that fast.
“Doctor,” he manages on a wheeze. One of his ribs might be broken, actually.
“Dukat,” Sisko growls from the monitor in billowing robes and a long flowing wig, surrounded by flowers.
—
“Explain,” Sisko commands.
Having decided that showing weakness right now can only help his case, Garak is sitting hunched to the side, holding his reeling head in one hand. It’s through a hiss that he replies, “A woman named Turora Lumok was responsible for sabotaging the station with those poems forged with my data signature. The Bajoran woman who was just assassinated–she was no Bajoran, but rather one of the last remaining members of the Obsidian Order. She was hired by Dukat to kill me during the festival under the guise of a hate crime. No doubt because of her indomitable reputation, I’m sure. A number of Cardassian casualties these past several days were at her hands.”
Sisko walks to the viewport to stare out into the stars for a moment, processing this. “All his talk of friendship between Bajor and Cardassia…” he trails off, the ghost of a sneer on his lips as he turns back around. “His goal was just the opposite. He wanted to destroy any hope of cooperation.”
“And get me out of the way in the process,” Garak grumbles.
Sisko hums and wanders over to Garak’s side, looking down at him thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me who assassinated Ms. Lumok?”
Garak stares at the floor through his fingers, his eyes glazed.
“Or who your informant is on Dukat’s involvement?”
“Captain,” Garak mutters, not looking up, “I have sat here concussed after an attempt on my life and shared with you everything that I know, and here you have not even told me who the tailor of your magnificent robe is.” He tugs half-heartedly at a strip of embroidery on the fabric. “I must admit, I am feeling a touch betrayed you didn’t come to me.”
Sisko flicks his eyes up to Julian, who has been standing in the corner with his hands behind his back. “Very well, Mr. Garak. I release you into Dr. Bashir’s care for now, but I expect to continue this conversation soon.” He massages his forehead. “Once I figure out what to do about this damned festival.”
Julian comes over to help Garak out of his chair, but Garak snaps upright and to the door before he can touch him. Sisko takes the opportunity to lean into Julian’s face and whisper, “Get more information out of him.” The doctor nods.
Julian isn’t angry when he steps out of Sisko’s office and sees that Garak is walking in the exact opposite direction of the infirmary, but he is disappointed.
“Mr. Garak,” he says urgently once he’s caught up to the idiot.
Mr. Garak interrupts him in the same tone, “Now, now, my dear doctor, we both know I have a dermal regenerator in my quarters, so we need not extend–”
“And I think we both know this is about much more than a few bumps and bruises. I’m afraid the time for beating around the bush passed quite a while ago.”
“You’re right, Doctor,” Garak says, coming to an abrupt stop and rounding on him with wild eyes. “There is an urgent matter we must discuss.” Julian’s eyebrows raise, and Garak nods severely. “Oh, yes, let us not ‘beat around the bush.’ We should talk about how you threw yourself directly into the line of a lethal phaser blast on the one in a millionth chance that you might save my life. The cost of such an action being almost certainly your own life, and yet, here you stand, and here I stand. Will wonders never cease.” Julian opens his mouth, but Garak raises a finger. “Nevermind that I was in the middle of an altercation with a very dangerous, very volatile woman who would not have hesitated for a second to dispose of you. She had a nasty habit of that. Now I knew that you were naive, Doctor, Doctor! I knew that! What I did not know – what I never could have guessed after all these years – was that you are an idiot.”
Julian stares back into Garak’s hissing face, unimpressed. Garak feels a wave of deja-vu and does not like it. It has no place here. And yet, Julian takes in a breath and smiles, raising his shoulders. “All right, Garak. If it’s really so important to you, we can talk about your suicide attempt.”
“What?” Garak bites out.
“You were going to let yourself get shot, yes?”
“I was n–” Garak starts to lie, disgusted, but is stopped by Julian stepping entirely too close. He stumbles back a step, then another when Julian attempts to crowd him again, and the familiarity of the routine has him shutting his eyes, rueful. They’re dancing again. It’s humiliating, the things this man makes him do, how effortlessly he can gain the upperhand. Most of the time without even having to lift a finger.
“You figured out Dukat’s plan and arranged for Lumok to die if she succeeded, but you expected her to. You didn’t expect to be saved,” the doctor tells his blank, unresponsive face. His eyes are still closed, his hands tense at his sides, but he knows Julian’s stepped closer again by the heat of his livid breath. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Very well. I didn’t figure it out. I was informed.”
“So, the captain was right.” He sounds bored, but Garak seizes his chance. His eyes open in a sudden burst of animation.
“Yes, I had an informant. I believe the major was familiar with him, a fellow by the name of Damoc who was recently presumed dead? Though I knew him far better as Mebol. We first met on Romulus, you see. In the event of my death, he had strict instructions to reveal Dukat’s plot in my stead and protect my remaining assets. In return, he was to receive some valuable coordinates, which by now he will have long accessed. I suppose he’s already booked passage off of the station, if he hasn’t already gone.”
“Quick to abandon you,” Julian says, completely off-script. Garak’s carefully measured breathing stutters.
“Surely Captain Sisko would like to have a word with him.”
“I’m sure.”
“Doctor…” Garak says, lost. “There isn’t time to was–”
Suddenly there are two hands slamming into his chest like they’re iron forks and he’s a slab of meat, rocketing him back into the nearest wall with a loud thud. Garak gasps at the strength of it, astounded, but all his attention is quickly monopolized by Julian’s snarling words.
“Stop trying to distract me, Garak! Stop racing away before I can even properly get into the room, stop begging off lunch, stop ignoring my comms, and stop acting like your bloody life is over just because it was found out that you have feelings for me!”
“I–I don’t–”
“Lke hell you don’t! Thirty-seven.”
Garak blinks several times. “What?”
“Thirty-seven. That’s how many direct references to our literary discussions are in your poems. All chronologically concordant with the dates of those discussions, and six of which from that classic Earth album I recommended to you a year ago that you swore up and down sounded like a pack of voles had been crammed into a bucket and shaken around. I knew you were having me on. You love Mitski, and you love me.”
Garak’s face shutters.
Finally, Julian takes a step back. His hands remain on his chest, pinning him in place, but he allows him some oxygen. Exactly twenty seconds pass like this, before the doctor becomes impatient and huffs, “You can’t possibly have nothing to say.”
“What would you have me say, Doctor?”
“I would like you to admit it.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve heard it from friends and coworkers and strangers and every tourist on this damn station, it feels like, but I haven’t heard it from you.”
Garak is silent for a long time. Finally, he quietly asks, “You would further humiliate me this way? Knowing what you do? My dear friend…” He, carefully, with only the gentlest of pressure, puts a hand over one of Julian’s. “Please. You’ve read everything I could possibly have to say. What more could there be?”
Julian’s hands are unforgiving, but his eyes soften at the simple lowering of the curtain. It’s not the direct confession he was looking for, the I love you completely, traitorously, ruinously that his poems professed and a deep, broken part of Julian desperately wants to hear, but it is, it is. For Garak, this is as explicit as it gets, and Julian can feel his heart trying to catch in his throat.
“Garak,” he starts to say.
Garak isn’t scowling anymore. His eyes are shining as he looks away and sucks in an aggrieved breath. “Oh, please, let us skip this excruciating precursor. I have no intention of remaining on this station.”
Julian goes unnervingly still. “Excuse me?”
“I will need time to pack up my shop and settle my lease, but then I promise, you will never suffer the consequences of my unfortunate… condition again.” When Julian only stares at him with mounting alarm in his lovely eyes, Garak grimaces. “You must know I had no intention of pursuing you.” At least, not after the implant had been shut off and he’d realized what horrors he’d stumbled into with the doctor while under its influence, and by then, it was already too late. He was too weak to stop speaking to him, but he was not a complete monster. “I wouldn’t have. My writing was never about nurturing the emotions, only managing them.” A bit of a lie, but only a bit. He does love to languish and he never could resist a good innuendo. Their friendship had been infinitely precious to him, though, and he couldn’t bear the slow death it would undergo now that everyone knew the truth.
The worsening rumors that would spread. The suffering of Julian’s reputation, career, and love life with the Cardassian spy’s drastic affections hanging over everyone’s heads. The danger it would place them both in, the damage it had already done. The way Julian would know every time Garak flirted now, it was never idle. It had never been and could never be.
It would be a torture hitherto unthinkable. Better to sever the limb before it could rot.
Still, Julian is silent. The pressure on his chest is more a suggestion than a command now.
“Doctor, I…” he swallows back anymore hideous truths. “I apologize. Your rage is understandable, but I swear to you, I have every intention of righting this wrong.”
“Oh,” Julian says then, softly, as if he isn’t speaking to Garak at all, “you don’t know.”
“Doctor?”
He makes a bizarre human gesture, skimming the heel of his hand off his forehead. “My God! Of course. I thought it was pride, or shame, or paranoia. Anything and everything but this, but of course you would be this ridiculous. Well. That’s an easy enough problem to solve.”
“Doctor–?!”
The hands on his chest are gone. Instead, they’re seizing him by the head and pulling him up to connect his mouth to Julian’s.
Oh.
If Julian’s touch was a brand before, this is lava running down his throat, into his stomach and down, down, down to eat through the twenty inch thick duranium floor. Slow, thorough, and final in its devastation. A transformation that cannot be persuaded. He grapples with it, hands scrambling stupidly over and across his doctor’s shoulders. Whether it’s to pull him closer or push him away, he doesn’t know. He’s too busy being brutally altered to give it much thought.
His hands settle for burying themselves in his hair at some point. When doesn’t matter. Time holds no power here. It happens, and then he knows how soft Julian Bashir’s hair feels, and there is no going back.
The loss of control becomes alarming enough that he finally manages to pry himself away, gulping in desperate, anxious breaths of frigid station air. It works. The fire and the madness that followed it calms down and he manages the strength to push Julian back, but the wet smack of their lips disconnecting will echo in his dreams for the foreseeable future, as will the dizzy grin on Julian’s face inches from his own. There’s a hand on his ass keeping him from tumbling through the hole in the floor and a couple unlucky passersby gawking at the gruesome scene and Garak is a different creature entirely, incandescent and strange, forged anew in the curious fires of mutual attachment.
He feels insane.
“Doctor, you cannot truly be this naive.”
Julian looks anything but naive right then. He can’t focus on that, though. He needs to focus on the fact he was nearly assassinated; the fact that the kindest man alive nearly died with him out of some misguided terran idea that all lives are of equal value and importance.
And yet, Julian is leaning in to kiss him again, so Garak puts a hand on his chest and says, “You know what I am.”
Julian’s expression turns complicated and it’s clear he understands. Garak’s roiling emotions can’t settle on being relieved or horrified. How to go on after this? After knowing intimately what he almost had, with the smoke of it still thick in his eyes and his throat and his heart?
A gentle hand on his jaw brings him back to the moment, where Julian’s eyes are serious. “I know,” he murmurs.
Garak sucks in a wet breath.
“The question is,” Julian continues, even quieter, “do you know what I am?”
His head is spinning. “Doctor?”
Julian just smiles sadly, and it's clear that there are some long conversations in their future. But for now… “About that dermal regenerator in your quarters,” Julian begins, and Garak is relieved to find out that whatever stupid, lovely thing he’s become can still appreciate an innuendo.
—
Not long after, in the middle of telling Sisko all about Mebol over Julian’s comm badge while its owner watches expectantly in a state of teasing half-dress, he’s horrified to find that whatever thing he’s become is also rather eager to please.
—
A couple days later, the two of them are picking from a generous cut of flaming taspar in the Replimat.
Or, Garak is picking, anyway. Julian is stuffing his face. Ordinarily, this would mildly scandalize him, but the fact it’s taspar, one of the most traditional delicacies of his homeworld, being shoveled enthusiastically into that pretty face makes it so he can feel only hope.
Rather than giving into that inadvisable feeling, he takes a dainty sip of his tea and tries to look nonsuspect. Cardassians from all sides and angles are staring.
“About Miss Leeta…” Garak begins.
Julian wipes his face with the side of his hand. Disgusting, but oddly compelling. “What about her?”
“When will you be breaking the news to her?”
“Oh.” Julian smiles, bemused. “She knows.”
A tightness in his chest dispels slightly. “Does she?” he says faintly.
“She’s the one who first brought it up. We performed the Rite of Separation days ago. She said it was great timing, what with the festival and all. We didn’t even have to leave the station.”
“So you were together then.”
“Well, in a sense. We weren’t in love, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Garak takes another sip, lowering his eyes. “I wasn’t worried. Only concerned for the young lady’s feelings.”
Julian’s face is incandescent. A Cardassian to his far left is openly gaping. “Of course, of course.” He leans suddenly over the table then, moving a hand forward to rest on his knee. “So, should I take this line of questioning as an indicator that you’re open to a relationship with me?”
Garak shifts a little in his seat, moving his knee further under the table and its shadows, but otherwise doesn’t pull away. “It would be unwise,” he says quietly, without actually saying no.
The hand squeezes. “It isn’t as if people won’t assume anyway.”
“Rumors can be dispelled. Redirected. Altered.” He reaches forward to take a small saucière and pours a bright red sauce over a couple groatcakes. “There would be no coming back from a confirmation.”
Julian’s hand falls away. “Would it be so bad?”
“I don’t know,” Garak says, splitting a cake up into three neat sections. “Would it, Doctor?”
A Bajoran couple walks past their table then, and while one purposely avoids eye contact and seems to be giving them a wide berth, the other throws a meaningful glare Julian’s way. This is the fourth judgemental or pitying look he’s received since they came in for brunch. Julian calmly returns the look, refusing to be the first to look away, until finally the man averts his eyes and Julian looks back to Garak with a stern smile. Garak inclines his head.
“Be careful, Doctor,” Garak goes on. “Rumors can ruin lives. End careers.” He scoops up a bite of his cake, dripping with red sauce, and lifts it to his mouth. “Kill,” he finishes, and eats.
At that, Julian leans back in his seat with his arms crossed tight. Garak gives him his time. It’s a relief to have finally made a dent in Julian’s lovesick, idealistic conviction–and Garak can admit, after the last few days, that it is lovesickness. Julian’s decided he loves him back and there will be no stopping him from pursuing this, but there may yet be some tempering. A small, equally stubborn, sentimental part of Garak despairs at the whole horrid affair, but the behemoth of his good sense squashes this part down with little difficulty.
It’s this moment that a smattering of young Cardassians, accompanied by one Jadzia Dax, arrive at their table. Immediately, Garak recognizes them as the ones that nearly intercepted his meeting with Lumok and his stomach drops. Julian, on the other hand, brightens back up.
“Well, hello there,” he says warmly.
Jadzia responds first, with each elbow leaned on a Cardassian’s shoulder and a knowing sparkle in her blue eyes, “Hello to you.” The Cardassians all echo with similar greetings, some shy, others giddy.
One young woman standing at the front, with her hair in three elaborately plaited braids and little makeup, is looking at Garak with particular interest. “You’re the one who wrote the poems about Julian.”
Garak looks at the girl coolly. “Do you mean Dr. Bashir?”
She goes blue. “Oh, um. Yes. I do.” She tucks an imaginary lock of hair into her perfectly coiffed hair and lowers her head respectfully. “My apologies, Doctor.”
“Hey now,” the doctor scolds with good humor, “none of that. We’re all friends here.”
The girl throws another searching glance Garak’s way. “Friends?”
That’s enough of that. “This is certainly quite the surprise,” Garak says genially, plastering on his most pleasant smile. “Is there something you needed? As Deep Space Nine’s resident Cardassian tailor and reputed troubadour, I’m always happy to be of service.” Julian sends him a sharp look, which he ignores.
Jadzia is looking as foxy as she ever does, with a grin nearly to her spotted ears. “Julian asked me to bring them here,” she says too happily, and Garak has to sit back in his seat to process that. Julian scratches his neck with a guilty smile, obliviously alluring. It cannot be overstated that there are, still, eyes on them from all directions and angles.
“Garak, sir,” the Cardassian woman-child begins again, earnest, “let me start over. My name is Inia Milam. I am the President of the Ivory State Liberation Library. We collect–”
“Madam,” Garak interrupts her quietly, stunned. “This is hardly the time and place.” He blinks, still shocked stupid by her brazenness, and leans towards her, peering into her distressingly young features with beseeching desperation. “And I am hardly the audience.”
Milam doesn’t appear to process his warning at all, though. She just continues to look inquisitive. She has that gleam in her eyes that is common in Cardassian women, calculating and intelligent, but there’s something else there. Something indefinable that he’s seen hundreds of times over an interrogation table, but without the fear to staunch it. Without the hopelessness. It makes his stomach flip. “On the contrary, you are exactly the sort of person we look for.” She bows her head. “Dr. Bashir promised that if we assisted him a few days prior, he would introduce us so that I could formally welcome your book of poems into our shelves. I apologize if this comes as a surprise. I wish only to thank you for your excellent contribution, E. G., and tell you that we hope to welcome many more pieces from you in the future. I’ll be in touch. Dr. Bashir.” She nods to him, returns his gentle smile, and walks confidently away. The rest of the group mirror her, voicing similar words of polite farewell and appreciation, and leave.
Garak forces himself not to track their departure and instead picks up his fork again, as if nothing world-shattering has occurred at all. The cake is tasteless in his mouth.
Julian is concealing nothing of his thoughts, however. He’s staring openly at Garak, as if he’s a bomb and he’s trying to figure out which color wire to cut.
Ultimately, it’s Jadzia that breaks the tension. “Well,” she says, “that is some harem you’ve got there, Julian.”
“Jadzia,” Julian barks. She laughs.
“I’m teasing, I’m teasing.” Uncharacteristically, her impish smile turns regretful. “Now that that’s out of the way, I do have to bring your friend in for questioning,” she says, and that explains that. “I’m sorry, boys. I stalled Ben as long as I could.”
Garak polishes off the last of his meal and takes one last gulp of his tea to wash it down. With that done, he stands with a placid, conciliatory smile.
Julian puts a hand on his shoulder before he can take a step. “I’ll come see you after my shift.” Those lovely, dark, deep eyes search his, pinning him like a moth above his fireplace. “Okay?”
Garak inhales. “Without end,” he murmurs, waits for Julian’s eyes to light in understanding, and then aloud says, “I am at your disposal, Doctor. Good day.” With that and a firm, friendly pat on Julian’s hand, he limps away.
Jadzia rather pointedly watches him limp to the exit for a few long seconds before throwing Julian a rakish grin. “Well, well,” she says largely. Julian pretends not to notice, and Jadzia pivots on her heel after Garak.
“Before we lock you up and throw away the key, could you sign my datarod,” Julian hears Jadzia asking, and he shakes his head, unsuccessfully trying to rub away his smile.
Without end
Do I think of you and so
Come to me at night.
For on the path of dreams at least,
There's no one to disapprove!
Ono no Komachi
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Delusive Masks - Nasu
Yan! Tamamo no Mae x Reader
Old foxes aren't the best servants, they're wily and complex, and most of all, possessive
TW: Mentions of violence in the form of burning, general toxic manipulative behaviour, not really proof read
//The brainrot hit so bad that I wrote a bad fever dream. A whole bunch of liberties taken with the way being an onmyoji works and with characters as per usual. Poem is from 陽成院歌合, topic of 夏虫の恋 and is number 06 of the whole collection
あふことを, いつともしらぬ
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To be a good person is not difficult, to be a good onmyoji perhaps less so. For many people, merely getting the skill and natural ability to qualify as one is already a kind of privilege, it taints the way they view themselves, creating grandiose splendours that they can transcend beyond the mortal principles. Yet when one becomes powerful enough to summon shikigami beyond weak spirits imbued into paper dolls, it gets to their head. They suddenly, foolishly believe themselves capable of nothing short of miracles. How fast they fall, turning themselves into cruel masters, bidding their servants to acts no better than the very yokai they seek to exorcise, kicking upon their shikigami to which they had entered that sacred contract.
You are grateful for many things in life, the first that you had good parents that supported your wishes, the second that you could become a practising onmyoji, and the third being your master’s consistent and persistent hammering of humility and altruism. No lesser or greater than any being that walks upon this world, whether human or spirit, your duty was to protect the innocent and excise the guilty. Of course, he had worded it much more eloquently than such, but the motive was still present in his orotund words.
Your shikigami are as equally deserving of respect as you are, unconditional kindness could very often make the difference between an evil spirit and a good one. You have stuck by such truths for as long as you have started, even when the only spirits under your command were Ubume and Zashiki Warashi. It became a promise of kinds, that you would always do right by them so long as they showed the same sentiment in return. Eventually, you ended up with quite a few of them, a good entourage of them you knew you could trust. Yet, it was rather difficult for people to take you seriously without certifiably powerful spirits, or perhaps it was more accurate to say that there was a certain gap between the perceived disciple of the great Abe no Seimei, and the reality that you were.
There was some part of you that did resent that expectation, partly that others should have no right to comment on your ability solely on your patronage, and partly because it felt too close to home. Of course you knew it was shameful to be so powerless when you study under one of the best practitioners, it is only natural you did.
The smell of incense fills your nose as your eyes adjust to the dim room, a talisman before you laying on the wooden floor. With a brush in hand, dipped in ink and poised for use, you calm your pounding heart. You have already summoned a few shikigami before, yet at this very moment, you could feel nothing but inexplicable foreboding. It made no sense, with your current living quarters more than protected by both your and your shikigamis’ efforts, yet you could not merely shake off the tenseness in your joints and the roiling in your stomach.
It hurts, everything still hurts. Your hands from all the preparation, your knees from kneeling on such hard floors, your head from everything that has been and shall be. It is as though your body only knows to bear suffering, pain from which is borne from being mortal, pain borne of the pure action of breathing.
Still, you close your eyes and take a deep breath. Picking up your brush in a ramrod perfect posture, the incantation so familiar to your lips spill out as ink stains the talisman. Your voice starts soft, barely a whisper in the wind and as your hand scrawls and scrawls with a fervour not quite known to human consciousness, it rises until the only sound in your ear is your very own words.
The moment your brush lifts off the paper and the ink settles within, placed within the circle, it resonates and glows, bursting with light and into flame as it burns into a brilliant blaze. It threatens to engulf the summoning room, grazing at the ceiling as even the fire from your candles are absorbed into such a violent inferno. You can feel the heat, practically licking your skin and singeing the ends of your coat, sweat beading at your brow as you shield your eyes from the bright display.
Even when the flames dim, what is before your eyes is merely the shaping of the firestorm into nine distinct tails, a vulpine silhouette that eventually reveals a tall figure, draped in silks and brocades. With an elaborate fox-like mask hiding the top half of his face, this spirit which presented himself as both court official and decadent noble snapped open his fan to further hide his jade white visage. Among the cool night, all you could feel was the radiating heat from his form, even if he retracted his flames, it was as if there was nothing beyond him and his fire.
The high wooden geta clacks against the wooden floorboards, elegant footfalls approaching you ever closer as he steps out of the circle. He makes no effort to lower himself to your level, fervid eyes burning behind the mask as he tips his fan beneath your chin and lifts it. The spirit takes a gander at your appearance, scrutinising your every feature with an intensity far beyond mild interest.
“This place has experienced great change since I’ve last been here,” The old fox’s lips curl into a smile, the peek of sharp canines peeking from behind. His voice is sultry, a minacious bite to his words, “Onmyoji, we finally finally meet.”
No matter this first introduction, dealing with this great spirit will be much more complicated than any you have ever met. A venerable kitsune in which vagary destruction lay right at the snap of his fingers, no matter what kind of fate he deems worthy for your mortal self, it is exactly because you are mortal that you should meet this trial.
Bowing, you raise your clasped hands in front of you and dip until you feel your back screech for mercy, “Tamamo no mae-sama, it is an honour to meet you.”
“Do take care of me, little lady,” He croons and a shiver runs through your bones, no matter how gentle his words were.
❀⊱┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄⊰❀
なつむしの, おもひはかぎり
❀⊱┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄⊰❀
“Master, I did not think you would arrive so quickly.”
Your hands are steady as you tip the lacquered teapot, fragrant tea pouring in a steady stream from its slender spout. The dark liquid a blend you rarely take out other than to entertain your master, there is a certain trepidation that comes with such an act, one you are not sure when will finally leave you. The joints of your fingers ache, throbbing even as you lay at rest.
“It is so wrong for me to worry for you?” He raises a brow, azure eyes regarding you with some placid gleam.
Despite your admittedly out of place nerves, your master has done nothing to warrant such, that in spite of his graceful and aloof poise, Seimei may likely be one of the kindest people you have ever met. You understand that a person can in no way be entirely benevolent nor evil, for that is what makes a sentient being sentient, but there is merely something about him that brings forward ease within a person.
You only shake your head, an abashed quirk tugging at your lips. Watching him take a sip from his cup, your mind drifts back to the message you had sent. A letter that was hastily scrawled and messy beyond reason, the paper carried the distinct stench of smoke and ash, it was a moment of panic now that you could look upon the incident with a much clearer head. The minute you had situated the old yokai in conditions appeasable to his own tastes, you remember sprinting back to your room, sweat clinging to your skin and staining the paper as you wrote, informing your master what had just occurred and asking for his guidance.
“Of course not, I just thought you would have taken more time to get here,” You hum, your voice lowered and sheepish. “Were you not at the capital when my letter arrived?”
Your master only nods, “Your words were so fearful, I thought you had come across a great trouble.”
He takes a moment to partake from his drink once more, a silence falling upon the sun-lit room as birds chirp in the nearby trees and the sound of your shikigami going about their lives ring from the distance. You rest your eyes upon his form, noting the seeming flawlessness of his presence. Sharper features that hinted at some otherworldly grace, just the most minute sign found in the form of the slight furrow of his brow revealed the distress that plagued him. Then, his long lashes flutter open, and your master merely seems to smile, relief all but seeping from his eyes.
“I am glad you are well.”
Averting your gaze, you thank him under your breath as heat flushes at the tips of your ears, not quite certain whether such bashfulness stems from troubling him or emotions else explained.
You can only move the conversation of topic away from that moment, putting on a facade of ease, “I thought you would have more insight about him.”
The expression on his face shifts ever so slightly, a sudden hardness in his eyes as he grips the teacup just the little tighter.
“He…has experienced a great number of losses due to both divine and human action,” He manages to breathe out, the sound almost all but serene if not for the lengthy pause between his words. Your master inhales, as though to continue his words, yet he only sighs, “I am afraid that is as much as I can disclose for now, it is not my place to tell what he does not wish to be revealed.”
Just as you think to pry just a little further, Hana’s voice echoes from beyond the closed doors, asking for your presence. There is a concern tinging her words, and judging by the pattering of rushed footsteps, this was a matter that required your immediate and utmost earnest attention.
“Master, I must apologise but…” Your eyes glance between him and the door, chest tightening ever so slightly as blood rushes through your veins.
Seimei merely shakes his head, an assuaging expression on his face as he waves you off, “Do not worry about me, go ahead.”
Nodding, you rise as quickly as possible, rushing off as you are swiftly carted off to the issue. The white haired man remains in his seated position, taking in the scent of his tea as he closes his eyes. He hears the silence of the wind, with neither bird song nor liveliness of existence. Seimei finishes the rest of his tea, herbal and heady fragrance greeting his senses for the last time before he places it down alongside your abandoned cup.
He takes a breath, not bothering to open his eyes as he speaks, “Uncle, I know you are there.”
From beyond the door and announcing his entrance through soft clicks, a masked man deigns to show his face as he lowers his fan. With his lips almost permanently lifted in mirth, the scarlet markings that painted his mask aided with the unease that your master suddenly feels creeping onto his spine. He is unfamiliar with this sensation, especially from the man before him.
“Seimei, its been a long time,” The old fox croons, insouciant tinge to his voice.
Without missing a beat, your master finds a new urgency within him, “What are your intentions with my disciple?”
“We have yet to see each other after so long and this is your first question for me?” Tamamo hums, an unexplainable expression on his jade white face. His fan taps against his jaw in a rhythmic manner, voice much more playful and recondite than Seimei would have liked, “She called out and I responded, nothing more, nothing less.”
“If you have any malintention upon her, I fear I may have to take action.”
Not quite a threat, for even he is unable to deny their relationship, but more so a warning. This tension between the two of them has an unspoken depth, one that had existed long before this clandestine reunion, and with Seimei’s admittedly almost obvious concern for your wellbeing, it only seems to sour so.
The old fox smiles, and the younger finds that he does not enjoy the way those golden eyes seem to shine with burning regard from beyond the mask. Tamamo only muses, yet despite the airy nature of his voice, behind his lilt was a zealous avariciousness, “I promise you, no harm shall befall her so long as I am by her side.”
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なくやあるらん
❀⊱┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄⊰❀
For all that the froglets incident was worth, a situation that had been more so confusing and hysterical for the regional townspeople than any life-threatening catastrophe as you had been led to believe, it was only a mild inconvenience. A few dozen little frogs dressed to appear as great yokais were merely wandering around and acting as if they were the spirits themselves, of course they had also been imbued with some kind of ability that allowed them to recreate such acts, but it was still not some matter that would raze the whole of Heian-Kyo.
Still, that had not meant you expected to return to your abode with said froglets nipping at your heels ready to make themselves useful.
“Master…” At a loss for words, Momo could only cock her head at the image before her.
Rather than being seated at your desk pouring over documents, you were instead making yourself quite busy with some leisurely reading while the froglets dedicate themselves to stacking your books in an order only they seemed to know.
“It’s okay, they are not causing any issue,” You smile, an amused huff escaping your nose when your eyes drift to Susabi Frog balancing on top of Ichimokuren Frog as it just barely pushes a star chart into place, “I am just keeping them busy.”
Turning your attention back to Momo, you place down your book as you roll your shoulders back, the vertebrae in your spine not quite as sore. “Did you have something for me to look at?”
“Ubume asked whether you wanted to join us for lunch or have us eat with you.” Her voice is slightly hesitant, just one step away from wavering.
It feels like instinct at this point, you rest your head upon your palm and squeeze your eyes in delight. If you had to be honest, you did quite miss being able to have meals with your shikigamis, always some lively affair and certainly occuring far too sparsely for your liking.
“It has been some time since we all sat down together and ate, has it not?”
She nods her head, a hopeful expression on her face as her eyes widen in mock innocence, “Mhm! So will you?”
You laugh, shaking your head as you get up and dust your clothes. An excitement fills her as the little blooms in her hair burst open, grabbing your arm and all but dragging you out. Turning a glance to the froglets, you wave them over and they come scampering to your side at the first notice, almost all too excited to follow along. They clamour in the occasional croak or ribbit, asking about this and that. More akin to children, you wonder when that sentiment started.
By the time you arrive in your courtyard, it is all but a wonderfully teeming gathering, noise filling your ears in a manner that only served to coax your heart from its tight cage. Seeing them like this, you are happy that you get to have such a sight, living free from suffering and safe, that was the most important point, that they were safe.
“I see you all are in good spirits,” You hum, an announcement that is swiftly followed by a symphony of ‘Master’s’.
Some of the younger shikigami immediately leap from their seats to your side, to which you only greet them with on overfond smile and a pat on the head. Those busy with serving food or handing out cutlery likewise greet you, not quite able to pull themselves away from their tasks but still sending a smile or a wave. Momo is quick to join everyone else, flitting between chatting and aiding. Ootengu had busied himself with scooping soup while Hana had been floating around ensuring everyone had some kind of meal, leaving one person notably uninvolved.
“Little lady,” The old yokai calls for you, resting his head on his palm as a smile plays on his lips. Sitting beneath the plum blossom tree, he almost looks like the subject of a great painting under falling petals and soft sunlight. Just the view of such makes you almost afraid to approach him, yet still you do so. You are unable to tell exactly whether his levity is real, but you can only assume so by his leisurely tone, “Have the froglets been helping you?”
Glancing at the frogs now being babied by the rest of your shikigami, a notion you did not think they would take up so fast, you only laugh, “They are very earnest, thank you.”
Silence falls upon the two of you and for a moment, it truly does feel that all is right in the world. There is little discomfort in your body, joints no longer cracking at every minute action nor head pounding at every little stimulus that dared to exist. The smell of sweet flowers and delightful aroma of proper food fills the air, and you yearn for nothing more than these days to continue on.
Those froglets, troublesome at first though they may, had ended up being a kind of blessing. For ever since their attempted marauding, you have had little, if any issues that required your action. You spend your days reading and writing, responding to correspondence and finally able to focus on your studies.
It is while reminiscing that Tamamo’s silvery words reach your ears, pleasant and coaxing.
“These few weeks have been rather peaceful, don’t you think?” He tilts his head to the side, meeting your gaze in a single move.
You squeeze your eyes again, a soft sigh escaping you as a smile tugs at your lips, “It has, I can finally get to some marriage proposals I had apparently recieved.”
For a moment, just the slightest second late, you thought the old fox’s expression darkened. Yet just as quickly as it came, it left, and he simply continues on. His eagerness almost resembles that of those older ladies, that crooning voice asking for more and more, ready to give advice you never thought you would need, older yokais surely were no different than mortals.
“Oh? And who is the lucky fellow?” His nails, scarlet and far longer than you remember, clasp around his fan.
“Just another onmyoji, he isn’t from the big name clans that sent their pathetic excuse they call letters,” You sigh, then hold your hands up in clarification, as though to correct yourself from your perceived distate, “Which is good, less likely to be some bigoted oaf.”
Tamamo merely hums, snapping open his fan to hide the bottom of his face, yet there was an odd wry tinge to his words, “How intriguing, our little lady seems to be quite popular to attract even onmyojis from the big clans.”
“Don’t flatter me, they just want to find someone they can continue their bloodlines with.”
Rolling your eyes, an acerbic grin appears on your face as you take a drink from the teacup one of the froglets brought over. Just like those old ladies, he places a hand on your shoulder and with an assuaging tone, a sense of warm reassurance is poured into your being.
“Well, you won’t have to worry. I’m certain you will have no trouble.”
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またまたも, みをぞすてつる
❀⊱┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄⊰❀
Kiyohara Genjirou, a practicing onmyoji that had sought you out not only for his pursuit of the craft but admiration as well. So he cited in his first correspondence, and so you would like to believe.
As he wrote to you, you found him an eloquent and diligent man. Genjirou, though not hailing from a noble family nor considered talented enough to join a major clan, wandered through the country aiding when he could. All he had were paper dolls and simple talisman, yet that was all he needed. He had heard tales from those whose qualms you have solved, and had grown curious of your being. It was natural, yet this natural curiosity had grown to longing when he caught a glimpse of you in the city.
The image he described of you had seem otherworldly when you first read it, donned in simple robes and merely another face among the crowd, his eyes had no choice but to follow along your form, entirely unable to pull away from you. As if sent down from the high heavens, even the slightest whisper of your voice had made him understand why men should turn to religion.
You thought of him less fondly, perhaps not an infatuation such as his but an interest nonetheless. He had only sent two letters, the first that had been introductory and more similar to polite courtesy, the second much more personal and akin to courting. Still, you had been touched by his words, further still when you read the last portion. He would make the journey to your estate, to meet you and to perhaps, if you would allow him the chance to, to court you.
It was by no means a demand, but rather a suggestion. Genjirou had gone so far as to write that should you not find him appealing in any manner, that should you deem him overstepping, you were in every right to have him kicked out and his hair cut short.
You remember showing Tamamo the letter, surrounded by the froglets as he read from behind your shoulder. You told him that you would like to meet such a staunch person, and perhaps at the time, you had laughed alongside him when he said that should Genjirou truly act as he feared, then it would not be humiliation that he would bear. There was nothing to worry for, all you had to do was await his arrival.
Yet, despite his staid words and his solemn promises, he never came.
Under the moonlight and through the cold night wind, you can only let out a soft sigh. Your shoulders slump beneath your robes as all of a sudden, your body feels too heavy for your feet. Leaning against the wooden pillars of the front gate, that familiar tightness in your chest returns once more. Yet rather than what feels like your ribs enclosing onto your rapidly beating heart, what occurs to you now is more akin to that sentimental organ squeezing against its cage, yearning to pry straight through to leap out and wither away. Your lungs long for air, forcing in and out and yet it is not enough, never enough.
It is cold, so, so cold. Why were you cold?
Closing your eyes, you feel a presence approach from behind you, then a hand pulls you away from your resting spot. You lay against a warm body, that even through layers and layers of silk and brocade, you do not even have to open your eyes to know who it is.
“Tamamo,” Your murmur disappears into the night, yet it is a call that he hears and responds to.
With your limp limbs that which hang uselessly, the old fox gathers you into his embrace, allowing you to bury your face into his chest. “I thought he was different…”
Methodical and rhythmic, his chest rises and lowers, coaxing your breath to follow suite. Within his hold, there is a warmth that penetrates the skin, enveloping your tendons in loving flame. Tightly held and tightly received, Tamamo lets you dig your nails into him, until your fingertips ache and your wrists cramp up. He merely returns the sentiment, as though it was entirely natural to do so.
“Will you be honest with me?”
As though ashamed to even consider such a thought an option, you can barely muster your voice to above a whisper, “Do you think I’m a disappointment to my master?”
“Of course not, my little lady is very accomplished,” He croons, his voice soft and soothing. “Do you think I would have answered your call otherwise?”
Still enveloped in his presence, you inhale the familiar smell that clings to him. When he speaks to you as such, it truly does feel like all will be right in this world. Desiring nothing more than to keep you safe, this old fox you had once shrinked from has now become your only succour. How fast you had let him in your heart, that he should treat you with the same regard and care you do the rest of your shikigami, and you would become so easily reliant on what he may give you. Ironic, yet undeniably a notion you had grown aware of since his arrival.
“Besides, he is rather foolish to give up on you,” He sighs, an undertone distantly related to triumph hidden beneath assuage and fondness.
That graceful hand cups your face, reverent as though bearing a great treasure. Your eyes flutter open, and it is then you notice that he is no longer wearing his mask, presenting that exquisite face once hidden to you. Narrow eyes of beguiling gold with long lashes, lips that more appeared as delicate petals. No matter the scarlet markings painted upon his skin, it is no wonder that men should turn to fanaticism in the face of such sublimity. You can only stare in awe, how warm your ears flush and how heat roils in your stomach upon the sonorous hum of his voice.
“You deserve much, much better than a human who only knows to lie to you.”
Lying on the beaten dirt path, Kiyohara Genjirou will be buried in an unmarked grave, neither name nor profession known to those who will find him. For all that remains of this unwitting suitor is the stench of smoke and shrivelled corpse, caught too soon in a fox’s tempestuous favour and left to burn in the same blazing rancour that once threatened to engulf the tranquil capital.
❀⊱┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄⊰❀
なつむしの, なほあきたらぬ
❀⊱┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄⊰❀
Being a good onmyoji is not difficult, it is not some arduous task to respect and love your shikigami, to treat them as one would dear friends and family. Yet, a shikigami that has only lost and lost, when given a second chance to make it all right, what then happens to that good onmyoji is very often known only to those hidden away.
Your master, when he had learned of the events that transpired had taken it with nothing more than a furrowed brow and a sharp exhale. Before he left, he had gifted you a talisman and instructed you to hang it in your room, to which you did. Yet, that very day, it had gone missing from your door. You had no unease at it, after all, he had given you hundreds of protection talismans, what difference was one going missing?
You on the other hand, had come to realise many things about your emotions with the arrival of both dismay and prolonged peace. That old fox who has done nothing but inexplicably care for you, with no explanation nor clarification. It had come out of nowhere, that quiet wistfulness and longing glances, you nearly thought yourself mad yet it was true. Torturing yourself with what could only possibly be, one could only imagine the joy that filled you when you had to do nothing but wait just a little longer, and even that foolish wish should come to be.
Cicadas sing in the distant night, your lover has long retired for the night and lays atop the bed, what you may see now is but his most true form, masks and disguises left at the door. Vulpine ears atop his head along with nine full tails, he once again scoops you into his embrace as even his tails move to cover you.
“Cold…” You only whine, squirming closer as though you could crawl into his skin.
Tamamo only huffs in amusement, no sign of actual vexation, and pulls you in closer. The increased contact brings burning touch falling upon your skin, the old fox noses along some invisible line at your neck, his lips pressing a kiss upon your pulse. He coaxes a sigh from your throat, soft and airy and almost all too practiced. Wholeheartedly embracing the fervid greed within him, you think you feel the prick of sharp canines against tender skin, yet you could care less.
In nothing more than your sleeping robes, luxurious clothes stripped off, legs entangled and limbs intertwined. To an unwitting observer, it would be difficult to discern whose form was whose, so thoroughly ensnared fox and human may as well be one body.
With neither onmyoji nor spirit to separate the two of you, and in this little delusion, not even the heavens will seize you from his side. He has ensured it, he shall see to it that the one he loves will never bear such suffering ever again.
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こひをたのみて
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