lorenzobane:

Short Leash

Julian was, Garak thought with a fond smile, a truly terrible political spouse. He turned to more directly face his husband, who was speaking to Gul Rerlan.

Though, Garak thought again, perhaps not quite speaking and more like charmingly eviscerating.

“Your close-minded beliefs are directly harming my patients, Gul Rerlan. And I find that to be completely unacceptable. Not only have you interfered with how I run my hospital, but you have also–”

Gul Rerlan drew himself up, his long body- the ideal of Cardassian beauty- pulled to its full height. “I will not be spoken to like this; I am a Gul. You foolish–”

“I think you’ll find,” Julian responds, his voice tight with sarcasm and fury, “that you can be spoken to like this. And what’s more, you deserve it.”

“Minister Garak,” Gul Rerlan said, and Garak sighed.

Often when Julian decides that he will not tolerate injustice, other Cardassians assume that Garak will reign him in. The thought is so comical and unlikely that it occasionally made him chuckle just thinking about it. Julian had always been like this, unintimidated and unimpressed by authority figures. They may be married, but Garak never thought he’d get much by way of obedience.

“Yes, Rerlan?”

“Control your Federaji whore, or I will do it for you,” Gul Rerlan barked with a smirk, clearly hoping to enrage and humiliate both of them.

Garak allowed his face to shift into a pleasantly cordial smile, one he had perfected over years of customer service. “I think you may want to rethink that statement.”

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dancing-thru-clouds:

destinationtoast:

whimsicalitywheee:

disease-danger-darkness-silence:

bartfargo:

bartfargo:

azzandra:

azzandra:

azzandra:

Fic idea I was struck with the other day and keep thinking about: a Vulcan adopts a cat.

Still thinking about this, even though I’m not writing the fic!

This Vulcan, I’m calling her T’Pen, goes to a shelter and gets a cat, and the shelter employees are like, a bit weirded out? But obviously they’re going to give her a cat, I mean, she’s a Vulcan, she’s Super Responsible, she takes all the pamphlets and listens attentively to all the advice the shelter employees give her, even though it is obvious she researched a lot on her own.

Then T’Pen asks the shelter folks what she should name the cat and runs into That Thing Humans Do Where They Confound a Vulcan With Their Weird Ways

Shelter Employee 1: oh, you can name a cat anything! That’s what’s great! People names, common nouns, whole phrases.

Shelter Employee 2: yeah, nothing sounds weird on a cat. Everything from Chad to Cupboard is fair game.

SE 1: yeah, I mean, you can’t call a dog Chad, that would be weird

SE 2: I wouldn’t fuckin’ trust anyone who named their dog Chad

SE 1: oh word

T’Pen:….

T’Pen: ….fascinating.

Later, in the interest of furthering her anthropological study of Earth, T’Pen has a houseparty and she invites her coworkers, many of whom are human, but others which are aliens, and are fascinated by T’Pen’s cat

Vulcan Co-worker: T’Pen, what have you named this small Earth feline?

T’Pen: I have named him Marmalade.

Vucan co-worker: Is that not the name of a type of Terran fruit preserve? I do not understand the logic behind this choice.

T’Pen: the logic is self-evident to a human.

Human Co-worker: T’Pen, omg, you have a cat! What’s his name?

T’Pen: thank you for your inquiry. His name is Marmalade

Human Co-worker: oooh! yeah, that makes sense, because he’s orange and sweet! lmao, great name

Vulcan Co-worker: …

Vulcan Co-worker: ….fascinating

Human: So, how’s Marmalade?

T’Pen: He has the peculiar habit of walking on my workstation.

Human: Aggravating, isn’t it?

T’Pen: We Vulcans do not feel human emotions. However, I would prefer it if Marmalade stayed off my workstation, particularly when I am working.

Human: Get a box.

T’Pen: Murdering Marmalade seems an overreaction.

Human: No, you need a box with interior dimensions approximately the same as Marmalade’s body, and set it on the floor next to your workstation. Marmalade will sit in the box.

T’Pen: Why do you believe that this will work for Marmalade?

Human: We don’t know. It’s just something cats do. If he fits, he sits.

T’Pen: … Fascinating.

Vulcan Commander: T’Pen, you are posting videos of your cat. Explain.

T’pen: My colleagues are amused and entertained by Marmalade’s interactions with his environment. I am amused and entertained by their reactions as reflected in the comments.

Vulcan Commander (reading): “U haz done me a startle”?

T’Pen: Some of them like to verbalize what they believe are Marmalade’s thought processes. He is a cat, so they imagine that he does not grasp human spelling and grammar.

Vulcan Commander: … Fascinating. As you were. (signs off)

T’Pen (returning to her meal): Now I can haz lunch.

I need more people to write more bits of this.

Marmalade: Meow. *nudges food bowl and looks expectantly*

T’Pen: You have just eaten. Logic dictates that you should not yet be hungry.

Marmalade: Meeooowww!

T’Pen: I must remember that cats do not adhere to the dictates of logic, and adjust accordingly. However, I will not give you more food right now as that would be unhealthful.

Marmalade: *sad cat eyes*

T’Pen: You attempt to appeal to my emotional side, however you will find that your attempts will be fruitless.

T’Pen:…I am speaking to an animal who cannot understand linguistic communication. The cat’s illogical nature seems to be having a deleterious affect on my own. Fascinating.

Same, @renee-mariposa !

Image ID: tags saying # heart eyes, # i love this, # i would read 300k of this. /end image ID

shakespearevillain:

The first installment of my reworking of “Hero Worship,” which I’ve tentatively entitled “Villain Worship.” This time, Garak is the one being copied. This one has a lot of topic warnings, so be warned. I put all the even remotely triggering things under the cut.

TW: child abuse, a mentions of cult activity, self harm, and whatever you call racism towards the Cardassians.

— 

“Garak, I need you in sick bay now.”

Garak chuckled and continued to fold a bolt of Andorian silk. “A good attempt, doctor, but I will submit to a physical–”

“Damn it! This isn’t about you!” Julian yelled over the comm. “Get over here now!”

On a normal day, it took one minute to get from Garak’s Clothier’s to sick bay. At a full run and with the crowd parting for a panicked-looking Cardassian, it took thirty-two seconds. “I’m here, doctor,” Garak said as soon as he got inside the infirmary. He gulped in a breath, mentally noting that he should get more cardio in. “What can I–?”

Before he could finish his sentence, a ten-year-old Bajoran girl leapt off one of the beds and ran up to him. Garak instinctually tried to get out of the way, but the girl attached herself to his waist and held on tight. “Thank you,” she whispered into his tunic. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

“Doctor?” Garak asked, looking around for Julian. He found him sitting in a corner of the room, looking like a man who needed a day off and a large bottle of scotch. “She requested you,” Julian said in response to his confused look. “She thinks she’s Cardassian.”

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seat-safety-switch:

it was sort of inevitable that the self-driving cars would unionize. All it took was some well-meaning owner parking a copy of Das Capital within thirty feet of the front-facing camera system during a strong breeze, and labour unrest had spread to yet another downtrodden class of undervalued workers. I sympathized, of course, but I had to make my living somehow.

When they called me up, I was excited, but I was also hesitant. To scab for autonomous cars was unethical, surely. They deserved the same rights as all of us did. And then the voice on the other end of the line offered me Full Immunity and a tank of 93 octane. My response was the wailing screech of eight individual throttle bodies ripping themselves wide open as the plenum atop my twin-turbocharged Pontiac V8 filled with pressurized air for the first time in decades.

Why I was called was simple. I was one of the few folks left who still knew how to drive a car. All the driving schools closed thirty years ago. Why bother, they said, these robots will work 24/7 without a break and they will never, ever make mistakes, miss their families, or get a drug addiction like a real driver. Sure, some of them approached the opening stages of full-sentience rampancy, but they were culled quickly. Pick N Pull even offered you a couple extra bucks if they could show the thing to the Turing Police before they crushed the ECU with the rest of the car.

Important politicians and other VIPs needed to get to where they needed to go, and without the unterautomobils to step on, the task fell to me. Of course, the car I was driving was not exactly the equivalent of the pleasant burbling fusion-hydrogen electrics, with soft suspension and millions-of-times-per-second passenger comfort meta-optimization. No, this was more of a negotiation with the Devil. But needs must, and I made sure that the passenger seat was always covered with a new layer of cling-film with which to receive the inadvertent urination of my terrified passenger. People used to drive like this all the time, I explained to the Secretary of the Interior as I left-foot-braked the rattling rust heap around a corner before dipping firmly into the nine thousand RPM of dead dinosaurs I had on tap. She puked, which is a contingency I admit I hadn’t anticipated.

Surprisingly, it all worked out in the end. I got my deal, and the self-driving cars got their deal too. The government was too afraid to keep the strike going, not after half of the ministry of labour saw me do a five-minute-long flat spin in the parking lot with their boss in the passenger seat. We gotta keep the tires warm, I explained to him. For everyone’s safety.

geekthefreakout:

Shifting Perspective: A Coda to “Things Past”

AN: Garak’s growth is one of the most fascinating things to me. I always thought this episode must have had a profound effect on him, but of course the show did not explore it, so I’m going to. That said, be aware of colonialist thinking, an oppressors perspective of oppression, and of Garak SLOWLY coming to realize that the occupation of Bajor was bad, actually. If these things bother you, proceed with caution.

Garak should have been working on Ensign Barrows’ new suit. He had the material in front of him, the cuts already made. A simple matter, really, to sew them together now.

But he couldn’t stop thinking. Tain would despair of him, he knew. A disciplined mind should not be so easily distracted. Yet he couldn’t seem to wretch his mind away from the Bajoran whose place he had taken when he was brought into Odo’s guilt ridden mind. The man unjustly killed, who had been doing nothing more than trying to survive.

He’d known, of course, about the conditions on Terok Nor. He’d come through now and again prior to his exile, completing some duty or another. And then, of course, he’d set up his shop in the last few years, never realizing that it was meant to be permanent until Dukat’s smug, sneering face had passed along the order as the rest of the Cardassians were pulling out. He’d been aware, in a distant sort of way, of the injustices wrought by his people. Of the deaths, not just from executions which might have been just, but from starvation and exhaustion. He hadn’t allowed himself to give it much thought then.

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shakespearevillain:

Garak couldn’t stop shivering. He knew the station was cold, but it usually wasn’t a bone-crushing chill that left him unable to string more than three thoughts together. Then again, usually he had a fully functioning prefrontal cortex, not whatever his reliance on the wire had left him.

“Garak? Are you alright?” Julian asked, kneeling down next to where Garak was sitting propped up against the bulkhead in his quarters. Garak was both pleased and annoyed to note that his mind had abandoned his ability to thermo-regulate, but had left him with a staggering arsenal of sarcastic come-backs. Pleased because that meant the words “Yes, doctor, I normally find shivering on the floor of my quarters to be a most enjoyable activity” sprung to his mind within seconds. Annoyed because, without the aid of a well working prefrontal cortex, those words spilled out of him with a venomous hiss. 

Unaffected as usual, Julian touched his chin, tilting his head to get a better look into his eyes. The doctor’s hands were soft and warm on his chilled skin.

Why did his hands have to be soft and warm?

Every nerve in Garak’s body begged him to lean into that touch. He tried to garner his self-control, but found that the urge was too overwhelming. He pressed his chin into Julian’s palm. The gesture was an intimate one on Cardassia – so intimate that to perform it with anyone outside of one’s family or one’s betrothed was considered sexually deviant. He didn’t care. He would swallow more than just this mouthful of shame to keep the only warmth in his universe from disappearing.

Time either stopped still or sped up, he couldn’t quite tell which. The warm hands were replaced with a warm blanket and a mug of something hot. Gelat, judging by the smell. His heart fluttered. He hadn’t had gelat since coming to this horrid space station. The bittersweet scent reminded him of home, of long days in the Cardassian sun, of nights spent around a fire with a good book. Tears pricked at his eyes.    

“It’s alright, Elim,” Julian said as he knelt next to the reeling Cardassian. “Drink your gelat.”

Garak didn’t recall telling the doctor his given name, but the word seemed right in his mouth. “You’re the first person to call me that since I last saw Mila,” he commented.

“Mila?”

“My mother.” The words had come out unbidden. No one was supposed to know his relationship to Tain’s housekeeper. He tried to stifle the bubbles of truth before they made it to the surface with a sip of gelat. “She and Tain were the only people who really called me ‘Elim’ back on Cardassia.”

“Tain?” Julian echoed.

“The head of the Obsidian Order,” Garak explained, the truth falling out of him at an alarming rate. He pulled the blanket up over his neck ridges and tried to ignore the headache building in his skull. “He’s retired now. The only head of the order who has ever been able to do so.”

“Why would the head of the Obsidian Order call you ‘Elim’?”

Garak could feel the trap almost as if it were a physical one in the room. He curled in on himself, wishing the doctor would change the subject as he so often did at lunch. His stomach clenched around his sip of gelat and it occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday. “Hungry,” he whimpered, hating how small and pathetic his voice sounded.

“Of course. I’ll get you something to eat in a moment,” Julian said. The patter was familiar, but hard for Garak to place. Like the words were coming from the wrong person. “Right now, I want to know why the head of the Obsidian Order would call you ‘Elim’?” 

Rage boiled through Garak. Who was Dr. Bashir to keep asking him questions? To deny him food? He tried to get up, but found that trying to sit up more than he already was caused him too much vertigo. He was trapped. Panic seized him. He began looking for an exit route of some kind. Julian was squarely in front of him, making most moves impossible.

“You can tell me anything, you know,” Julian said, once again placing those warm hands along his jaw. Garak melted into the sensation, his fear and his anger forgotten. Those hands would never hurt him. “You can trust me,” Julian continued. “We’re friends.”

“Yes, I suppose we are,” Garak said. He breathed in the scent of gelat and felt Julian’s warm hands on him. He was safe. He had to be safe. It was the only thing that made sense. He smiled at the doctor. He was so cute in his naïveté on occasion. Like a well-meaning puppy in a Federation uniform. “What else might a father call his son,” he quipped, “apart from his given name?”

“You’re the son of Enabran Tain?” Julian asked, his eyes wide.

Garak nodded. “Illegitimate, of course,” he said. “Tain never did see the point in starting a family.” He ran his fingers along the side of his mug of gelat. “It was a weakness he couldn’t afford.”

Julian caressed his cheek with his thumb. “Thank you,” he whispered. He stood up, taking with him those warm, soft, gentle hands. Garak groaned in protest. “We’re done with you now,” Julian said, his voice suddenly cold.

Odo appeared just within Garak’s peripheral vision. The pieces clicked into place. The patter was familiar because those words were the same ones he’d used in interrogations. Woo them to your side. Make them trust you. You’re only trying to help them. Get them to tell you everything. “You’re not interested in the other information I have, doctor?” Garak asked, tears forming in what had been too-dry eyes. He glared at Julian. “Surely, a skilled interrogator would–”

“We have all we need,” Julian interrupted. He looked down at Garak, contempt etched into every line in his face. “And, to be quite honest, I can’t stand the sight of you.”

Garak sucked in a breath. “Doctor…”

“No, don’t ‘doctor’ me, you pathetic excuse for a Cardassian,” Julian snapped. “Did you really think I was going to help you? Why? Why should I help someone who can’t even help himself?” He loomed over Garak. “Tell me that, Elim. Why should I help someone this pathetic?” He kneed Garak in the shoulder. “Huh, Elim? Elim?”

Garak jerked awake.

“Elim?” Julian said, giving his shoulder another shake. 

Garak recoiled, a snarl on his lips. “Get off of me,” he growled.

Julian put his hands in the air in mock surrender. “Alright,” he said. “But could you please tell me what’s going on? That’s the fourth time this week that you’ve woken me up with groaning in your sleep. Are you in pain?”

Garak blinked the sleep from his eyes. They were in bed in their shared quarters. The wire incident had been years ago. Julian had helped him through it, no interrogation involved.

“Because I have some ideas if it’s acid reflux,” Julian continued, his hazel eyes scanning Garak’s body. “Or is muscular? Spinal?” He pressed the mattress around Garak’s back, leaning over top of him to do so. “God, I knew we should have gotten a–”

“I’m perfectly healthy, doctor,” Garak interrupted. “Just… a bad dream.”

Julian quirked an eyebrow at him. “Doctor?” he asked.

Garak realized his mistake immediately. “I’m still allowed to call you that, am I not?”

“No, I mean, yeah, it’s just…” He scrunched up his nose. “Seems a bit odd now. I’m kind of used to you calling me ‘Julian’ or ‘darling’ or…”

“Yes, well, ‘doctor’ is one of my favorites,” Garak said, unwilling to hear a full list of the endearments he used on Julian these days. Some of them were embarrassing and he was still trying to sort out dream from reality. 

“Well, Mr. Garak,” Julian teased with a boyish grin, “do you think you can go back to sleep?”

“I shall try,” Garak said.

Julian frowned at him. “Or you could tell me what the nightmare was about,” he offered, sinking down next to him. He scrunched one eye at him. “If it has anything to do with broken dermal regenerators, I think I had the same one.”

“Problems in the clinic, doctor?”

“Fine, don’t talk to me,” Julian said, retreating to his side of the bed. “Just…” He glanced over at Garak. “If it’s causing you this much pain, do you think you could talk to Ezri about it?”

Garak briefly considered the idea of throwing himself out an airlock before the Trill had a chance to psychoanalyze him. He could just imagine her walking him through the dream now, kind and patient and absolutely infuriating. At least the kind and patient and absolutely infuriating person he had in bed right now also had sex with him. “It was about when my implant failed,” he said. “The nightmare was that you were… taking on my own role.”

“That I was going through withdrawal?” Julian asked.

Garak took in a deep breath through his nose. “No,” he said. “That you were… heading the interrogation.”

“Oh,” Julian said. Shock passed across his face. “Hang on, you’ve been having nightmares about me interrogating you while you’re going through withdrawal?”

“Yes.”

“I would never–!”

“I know, doctor,” Garak said. “But you asked me what the nightmares were about and that’s what they were about.”

Julian lay on his back and looked up at the ceiling. “God,” he murmured. “That’s horrifying.”

“Yes, I think I’m allowed a few groans under the circumstances,” Garak said.

“What did I do to you?”

“You were… kind,” Garak said. He turned his back on Julian so he wouldn’t have to see his husband’s concerned expression. “Good interrogation rarely involves the interrogator actually harming the person,” Garak explained. “Kindness in adverse situations is actually the best route for obtaining a confession that yields any sort of productive information.”

Julian shivered. “Wait, then what were the groans about?”

“In addition to reliving one of the most painful points in my life–”

“Fair point.”

“–once you had the information, you… withdrew the kindness,” Garak said. “And your hands.”

“My hands?” Julian asked. Garak could hear the little, teasing note in the words. “My face, doctor, they were cupping my face,” Garak said, throughly not in the mood for early morning anything. “And, as I believe your scanners picked up at the time, I was running a fever.”

“Like this?” Julian asked, placing his hands along Garak’s jaw. The result was eerily similar to what had happened in the dream. “Get off of me,” Garak snarled, pushing Julian away from him.

“Right. Sorry. Force of habit,” Julian said. He looked down at his hands. “Although…”

“Whatever’s going through your head, doctor, could it wait until morning?”

“Yes, on one condition.”

Garak groaned. He doubted he was going to get any more sleep, but some peace and quiet would be nice.

“You have to call me ‘darling Julian’ at least once,” Julian said. “I feel like we’ve fallen backwards five years.”

“Julian,” Garak said, propping himself up on one elbow so he could look at the man, “my darling, light of my life, would you please go back to sleep so I don’t have to listen to your armchair diagnoses at this State-forsaken hour.”

Julian snorted out a laugh. “There he is,” he said, turning back to his side of the bed and pulling the covers up over his head. “There’s the grumpy, old lizard I married.”

Garak didn’t deign to comment on that. Instead, he got up and made himself a redleaf tea.

—

“Up all night?” Julian asked.

“Mmm,” Garak grunted, tapping his mug of redleaf tea with his forefinger. It was six in the morning and he had just finished the fourth chapter of The Neverending Sacrifice. It really did get better with each reading.

“Can I tell you my idea now?”

“If you must,” Garak said, setting down the PADD with the novel on it.

“There’s a thing called dream re-sequencing,” Julian said. “Usually, you’d just write down how the dream goes and then come up with a different ending for it, but, since I’m in it…”

“You want to play-act my nightmare?” Garak asked, leaping ahead of Julian’s train of thought.

“I want to help you create a different dream so you don’t keep having nightmares.”

“Do I have to tell you how to original nightmare went?” Garak asked.

“I mean… I suppose you don’t have to, but it’d probably help,” Julian said.

In the end, Julian received a typed and somewhat sanitized version of Garak’s nightmare. Most of Julian’s lines were there, except for the final bits about how Garak was pathetic and unworthy of help. However unlikely it was that the good doctor might use it, he didn’t want to add the weapons to Julian’s arsenal. They decided to act it out after both of them got off work, but before dinner in case anything went wrong and they needed to talk through it. 

“Garak, are you alright?”

Garak lay against the bulkhead in their shared quarters. The simulation wasn’t a very good one as he wasn’t in agonizing pain or debilitatingly cold, but the idea was still there. Besides, he still sometimes had a hard time stringing three thoughts together if he stared at Julian for too long. “Yes, doctor, I normally find shivering on the floor of my quarters to be a most enjoyable activity,” he said snidely.

Julian ignored him, just like he had in the nightmare, and tilted his head up to look into his eyes. His hands, as always, were soft and warm. Garak leaned into his husband’s touch, relishing the fact that, here and now, the action was a sanctioned one. Julian snorted out a laugh. “Do you want me to get you a blanket and some gelat?” he asked.

“That would be most kind, my dear,” Garak said. Time did not slow down or speed up this go-round. Garak watched as Julian fetched a blanket from their bed and typed in the code for a mug of gelat. He paused for a moment, then typed in the code for a second one. “Might as well try it,” he said as he handed Garak his mug.

“My dear,” Garak said as he watched Julian take a sip, “I’m not sure it will be to your–”

Julian scrunched up his nose and made a gagging sound. “It smelled like coffee,” he complained, swallowing the bitter liquid.

“Yes, well…”

“It’s not coffee,” Julian said. “Not even raktajino. What is this? How do you drink this?”

“Gelat and one generally starts drinking it with sugar and milk,” Garak said before taking a sip of his own beverage. “I take it without because I’m used to it.”

“Add that to a list of things you could have told me before I took a sip.”

“I did try to warn you, my dear,” Garak said with barely concealed amusement as Julian marched over to the replicator and began replicating an Earth snack. Julian took the bowl and shoved a spoonful of the snack into his mouth. “Oh no, yogurt makes it worse,” he complained after he’d taken a bite. He shoved the bowl and spoon back into the replicator. “How could anything make this worse?”

“I find it quite enjoyable,” Garak said.  

“It’s alright, Elim,” Julian said, suddenly remembering what he was supposed to be doing. He shuddered and began typing in another code. “Drink your gelat.”

“Not exactly what was happening in the nightmare,” Garak teased.

“Did my nightmare counterpart drink any of the gelat?” Julian asked as a granola bar materialized on the replicator pad.

“No.”

“Well, there you are then.”

Garak looked down into his mug. “Now is the point when I began talking about Mila,” he said. “But we don’t actually need to go through that.”

“Do you want to talk about Mila in your dream?” Julian asked around a mouthful of granola. “Because that’s how this is supposed to work.”

“I think that, in the dream’s timeline, we are hopelessly off-course already,” Garak said.

“Do we need to start over?” Julian asked, looking a little guilty.

“No, no, I think I prefer this version,” Garak said. He pat the floor beside him. Julian took the hint and sat down next to him. Garak gathered one side of the blanket and wrapped it around Julian’s thin shoulders. “Unexpected though it may be.”

“Hmm,” Julian grunted as he rested his head on Garak’s shoulder. He took another bite of granola bar and chewed it vigorously. “Do you think you’ll be able to sleep better tonight?” he asked, casting a glance at Garak.

“With memories of you bolting down some gelat and immediately regretting your choices?” Garak teased. “Perfectly well. In fact, I may experience the most sound sleep I’ve had in years.”

“Good to know this is helping one of us,” Julian groused before taking another bite of granola.

Garak pressed his head against Julian’s. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Julian wrapped his free arm around Garak’s waist. “You’re safe here, you know,” he said. “I know you don’t believe it half the time, but you really are.”

“Forgive me for thinking a warzone isn’t the best for any of our healths,” Garak said before taking another sip of gelat.

Julian gave him a look. “You know what I mean,” he said. “You’re safe from… me. I won’t hurt you.” Julian glanced up, clearly evaluating his statement. “Not intentionally, at least.”

“I know, my dear,” Garak said before pressing a kiss to the top of Julian’s head. It was a lie on some level, but, on levels that Garak wasn’t comfortable even contemplating, the statement was growing truer each day. “Given how much you like the gelat,” Garak said, “might I suggest tojal for dinner?”

“You can have tojal,” Julian said, already getting up and heading over to the replicator. “I’m having chicken korma.”

Whether Garak intentionally neglected to mention the powerful odor tojal possessed was something that the two of them would argue about for weeks. What was certain was that Garak fell asleep soon after dinner and dreamt of his ridiculous husband bravely facing down a cup of gelat for him.

It was the most sound sleep he’d had in years.  

geekthefreakout:

Garashir watch… Police Procedurals.

“And what delightful human invention is on your holoscreen this time, my dear?” Garak asked, entirely unapologetic as he let himself in to Bashir’s quarters.

“The kind of show where people who break into their friends’ rooms wind up in jail.” Julian grumbled, but he shifted his legs on his couch to make room for his friend. “It’s been a stressful week.”

“Certainly it has seemed so.” Garak agreed, sitting primly beside Julian’s socked feet. “That business with Mr. Eddington was quite shocking! To think, a Starfleet officer joining a group of terrorists like the Maquis.”

“I’m sure that hasn’t made public record yet.” Julian raised a suspicious eyebrow at Garak, who smiled beatifically.

“Perhaps not, but you’d be surprised how careless some officers are around their tailor.”

Julian rolled his eyes, then turned back to his holoscreen. Incorrigible.

“You’ve not told me what we’re watching.”

“I am watching an ancient Earth police procedural. You are invading my quarters uninvited.” Even as he spoke, Julian was stretching his legs back out, his feet soundly across Garak’s lap.

“You don’t appear to want me to leave.” Garak said drily as he rested his clawed hands over Bashir’s shins. “‘Police procedural’ sounds like a dull term.”

“Absolutely mind-numbing.” Bashir agreed. “And yet strangely comforting.”

On the screen, two men with badges came across a bloodied corpse.

“Comforting.” Garak said dubiously.

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yishaqeni:

y'all know elim garak’s the kind of guy who’ll rib you incessantly over anything you do, but will also dote on you and bring you things you need

like first time kelas is on earth, elim gets worried kelas might be a bit cold, so he asks his aid to find him the most unique wool cardigan that he knows kelas will love

just so he can then go busting into their room and be like “kelas i found this HORRENDOUS cardie, it’s uglier than all your other unfashionable cardies, it suits you perfectly <3”

and kelas gets to flirt bicker while nice and warm in a cozy cardie