Icon by @ThatSpookyAgent. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
I absolutely should be writing my fic but instead, I’m going to discuss the realization I had while talking to @wanderingwriter87 that Julian apparently made Garak read fucking KEATS, canonically in the show. One of the most romantic writers ever. Okay.*
In Broken Link (S4x26), when talking to a Bajoran woman he wants to set Odo up with, he says “a thing of beauty is a joy forever” which is a reference to Book 1 of Endymion.
Now, it’s a reasonably well-known poem, but not really the most popular of Keats’ work and definitely not one that I think he would have picked up randomly without Julian’s suggestion. And it’s making me INSANE!! Because the overall plot of the four-book poem is about a Shepard who falls in love with the moon goddess Selena (renamed Cynthia in the poem.) To make an extremely long poem short- and I’m cutting a lot of plot points here- in the end, after tragedy and extreme challenges, they escape together. They’re from two fundamentally different worlds, she’s a goddess and he’s a Shepard but their LOVE allows them to be together forever.
Like are you KIDDING me?? Julian gave Garak a love poem about two people who shouldn’t love each other, finding each other over impossible odds (again, I’m cutting a whole plot point where he falls in love with another woman who turns out to be Cynthia in disguise but I digress), only to have him leave his home for them to be together.
Before his goddess, in a blissful swoon. She gave her fair hands to him, and behold, Before three swiftest kisses he had told, They vanish’d far away!
Anyway- please consider that Julian was really out here giving Garak ROMANTIC EPICS at their book club. They were sitting across from each other discussing how love can still exist between people who are from different paths in life. Bitch- WHAT?? What’s next?? Making him read the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice??
*Disclaimer: It is also possible that Garak just knows the expression “a thing of beauty is a joy forever” and doesn’t know it’s from a human poet.
i can’t believe ds9 was literally like. garak will never reveal everything about his past to julian (or anyone) and that is fine. julian does not care he loves garak for who he is and garak gives him all the answers he is capable of, in the only way he can, indirectly and cryptically, and julian would not have it any other way, would not have him any other way. they both have secrets and when they are having lunch that is the only time they can let down their guard a little and just be themselves. garak says he is just a simple tailor and really that is what he feels like when he’s sitting with julian in the replimat arguing about literature. and he loves it. for once he is not the outcast spy with enemies for days, but just plain, simple elim garak, whose only concern is the appalling taste in theatre of the man across from him. all julian has ever wanted from garak is the truth and yet he knows that is the one and only thing garak will never truly give him and so instead he just asks him for his opinion on shakespeare. and he is fine with that. and really they both know the truth, the only truth that matters: the truth is that they love each other. i can’t believe ds9 literally said that and acted like it was just. no big deal
