Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
I want to give Julian Bashir a pet ferret. Julian deserves a strange little bouncy dude that can sneak around and hoard self-sealing stem bolts and do weasel war dances when it’s excited.
(A/N: That’s right. Ya girl is once again in an airport. Have a 20-minute fic! Prompt from @gemstonecircles)
Mile High Club
“You know,” Julian says, twisting for the seemingly hundredth time in his narrow shuttle seat, “Before I get on a long shuttle ride, I always think, “I must have been exaggerating how bad it is,” but then I actually get on another shuttle. And! Well!”
“You know, for a person who professes to love travel so much, you certainly do complain about it a lot.”
“It’s called kvetching, Garak. A time-honored tradition. Besides, it isn’t my fault that they never seem to make these seats with someone like me in mind.”
“Well, in fairness to these designers, they can hardly be blamed for your unusual proportions.”
“Unusual proportions!” Julian yelps. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Garak widens his eyes slightly while purposefully dragging them over the long length of Julian’s body. “Why, those long, long legs of yours. Surely you don’t think everyone is built with such willowy grace, do you, dear?”
“Flattery,” Julian says with a wry twist of his lips, “will get you everywhere.”
Garak chuckles to himself and turns back to his novel, Andor in Flux: How The Great Thaw Shaped Zhevra.
Julian sighs loudly next to him.
And then sighs again.
Finally, Garak puts his PADD down and says, “perhaps you could try sleeping?”
“I’m not tired,” Julian pouts.
“Read, then?”
“I’m not in the mood,” Julian says, his voice definitely and distinctly whiny.
“I’m not entirely sure what you want me to do about it.”
“I thought you loved me.”
“Alas, if this is the measure of love, then I am woefully inadequate. I understand if you wish to go sow your wild oats, darling! Don’t let me stop you.”
Julian slumps dramatically, half laying on Garak’s body in a slightly awkward position, given the narrowness of the seats. Garak should have predicted how bored Julian would get in a situation like this; sitting still for long periods had never been his particular talent unless he was researching something.
“Actually,” Julian says suddenly, looking up at him with glittering, conniving eyes, “I do have an idea.”
“Oh?”
“Sowing my wild oats…. Actually reminds me, have you heard of something called ‘The Mile High Club’?”
“No, I cannot say that I have had the pleasure.”
“It’s a human custom.”
Garak was already rolling his eyes. Julian’s ‘human customs’ often only refer to one activity subset.
“Tell me more,” Garak says.
Julian looks meaningfully over at the refresher in the corner. All around them, their fellow passengers are asleep. “Well, the idea is that it is not so very often that you are able to… be intimate with a partner while flying.”
“I regret to inform you,” Garak says with faux disappointment, “that we are, in fact, many many miles high. We may not qualify.”
“It’s not a hard and fast rule.”
“I would have thought that it could only be hard and fast.”
“How vulgar!” Julian says, delighted.
“If you say so.”
“So?”
Garak sighs. “Will you stop fidgeting for five seconds?”
“It couldn’t make it any worse!” Julian says with a chipper and irritating grin. Garak can imagine finding it within himself to shut him up. For the good of his fellow passengers.
“Ever the optimist,” Garak replies before somewhat regretfully putting down his PADD and unbuckling his seat belt. “Meet me in five minutes.”
the great thing about loving minor characters is that nobody can tell me that something ISN’T true… cuz like… says who? the creators? no. in fact, the creators said nothing.
