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 think my favorite thing about the Dr. Julian Bashir/ Garak relationship (so far- I’m in mid season 3) is how genuinely amused Julian is by Garak all the time. Like he just thinks Garak and his Spy thing is the funniest fucking stuff he’s ever dealt with. In Civil Defense when Garak is trying to hack into the Cardassian system and Julian is laughing at him for still pretending to be a “simple tailor,” or literally any time he interacts with him ever. Or at the end of The Wire he ends that conversation with an exasperated smirk on his face of pure amusement.
It’s kind of delightful how, after their first meeting, Julian decides he is simply no longer afraid of this Cardassian super spy and instead thinks he’s just hilarious is such a funny character move.
Example of Star Trek Addressing Social Issues - Mental Illness
This scene got me right in the gut when I first saw it. It was revealed earlier in the episode that Garak suffers from extreme claustrophobia, experiencing a severe attack just a few scenes before this one. I was already expecting Martok and Worf to dismiss Garak’s mental illness, especially because the Klingon Empire prides its people on physical strength. I was waiting for them to call him a coward, not “getting over it” like I’ve heard so many times in my own life about mental illness. But as seen above that’s not what happened, the exact opposite does. Its moments like this that make me love Star Trek, even for all its flaws. Sometimes I get to see past my conditioned reaction of the worst, and get to see the best in people instead.
TDLR; Star Trek may be about aliens in the future, but it connects to me on a human level - more than most modern shows do today.
Julian dozes off not long after Ghadar, comforted by her tepid warmth and steady breathing. He dreams of a garden. Of grass-covered dunes. Of a clear sky and hot sun, the air resplendent with orchids. He dreams of a hand in his. Palm sliding over palm. Fingers grazing over fingers. Wrist to wrist. Entwined. Inextricable. No ending. No beginning. He doesn’t know when it began, but he knows where. In his dream he gives in a hundred times, each of them different. He gives in to the hands on his shoulders. He gives in to the rush of adrenaline and danger. He gives in to his better nature. He gives in to a gnawing hunger. He gives in to a deliberate distance he made. In his dream he doesn’t pull away afraid.
In his dream he isn’t afraid.
He arrives at a door and offers his heart like a fresh kill. Take it, he says. Take it. I want no other knife but yours.
Garak knows about the kind of kill for you, defy everything for you love. The one choice in his life he seems to fully own as his and his alone (in large part because it was made of defiance and not service) is to have that kind of love, and to kill for it. To be exiled for it.
Julian on the other hand, has such a gentle love. Not a foolish love, but one that I think knows the absence of certain elements, certain kindnesses. The kind of love that says you’re tired, I’ll get the dishes just as much as it holds the dying hand. It’s a love that takes your outbursts and still expects you to make recompense for them. It is not unconditional, but it is something.
And I really don’t think either of them really have experienced either and both find the other’s way of loving strange and a little frightening and a little intoxicating
Their fights were explosive, sharp words picking out the worst in each other, needling and nettling where they knew it would stick, shouting on the Promenade.
They made up silently, without words, Garak slipping into Julian’s quarters at night, then into his bed, sliding hands and mouths until they lost track of where skin ended and scales began.
Julian wouldn’t have argued that it was the healthiest thing, but that was not why he craved it. The explosion made the settling in the aftermath sweeter, the contrast of black night sky before the next firework. It was all very Cardassian, he suspected.
To hold without words was perhaps the only honest kind of comfort Garak knew.
