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.
this was going to be your destiny, it’s what you’ve been raised from day one to do. it’s what the story is about. you save the day, you die trying, what matters is the middle. the ending comes last. but it didn’t, there was no ending. you’ve been at this for years, circling around the same events like a coronet on the head of a king. there’s no end in sight, you must choose to try and break free, or to make peace with fate.
garak getting into bare knuckle boxing in post-canon cardassia’s seedier nightlife as a means of channeling his anger but also self harm. federation aid worker!julian arrives on the planet after several months of garak not even opening, let alone reading, his messages. goes out for a drink at the end of his first month with some of the cardassian workers he’s managed to tentatively befriend and gets dragged into a dive bar just in time to see garak plant a facer on the second son of a gul. shenanigans ensue
It’s like. Oh we are the closest of friends. I am apart of you and you are apart of me now because we have seen each other through the horrors of war and I have watched you loose the shiny innocence you had when we first met. We have the energy of a vaudeville duo and constantly talk in metaphors and everything is performance, performance, performance, because preforming insanity hides the reality of it and open faced honesty about what we are could ruin us. The war is over now and I am going home. You are going to be with your woman now. I said goodbye to you but you couldn’t bring yourself to do the same to me. And every gay person who watches this is convinced you are going to crawl to my house across thousands of miles if that’s what it takes just to see if I’m okay, likely after your relationship has fallen apart. And then we fuck nasty.
Garak couldn’t help but note how comical Chief O’Brien looked. The gold and black jacket of his Star Fleet uniform had managed to cover the white undershirt he’d been wearing when Garak first gave him the news of Julian’s kidnapping, but did nothing to hide the blue-striped pajama pants. Granted, with how quickly he’d gone to the docking ring, it was a wonder he’d remembered to put on shoes. The Chief, it seemed, was not one to waste time.
“You think Gul Dukat kidnapped Julian?” Miles asked as they sped towards Cardassian space.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Garak replied. “Dukat is the only other person in the quadrant with unlimited access to Dr. Bashir’s quarters who also has a motive for wanting to kidnap him.”
“Right. Three questions,” Miles said. “First off, Gul Dukat can get into Julian’s quarters whenever he likes?”
“He has the highest security access code for Terok Nor. Technically, he could get into the quarters of anyone on the station at any time he likes.”
Miles shivered. “Noted. Second, ‘other person?’”
“Apart from myself.”
“You can get into Julian’s quarters any time you like?”
“Chief, is this really the–”
“No, I want to know exactly what’s happenin’ there,” Miles said, smashing a finger against the control panel for emphasis. “Did he give it to you or are you just invitin’ yourself in?”
“The doctor has invited me in on more than one occasion,” Garak said evasively.
Miles swore under his breath and rubbed a bit of sleep out of his eyes. “Fine. Fine. We’ll talk about that later. An’ lastly, motive?”
“Gul Dukat and I… haven’t been on the best of terms.”
“What’s that got to do with… Oh,” Miles said as the reason why that was relevant hit him in the head like a two-by-four.
“Yes,” Garak said.
“So, he thinks he’s gonna get revenge by hurtin’ Julian–”
“As a way of hurting me, yes,” Garak said.
“Didn’t know you two were that serious,” Miles said. “Erm, you and Julian, I mean.”
“Officially, we’re not.”
“And unofficially?”
Garak clenched his jaw and looked away from Miles.
Miles let out a little breath of a laugh. “Julian’s got weird taste,” he said.
“Indeed,” Garak murmured.
—
Julian hadn’t been able to put up much of a fight. As much as brains and dexterity might help him in medicine, it did little to nothing when trying to fight off two Cardassians while bound. He had been led off of the ship with the Cardassian he didn’t know pinning his arms against his back and using them like a rudder to steer him forward. Gul Dukat kept a possessive hand on Julian’s upper arm, but otherwise let his companion do the work. They disembarked onto a space station that looked like a darkened copy of DS9. In the dull, blue twilight of the Cardassian lighting system, he almost didn’t notice the changeling until she was right next to him.
“Is this the human?” she asked.
Gul Dukat dug his fingers into Julian’s arm. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?” he said through clenched teeth. He let go of Julian and took a few steps away from him. “Yes, this is the human.” He gestured at the doctor like he was trying to call attention to a side show at a carnival. “Founder, I introduce you to Dr. Julian Bashir.”
The female changeling cut Dukat a withering look before placing a hand on Julian’s shoulder. He felt something a bit like shaving gel slide over his shoulder and up along his neck. He tried to pull away from it, but it moved with him. After a moment, it retreated again and reformed into her hand. “He is human,” she said.
“Of course he’s human!” Dukat exclaimed. “What else would he be?”
“He could have been our lost brother,” the female changeling said. She looked directly into Julian’s eyes. “Although Odo would have to have become a lot better with faces since last we saw him, the odds of it being him were not zero.”
Julian wished Odo was here. Odo would have stared bravely into their faces and told them that genetically engineering people was not a just thing to do. Even Quark, he imagined, would have come up with some rule of acquisition that went against the practice. Neither of them had experienced genetic engineering before. Neither of them had woken up in a hospital bed, screaming, begging to go home, only to be stuck with a hypospray. Neither of them had nightmares that resembled this exact scenario. If he thought about it, it was a wonder that he’d gone into medicine at all.
No, he reminded himself, this is exactly why I got into medicine. So people wouldn’t have to go through what I did. He tried one last, futile effort at escaping from his Cardassian captor, only to be held more firmly in place.
“He does not seem very strong,” the female changeling said, looking over at Gul Dukat.
“I’m not,” Julian said, sensing an opening, “the enhancements done to me were on my mental abilities and my dexterity.” He glanced over at Dukat. “Not really what you want in a soldier,” he said.
“Interesting,” Dukat said, “but not entirely relevant. We know how to make people strong, founder,” he said, turning towards the changeling. “It’s brutality and intelligence that we need.”
“And you think I’m brutal?” Julian said with a grimace. “Were you paying any attention at all when we met?”
“I think you can be made brutal,” Dukat said, “with a few more enhancements.”
Suddenly, Julian felt like he was free-floating in space. Like there was no oxygen in the room. Somewhere outside the whirr of his panic, he could hear someone saying “few blood samples first” and “preliminary scans.” He tried to cry out, to duck away, but his entire body seemed frozen. He had read the data on genetic engineering as soon as he had figured out what had been done to him. He had read about crazed super-humans tearing people and continents apart in their search for dominance.
He knew it would work.
—
“How do you know about this place?”
“Really, chief, asking all these questions of a known liar–”
“Yes, but you wouldn’t lie when it comes to Julian,” Miles pointed out. “Or do you not actually want him back?”
Garak glared at him. “Is that a threat?” he asked.
Miles sighed and rolled his eyes. “Cardassians,” he muttered before adding, “I want him back alive and well. You want him back alive and well. The only way that’s gonna happen is if you tell me enough for me to strategize with you. I was a soldier, remember? I can help.”
“You truly think that, don’t you?” Garak commented wryly before turning back to the control panel.
Miles crossed his arms over his chest. “‘Scuse me?”
“I don’t think you want the truth, Chief,” Garak said, his focus still on the control panel, “because then you won’t have plausible deniability when we get back to the station.”
“Screw deniability!” Miles exclaimed. “Is deniability gonna get Julian back?”
Garak surveyed Miles for a moment, his pale eyes searching for some waver in his resolve. “No,” he said once his search was complete, “it isn’t.”
“Then you’d better start tellin’ me things.”
“Yes,” Garak said, “I suppose I should.” He pointed to the coordinates he’d locked in. “This is the location of a Cardassian science base,” he said. “It was used during the occupation for… humanoid test subjects.”
Miles swallowed the bile that was forming at the back of his throat. “What makes you think they’d take Julian there?” he asked.
“There are several possible reasons,” Garak said, “but, mostly, I think they took him there to figure out what sort of genetic enhancements he has and how to replicate them.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because,” Garak said, turning away from Miles and digging his fingers into the edge of the control panel, “it’s what I would have done in their place.”
