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.
It revealed that our favorite enigmatic tinker tailor spy meow meow literally has this chip in his brain designed to help him withstand torture by releasing endorphins.
But he abuses it like a drug addict because he hates living on the station and it’s the only way he can cope with his situation, day by day.
It’s literally an anti depressant, except much worse.
And now it’s killing him because his brain can’t handle it anymore.
Also he’s like I hate you Julian, I just wanted to fuck you.
Just bonkers.
Plus it introduces Tain.
I love it. So angsty.
You get everything you want too.
Garak is an angsty boy, Julian taking care of him, obsidian order antics, Odo investigating murder, quark getting people in trouble, Garak being super angsty, Garak lying, Garak telling the truth, Garak abusing Julian verbally and also begging for him to understand him.
once again thinking about garak saying “i have given you all the answers i’m capable of” at the end of the wire and how it’s probably the most painfully honest and raw thing he ever fucking says to julian in the whole entire fucking show. like i’ll never feel normal about it.
take me as i am, or let me be.
julian chooses - continues to choose - to take whatever version of garak he’s allowed to have. and it continues to be the most honest version of himself that garak is capable of giving him. feeling truly unhinged about it!
Picture this: You are young and charismatic and very intelligent and you are so, so alone. Through no fault of your own, you have had the responsibility of a secret balanced upon your shoulders. It’s not your secret, not really, you never had a choice in the matter, but if it gets out your life will be ruined. So, from childhood, you’ve known you couldn’t let anyone too close.
But you are young. You are young and weighed down with secrets and you meet a man who wears his deception like great gilded armor. You don’t know what lies beneath, but you watch him stroll through the Promenade and you know as well as he does that he is untouchable.
You have lunch once or twice a week. You trade novels and sharp remarks and at some point you realize you know him better than anyone else on the station. You realize you don’t know him at all.
You know he thinks he knows you. You know he doesn’t know you’re lying.
And then suddenly he’s fading in front of you, maybe dying because of his secrets and you realize all at once that he was never wearing armor. He’s like you, forced to tell lies since before they could fit properly into his mouth, and at some point someone took the loose ends and wove them into a cage.
There is a man in your life who is just like you and he is dying in your care. He tells you stories of his life and you know none of them are true, you know there are some secrets a man carries to his grave. He tells you stories and you can hear the truth in every word and you can’t help but ask him why he’s telling you all this.
He looks you straight in the eyes, the bastard, and the answer rolls off his tongue, smooth as honey, soaked in fear he dare not speak aloud, I need to know that someone forgives me.
You know this man better than anyone. You do not know him at all. He has bared his soul to you and he was lying through his teeth. You look at him and see yourself and you make a decision.
just read in the deep space nine companion that when “the wire” first aired, fans felt it didn’t really reveal anything about garak. and like. preaching to the choir here on tumblr dot com but the whole POINT of “the wire” is that the quote-unquote truth of garak’s past isn’t actually important. the “truth” is not a location and a name and a list of crimes committed–it’s much more essential than that, especially when put into the context of garak’s relationship with bashir, which the episode literally revolves around.
garak is experiencing the worst pain of his life and desperately seeking help. bashir is offering, but even in extremity, garak can’t accept. he’s done things which he knows bashir would find abhorrent, and though he doesn’t want to die, he also doesn’t want to be saved unless it’s in full knowledge of the price of the life that’s being bought. he could accept that ignorance from anyone else, but not from bashir–not from someone he’s grown (against his better judgement) to care about.
so garak takes away the polite fiction of plain and simple tailor. he strips back bashir’s veneer of deniability and lets him make an informed choice about whether or not garak’s is a life he finds worth saving. “especially the lies” isn’t just pithy misdirection: contained in the stories garak crafts is everything bashir really needs to know, and on some level, bashir recognizes that. he takes the worst that garak has to give and looks it over and says–I don’t care. I’m going to save you anyway.
and i think that’s beautiful and you know what??? i do think that’s beautiful. I’m sure garak delights in the irony of it, later: that here in hostile territory, embroiled in misery and isolation, he finally finds–at the hands of a foreigner–some measure of the recognition and acceptance he’s craved his entire life.
