Inspired by @omittedharpy's post:
"Julian having to deal with reporters calling him trying to get interviews after DBIP."
And @justsomeskullkid's tag:
#Do you guys think Jake was insufferable about it?
Fic where, after DBIP, Jake wants to write an article about Julian. But given how his last experience of interviewing Julian went, he doesn't want to outright ask him at first, so he starts off by taking up Julian's offer to learn fist aid and how to help out in the infirmary, so that he can get his background thoughts for the article via close observation.
He broaches the idea of an interview after he hears Julian groaning dejectedly about yet another reporter contacting him, and that sparks an idea. He suggests that if Julian agreed to do an exclusive with his paper, then his paper could deal with the other reporters trying to get an interview. And Julian at this point is really fucking tired of fielding all these calls so he agrees. Jake kind of seems the lesser of two evils at this point?
(Knowing Jake, I can actually imagine him going to his editor first and claiming he's got an exclusive - and then later when Julian resignedly agrees "Okay, you can tell your paper I'll do it," Jake pulls out a PADD with the paperwork Julian needs to sign with a sheepish "Actually, I kind of already did?")
So, Jake's got permission to write the article, but when he sits down to plan out his questions, he finds that he seems to have become almost a little protective over Doctor Bashir? With how much he's been watching him, Jake's ended up noticing how much Julian's been affected by all this, and he finds he actually doesn't really want to make Julian answer a load of questions about what his parents had done to him.
So to Julian's surprise, when he sits down with Jake, he finds the interview is mostly about his work as a doctor - in a way, the kind of article he assumed Jake was going to write in Nor The Battle - with only a few light questions about the enhancements. Jake wraps it up, and Julian's like "That's it?!" and Jake just shrugs and tells him that if he thinks of anything else he'd like the public to know to just send it over, and he'll happily add it to the article - his deadline isn't until the end of the week. But adds that, otherwise, what they've got seems enough for him, and that he doesn't want to waste any more of Doctor Bashir's time.
And it's kind of worth it for the way Julian looks at him before giving him the softest, most sincere "Thank you, Jake" he's ever heard.
"...From our conversation, it's clear to me that Bashir's incredible skill as a doctor comes not from his genetic enhancements, but from an abundance of compassion and dedication to his patients..."
The article, unsurprisingly, is not exactly what his editor had been wanting, but nonetheless it does eventually get published. Unbeknownst to Jake, however, Julian starts receiving multiple requests for follow-up interviews, almost more aggressively than they were before, tantalised by what little had been said about his enhancements.
But, somehow, they don't seem to bother the doctor as much as they had before. And, even though it's stored word-for-word in his memory, he keeps finding himself picking up his PADD and clicking through to the article he's saved on it. He thinks he's closer to happy than he has been for a while.
