I wish I had written more DS9 AU fic back in my fic days, but to be honest I didn't have access to these types of inspirational pictures of "Dax" and "Kira" in other realities to spark the flame.
Fandom: Star Trek Deep Space 9
Pairing: Julian Bashir/Garak
Summary: Julian realizes he has feelings for Garak right around the time he stumbles across him making out with a strange woman. Well aware of how hypocritical his jealousy is, he struggles to remain totally normal about the situation.
Oraya Dannot, a smuggler and spy with unusual methods of transferring information unobtrusively, is a little concerned by how oblivious her old friend seems to be about that doctor he keeps talking about.
AO3 Link
Julian and Miles were sitting at their usual table at Quark’s. Julian had downed his glass of synthale in one go the moment it arrived; his second sat untouched in front of him. He had his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. Miles was leaning back in his chair, sipping his beer, idly watching the other patrons and occasionally making vague noises of acknowledgement as Julian spoke.
“I’m a terrible person,” Julian moaned.
“Mm-hmm.”
“I’m being completely hypocritical.”
“Mm-hm.”
“And irrational!”
“I still don’t know we’re talking about.”
Julian threw up his hands and just barely managed to keep his voice down.
“Garak!”
Miles sighed.
“Yes, but what about Garak, exactly, is the vital clue I have yet to receive.”
“It’s none of my business.”
Miles went back to his people watching.
“Mm-hmm,” he said.
“He’s a very private person! I can’t just go spreading gossip about him—”
“Julian.” Miles thumped his bottle down on the table. “It has been a very long day. Either tell me what you’re so upset about, or stop talking about it.”
Julian sighed heavily, but leaned in.
“I was on my way here from the clinic on the far side of the station,” he said, low enough so as to hide his words under the babble of the other patrons. “I took a shortcut through the service passageway, the one that runs by the engines.”
“And you saw Garak there?” Miles shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Doing what, exactly?”
Julian took a deep breath and hesitated.
“I can’t tell you,” he sighed, shoulders slumping.
“Oh, for—! Julian.”
“I know, I know! It’s just—It’s so ridiculous of me! I don’t even know why I’m so—” He cut himself off and took in another deep breath. “I saw him with someone.”
Miles leaned in, eyes wide, subconsciously fingering his comm badge. Julian had a soft spot for that so-called-tailor; Miles did not. Julian claimed he knew what Garak was, but if he’d seen Garak up to something and was hesitating to report it, Miles would do it for him.
“Go on.”
“A woman.”
“Right.”
“A Cardassian woman.”
“What were they doing?”
“They were…kissing.”
Miles didn’t move.
“And I mean, really kissing, tongues and hands everywhere, he practically had her out of her shirt—”
“And?”
Julian blinked.
“Well…that’s all I saw. As soon as I realized who it was, I turned around and went back.”
“That’s it?” Miles exclaimed, loud enough that a few people looked in their direction.
“I know! This is what I’m talking about!” Julian wailed. “He didn’t do anything, so why am I so…so…!” He waved his hands at himself. “This!”
Dizzy. Breathless. Sick to his stomach. All because he’d seen his friend with his tongue in some woman’s mouth.
“Julian.”
“I know!”
“He’s a grown man; he can do what he likes with who he likes.”
“I know! It’s unfair, and it’s hypocritical. I mean, he and I have been friends for years, and I’ve had plenty of partners, so why does it matter what he does? It’s not like we have any, any arrangement.” He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I can’t stop seeing it. It’s like it’s burned into my retinas.”
“I’m not particularly enjoying the mental image either,” Miles grumbled. Taking in Julian’s misery, he sighed. “Have you considered that maybe you aren’t just friends?”
“What’s that mean?”
“You two have been doing that whole…Cardassian flirting thing at lunch for, what, a year now?”
“We debate, Miles.”
“That’s not what Major Kira says.”
“Well, Major Kira is wrong. I know Cardassian flirting can be aggressive, but he and I both know we are just having enthusiastic conversations.”
“I suppose I could ask his opinion,” Miles said casually. “He’s right over there.”
Julian’s head whipped around so fast something in his neck twinged. His face went pale. Garak and the Cardassian woman were walking down the promenade together, her hand tucked into the crook of his arm as they went. They were conversing very casually, Garak pointing out this or that store as they went.
When they reached Quark’s, the woman looked inside and her eyes instantly landed on Julian. He turned his head hurriedly and put his hand against his face, trying to slouch lower behind the potted plant.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no.” He risked a peek between his fingers. Garak and the woman had stopped walking; she was gesturing towards the bar. Garak smiled at her. Julian felt ill.
Then Garak looked in his direction. Julian turned his head away again quickly.
“Oh god, I think he saw me. Please tell me they aren’t coming over here,” he whispered to Miles.
“Okay,” Miles said. “They are not coming over here.”
Julian peeked again. The two Cardassians were definitely moving in their direction.
“Oh god. Quick, fake some sort of medical emergency. Pretend to have a heart attack!”
Miles looked nonplussed.
“I am not doing that.”
“What kind of a friend are you?” Julian hissed at him. Miles glared at him.
“I am not making a fool out myself to rescue you from an uncomfortable social situation.”
“This is not an uncomfortable social situation!” Julian, dropping his voice to a scream-whisper. “This a nightmarishly awkward social sit—Garak! Hi!” he exclaimed as the tailor’s shadow fell over their table.
“Hello, Doctor,” Garak said with his usual smile. “How nice to see you this evening.”
“Yes, yes, nice to see you too, and um…” He looked helplessly at the Cardassian woman. Garak’s partner in pleasure, some idiotic part of him whispered.
“Oraya, may I introduce you to Chief Engineer Miles O’Brien and Chief of Medical, Doctor Julian Bashir. Chief O’Brien, doctor, this is my old friend Oraya Dannot.”
“It’s so nice to meet you at last, Doctor Bashir,” she said with a warm smile. Her hands were still curled around Garak’s elbow. “I’ve been hearing so much about you from Garak. Would you mind if we joined you?”
“Not at all!” Julian said, automatic British politeness and panic kicking him straight into the abyss before his brain could even register the question. Miles raised his eyebrows; Julian desperately ignored him.
The table had four chairs; Julian and Miles had sat down facing each other, leaving the remaining two chairs on opposite sides of the table. Garak released Oraya’s arm and made to move around the table.
“Oh, no, allow me!” Julian said, shifting one chair over. He gave them a bright grin that he hoped look less manic than it felt. Garak returned the smile with one slighter tighter than before.
Unfortunately—fortunately the arrangement of chairs and people meant that not only could Garak and Oraya sit next to each other, Julian was now sitting next to Garak’s lover. Partner. Friend. Whatever.
Garak lifted a hand and summoned a waiter.
“Do you still refuse to drink kanar?” he asked Oraya. She smiled.
“Religiously.”
“Two whiskeys,” Garak told the waiter.
“On my tab,” Julian blurted, and wished he was dead, or at least that Miles would stop looking at him like that. “I insist.”
“How kind, doctor,” Garak said warmly.
“And another beer for me,” Miles added. “Since you’re buying,” he said to Julian, who glared at him. To Oraya, he said “Never met a Cardassian who didn’t like kanar.”
“I used to,” Oraya said, eyes shining. “And then there was one night—do you remember, Garak?”
“I remember parts of it,” Garak said with a wry twist of his lips. “Mostly I remember waking up with no shoes on, halfway into a ditch on the outskirts of Lakarian City.”
“You were the lucky one,” Oraya sighed. “I was in the ditch.” She spread her hands, melodramatically. “And now, I do not drink kanar.”
“I think we’ve all got a story like that,” O’Brien said, amused despite himself. “Mine’s raspberry liqueur. It was years before I could even smell the stuff without feeling sick.”
They all laughed. Julian thought his might be slightly louder than normal. He cut himself off and began to fiddle with his glass.
The drinks arrived. Oraya took a sip of hers and turned to Julian.
“So, Garak says you two discuss literature. Has he showed you his collection of erotic poetry yet?”
Garak choked on his drink; Julian felt his cheeks begin to burn.
“Uh- wh- uh-“
Garak had pulled a handkerchief from somewhere and was coughing into it as quietly as possible, his eyes fixed on Oraya’s face. For her part, Oraya didn’t seem to notice, instead waiting for Julian to answer, her expression one of mischief.
“N-No, he—I didn’t know he had a collection of, um. Of. That.”
“I only have a collection,” Garak said to Oraya, disappearing the handkerchief back into some inner pocket, “because you gave it to me.”
The sick feeling got worse in Julian’s stomach. He wondered if you could actually throw up from emotional distress. He could make a medical study of it, maybe. He glanced at Miles, who was leaning back in his seat, thumb hooked in his pocket, and not looking anywhere near Julian or the Cardassians.
“We mostly—” Julian said, and licked dry lips. “We mostly stick with the classics.”
“Classics—” Oraya groaned. “Oh no, don’t tell me he’s got you reading The Never-Ending Sacrifice!”
It should have been fun, a chance to gang up on Garak with someone Garak couldn’t dismiss as lacking ‘cultural context’. Instead, Julian felt sour and sicker than ever. Obviously, Garak would have had friends throughout his life, obviously he would have friends who liked the things he did, including literature, and the discussion thereof.
But it had always been…theirs. Their little shared connection.
“It’s a classic,” Garak said archly. “One of the greatest works of Cardassian literature ever written.”
“It’s dull as dirt and twice as old,” Oraya shot back. “Some of us read for enjoyment, not as an act of dedication to the state.”
Garak sniffed.
“You always did prefer a touch of sedition in your reading material.”
There was a beep from Miles’ general direction. He fished his padd out of his pocket and groaned.
“Molly’s got a fever again,” he said, sounding a little too apologetic. “My daughter,” he said to Oraya. “I’ve got to run. I know you’ve your day off tomorrow, Julian, but try not to stay out too late.”
Julian, who had been about to say that he, too, should leave, and blame it on an early shift, gave Miles a horrified glare. Miles merely clapped him on the back, merciless. Julian was willing to bet Molly didn’t even have a fever.
“Nice to meet you, Ms Dannot.”
“And you, Chief O’Brien.”
And then Julian was alone, abandoned and almost certainly betrayed, forced to watch Garak and his…his whatever flirt with each other.
“You’re going to give him the wrong idea about Cardassians,” Oraya was chiding. “He’s going to think we’re all a bunch of uptight bores.”
Oh, Julian wanted to like her. She was clever and funny; that wicked smile promised to drag you into the best kind of trouble, both in and out of the sheets. If he hadn’t seen her in the hallway with Garak, he’d probably be flirting with her right now.
But he had seen her in the hallway.
Oraya spoke to Julian but her eyes were on Garak.
“If you want a really fun conversation, you should read The Ocean Rises Blue—”
“Oraya!” Garak sputtered.
“It’s a classic,” she shot back, mockingly, and winked at Julian. “But a fun one. I think he’d find it very educational, don’t you, Garak?”
Garak glared at her.
“Oh! Have you discussed Lights Over Thya? It’s this lovely little tale about a merchant and an ingénue who get embroiled in a secret plot—”
“The doctor and I discuss literature,” Garak said. Under the table, Oraya bumped her knee against Garak’s.
“A little contemporary genre fiction wouldn’t kill you, sweetness,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes ridiculously.
“As far as you know, oh sun of stars,” Garak said with one of his falsest of smiles.
Oh my god, Julian thought. I’m jealous.
There it was. The answer to everything. It had never come up before because Garak had never even mentioned paramours past, present, or in potentia. Julian had gone running around with his own lovers, not even noticing Garak becoming more and more important to him, and it had never even occurred to Julian to think of Garak as a romantic being at all, let alone with Julian.
But now he’d seen it, and Julian wanted. He wanted it to be him trading casual touches while they drank together. He wanted it to be him being called half-joking pet names.
And he desperately wanted it to be him that Garak dragged into dark corners and clung to like he was trying to melt their bodies together.
“Don’t you agree, doctor?” Garak said.
“Hmm, what? Oh! I’m so sorry,” Julian said, forcing himself back to the present. “I was just trying to make sure I’d remember the names of those books.” He tapped the side of his head. “The Ocean Rises Blue and Lights Over Thya.”
“And the erotic poetry.”
Julian blushed.
“I’m not even sure I still have it,” Garak said, swirling his drink in his glass. “I think I may have lost it at some point.”
“I hope you haven’t,” Oraya said. “Because then the doctor will have to look it up himself, and you won’t be able to redact the most scandalous parts.”
“I wouldn’t dream of violating the sanctity of any written work’s intended meaning,” Garak protested.
“Besides,” Julian said, desperate not to be left behind in the conversation again, “I’m a grown up. I’m sure it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”
He desperately wished he hadn’t said it. Garak’s eyes immediately flicked to him, brow creasing with annoyance, as Oraya lit up.
“Oh really? Do humans write erotic poetry as well?”
“Um, well. Y-yes,” Julian stammered. “Some of them. I haven’t really…read much of it, but we definitely— That is, humans definitely do write it.”
Why hadn’t he just said he didn’t like poetry?
“Oh, then you must make Garak read some of it.” Oraya pressed her arm against Garak’s, leaning into him. “At gunpoint, if necessary.”
“My dear, the only way I would ever read human erotica is if I was being held at gunpoint. Even then it would depend on where the gun was pointing.”
Oraya laughed, a bright and beautiful sound Julian was sure no man could resist.
“Garak, the way you talk about sex, anyone would think you were a pledged celibate.”
“My dear, this is hardly an appropriate line of conversation to have in front of the doctor.”
Oraya rolled her eyes and clucked her tongue. Still leaning against Garak, she turned to Julian.
“Go on then, what did you think of Garak’s beloved The Never-Ending Sacrifice?”
“Awful,” Julian said promptly, grabbing this much, much safer topic like a drowning man grabs a lifeline.
“Excellent,” Oraya said, eyes shining. “Tell me all the bits you hate that annoy Garak the most.”
...
“That was unnecessary,” Garak said, once they had parted from the doctor and returned to their slow amble down the promenade.
“You’re the one who said he didn’t want to walk around with a microchip in his mouth all night,” Oraya murmured. “I had to say something bad enough for you to cough over.”
“It’s not me I’m concerned about. There was no reason to keep teasing like that. You made the doctor quite uncomfortable.”
“An unfortunate innocent caught in the crossfire,” Oraya sighed, briefly resting her head on his shoulder. “I was aiming for you. And I succeeded,” she said, triumphantly. “I can’t wait until he reads my recommendations. The look on your face—”
“Your highly inappropriate recommendations,” Garak said with a frown.
“You shouldn’t have argued so hard against it. Even a human can’t miss that The Ocean Rises Blue is one long metaphor for interspecies sex – you’ll give him the wrong idea.”
“The wrong idea?” Garak repeated. He slipped his arm free of her hand and wrapped it instead around her, his hand resting just shy of her shoulder. She gazed up at him with adoring eyes.
“He might think you disapprove of humans and Cardassians having sex. Between your performance at the bar and the hallway—”
“The hallway?”
“Are you a parrot now?” Oraya asked, almost allowing her irritation to show on her face. “The hallway where we—” She caught his look and her eyebrows went up. “Garak…don’t tell me you’ve lost your touch in your old age. Or am I just that distracting that you failed to notice his seeing us?”
Garak’s brow furrowed. It was alarming that he hadn’t noticed anyone approaching. However, he felt he did deserve something of a pass. The sounds of the ship’s engines had been quite loud, and he’d been rather focused on dislodging the microchip from under Oraya’s tongue and into his mouth without swallowing it.
“I suppose that was why he was so uneasy,” he mused. “Humans are very uncomfortable about seeing platonic friends in sexual situations. What?” he demanded, when Oraya stared at him.
“Garak.” She guided him into a corner and put her arms around her neck. Though her expression was sultry, her voice was concerned. “Please tell me it’s just this one human you are blind towards. If you have become so inattentive to the world in general, I am legitimately concerned for your safety.”
“My dear,” Garak smirked, running a hand perfunctorily under the hem of her shirt. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“Oh, Garak,” she sighed. “He’s jealous.”
“Ah,” Garak said, understanding dawning at last. “Humans don’t typically find Cardassians attractive, but then the doctor is, as he likes to say, quite the lady’s man.”
Oraya ran her hand over his shoulder and down to rest on his bicep, then rammed a sharp thumbnail into the inner skin where the scales were thinner and thus most sensitive.
“Not of you, you dolt. Of me.” She leaned in and murmured in his ear. “Go to him right now, give him some faff about how you couldn’t keep from thinking about him when you were with me, and you’ll have him climbing you like a tree.”
Garak very nearly shoved her away, only just catching himself.
“If I’m wrong, I’ll owe you another favor,” she purred. Garak smirked and pulled her closer.
“If you’re wrong, he’ll never speak to me again and I will have lost the only ally I have on this miserable hunk of steel.”
“Oh, Garak,” she sighed again. The tone was starting to grate on him. Leaning in, she put her lips to the corner of his mouth. “Would it kill you, for once in your life, to think of yourself as loveable?”
He turned his head and murmured against her lips.
“The chances are high that it would, yes.”
Oraya trailed the tip of one fingernail up the back of his neck. Garak shivered involuntarily; she stopped.
“Fight or sex?” she asked, instead playing with the tips of his hair. Garak kissed her again while he thought about it. He wouldn’t mind a night of pleasant company – it had been some time and Oraya was a most enjoyable bedmate. She had intense sexual prowess guaranteed free of emotional entanglement. Terminating their playacting with a fight would mean he could go home and think on what she had said about Julian.
The question was, did he want to think about that.
“I have a nice bottle of kanar to rinse the taste of whiskey out of our mouths.”
“Please,” she said, genuinely begging. “I don’t understand how they drink that willingly.”
Garak had been quite impressed at how well she had managed to get it down. He himself had only managed a few sips before the taste began to curdle in his mouth. Sometimes he wondered if it wasn’t a deliberately anti-Cardassian act by the inventor that the particular mix of sugars and acids in kanar could melt this kind of microchip’s protective coating so effectively.
“Besides,” he added. “It will be much easier to get in touch with you for that favor if we don’t have such a public falling out.”
Garak stepped back and gave an excessively formal bow, offering her his arm. Oraya gave a loud, empty-headed giggle, and took it.
“If I’m wrong,” she said as they made their way to his quarters. “And if you have the guts to find out.”
...
“I only got a chapter in, I’ll confess. The writing is beautiful but very vague – I’m still not sure if the ocean is meant to be a person or a body of water,” Julian said. He waited for a response, but Garak was merely looking at him with a vague expression. “…Garak?”
“Hmm?” Garak blinked and sat up straighter. “Oh, do excuse me doctor. I’m afraid I got lost in my thoughts. I am a little tired today.”
“Long night?” Julian asked, his stomach twisting into knots. He took a bite of his salad and had to work quite hard to swallow.
Garak shrugged.
“I’m afraid so – and I’m not as young as I was. At my age, the mind is less flexible in the amount of sleep it is willing to operate on.”
“It must have been nice to see your friend again,” Julian’s treacherous tongue said, forcing the words out against his will.
“Oh yes. I have so few left, and even fewer who find it safe to spend time openly with me. Fortunately, Oraya is barely a citizen of Cardassia anymore, and well able to look after herself. A day here or there is no great risk for her.”
“And a night, right?” Julian said cheekily. Garak frowned, puzzled. “You know,” Julian said, struggling to keep his smile up. “A day and a night. Because she stayed the night. With you.” With every word he wished he could be like Odo: melt into a puddle and ooze away into some dark corner.
“Yes,” Garak said, slowly. “Accommodations on the station can be quite costly. I was happy to share my quarters with her to save her the expense.”
“Oh,” Julian said. “Then…you two didn’t…?”
Garak’s eyebrows shot up.
“Didn’t…?”
Garak had to be messing with him. There was no possible way he couldn’t deduce what Julian was talking about. There was no hint of the usual teasing smile Garak got when he was trying to force Julian to say something stupid, but Garak was an intelligent man of the world. He had to know.
But he was just sitting there, staring at Julian, waiting for an elaboration.
“Didn’t…you know. Spend the…the night…you know what!” Julian said, spreading his hands and grinning desperately. “Never mind. Absolutely none of my business. Forget I said anything. Besides, a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, eh?”
“Doesn’t he?” Garak said mildly, but that seemed – thank god – to be sufficient.
Silence descended. It was probably the worst end to a conversation Julian had ever experienced with Garak. No matter how serious their arguments occasionally became, no matter how hard they trod on each other’s toes – intentionally or otherwise – it had never resulted in this kind of cloying, choking silence. They both stared intently at their food as they ate.
“We did, as a matter of fact,” Garak said abruptly.
“Did…?”
“Spend the night together, Oraya and I.”
“Oh,” Julian said. He’d had this kind of conversation before, mostly during his university years: gleeful boasting about recent conquests, leering commentary, lurid (often exaggerated) descriptions. He recalled Priyanka and her tendency to talk with her hands resulting in some of the most obscenely descriptive gestures he’d ever seen.
He’d matured beyond that long ago. Besides, this was not that sort of friendship, and Garak was not that sort of man.
“It was a pleasant evening,” Garak said, and there was something odd about the way he was looking at Julian. Not avoiding his gaze, but giving the impression he was only looking in the general direction of Julian’s eyes. “Though it was less…shall we say, engaging than previous encounters.”
Apparently, Garak was that sort of man.
“Oh?” was all Julian could think to say. It wasn’t just his stomach tying itself into knots now; the rest of his internal organs had apparently joined in, twisting and writhing into hitherto unimaginable Gordian configurations. He tried to take a sip of water but it got stuck in his esophagus somewhere around the location of his heart.
“I found myself unable to give her my entire attention. My mind kept wandering elsewhere.” Garak picked up his fork, but didn’t make any attempt to eat. He just played with it, twisting it back and forth between his fingers.
“To anything in particular?” Julian asked. That was a good question. They could start talking about whatever was bothering Garak, instead of about Garak having sex with another perso— with a wom— with any—about Garak’s sex life.
“Not anything,” Garak said slowly. “The correct question would be, to anyone in particular.”
Oh good. They were now pivoted from Garak’s sex life to Garak’s love life, there was no escape, and Julian had several hours of work left to go before he could go to Quark’s and crawl into a bottle.
“Alright,” he said, grinning as widely as he could. He placed his hands flat on the table, trying to brace himself without looking like he was bracing himself. “Go on then. Who’s the lucky so-and-so?”
Garak stared at him for a moment. Then he set down his fork, reached out, and gently placed his hand on top of Julian’s.
Julian stared at it. Was this some sort of pre-emptive apology, an I’m about to say a name that will make you want to fling yourself over a balcony but please don’t gesture? Julian couldn’t imagine who that might be. Actually, he could, it would be just about anyone, but Garak didn’t know that.
Garak wasn’t saying anything. When Julian looked up at him, his expression was visibly guarded – highly unusual for Garak.
Julian looked back down at their hands. Tentatively, turned his over, so it was pressed palm-to-palm with Garak’s. A soft exhale from across the table. Garak’s thumb began to stroke gently against the side of Julian’s hand.
It was as if Alexander the Great had arrived with his sword, slicing through the knot of Julian’s insides, leaving behind a warm and gloriously uncomplicated feeling.
“Well,” Julian said. A smile split his face, and it was almost certainly a stupid looking one, but for the first time since the afternoon before, it was a real smile. “That’s good.”
Garak’s lips twitched upwards.
“I’m glad you think so, doctor.”
He was having sex with her and thinking about me.
“Did you really lose that book of erotic poetry?” Julian asked impulsively. The look in Garak’s eyes sent a shiver right up Julian’s spine.
“Of course not. Perhaps we could read it together.”
garashir doing anything in Julien’s James Bond parody holo-adventures
[send me garashir prompts!!!]
I watched the opening of the episode to boot up my memory and discovered I forgot a) that I can never finish this episode because of the second hand embarrassment and b) it opens with Garak acting like a fucking child or perhaps a cat "you haven't paid enough attention to me and bad attention is still attention so I'm here to make fun of you and cause problems :)))" GARAK YOU ARE A GROWN-ASS MAN AND BUSINESS OWNER.
anyway
The air was stifling. The heat of the magma below roasted the air, sucking the moisture from Julian's lungs and drying the sweat on his skin almost as soon as it beaded. The wires of the bomb were a snarl of colors plunging in and out of circuit boards. The timer at the top ticked down, inexorably.
"Two minutes," Julian gasped out.
"Take your time."
He shut his eyes, briefly.
"It is a good thing it isn't real lava, or the noxious fumes would have killed us both by now."
"Garak, I am trying to focus."
"Oh, I do apologize, doctor."
With care, Julian slid the wire cutters under the green strand -- and hesitated. Was that right? It looked like it was the right one, but it was so hard to see through the snaking wires if this was the same green wire that connected to the upper right circuit.
"I will point out that I am not attached to the bomb. If you cut my hands free, we could just leave."
Julian ground his teeth together and kept his voice steady.
"If we leave, the bomb will set off the volcano and destroy the village at the bottom of the mountain, remember?"
"Ohh, yes, I do recall the gentleman in the monocle saying something along those lines."
Julian gently tugged a few of the wires out of the way, trying to see into the heart of the mechanism. Maybe he didn't need to cut the wires. Maybe if he took out the circuit boards instead--
"Would you like a hint?"
"No, Garak, I do not want a hint. I want you to stop talking so I can focus on rescuing you."
"And I do appreciate it, doctor. I find it most gratifying that you find my well-being sufficient motivation to--"
yes very much so, my favourite character is quark and even though people like him quite a bit i think hes SUPER underrated and there should be way more fic about him i just havent had the motivation to write any. (also, like most ds9 fans i think i do ship him with odo)
im not gonna lie its been like a year since i last did a full watch of the show but i often go back and rewatch a few episodes.
if u asked me while i was last watching like s4 of the show i probably wouldve told you that my favourite character is julian and i do still love him hes so autistic and amazing but quark just stole my heart unfortunately.
also JADZIA. i love jadzia so much. shes so everything. the trill r so cool as a concept and shes so perfect. if you like jadzia i highly recommend reading the star trek novel revenant its all about her interacting with past dax hosts and its awesome. kira is also there for most of it so if you ship those two like i do youll probably enjoy it.
speaking of kira i cannot tell you how much i love her in the mirror universe. shes absolutely insaneeeeeee and i love it.
