lately i’ve been thinking about…
i’ve been trapped alone on a barren planet in the gamma quadrant for nearly three years when commander sisko’s runabout happens to land there. i know the instant the craft touches the planet’s surface because my mind has been calling out in desperation for so long, so long that my psionic field has cracked open and the presence of other intelligent lifeforms feels like a beacon in my brain. sisko is shocked when i appear out of the desert, half-naked and half-mad, pleading for him to please be real and please take me away from this place.
he touches me - of course he does, i obviously need medical attention - and my mind latches onto him like a life-raft. it’s been years since i was touched by anything that wasn’t trying to eat me. suddenly, sisko is not just a presence but a burning inferno in my mind. whatever this is, it is not telepathy - i cannot “read” his thoughts. but i can see his every cell, the every vibration of his molecules, the location of each individual atom. i recoil. i am terrified. i do not understand what is happening to me.
we make our way back to deep space nine and i allow doctor bashir to examine me - but not to touch me with his bare skin. even though sisko has returned to the command deck i can still feel him. i know exactly where he is, when each of his feet touches the floor as he walks. i am overwhelmed by the sensation. bashir confirms that my psionic field is disrupted - i have become a receiver of sorts, a constantly open psychic line activated by touch. i’m not “broadcasting” anything, but in my desperation to be rescued i inadvertently tuned my mind to highlight the presence of intelligent life.
it is painful. even though i haven’t physically touched anyone except sisko, i am touching the station’s surface and the echoes of its inhabitants movements feel like a constant rainstorm in my brain. it is almost as painful as my isolation was. almost. bashir does not know how to help me. he reaches out to the only person he knows who might have a clue - a vulcan science officer stationed on a starship passing nearby.
(here’s where i combine the original series & ds9 timelines into one because i can and because spock has a permanent residence in my brain…)
commander spock of the enterprise is fascinated by bashir’s description of my condition and captain kirk agrees to make a detour so that he may examine and attempt to treat me.
i have closed myself into the back of the bedroom closet in my temporary quarters, attempting to quiet the storm in my mind, when spock arrives. bashir brings him to me, and he very politely sits outside the closet door while we talk. eventually he convinces me to open the door and allow him to touch me so that he may perform a telepathic examination. his mind is an immediate balm on my own, blanketing me in quiet calm. he determines that while i may never be able to fully repair my psionic field, i can learn to control how wide the aperture in my mind becomes. there on my bedroom floor, guided by his vulcan logic and human empathy, he teaches me this control.
my mind more-or-less my own once again, i begin my life as a refugee on deep space nine. i am still aware of sisko’s every move, but i’m able to place the awareness in the back of my mind so that it does not consume me. as long as i am not touched directly, i won’t accumulate any more of these “open lines”.
this is, of course, a problem on a crowded space station. i spend most of my time shut in my quarters despite my deep desire to socialize after years of isolation. major kira offers to sponsor me as a refugee on bajor so that i have more room, but i refuse. i’ll never set foot on another planetary surface for as long as i live if i have my way. reasonable or not, i am terrified of being trapped again.
i continue like this for some time, torn between my desire for social contact and afraid that an accidental touch will destroy my fragile equilibrium. that is, until i meet elim garak.
i’ve visited one of the station’s tailors already, seeking a garment that will cover me head to toe but still allow me to show my face if i wish, or to eat or drink in public. there are garments like this already in existence of course, but the loose flowing fabrics all leave me feeling exposed and the veils are too easily swept aside. my paranoia requires something higher-tech.
bashir introduces me to garak - because of course he does. garak is the best tailor on the station in addition to being something of a tech genius and if anyone can make me the garment i need, it’s him.
i take an immediate liking to garak. his presence, even in close proximity, is very quiet. i suspect he is employing some sort of physical technique to suppress his energetic signature. he is courteous as he takes my measurements and listens to my requirements. he may even be slightly intrigued by the job - it’s difficult to tell.
it takes two weeks for garak to finish my garment. he has to order special fabrics and mechanical parts from various sources. the final product is a masterpiece: a skinsuit made of something that looks like flattened alligator scales, complete with gloves, a hood, and mechanical visor that i can raise and lower in increments. it is perfect. garak seems ever-so-slightly proud.
i have a real life on deep space nine now. i get a job as a server at quark’s - despite his initial hesitance, quark realizes that i am something of an attraction in my strange suit with my strange past, and we end up getting along just fine.
months pass. i join bashir and garak for some of their intriguing lunches. we become friends. my presence on the station becomes just another fact of life.
i have touched no one but commander sisko for over three years now. not only am i concerned about how my own mind may respond to the contact, but i am deeply aware that my touch constitutes an automatic invasion of privacy. i am very careful, even within the confines of my skinsuit.
when commander sisko is eventually promoted to captain, jadzia dax declares she is throwing a station-wide party to celebrate - a formal “ball” like they had during sisko’s favorite earth era. she and kira team up to go all in - decorations, food, entertainment, the works.
i want to attend - i can’t even remember the last time i went to a party - but dax is in one of her manic moods, insisting that everyone dress up in formal attire, and i only have my skinsuit to wear out of my quarters. at our next lunch i mention to bashir and garak that i’ll just have to throw a dress on over my suit, and they are both appalled. absolutely not. bashir has already commissioned an outfit for himself, and garak will make me something too. something beautiful that i’ll be comfortable wearing in a crowd.
he nails it, of course. bashir and i pick up our new garments the afternoon before the party, and try them on together. garak has fashioned me a silver dress that reflects light like polished armor, with long sleeves that attach to gloves complete with claw-like nails at the tips. there are tights attached to the inside of the skirt so that even with a thigh-high slit my legs are completely covered. he’s even made me a pair of matching high-heeled boots, and a new hood with a retractable visor in the shape of a stoic human face. i am delighted, even more so when i see that bashir’s suit has been made to match my own. bashir teases garak for this display of romantic sensibility, and garak scoffs that he was merely making economical use of the fabrics at his disposal. regardless, i am touched by the idea that garak considers bashir and i a unit of sorts. it’s been so long since i had a partner of any kind, and it feels good to be a matched set for the evening.
bashir and i attend the ball and have a lovely time. i keep my visor down for the most part, overwhelmed by the large number of people pressed so close together, but i do relax enough to have a drink or two as the night progresses - always in a corner, my eyes wide to make sure that no one gets close enough for an accidental touch.
garak does not attend, claiming the light and noise of the party will give him a headache. bashir and i find that his absence weighs on us after a while, and as the event becomes less formal and more wild, we steal a bottle of champagne from behind the bar to take to his quarters.
he is surprised to see us, but lets us in and opens the bottle. i recline in an armchair opposite the couch they share and watch contentedly as he and bashir fall into yet another friendly argument. i raise my visor completely for the first time all night and sip my drink with a smile.
am more relaxed than i have been in ages. i am with friends. i am safe. i am slightly inebriated. i interrupt their debate to ask: would it be alright with them if i removed my gloves?
no one has seen my exposed skin - other than an occasional glimpse of my face when i raise my visor - since my first day on the station. i always wait until i am alone to remove any part of my skinsuit. but tonight i am feeling brave. garak grants me permission to remove the gloves, with the caveat that i keep my distance from him. i understand his concern - it would be unbearable for someone as private as him to know that i could track his movements with a thought. bashir, on the other hand, lights up like a kid in a candy store. he wants to see my hands. he wants me to be comfortable exposing my skin to him.
i detach the gloves from the dress sleeves and pull them off one by one, exposing my hands and forearms. bashir leans forward to get a better look, but sits on his own hands to assure me that he will not reach out to touch. garak teases him for his enthusiasm, but i am charmed.
we finish the bottle of champagne. bashir becomes brave enough to ask me about my open line to captain sisko - a topic very few have been willing to discuss since my arrival here. it’s not widely known that i can track sisko wherever he goes as long as he on the station. i lose him when he boards a runabout and takes off, but i suspect that as long as we are on the same structure - even if that structure is an entire planet - i will always know where he is. i will sense the pressure of his footfalls on the bare ground or floor and the tightness of his grip if he presses his hand against a tree or wall. i explain this to bashir, and garak comments that i’d better not let this become common knowledge, or “certain parties” who may wish sisko harm could use me to track and trap him. the thought has occurred to me also. bashir responds that we are both being far too morbid for such a beautiful night.
and that’s when he says it. that he wouldn’t mind if i touched him. he wouldn’t mind if i always knew where he was. wouldn’t even mind if i could tell his mood by the pressure of his footsteps. i am momentarily stunned. garak is even more flabbergasted than i am, and chastises bashir for his “drunken ramblings.” but bashir replies that he is not drunk. i am his friend, and i am human, and humans need physical contact. if i want to touch him, i can.
i sit very still. i have been on deep space nine for nearly a year now. i have healed, to a point, and my mind is not the broken thing it was when i first arrived here. i have started wondering recently if i might touch someone without feeling them as an explosion in my mind. if i could make the connection with control, without pain. i am very, very tempted to try. there is no one i trust more than bashir - than julian. and he, apparently, trusts me as well.
garak declares that we are both being stupid, but we ignore him. julian grins wide when i call him by his first name and reach out across the distance between us. he rises off the couch and comes to kneel at my feet. i am surprised but grateful as he tucks his hands behind his back and raises his head to look me in the eye. it’s completely up to me. i can retract my hand at any time.
i reach out slowly, trembling slightly, and place the very tip of my middle finger on his cheekbone. i brace myself, by there is no inferno in my mind. i feel julian not like an explosion but like a slow golden sunrise, bright and warm and comforting. i feel the vibration of his eyelashes as he blinks at me, the steady expansion and contraction of his lungs as he breathes. deeper still i feel the pulse of his cells and their component parts, all the way down to their trembling atoms and deeper still to pieces i don’t have words to describe. he is beautiful, and i am not scared anymore.
garak makes a cutting comment about human sentimentality as i allow the rest of my hand to come in contact with julian’s face, running my fingers up into his hairline. he leans into me slightly, pressing his cheek to my palm, still smiling, hands still folded behind his back. i wait another moment, then release him and sit back in my chair. i can still feel him there, the way i can feel sisko if i reach for him, a beacon of warmth in the back of my mind.
garak sighs dramatically and asks if we’ll be able to behave ourselves if he brings out his bottle of special brandy. we agree, of course. julian retreats to the couch, and i put my gloves back on before taking a glass, just to put garak at ease. he doesn’t say so, but i can tell by his very small smile that he is grateful for this consideration.
hours later when i return to my quarters and lay in my bed with my head buzzing pleasantly, i open the aperture in my mind ever so slightly and feel the background hum of station life echoing through me. it feels familiar. not a storm but a gentle rain - if not exactly comfortable, at least manageable. it feels, very nearly, like home.
i smile as i pull back my awareness and allow the aperture to contract. maybe tomorrow i will hold julian’s hand for a minute, just to feel the pleasure of skin against skin. after all, i have no reason not to.
