Break and Borrow
Requested Anonymously
Title taken from Bach/Break
You thought they were lying when they told you Ziyal was dead. You didn’t understand how she could be. Who would hurt her? Dukat may have been a terrible person, but he wouldn’t have let anyone hurt her. His love for Ziyal was his one redeeming trait. And why? She was harmless. You were sure, almost without doubt, that Ziyal couldn't even crush a spider. Hurting her, killing her, made no sense.
But then they showed you the body, and- well. What else could you say?
You knew Garak. You knew him better than Ziyal did, although not as well as Julian. You had never really gotten close, though. There was friendly flirtation and his acknowledgment that you were, in fact, one of the sharper knives in the drawer when it came to his not-spy games, but beyond that, you weren’t personal. You had always thought it was a shame.
Now Garak was leaning against you for support. No, literally, he was leaning. He had gotten out of the Infirmary alright after seeing Ziyal’s body, walking steady and stiff-backed through the Promenade, but you had invited him to your quarters so that he wouldn’t have to go back to his shop alone (so that you wouldn’t have to go home alone), and when you took his hand, he just seemed to… break.
“Of all the people that could have been lost,” Garak told you, open and exposed like a gaping wound (it scared you to see him like this, the stoic spy, the unstoppable force of wit and cunning, he was not supposed to be this way), “I didn’t think it would be her.”
“Neither did I,” you said.
Garak kissed your forehead and pressed himself to you, and you knew things would be different.
And it was. Garak searched you out every day, without fail, and you often felt as if he was overflowing and, thusly, pouring himself into you. There was nowhere else for him to turn, you supposed. This burden was not meant for Julian. Not that you considered it a burden. Garak became a very good friend, and he supported you just as much as you supported him.
This wasn’t worth it, you thought. And how could it be? How could it ever be worth it to trade one friend for another? How could Garak’s friendship ever possibly justify the loss of Ziyal?
It couldn’t. But Ziyal was gone and Garak was still there.
And Garak. Oh, Garak. Sad, vicious Garak with his white, snarling smile and his cold, sharp eyes. Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy. You knew what he was. You knew that he was a killer and a liar and all sorts of terrible things. But his armor was shattered by the death of one girl and you saw more than the assassin.
You saw the man, and you were glad, despite the circumstances, that you had the chance to know him this way.
You never told him as much. But, somehow, you were sure that he knew.