A Garak who hasn't felt sexual attraction or drive for years. It's a bodily process. Flirting and sex are a means to an end. A thing that is done because he is what he is. Whether he wants to or not, isn't even part of the equation - so much so that he cannot even tell if he does or not. He needs his marks' engagement. He needs them on the back foot. He needs to be in control, and being the aggressor in a sexual circumstance will often do that. Even if they are not interested, the discomfort his demeanor creates gives him the advantage. Like a magic show: he distracts with flashy, bright sexuality to hide the subterfuge beneath.
But that doesn't mean his heart is unmoving. He feels it sometimes. A little lurch or flip when Bashir smiles at him fondly. When he faces down his lies, or thinly alluded to violence or guilt, with a soft gentle kindness. A demeanor that only ever says: you are safe with me, I will never judge you for the things you did or the things you need to do to help your people. It drives him forward. It grips him like he is an insect and manipulates him without even trying. He craves Bashir without even noticing and lies to himself. He's never above lying to himself. He needs a trusted station contact. He needs to nuture this connection. However he feels about it, however he craves it, is inconsequential. To feel something at all, is so novel that he doesn't know what to do with it. So he plows ahead on well worn tracks.
Then, as Tain's influence fades and Bashir's steadily grows, something in him is lurching back like into frame. A soft, unsteady thing - both old and young, something that never truly learned to walk before it began being puppeted. Before he knows it, he's dreaming of golden skin and human whimpers and first name he's dared not even say in his mind.
A steady hum in his mind.
Love as the lust that he thought was beyond him.
He did not know what it was to want until he was and, suddenly, he is drowning in it. He cannot act on this. He doesn't know the script. There is too much at stake. Too much at stake to Him. Because he is no longer Tain's sharpened blade now. No longer the "Sons of Tain". All those masks have fallen away.
Elim, who was buried so long ago.
Who is Elim? He doesn't know this person. He doesn't know himself. He marches onwards still. Cracking codes. Advising on Cardassian weapon design. Troop movements. Keeps moving because it is all he know how to do. He is a survivor.
He has no king now. So now, Cardassian must have no king too.
It's time to pull the yolk from their shoulders. It's time to emerge, blinking, into the light of the sun and see himself. It's time to grow up. It's time to want.