Title: A Meadow in the Holosuite
Fandom: Star Trek Deep Space Nine
Characters: Elim Garak, Julian Bashir, Enabran Tain
Content notes: follows on from season 2 episode 22 The Wire, so canonical (non-graphic) references to torture and addiction; oblique mention of suicide.
Length: 6000
Rating: R
A/N: for kate_lear; thanks to her and kalypso for beta advice and encouragement.
Summary: After the events of The Wire, Garak and Bashir have lunch and argue about literature. This time it's different.



Garak wakes up shivering and faintly nauseous. Another night with his mind chewing over the events of the last weeks, none of his techniques for shutting it down any good to him now. He’d fallen into uneasy slumbers at last, just when he was seriously contemplating getting up and working in the small hours because clearly he was never going to sleep again.

His muscles ache from clenching against the nightmare, the same one he’s had every night since the infirmary. Tain was in it, and Bashir. The details are gone in seconds; the rags of it will cling to him for hours. Thick-headed and groaning, he staggers out of bed to face the day.

Bashir told him he ought to rest, wanted him to stay in bed. But if there’s one thing Garak knows, it’s that staying in bed would mean admitting defeat. Would be the beginning of the end, however much his body protests about getting up.

You are strong or you are nothing. Tain taught him that, and oh, he is perilously close to nothing now.

So: pills first, as instructed. Almost as instructed. Take them with food, Bashir had told him, it’ll be kinder to your system. But he can’t bear the thought of food in the mornings, and this talk of kindness is the sort of sentimental nonsense he expects from Humans. Dishonest, as sentimentality always is. He chokes down his pills, cleans himself and dresses with care. Lunch today with Bashir, which means braving the crowds at the Replimat. He’s not going to let them see how shaky he still is, or give the Doctor an excuse to fuss over him again.

He has pills for the headaches, but not for the small stupid hurts of every day. Yesterday it was the needle he’d carelessly driven into his finger, only just managing not to bleed on Lieutenant Dax’s latest holosuite outfit. Today he fumbles the shears and drops them on the floor, then bangs his head on the workbench when he straightens up from retrieving them. Before Bashir switched off the implant there would have been a coat around Garak’s mind, dulling the sharpness of the needle’s point, the red flare of the bench’s edge. He could weep with frustration at his own clumsiness. The implant would have kept that at bay, too.

The morning passes slowly, so slowly he even considers checking the messages on his PADD. He doesn’t, though; whatever is on there, he doesn’t want to know.

Tain wouldn’t communicate with him that way. He’s already sent the only direct message he’s going to send, via Bashir. No point in thinking about that, though his mind won’t let it alone. Please, tell Garak that I miss him.

There’s more that Bashir’s not telling, of course. That will come out sooner or later, because Garak won’t be able to stop himself from pushing for it. He knows it will make things worse, but he can’t let it alone. He never could.

Time to head for the Replimat and give the Doctor his considered opinion on A Tale of Two Cities. He folds his work neatly, flips the sign on the door and heads out into the bustle and cold light of the Promenade.

Everything is too loud and too sharp and too bright. He’s defenceless against it, as if he’s shed his skin but the new scales haven’t properly formed or hardened yet. It makes him flinch, and the effort of hiding that weakness only adds to his exhaustion.

No sign of Bashir; bad. Worse, there’s a long line at the Replimat again. Garak’s stomach knots, remembering the last time it was this busy. The splitting pain, like a knife slicing through his head. The mounting sense of panic and rage as Bashir tried to drag him to the infirmary, and then –

“Garak!” Here is Bashir, thank the mercies, all charmingly dishevelled and apologetic. “I sent you a message, didn’t realize till just now that it bounced back. I’ve been waiting at the holosuites. I booked us lunch there.”

“You booked us lunch there?” Garak echoes, like a fool. Should have checked his messages after all.

“The Replimat’s been like this for days,” Bashir says. “So I thought, um, this way we don’t have to queue. And we can argue, I mean, discuss Dickens without being interrupted.”

A private argument about literature with the delectable Doctor Bashir? Garak’s idea of bliss. It’s obviously too good to be true.

“Don’t tell me, let me guess: we just have to make a stop at the infirmary first.”

“Garak!” Bashir protests, not sure if he’s teasing. “No, seriously, I promise you. No unscheduled medical examinations and no wasps in the jam sandwiches.”

The second part of that makes no sense whatsoever. Unwise perhaps to ignore it, but Garak can’t wait to get away from the crowds.

“Thank you, Doctor. In that case, by all means lead on.”





Whatever Garak was expecting to find in the holosuites, it wasn’t this wide expanse of grass, studded with hundreds of small flowers, white ones and yellow ones and here and there clumps of dark purple. It’s nothing like the formal gardens he’s used to on Cardassia; this is wild ground, but so lush that it takes his breath away. How much rain would it take to make something this green? The sky is blue with hardly a cloud; a mild warm day that feels like spring.

Even though he knows the flowers aren’t real, Garak’s longing for his own lost gardens is so fierce it almost chokes him. This won’t do at all.

“It’s a charming landscape, my dear Doctor,” he says. “But I thought you said you’d booked us lunch. Shouldn’t there be, oh, I don’t know, a table and chairs? And – call me old-fashioned if you must, but – some kind of food?”

Bashir gestures triumphantly at two Human-made objects sitting in the middle of this green space: a rectangular lidded basket, woven from some kind of plant fibre, and a large woollen blanket in garish colours, a bright red ground chequered with green and blue and white.

“It’s all here, Garak. Everything you need for a picnic lunch.”

“A picnic lunch.”

“Yes, a picnic!” Bashir’s eyes are shining. “Picnics are great!”

“Hmm.”

“Oh, come on, Garak. It’ll be fun, you’ll see.”

“Fun,” Garak says darkly.

He eyes the arrangement with extreme disfavour. No good can come of lunch in a basket, and as for that ridiculous blanket…

“Am I supposed to sit on that monstrosity? It pains me even to look at it.”

Bashir throws himself down on the woollen square with all the careless enthusiasm of youth. He sprawls at full length, shameless and inviting, as if to say very well then, I’ll give you something better to look at.

Garak gives him his best hard stare, which today seems not to be working properly.

“Join me, Garak!”

Bashir smiles his unfairly beautiful smile and pats the space next to him. He’s rolled up his sleeves and his uniform is partly unzipped, showing off his neck.

Once Garak would have felt a thrum of simple want, seeing that lovely body so delightfully laid out for him. Now something more treacherous catches him off guard, makes his chest ache. The desire for intimacy, something he has never allowed himself since he left Cardassia. To lie down next to Bashir, face to face, with nothing separating them…

He stands there a moment too long, dumbfounded and staring.

“Come on, Garak, it’s perfectly safe,” Bashir says, laughing up at him. “I’m not going to eat you!”

It’s like the flick of a switch: the yearning cuts out abruptly, and there’s a surge of something hot and hard and sharp. Garak wants to snap: You fucking tease, if you don’t stop that right now I swear I will have you on that stupid blanket. But he has himself under better control than that. Breathe in; hold; exhale.

“I assure you, dear Doctor, I’m quite capable of enjoying the view from up here,” he says, with a deliberate leer.

Bashir goes an interesting shade of blush-red about the ears; score one to Garak. He sits up and starts fiddling with the straps that fasten the basket.

Garak could go on standing here, staring at those beautiful hands working the buckles loose. Or he supposes he could sit down. He sits down, rather stiffly, at a safe distance from Bashir, who beams at him as if sitting on a blanket with Garak is the best thing that’s happened to him in weeks.

“Lunch is served,” he says, a premature announcement if Garak ever heard one.

There’s a lot to unpack here: plates and cups held in place by more leather straps, a flask in the same colours as the blanket. Knives and forks, to Garak’s relief. Red and white check cloth napkins. A succession of small boxes with lids.

“I think some fruit, to start with,” Bashir says, handing him a plate. “Better for the digestion that way.”

Garak’s not sure he has much of an appetite, but the fruit smells good, and the shapes it’s cut into, stars and crescents and small rounds, remind him of the ones Mila used to make for him when he was ill as a child.

“So,” Bashir says, “what did you think of A Tale of Two Cities?”

“Appallingly sentimental, my dear Doctor, like everything else you’ve given me to read.”

“But the whole novel hinges on an act of sacrifice! I thought you’d like it.”

“It’s true,” Garak says, “I confess I was moved by the fate of Madame Defarge.”

“Madame Defarge? I’m talking about Sydney Carton!”

“Nonsense, Doctor. Madame Defarge sacrifices herself for the good of the state. In Cardassian terms, she’s the only truly heroic character in the story.”

“The only – Garak, I sometimes think we’re not even reading the same book.”

Garak can’t let that pass. Bashir’s views on literature are, as always, erroneous, as anyone with half a brain can see. He sets about explaining this, and discovers half way through that his plate is empty, and Bashir is looking characteristically pleased with himself.

“Oh, very good, Doctor. Distract the patient and trick him into eating.”

Bashir grins. “Can’t blame me for trying to get some vitamins and nutrients into you. Now, how about something else?”

Something else turns out to be an assortment of small enticing things: triangular and boat-shaped pastries with savoury fillings; crisp fried cylindrical rolls hardly bigger than an isolinear rod, their insides hot and melting and salty; little half-moon pillows of rissoles filled with white curd and chopped nuts and herbs; pale-gold rectangles of biscuit with dark sweet paste in between them. The offensively patterned flask holds a sweet cool greenish drink: apple, mint and ginger, Bashir says. Garak finds his appetite returning. And the day is warm, and the light doesn’t hurt his eyes, and there is Bashir, tenderly solicitous, try some of this, try some of that, and Garak opens like a flower in the sun, turning towards the warmth of his gaze.

“I must admit, Doctor, this is better than the Replimat’s usual fare.”

Bashir colours up again. “It’s mostly my grandmother’s recipes.”

“You taught the replicator your grandmother’s recipes?”

“I taught Quark,” Bashir says. “I was missing a taste of home.”

All very well for him to say that, when he can go back any time he wants to. Garak pushes the thought down; no need to spoil an unexpectedly enjoyable lunch. He’s touched by the effort Bashir has made, and also more than a little confused.

On Cardassia, going to this kind of trouble would be a clear signal of courtship. But then, on Cardassia their weekly arguments about literature would be the most outrageous, unambiguous flirtation. Every now and then Garak wonders if he ought to point this out to Bashir, rather than go on taking a pleasure that Bashir wouldn’t offer if he knew what it meant. Because Bashir isn’t, he doesn’t, he wouldn’t… That electric excitement he’d shown on first meeting Garak was all for his fantasy idea of The Spy, not the reality, as Garak long since reluctantly concluded. He’s seen enough of Bashir’s shameless pursuit of women to know which way his tastes run, and it’s not in Garak’s direction.

But if he told Bashir the truth about their arguments, they would stop. And there is so little pleasure to be had in his exile, especially now the implant no longer works. Who could it hurt, to steal a little warmth?

“Perhaps Quark will have a Terran evening,” he says, to break the awkward silence that has settled over them.

“Perhaps,” Bashir says. He seems distracted. “Oh wait, you haven’t tried these yet.”

“No,” Garak says, looking doubtfully at the odd little squares of white bread layered with something brown and red. “What are they?”

“Peanut butter and jam sandwiches.”

“Oh. Do they usually go with the rest of it?”

“No,” Bashir admits, a bit sheepishly. “They’re more – I don’t know, something else I miss, I suppose.”

“Peanut butter,” Garak says. Why in the name of the ancestors would anyone miss that?

“I knew a boy once who lived entirely on peanut butter and jam sandwiches and chocolate cake,” Bashir says.

Garak rolls his eyes. “Frankly, Doctor, I'm amazed he survived.”

He sees it in the twist of Bashir's mouth, the way he flinches, even before Bashir says, “He didn't.”

Now, what is he supposed to say to that? If Bashir wants to talk about it, Garak’s not going to stop him, but he’s not going to ask about it either. He didn’t invite this ghost child to the picnic.

There’s another awkward silence, a longer one this time.

Garak suppresses a sigh and takes one of the unappetizing squares. Putting this Terran abomination in his mouth because of a dead boy he never met may be the most ridiculous act to which sentiment has yet driven him.

The sandwich is soft and bland on the outside, thick and sweet and faintly salty on the inside. It's shockingly pleasant. Garak takes a second small square and bites into it, and Bashir's face lights up.

“You do like it!”

“Hrrmph.”

Bashir is not quite laughing at him, but something very close to it. Garak considers being offended, but the corners of his mouth seem to have a will of their own. He gives up the unequal struggle and lets himself smile back, blinking a little in the sunshine. He’s warm, inside and out, and he feels properly awake, for the first time in days. Now and then a soft wind sets all the flowers quivering, and there’s birdsong coming from somewhere. It’s not a song he knows, but he recognizes the quality of it: tender and liquid, the sound of pairing time.

You pathetic fool, Elim, Tain’s voice says in his head. Look at you, rolling over for a pretty face and a bellyful of Terran street food. Has exile really made you that desperate? I always knew you were weak, but this is grotesque.

Once, at Bamarren, they threw Garak into an ice bath. To toughen him up, they said. The pain of it screamed in every cell of his body, gripped him so tight he couldn’t even shiver or cry out.

He can do whatever he likes with you, can’t he? Tain’s voice continues, relentless. You’re practically eating out of his hand already. Next thing he’ll put a collar on you. See the way he looks at you, like a pet or a specimen. His little Cardassian freak show. Maybe he’ll take you to his next medical conference, use you to illustrate his lectures.

Garak wants to protest, to say it’s not true, I don’t believe you, I don’t care. But the words won’t come. There’s nothing but the cold that knifes through him, and he can’t move, can’t breathe…

“Garak, what is it?” Bashir says. “Are you all right?”

Bashir’s hand is on his arm, a reassuring pressure, the warmth of it perceptible even through his tunic. Touching him so gently, and Garak can’t afford gentleness, can’t want gentleness or the things that might go with it.

He pulls back from the touch. Draws a deep, ragged breath. Say something, anything, to distract Bashir.

“What are the flowers called?”

“What are the fl – ? Seriously, Garak!”

For a moment he thinks Bashir will insist on knowing what’s wrong. Garak’s ready to fend him off, to say, you promised me lunch, not a doctor-patient consultation.

Bashir gives him a searching look. Whatever he sees in Garak’s face, he seems to decide not to push. He sighs.

“OK,” he says. “OK. Flowers. Violets – they’re the dark purple ones. Sometimes they can be a pale pink, or even white. The yellow ones are buttercups. If you rub one under your chin and it shows yellow, it means you like butter. The white ones with a lot of petals and a yellow centre are daisies. Children make daisy chains with them.”

“Daisy chains?”

“Like this,” Bashir says.

He picks a generous handful of the white flowers, dropping them in a heap on the blanket. The stems have no leaf to them; Bashir makes a slit at the base of one with his thumbnail and threads another stem through the hole, pulling until the head of the flower is caught. He slits the base of the second flower stem and repeats the action with another, and another.

Garak stares at Bashir’s hands, so quick and deft in their movements, even when playing a children’s game with flowers.

“How kind of you to share your idyllic childhood memories with me,” Garak says.

It comes out with more bitterness than he’d intended; the force of envy takes him by surprise. There were no flowers like this in Tain’s garden, and even if there had been Garak wouldn’t have been allowed to play with them.

“Actually, I couldn’t do this when I was a child,” Bashir says. “I didn’t have the fine motor skills.”

“You don’t really expect me to believe that, do you, Doctor? Surely you’ve never been less than perfect.”

Bashir winces at that, just for a moment, and Garak wonders if he’s missed something, but then it’s gone again.

“Of course you’re right,” Bashir says, with mock humility. “How ridiculous of me ever to attempt to lie to you, Garak. After all, you are the expert.”

“Ah, but I appreciate that you tried, my dear Doctor. There’s hope for you yet.”

Bashir slips the last slit stem over the head of the first daisy, completing the circle.

“There,” he says, placing the garland on Garak’s head, “I hereby crown you the prince of liars.”

Bashir’s fingers are warm, brushing against Garak’s forehead, and the touch lingers a moment longer than necessary.

The last time Garak felt the warmth of Bashir’s skin against his, he thought he was dying. He’d allowed himself to ask for Bashir’s touch then, though not in words, and Bashir had given it freely. Had forgiven Garak for whatever he’d done. He wouldn’t have done that if he knew the truth. Wouldn’t want to touch him. Wouldn’t be sitting here with him now, playing children’s games in a meadow in the holosuite.

Garak’s stomach twists into a knot. Any minute now, Tain’s voice will start up again in his head, tearing him to pieces.

“This is ridiculous,” he says, before Tain can say it for him. “Admit it, Doctor, this whole picnic was merely an elaborate ploy to make a fool of me.”

“Oh, Garak. Must you always be so suspicious?”

“What’s that Terran expression, no such thing as a free lunch?”

Bashir snorts. “Where on earth did you pick that one up? And don’t say hemming trousers, because I won’t believe you. It’s practically twentieth-century.”

Garak is not going to admit he’s been watching those black and white holofilms.

“Perhaps my clientele includes time-travellers.”

“Pfffft. Now who’s being ridiculous?”

“My dear Doctor, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

“You, quoting Hamlet, Garak? I thought you said the play was ill-conceived and incoherent.”

Garak sniffs. “I admit it has occasional moments of lucidity.”

“You should wear a flower crown more often,” Bashir says, laughing. “It suits you.”

He’s teasing, obviously. But there’s something else in his expression, something that makes Garak feel warm inside again, makes his pulse quicken. Tain’s voice is blessedly silent, and Garak dares to let himself look back at Bashir, open and unguarded.

“Oh, really, Doctor?”

Fishing for compliments under the guise of irony now; well, it wouldn’t be the first time.

“Really,” Bashir says, still with that soft intent look. “And we’ve been having lunch together for over a year now. Don’t you think you could call me Julian?”

He can’t possibly know what he’s asking. Or how much Garak wants to say yes, in spite of everything.

“On Cardassia, first names are used only in close relationships,” Garak says, keeping his tone as neutral as possible.

“I see.” Bashir looks crestfallen, but only for a moment. “Still – ”

Bashir has gone that interesting shade of blush-red about the ears again. He seems to be nerving himself to say something important. Garak finds himself unexpectedly short of breath.

“Still?”

The moment stretches out between them, humming with promise –

Bashir’s combadge chirps, making them both jump.

“Infirmary to Doctor Bashir!”

Garak bites back a hiss of frustration.

“Shit!” Bashir says, visibly flustered. “Fuck. Oh god, I’m late for my shift.”

He taps the combadge: “Bashir here. I’m on my way, Nurse Jabara. Apologies.”

“Thank you for a pleasant lunch, Doctor,” Garak says, because there’s no time for any of the other things he wants to say.

“You’re welcome, Elim,” Bashir says distractedly, scrambling to his feet. “Computer, end program.”



Garak doesn’t remember anything about the walk back to his shop, though it must have happened, because here he is. The shock of Bashir using his first name like that left no room for anything else in his brain.

No one has called him Elim since he left Cardassia, and to hear that now, from Bashir of all people –

Tain must have told him. There’s no other way Bashir could know. Tain must have told him, and what does that mean, what did he mean by giving Bashir that information?

Please, tell Garak that I miss him. Garak, not Elim. If there’s one thing Garak is sure of it’s that Bashir would be exact in relaying the message. And if Tain had said Tell Elim that I miss him, the shock would have come that much sooner, and all at once. So the name was an ambush Tain had prepared for him, ready to fall on Garak when he was least expecting it. From Tain’s point of view Bashir could hardly have chosen a better moment, whether by design or by accident.

It’s an additional torment, not knowing whether Bashir called him Elim on purpose. What if he didn’t mean to say it, perhaps didn’t even realize he had said it? Garak can’t ask him without exposing himself even further than he already has.

His head is aching again. He fumbles for his pills, chokes one down. Rubs his temples, and feels a dull surprise that the flower crown is no longer there. He looks at his reflection in the glass. Of course it isn’t. The flowers were holosuite flowers, and would have vanished when Bashir ended the computer program.

It’s just as well: what a spectacle Garak would have made of himself, walking through the station with a daisy-chain on his head. But there’s also a tinge of regret, that he can’t see himself the way Bashir saw him, see what it was that made Bashir look at him that way.

Cursing himself for a sentimental fool, Garak sets to work again, but the memory of the holosuite and the conversation with Bashir refuses to go away. He discovers he’s somehow managed to sew on a panel for Lieutenant Dax’s holosuite costume back to front, and has to unpick the whole thing.

He forces himself to concentrate on the task in hand, though his thoughts are still going round and round like an arov’aa in a cage. When the rumbling in his stomach grows too loud to ignore, he realizes it’s past his dinner hour, and replicates himself a bowl of sem’hal stew. It’s dull and insipid after the array of tempting small treats Bashir had prepared for him. Another disaster: he’s getting spoiled as well as soft. He’d trained himself to make do with the inferior replicated version of the foods he missed and couldn’t have, and now it is all to do again. Because he can’t have what he wants, and he can’t afford to want what he can’t have.

Mila used to tell him the tale of the foolish Cardassian boy who ate and drank with the cave-spirits at their midsummer feast, drawn in by their uncanny beauty and his unthinking greed. And for every mouthful of food, every swallow of drink, she said, that boy was bound to them for a year of his life. Garak used to shiver, imagining what it would be like to encounter the spirits, to be in thrall to them. But that was just a children’s story with an over-obvious moral, and he is not a child any more.

Bashir said he’d taught Quark to make those things. If Garak went to Quark and asked for some more of Bashir’s Terran street food… Do that and he might as well make an announcement over the comms broadcasting his weakness to the entire station. Bad enough that he’s allowed himself to become dependent on their weekly lunches together –

I can’t believe that I actually enjoyed eating mediocre food and staring at your smug, sanctimonious face. His own voice, raging. I hate this place, and I hate you.

He winces. Did he really say those things to Bashir? He doesn’t remember most of what happened before he ended up in the infirmary, which is a mercy.

Bashir forgave him anyway. Risked his life in order to save Garak’s, going to the Arawath Colony to confront Enabran Tain. Did he even understand how dangerous that was? What did he think he was doing?

Of course it’s possible to come up with an explanation. More than one, in fact. Obviously the mission would appeal to Bashir’s love of adventure stories, his need to play the hero. His sense of duty as a doctor, determined not to lose a patient. His pride in his superior knowledge and skill, refusing to be defeated by Cardassian technology and physiology.

None of that explains what happened today. Garak’s still baffled by the delicacy and care of Bashir’s preparations, the way they led up to that tantalizing interrupted conversation, so impossible to continue now. The moment for such an exchange seems to have vanished as completely as the meadow and the daisy-chain. It’s hardly a topic for discussion over lunch in the Replimat, surrounded by all the gossips and eavesdroppers of this State-forsaken place. But he can’t expect Bashir to invite him for another picnic in the holosuites. And Garak can’t initiate a tête-à-tête himself, not without tacitly accepting Bashir’s apparent declaration of intimacy.

You’re welcome, Elim. The words follow him to bed, along with the images of the meadow and the flowers, the memory of Bashir sprawling in invitation on the picnic blanket. They linger in his mind like the brush of Bashir’s fingers against his skin, settling the flower crown on his head.

Heat pools in his stomach and between his thighs. He imagines Bashir’s accidental touch becoming deliberate, teasing, tracing Garak’s forehead ridges, circling the dip of his chufa with his thumb. Imagines the shock of that caress forcing a moan from him, and Bashir saying with a wicked smile, Aha, you like that, don’t you? Tell me where else you want me to touch you. And Garak, half-breathless, telling him, I warn you, Doctor, you’re playing with fire. Bashir’s eyes going dark with want, his voice rougher now as he says, Oh, I know exactly what I’m doing. And oh, he does, oh yes indeed, so exactly, oh, so exquisitely, pressing his thigh between Garak’s and tilting him backwards, laying him down on that ridiculous blanket and undoing him, gently and fiercely and so thoroughly that Garak may never get properly done up again. Bashir’s clever hands are stroking and exploring everywhere, slow insinuating caresses that leave Garak flushed deep blue and shuddering, helpless with bliss, till there is nothing in the world except this sweet sharp pulse of unbearable need washing over him and over him. Bashir’s mouth trails hot along his neck, his jaw, his aural ridges, a jumble of words and kisses, praising and coaxing, so beautiful, so good, yes, come on, Elim, yes, and his own voice babbling in surrender, yes, don’t stop, Julian, please, oh please, anything –

“Julian.”

Garak lies drenched and gasping, shaken from head to foot with pleasure and shame. He never even touched himself. The sheets are soaked. His face is wet with tears.

How could he have so little self-control as to go off like that? To be so overcome solely by his own fantasies? He’s imagined having sex with Bashir before, of course, but always as the dominant one, Garak the experienced seducer having his way with the naïve young Starfleet officer. Ripping that abominable uniform off his smooth warm body, pushing him up against the wall or bending him over his worktable. Making him gasp at the way Garak fills him, making him beg for more. Making him cry out in ecstasy, in astonishment at Garak’s skill. Familiar aids to masturbation, those imaginings, worn smooth with practice. Easy and predictable, a reliable remedy for those occasions when he can’t sleep or has had a particularly trying day. This is nothing like that.

It’s true that he hasn’t had an orgasm since before the implant began to malfunction, but that hardly explains the force of it. Everything seems to be more intense now. All the appetites, all the wants and needs. More troubling still, he finds that sexual climax hasn’t quenched his desires, but redirected them. Fierce longing grips him, refusing to let go even though he’s spent. It’s a physical pain, this craving to be held in his lover’s arms, quiet and close, the two of them breathing each other in, forehead pressed to forehead. His shoulders and collarbone hurt with how much he wants it. How much he needs Bashir, Julian, to gentle and soothe him with tender caresses, murmuring endearments, telling Garak he is precious, he is loved.

The humiliation of his own desires is worse than any of Tain’s accusations. Yes indeed, he is a pathetic fool, desperate, grotesque: not just rolling over for a pretty face and a bellyful of Terran street food, but acting like a lovesick adolescent. Allowing himself to imagine, even for a moment, that his love could be returned.

Groaning, he heaves himself out of bed and goes to the refresher. He washes away the bodily traces of his weakness, standing under the sonic shower with his eyes closed for a long time. Wraps himself in a hot towel until his teeth stop chattering, and then puts on his oldest and softest dressing-gown. He strips the bed and puts the ruined sheets in the recycler. Replicates fresh sheets and makes up the bed with painstaking neatness. He brews himself a cup of red leaf tea to calm his nerves, because he doesn’t dare lie down again yet.

It's shattering to feel those things, to want those things. Even more so because – Garak’s stomach lurches at the realization – this wanting is not all new, is it? It’s been months since he stopped thinking of Bashir as merely a delightful snack, a bit of enjoyable company to pass the time in his interminable exile. When he thought he was dying, it was Bashir he wanted by his side, to hear his confession, to forgive him in his last moments. He didn’t ask himself why.

That’s the thing about love, he’d said to Quark. No one really understands it, do they? He’d thought he was talking about Cardassia, but it was there even then.

The implant had damped down his emotions, the way it dulled his bodily sensations. Now he has no defences, no barrier to put between him and the pain of this raw need. The irony is bitter in his throat: that it’s Bashir himself who has pulled him into this world of feeling and trapped him there, first by switching off the implant and then by saving his life.

For no good reason, he finds himself thinking of A Tale of Two Cities. Not of Madame Defarge this time, but of Doctor Manette, the prisoner known as One Hundred and Five, North Tower, buried alive in the Bastille for eighteen years. The man who is not a shoemaker by trade, but who has taught himself to be one in prison. Who can’t be what he used to be any more, because he has forgotten his former self. Who clings to the familiarity of his bench and his tools even after he is freed, shrinking in fear from the world outside his cell.

Snatches of dialogue from the opening chapters echo in Garak’s head:

“You know that you are recalled to life?”

“They tell me so.”

“I hope you care to live.”

“I can’t say.”

Garak hasn’t forgotten his old life. And he can’t imagine wanting, needing to be locked in for his own peace of mind, like Manette – even the idea of that narrow cell makes him shudder. But he knows, now, what it feels like to be recalled to life. Like the shoemaker, he has no say in the matter; it’s already too late for that.

There’s no cure for what ails him – none that he can get Bashir to administer, at any rate. He doesn’t let himself dwell on the obvious cure, the one that’s in his own hands. His life is not his own to dispose of, even in exile: it belongs to Cardassia. No way out. No choice but to go on.

You are strong or you are nothing: Tain’s lesson, the lesson of Bamarren, of the Order. He must make himself ready in case the call ever comes, summoning him to Cardassia’s service. He can overcome this weakness by refusing to give it house room. He can force himself to ignore his needs and desires, though it will be harder without the implant to muffle them. He’s lived on next to nothing before, and he can do it again.

The red leaf tea is finished now. It’s not as sweet as the cool green drink Bashir gave him, but its drab familiarity is comforting, like his old dressing-gown.

He lies down again, and begins the slow process of willing himself to fall asleep. The clean sheets smell almost like home, and the comforting weight of the covers presses on his weary body as he shifts and settles, warmth and heaviness seeping into his limbs.

Tomorrow he will start over, the only way he knows how. Put the events of today out of his mind and go back to his narrow routine with its small compensations. Working at his bench with the tools of his trade, making barbed remarks to his variously stupid and irritating customers. A glass of kanar in the evenings, his weekly lunches with Bashir in the Replimat. Tonight, the memory of the holosuite meadow and the flower crown is still there, curling around him, faint as a wisp of smoke. The phantom touch of Bashir’s fingers against his skin is a warm question mark that keeps him awake longer than it has any right to, and follows him even into his dreams.