Chapter Text
Garak has been reading Julian’s latest recommendation—the Iliad, which Garak finds most compelling and which Julian has warned him does not reflect current human attitudes toward war—while observing Julian at the bar, with some concern. Julian has ignored him entirely since entering the bar and is drinking what appears to be substantially more than the average human could and still remain upright. Eventually—and only out of concern that the doctor might injure himself—Garak walks up to the bar and says, “My dear doctor, may I sit?” Every time he says my dear doctor these days, it feels a little different.
“Of course,” Julian says, a little too loudly, and then waves at Quark. “Quark! Kanar for my friend Garak! Another bottle of Saurian brandy for me!”
Quark is wearing that particularly harassed expression of his that appears when a patron demands too much of his attention or the dabo tables are running in the players’ favor. “Of course, Dr. Bashir.” He sets a fresh bottle of liquor in front of Julian and pours a glass of kanar for Garak. “I’ll put it on your account.”
“You do that! Thank you, Quark!” Julian splashes a good amount more into his glass and Garak catches his wrist as he sets the bottle down.
“You should be careful, Doctor,” he says. “You may be—gifted, but you are only human.”
Julian snorts a little. This kind of heedlessness on Julian makes Garak nervous. “Gifted,” he says. “Do you know, my father used to tell me that. When I was old enough to know better, I finally told him that he was wrong, all those gifts I supposedly had only came out of a laboratory.”
“But you were, in fact, gifted,” Garak says. “You did not purchase those—characteristics. Improvements. You received them as gifts.” When Julian’s arm jerks as though he wants to hit Garak, he can’t help adding, “Do you think you could have killed me, Doctor? When I attacked you, when I was—recovering from my implant?” He’s been thinking a great deal about those hours, a great deal too much. He thinks about Julian too much lately. “Do you think you’re strong enough?”
Julian takes another drink and seems to consider the question. “I don’t know. Physically, I likely could have overwhelmed you, particularly in that condition. I had never killed anyone.” Then is unspoken. Garak can’t remember how long ago it was that he could say he had never killed anyone. A very long time ago.
“Still. Whatever your gifts, I imagine you will feel poorly after consuming this amount of alcohol.”
He laughs a little. “There’s no need to be concerned, Garak. My body metabolizes alcohol extremely quickly. You don’t know how much time I spent pretending to be drunk, at the Academy.”
“But you can become—drunk—if you drink quickly enough?”
Julian dips the tip of his little finger into his glass and then licks it off. It’s mesmerizing, the shape of his finger, the drop clinging to it, the way that his tongue flattens briefly against the pad of his finger before swiping up to catch it with the tip of his tongue. Garak is—entranced. Only from an objective observational perspective, of course. Garak would not lick brandy off Julian’s finger if given the opportunity. “Yes,” Julian says, and it takes Garak a moment to remember the question. “I can overwhelm my metabolism if I try hard enough.” Even like this, Garak suspects that his abilities remain largely undiminished.
“If you don’t mind my asking, is there a reason that you are trying to do so tonight?”
Julian spreads his fingers wide and drags them along the bar. Quark grimaces at him. “My—gifts failed to prevent the death of two children who were beamed to sickbay as their shuttle was destroyed by a plasma leak.”
Garak lacks a strong sense of human empathy, but he can understand that the doctor is upset, drastically so. He puts one hand on Julian’s arm and says that human platitude, “I’m sure you did everything you could.”
From the way Julian’s arm twitches beneath Garak’s hand, he would fling that hand off if it wouldn’t attract too much attention. Garak removes his hand gingerly. “Yes, everything I could.”
“You don’t find that thought comforting.”
Julian swallows his drink and pours himself another. Garak has always found true inebriation risky. It’s too easy to slip and reveal something dangerous, whether by word or by deed. But it seems he has never actually witnessed the doctor inebriated and so he cannot assess whether Julian will reveal anything more drunk than he does while sober. “Do you know why I’m such a good doctor, Garak?”
This question is a trap. There are two obvious answers: because Julian has been genetically enhanced to be intelligent and because Julian has worked hard to become one. Which, of course, was made more possible by his enhancement. Garak takes a sip of kanar instead of answering.
“My memory is extraordinary,” Julian says. “My recall is—nearly perfect. Not only for information, but for images, events.”
“I see.” Garak can’t help wondering how perfectly Julian recalls every lie he’s ever told. He knows better than to tell the same lie too many times, but he also knows well enough that every lie told reveals something about the teller. Julian may well be able to discern truths from all of the lies told, if he remembers them all clearly enough.
Julian is leaning slightly to one side, and Garak braces him. He seems to accept the touch. “I know you won’t tell me the truth, Garak. But I think there are things in your own past that you’ve managed to—not quite forget, but to render fuzzy, less painful, with the passage of time and the slow fading of details.” He taps his own head. “For me, though, that doesn’t work. I don’t forget things. With time I can—shut them away, but if I allow myself to think about it, the memory is fresh in every detail. The Teplan blight—if I let myself, I can see all those bodies around me, everyone I couldn’t save.” Julian told him about that, afterward, in one of those frightening moments of openness.
“But you can shut it away.” Garak watches Julian’s face intently. He learned to—shut things away early in life, but some are more persistent than others.
“With time. I haven’t—had enough time yet, for those two children’s bodies. Which means that I am sitting here drinking like an ordinary person to distract myself from what’s in my extraordinary mind.”
The best thing he can do is to say, “Really, doctor, you’re very self-impressed sometimes.” He watches Julian’s expression rotate from shock to anger to a very dry humor, and yes, the doctor’s inebriation does render his face even more open.
“Go back to your book, Garak,” Julian says. “I’m afraid I’m not much for conversation tonight.” To prove it, he stands, taking the bottle of Saurian brandy with him, and wanders over to the dom-jot tables. Garak does return to his table, but he keeps half his attention on the noise coming from the tables, just in case the doctor is too inebriated to get out of a bad situation. The doctor stays another half-hour more without incident and then leaves with one of Quark’s new dabo boys, steady enough on his feet that Garak can persuade himself not to shadow Julian back to his quarters.
* * * * *
Three hours later, Garak is wandering through the habitat ring on a very roundabout way back to his quarters when he sees the shape of a familiar man exiting a very different set of quarters. Out of boredom, or perhaps curiosity, Garak follows Julian at a distance for nearly twenty meters before revealing his presence.
“I knew you were following me,” Julian announces. He no longer appears intoxicated, but he is—the word ‘debauched’ presents itself in Garak’s mind and he dismisses it intentionally. Julian’s appearance suggests that he has recently engaged in vigorous physical activity. His lips are red, a little swollen; his hair messy, as though someone’s fingers have raked through it; the civilian shirt he wears, which Garak knows does not belong to him, reveals his collarbones and a few marks on his neck. It’s obvious what he’s been doing and Garak feels—anger? Annoyance. Only annoyance. That his verbal attempts at Quark’s to comfort Julian were insufficient.
“I wasn’t aware you were in a romantic relationship, doctor.” He’s forgotten Julian’s enhanced abilities yet again, forgotten that what Julian pretended to miss when he was still lying is no longer something that he’ll miss.
Julian laughs. “What, with Keti? I’m certainly not.”
“I’m aware of your—preference for the attractive individuals who run the dabo tables,” Garak says. There’s no reason that this should bother him. The doctor is very attractive, as humans go. It’s unsurprising that he would seek out other attractive individuals.
“Garak, it was a—brief liaison.”
“Not that brief. I was under the impression that you were—against such encounters.”
“What, sex with an attractive man? A one-night stand?”
“You refused a—one-night stand with me, when you expressed your feelings.” Garak is horribly aware that he sounds petulant. His lack of control is appalling.
Julian’s entire demeanor shifts. “Garak, if you can’t tell the difference—” He stops himself. “It’s been a very long day,” he says. “I’m going to go back to my quarters and go to sleep.”
As he walks away, Garak can’t help asking, “Lunch, tomorrow, doctor?” He hurries to add, “I have many thoughts on the Iliad.”
Julian looks back at him and shakes his head, but he says “Yes.”