Chapter Text
Julius has one of his dreams that night. From a distance he sees the pit and doesn’t understand what’s in it. He’s the first to realize that they’re stacked bodies and he can’t—he wants to lie to himself about what’s happened here, about what he’s seeing, but his brain won’t allow it. He stumbles, steps a little out of formation to vomit, and a bullet zips just above his head. He feels a spray of warmth on his face just before he sees Harrison collapse. There’s a frantic scramble to find cover—this area was supposed to be clear of enemy combatants, they’re all supposed to have surrendered. Julius sees the movement—he sees the face—and he fires. He’s always been a good shot. The War Office saw to that.
“Julius!”
He’s paralyzed in bed for a moment before he can sit up. “Sorry,” he says.
Kay wraps an arm around his shoulders and squeezes a little. “What was it?”
“The ambush by the mass grave.” Kay knows the rough outline of all his dreams by now. He breathes in deeply. “I do wish the dreams weren’t all—true.” He knows there are people whose dreams at least muddle facts together with fiction, who can wake up from their dreams and heave a sigh and know that it wasn’t real. He envies them that.
“I know.” Kay passes him the glass of water from her nightstand. He stares at it for a moment before she says, “Drink, Jules.”
He finishes the water and gets up to refill the glass. “I’m going to go for a walk to clear my head,” he says when he returns it. “Just—fifteen minutes.”
Kay looks at the clock. It’s four a.m. “All right. Be careful.” Their neighborhood isn’t bad and his situational awareness is near-perfect by now—though remembering Harrison’s death reminds him that it’s certainly not perfect—but a man wandering around alone in the early morning can always run into some kind of trouble.
Julius dresses only as much as is necessary to go out in public, tucking his nightshirt into his pants and pulling a coat on over it. He takes the stairs this time, eight flights down, counting each step as he goes. Sometimes it takes him a long time to fix a memory back into its slot and close the door behind it, especially when it’s such a violent one. It’s still dark out, dawn a few hours away, and the air bites enough that he wishes he’d dressed more, but it helps to clear his head.
He's about four blocks from the apartment and considering turning back when he sees Detective Ryan ease out from an alley and begin following him. Julius walks another six blocks, just to see what Ryan will do, but the man never approaches. If Julius were wiser, he wouldn’t confront Ryan. But he can’t stop himself; he turns and walks directly back to the detective. “Detective Ryan,” he says. “Has something happened?” It’s foolish to engage with him at all.
It's hard to tell in the dim light, but Ryan almost looks—alarmed? “It’s a dangerous time of night to be out alone,” Ryan says. “It would be a shame if anything happened to you.”
Julius squints at him. “Is that—a threat?” It should sound like one, but Ryan’s voice is almost sincere.
“No, no, not at all. I was in the area and noticed you walking, thought it’d be good to keep an eye out for any trouble.”
Julius tries not to gape at him. “I—appreciate your concern.” He most certainly does not. He wants Ryan as far from him as possible. “I was planning to head home now anyway.”
Ryan walks over to him and straightens his coat a little. Julius’s skin crawls. “Go ahead. I’ll make sure you get home safe.”
Julius doesn’t tell Kay about the encounter with Ryan. It’s too unsettling—too much, on the heels of Ryan and Mulkahey’s reaction to Garak. If his memory ever lied to him, he would think he’d imagined the whole thing. He’s decidedly unhappy at the idea of Ryan or Mulkahey following him.
He wants to ask Garak about it—not that he expects to get any meaningful answers—but it’s three weeks before Garak returns. Julius accepts a new story assignment, something especially pulpy and meaningless as a palate-cleanser from the last one. Kay waits until he’s not having the dreams anymore and then spends an entire week staying with Odette. Julius can feel the inevitable coming, the particular pain that he’s always known he’d feel one day. The morning of Garak’s return, Julius sits across the kitchen table from Kay and says, “It’s time, isn’t it?”
Kay looks startled. “Time for what?”
He takes her hand. “You’ve been with Odette for five years now.” He can see it dawning on Kay.
“I never expected—” She sets down her coffee cup. “How is it that you knew before I did?”
Julius laughs, a little sadly. Kay is his best friend and he’s about to lose her. “Because you can’t see yourself when you’re together, and I can.”
“I don’t even know if she wants me to—move in with her,” Kay says. “She might be perfectly happy with things the way they are.” At Julius’s expression, she lets a tiny smile slip. “Really?”
Julius runs a hand through his hair. “We’ll work out the details. There’s no rush. I simply wanted you to know that you don’t need to worry about how to tell me, when the time comes.”
* * * * *
After everything, the rush of relief he feels when he sees Garak at the club is intoxicating. He refuses to consider what that means. “Garak!” He says it a little too loudly, when he’s still a ways away from Garak’s table. “You’re back!”
Garak smiles and stands, clapping Julius on the shoulder. “Please, join me.” He has a cocktail in front of him rather than the usual small glass, but Julius can smell the fernet wafting from it anyway.
“I see you didn’t get much sun in Pensacola,” Julius says. Garak is nearly as pale as ever.
“I spent a great deal of time in the hospital with my grandmother before she passed. Very tedious.” He doesn’t sound like he’s grieving. “How are you, my friend? If you don’t mind me saying, you look a bit unsettled.”
Julius sits back and takes a very long drink of his Scotch. A single ice cube, this time, for variety. “I had the strangest encounter with Detective Ryan.”
“Oh?” Garak’s blue eyes turn a little colder.
“Yes. I—went for an early-morning walk a few weeks ago and discovered that he was following me.”
“How peculiar.”
“Yes, and the most bizarre part of it was that when I asked him what he was doing, he told me that he was following me to protect me.” He pretends to ponder. “You know, I think it was the morning after you came over for dinner.”
Garak maintains an expression of polite interest. “It seems a bit over-zealous on his part. I didn’t realize there were enough police officers in the city to personally protect ordinary citizens. Not that you’re ordinary, of course.”
“I am quite ordinary,” Julius protests. “Certainly ordinary enough to not warrant being followed by the police. You didn’t say something to them, did you?”
“My dear man. I don’t have that kind of—influence over New York’s—” He’s clearly unwilling to say finest. “Over New York’s police force.” Garak’s eyes are wide and earnest, and he doesn’t break eye contact as he sips his drink.
There’s something delightful in how blatantly Garak maintains his various pretenses. “Oh, of course not,” Julius says. “I wouldn’t think so. But I would prefer not to have any police attention, positive or negative. If it’s all the same.”
“I fervently agree.” Garak finally does break eye contact. “I don’t suppose you’d try fernet again, Julius? This cocktail is marvelous.”
Julius can’t tell if he’s offering his own drink or suggesting that Julius get one himself. “I’m open to it,” he says, just to find out, and Garak pushes the drink toward him. There’s a strange and entirely pleasant feeling running down Julius’s spine now. He picks the glass up by its stem and touches it to his lips, just enough to wet his tongue. He winces.
“I take it I haven’t won you over,” Garak says. “To fernet.”
Julius sets the glass carefully between them. “It’s better that way, but I have to admit, I can’t imagine why one would choose to drink it, of all the liquors in the world.”
Garak takes the glass back and sips it again, his mouth just where Julius’s was, and Julius tries to clamp down on that feeling. “I spent time in Italy during the war.” Julius waits for more detail. “While I was there, I was…introduced to amaros. Fernet, in particular. A nonna gave it to me as a health tonic at first. She was worried at how pale I was.”
Julius can only imagine it, those crystalline blue eyes and pallid skin in the midst of an Italian fall. “I hear Italy is beautiful.”
“Hm?” Garak flicks the side of his glass very slightly, just enough to make a quiet clinking noise. “Yes, very. A shame Mussolini ever got his hands on it. I don’t know what that man was thinking—” He cuts himself off and smiles again. “But you don’t want to hear about that. Tell me, what else has happened in the time that I’ve been away?”
Julius refuses to let the conversation turn so quickly from Garak. “Pensacola, was it? Is that anywhere near Port Canaveral?”
That prompts a laugh. “My dear man, if only.” Garak spins the stem of his glass back and forth between his fingers. Julius has never seen him so fidgety. “Nearly five hundred miles, I believe. Not exactly a day trip.”
“No,” Julius says. “A shame, though. I hear they’re testing the Jupiter missiles there.”
“I wouldn’t know. I would certainly like to.”
Julius can’t decide which of those sentences is a lie. “When do you think we’ll have a satellite up there? Something to outdo Sputnik?”
“We? Do you consider yourself American?” Garak doesn’t make him answer that. “Quite soon, I would imagine. Sputnik is too much of a—challenge not to answer swiftly. Though I hope we won’t have to kill a dog to do it.”
“That’s Herbert’s next assignment, did you know? He has to write a story about the plight of a dog sent into space.” Julius lets himself lean back in his chair a little. He doesn’t let his foot bump Garak’s. Not that a single other man in this room would be concerned about something like that.
“Poor Laika and poor Herbert,” Garak says. “Would you like another drink?” He drains their shared cocktail as he stands up.
Julius fully intends to drink until he doesn’t feel bad anymore and then pour himself into a taxicab. Mr. Rivera will give him a very disapproving look. “Yes,” he says. “Pick something for me. I trust you.”
Garak abruptly stares at him. “What a strange choice,” he murmurs. “Very well.” He’s still walking with a cane, Julius notes. But the limp is the slightest bit exaggerated, to Julius’s eyes. What is it like, he wonders, not to notice these things? To take the world at face value?
Julius watches the room as Garak goes to the bar. There’s a group of ten young men who’ve been frequenting the club for the last month or so. Long since back from Korea but anticipating war in Vietnam, the way they talk—and they’re fresh and angry and jostle their way to the bar whenever they want more drinks. They push past Garak and something in Julius wants him to—knock one to the ground, teach them a lesson about appropriate behavior. This isn’t a place for violence and yet Julius sees the lines of controlled violence in the shape of Garak’s shoulders and wants confirmation. Garak is mild-mannered though, only steps out of their way, and one of them mutters, “Sorry, old man.” Julius is insulted on both Garak’s behalf—the man can’t be over 45—and his own.
Garak comes back balancing two drinks in one hand and his cane in the other. “Garak,” Julius says. “You aren’t subtle.”
Garak puts a hand over his heart. “Not subtle? I’m hurt.”
“You were exaggerating the limp when you walked to the bar. And it was barely visible when you walked back.” There’s something about Garak, something dangerous, that makes Julius want to show off what he can do, what he can see.
“I had no idea you were so observant.”
“It’s good to see you don’t need the cane anymore, at least.”
Garak’s mouth twitches a little. “Every man can benefit from a cane. Don’t you think?”
“Canes are for wounded men,” Julius says. He remembers far too many makeshift crutches. “Not for healthy ones.”
“A cane is not the same as a crutch.”
“I didn’t say it was.” It should disturb Julius a little that Garak knew exactly what he was thinking. “A cane is much more—permanent.”
“And can be put to many more uses.” Garak pushes Julius's drink toward him. “Go on, try it.”
Julius lets the subject go. He inspects the glass. “What’s in it?”
“I thought you trusted me.” Garak sounds a little hurt. “Doveryai, no proveryai, I suppose.” Julius stares at him. “Never mind. Taste it and tell me what you think. I suspect it suits your mood.”
That’s ominous. The drink is bright red in the dim light. Julius sips it and regrets it. “That’s one of the worst things I’ve ever tasted,” he says. It’s mouth-curdlingly bitter. “What on earth is in that?”
“Campari, cynar, gin. And fernet.”
Julius tastes it again. “It’s god-awful. Never tell me the Italians introduced you to this.”
“I believe the gin was an English addition,” Garak says, almost accusingly. “Cynar is Italian too, did you know that? They make liqueur out of artichokes.”
He tries it one more time and winces. “Good lord. What makes you think I would like this?”
“Oh, I don’t expect you to like it.” Garak sips his own drink, which looks less abhorrent. “I only said it would suit your mood.”
Julius has to give him that. “I suppose you weren’t wrong.” He takes another mouthful. It hasn’t improved upon further tasting.
“And why should you be in such a tearingly bad mood?” Garak makes it sound innocent, but Julius knows that he’s listening carefully to every word.
There’s no reason to obfuscate. “My marriage is about to end.”
He thinks he sees the slightest tension in the way that Garak sets down his own drink. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Garak says.
“Oh, I always knew it would happen eventually,” Julius says. Every sip of his cocktail is just as bad as the first. He wonders idly why he’s still drinking it, when he dislikes it so much. “I suppose I just hadn’t accepted it yet.” His glass is empty. He breathes a sigh of relief.
“Still.” Garak looks at his empty glass. “Considering how negative you were about the cocktail, I’m surprised at how quickly you finished it.”
“Are you? Didn’t you say it suited my mood?” Julius knows exactly how many drinks he would have to have to lose track of them—ironic though it is—and he’s far from it. Garak, dangerous Garak, makes him want to go beyond that. Makes him want to give himself the excuse of having been too drunk, to say things he shouldn’t and ask Garak questions that he knows Garak won’t answer. “I’ll get the next round. I don’t trust you anymore.”
Garak looks offended. “After I got you the perfect drink? Really, I think that’s an overreaction.”
“A man doesn’t always want to be treated like he’s so transparent,” Julius tells him. He doesn’t ask Garak what he wants, buys two glasses of the peatiest Scotch that Charlie will sell him and brings them back to the table.
Garak sniffs it and his face settles into polite horror. “This is—”
“Lagavulin 16,” Julius says. “It deserves your respect.”
“Oh? I suppose the Scotchmen were busy distilling it when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor?” Garak inhales delicately. “It smells like the distillery burned down.”
“Just drink it. Drink it and tell me about the tropical paradise of Pensacola,” Julius tells him. He pulls out a cigarette and taps it against the table, then puts it in his mouth.
“You know, smoking is dangerous.” Garak’s voice is a little irritable. Funny, Julius realizes, he doesn’t usually smoke around Garak.
“Oh?”
“It’s possible to kill a man by poisoning his cigarettes with ricin.” Garak meets his eyes. “I read it in a novel,” he adds deliberately.
Julius spits out his cigarette. “What a dreadful novel.” The pack doesn’t seem as appealing.
Garak beams at him suddenly. “Yes, indeed. I’ve never tried it, of course. Now, let me tell you about Pensacola. My grandmother had quite the garden…”