Chapter Text
“How—” Julian starts, and stops, because the answer to that is obvious. He’s already scanning Garak with his tricorder, and the results are astonishing. “There’s no sign of the degeneration, and all of your blood chemistry is back to normal—” Every time he looks away to examine the screen and then back at Garak, it’s a fresh shock.
“It seems you’ve cured me, Doctor.” Garak’s voice is somewhere between careful and wondering. He flexes his fingers and presses them to his cheeks and then his forehead. “Computer, mirror,” he says, and stares wide-eyed into it.
“Let me see your wounds,” Julian says, and watches as Garak undoes his shirt with clumsy fingers, as though he’s forgotten how they work at this size. The skin is paler, the shape of scales almost invisible except on the ridges that define his body. The wounds that had been leaking bak’ital are barely visible now, little more than faded scar tissue. Julian ghosts two fingers across the healed skin, so lightly that it’s barely a touch, and yet Garak hisses in—pain? “Does that cause discomfort?” Julian takes refuge in routine questions, as though he’ll be able to forget that he apparently healed Garak with a kiss and a declaration of love. He’s set that firmly to the side for now.
“No.” Garak’s chest rises and falls in a quick breath. “My—new—skin appears to be extraordinarily sensitive.” He shifts minutely. “After the hide that I used to have, physical contact is—quite different.”
Julian snatches his hand back, even though it’s not at all what he’d like to do. He’s becoming keenly aware of Girani and Nurse Bandee watching from a few meters away. “That’s—good to know,” he says. “Are you experiencing any other effects of the—change?”
Garak’s eyes dart to him and then away. “Doctor, given that I am no longer in imminent danger, I would prefer to leave the infirmary.”
“I can complete my examination in your quarters, if you’d like.” Julian blushes as he says it because he meant it sincerely but it’s a line they used to use on each other in medical school.
“Yes,” Garak says.
“Computer, medical transport.” He considers this a legitimate use, to transfer a medically fragile patient. Potentially fragile, anyway. And he can’t imagine trying to walk Garak through the hallways.
Garak’s quarters are still very warm. Garak looks around, startled. “Computer, reduce temperature two degrees.” He touches the waistband of his trousers. “Doctor, I take it I will not shock your delicate sensibilities if I remove these? My skin’s sensitivity is making them rather unpleasant.”
Julian’s mouth goes dry. “Not at all.” He’s very proud of how even his voice sounds as Garak strips off his trousers. “I really do mean to examine you,” he says. His voice cracks as he says it. So much for composure.
“I wouldn’t dream of stopping you.” Garak remains standing, but his eyes keep darting to Julian and then away.
“Are you having trouble with your vision?” Julian steps forward to scan his eyes and is startled to discover that they’re of a height now. Garak used to tower over him by nearly half a meter.
Garak smiles wryly. “It’s startling to see you from this angle,” he says. “Everything seems a little larger now.” He looks directly at the tricorder instead of at Julian’s face. “Aside from the sensitivity and the new angles, I appear to be entirely functional.”
“Good.” It’s patently absurd to be so skittish around Garak now. “Good,” he repeats, and lowers the tricorder.
“Indeed.” Garak’s eyes focus on him and the force of it leaves Julian almost breathless. “My dear doctor, we could engage in a lengthy dance of avoidance and uncertainty, or we could appreciate the convenience of the rather forceful revelation of your feelings and proceed from there.”
Julian knows he’s blushing, damn it. “I don’t want to—half an hour ago you were nearly dead,” he says. “I’m certain that you should be recovering.”
“Your—decisive action seems to have taken care of that.” Neither of them can seem to name it.
“Indulge me.” Julian scans him up and down with the tricorder, and he follows the path of the tricorder very gently with his fingers. He circles behind Garak, trailing his fingertips over Garak’s skin, and Garak’s breathing is harsh. When Julian dares to brush his lips against the ridge that runs the length of Garak’s spinal column, it drags a noise out of Garak that Julian has never heard before.
“You—” Garak exclaims. He turns and takes Julian in his arms and kisses him. It swamps Julian—the shaky newness of it, the rush of rightness that Julian barely had a chance to feel earlier before Garak’s transformation. Garak’s breath is hot against his mouth when Julian pulls back just enough to gasp in air, and Julian can’t help tracing his thumb along the newly re-shaped ridges on Garak’s face. They’re softer now, less pronounced. Somehow Garak looks like an entirely new creature, even though Julian has seen his fair share of Cardassians over these last years.
“I thought I’d lost you,” Julian admits against his neck. “You were—Garak, you died.”
Garak half-pulls him down to the uncomfortable Cardassian couch, their shoulders bumping together. If the fabric of Julian’s uniform irritates Garak’s skin, he doesn’t admit it. “Apparently not enough that your kiss and declaration of love couldn’t revive me.” When Julian shifts a little uncomfortably, Garak’s arm tightens around him. “My dear Julian, given that the universe or the Prophets or the pahr have deemed us sufficiently in love with each other to break the curse—”
“Right.” Julian turns his head. He can’t seem to stop looking at Garak’s familiar eyes, as though to remind himself that it’s still Garak in this new body. “I suppose it’s taking me a minute to accept having my private feelings so emphatically revealed. I did think you were dying, you know.”
“Yes,” Garak says. “I am familiar with the discomfort of being forced to reveal one’s feelings.”
Julian remembers vividly their confrontation over the dinner table on Empok Nor. “I think I’ve been in love with you since you came to Deep Space Nine,” he admits. “But I thought—that if I felt that way, and you weren’t cured, your feelings must have changed. That I was too late.”
Garak leans in and kisses Julian again. The vulnerability of his skin is fading a little, firming to that of other Cardassians that Julian has met, but his mouth is still soft and eager. “I suppose the curse demanded something a little more irrevocable.” With Garak so close, Julian can’t help but notice the expanse of bare skin, scarred as it is, across his arms, his chest, his thighs, and it makes Julian’s own skin feel hot and tight beneath his uniform. When he puts one hand gently onto Garak’s chest, just below the hard ridge of his sternum, Garak’s fingers creep in under the wrist of his uniform to touch his pounding pulse. Garak shifts and tilts his head until the cupped shape of his forehead meets Julian’s. “I suspect I’m in little danger of changing back, but to be clear, I—continue to love you.”
“Has—anything else come back to you?” Their faces are so close that Julian’s lips almost brush Garak’s as he asks it. “Your missing memories?”
“No.” Garak’s answer is just firm enough that Julian believes it. “No—perhaps with time, now that the curse is broken.”
“If you do—” Julian hesitates. “I know that you were in the Obsidian Order, and I have some idea of what that entailed. If you remember, I can't promise to understand everything in your past, nor to accept it,” he says honestly. “But I promise to try.”
He thinks he can feel Garak smile against his lips, a secret kind of smile. “My dear Julian,” he says, “I don’t doubt that.” Garak’s fingers creep into the hidden hem of his uniform shirt, blunt knuckles hot against his skin, and Garak draws it up and over Julian’s head. He pulls Julian into his lap in almost the same movement, and the heat of him when they’re pressed chest-to-chest engulfs Julian. Julian is greedy for it—he wants to touch as much of Garak as he can reach at once—but there’s still something cautious about this, something a little new in the way that Garak’s cropped fingernails stroke up his Human spine.
“I’m afraid I may have declared my feelings in front of the entire infirmary,” Julian says, the next time he comes up for air. “It’s possible that some people have suspected for a while.” Garak’s fingers explore the shape of his ribcage, and Julian can’t help a quiet kind of shriek when his touch tickles. Garak abandons his ribs and skates his hands upward, to the knots in the muscles of his neck and shoulders, as though he’s making a study of human anatomy. “I might have—” Garak stops him talking by pulling his hips firmly forward with one hand, the other curled around the back of his neck. He swallows whatever noise might come out of Julian’s mouth as their bodies slot together.
Julian means to regain his senses enough to get to the bed, at least. But Garak is so enthusiastic beneath him and Julian doesn’t want to stop touching him, even long enough to walk a few steps away. The sight of them sliding together in their cupped hands does something devastating to Julian’s significant higher brain function. It’s only when they’re sticky and sprawled sideways on the narrow couch, Garak pulling Julian close to keep him from falling off the couch, that Julian has the wherewithal to say, “I think I’m supposed to be on duty in the infirmary.”
Garak allows him to peel himself away and stand. “Considering what’s happened over the last few days, my dear, I think your dereliction will be forgiven.” When Julian offers him a hand, Garak takes it and allows Julian to pull himself up. “Incidentally, speaking of dereliction, I suspect you never got around to reading the latest book that I recommended?”
“Well—” Julian is about to tell Garak that, in fact, he read the entire thing as a distraction during the dreadful runabout trip to meet Enabran Tain, when he realizes that Garak is probably asking for a specific reason. “No,” he lies. “No, I didn’t.”
Garak smiles. “In that case, perhaps I might recommend something a little more—rarified as my next selection.” He strokes his rough fingernails through the hair at the nape of Julian’s neck. “Given our new—status, you might appreciate one of Ceveo’s repetitive epics.”
Julian raises an eyebrow at the name. “New status—Garak. Are you recommending that we read Cardassian pornography?” Apparently Garak’s claim that there was no such thing in Cardassian literature wasn’t entirely accurate.
“Anything to make you appreciate the repetitive epic,” Garak says innocently. “Since you struggled so greatly with the less prurient Cardassian literature. Besides, after Much Ado About Nothing—” Garak smiles beatifically.
He does have a point. “I love you,” Julian tells him. He thinks he could get used to saying it.