Chapter Text
Damar is against the alliance with the Dominion from the start. Why should he and Dukat trade the freedom of their Klingon bird of prey for the yoke of the Dominion? Once the Dominion comes to Cardassia, with their specially-bred pet soldiers, there will be no getting rid of them.
Dukat can’t see this. Dukat is obsessed with Bajor, always Bajor, and after the third time that Dukat refuses to accept Damar’s counsel, he gives up, trusts the wisdom of his Gul and tells himself that yes, Dominion occupation (and that’s what it is) will strengthen Cardassia again. Bajor will be theirs again, when all is said and done.
Life on Terok Nor under the control of the Dominion is surreal. That Bajoran woman, Kira, refuses to yield the Cardassians’ rightful place. She’s everywhere, in her bright red uniform and her judgmental sneer, unafraid of—well, anything, and Dukat is obsessed with her. He laughs indulgently at what she says when the words sound like death threats to Damar. He tries to play house with her and his daughter when Damar sees the vulnerability that kind of behavior creates.
And all the while the Dominion is there, watching, in the form of Weyoun. The Vorta sets Damar’s teeth on edge, with his eerie purple eyes and pale skin and bizarre fascination with unimportant things. It’s obvious that Weyoun hates that Damar defers to Dukat rather than to him and so Damar does it gratuitously, looks to Dukat for confirmation for the slightest instruction.
When Weyoun says, “Let me see that duty roster,” Damar makes a show of waiting until Dukat says, “Yes, yes, Damar, give it to him.”
When Weyoun says, “What time is it?” Damar doesn’t answer until Dukat gives him the nod, at which point he slowly says, “Computer, what time is it?”
When Weyoun says, “Do you know how to make the replicator give me something called ‘chunky peanut butter’?” Damar stares at Dukat blankly until he says, “Damar, work the damn replicator,” and Damar hears the satisfaction in his voice under the annoyance.
Weyoun always looks peeved, just on the verge of snapping, and Damar takes great satisfaction in it. There’s little enough else to take satisfaction in. His chief purpose here is to find a way to disarm the mines blocking the wormhole, and every day that he doesn’t is a day more for the Federation to recover and rebuild. He divides his time between working and steadily drinking his way through Quark’s top-shelf kanar, though sometimes the one bleeds into the other. He doesn’t like Bajoran women, especially not like Dukat does. He runs through a few of the other dabo girls (and, more discreetly, one or two of the dabo boys), but finds it more of an obligation than anything else. And Weyoun always seems to be sitting in Quark’s when he’s there, eating an increasingly bizarre selection of alien foods that nauseate Damar and peering judgmentally at the glass of kanar in his hand.
Dukat is in his element. At least there’s that. He doesn’t walk anymore, only swaggers, and his laugh rings through the corridors. Weyoun’s peevishness bounces off of him. He, at least, doesn’t seem to mind how long it’s taking to clear the minefield.
“Damar, come have a drink with me in my quarters,” he says one night, and then pours spring wine for him, which Dukat prefers to kanar. It’s sour to Damar’s tastebuds, but lately everything is sour. They reminisce about the old days, hunting Klingons, until Dukat’s door chimes. Dukat calls “Enter,” and a redheaded Bajoran woman—not Kira, but undoubtedly close enough for Dukat’s taste—walks in. “Liana,” he says, and Damar hears the self-satisfaction in his voice, the oily undercurrent.
“Gul Dukat.” She walks closer, and Dukat rises to take her hand. “I’m glad you had time for me.”
“For you, my dear, always.” Dukat cups her cheek and this, of all things, is what makes Damar’s spine crawl. Dukat wants these people to admire him. He wants his women to be earnest, to love him.
“I’ll leave you two alone.” Damar drains his glass—sour or not, it still helps—and stands.
Dukat doesn’t take his eyes off Liana. “If you wish,” he says, and Damar is either too drunk or not drunk enough to do anything but leave.
He runs into Weyoun just outside Dukat’s quarters. “Ah, Damar.” Weyoun’s nose wrinkles a little. “Don’t let me keep you from your work.” He looks past Damar to Dukat’s door, already dismissing him.
“I wouldn’t go in there,” Damar says.
“Oh?” Weyoun snaps those unnatural eyes back to him. “Is something wrong?”
Damar smirks to cover the surge of frustration he feels whenever he talks to Weyoun. “He’s busy.”
“Busy doing what?” Weyoun cocks his head to one side, and in the dim light of the corridor, the soft skin of his neck almost glows. He sounds entirely sincere.
“He has a guest.”
“I like to meet new people.”
Damar can’t tell whether Weyoun is being purposefully obtuse. He seems genuinely naïve about a lot of things, but this is a very basic thing that Damar is saying. “He’s fucking a woman.” That should be unambiguous enough. It’s distasteful to say.
“Oh, I see.” Weyoun doesn’t look upset, only mildly interested. Damar has met his fair share of other races—more than he cares to—but Weyoun is the most alien by a long shot. “And we should not interrupt him.”
“I wouldn’t.”
Weyoun’s gaze sharpens. “So, if I tell you to do something, you won’t go running to him for his approval before doing it?”
Damar feels himself smile a little, involuntarily. It’s nice to know that he’s managed to annoy Weyoun enough to reveal it. “It depends what you tell me to do.”
“Does it,” Weyoun says, and there’s a certain fascination in his voice that makes Damar uneasy. “Well, we don’t need to test the limits now. Run along back to Quark’s, then.”
If Dukat were here, Damar would look to him for permission—not because he needs it, but because it would annoy Weyoun all the more. Instead, Damar says, “At least you’ve managed to find an order I’m happy to obey.” Weyoun’s fascination intensifies, and Damar can almost feel his gaze as Damar walks away.
Dukat does it again, three more times. Then, the fifth time Liana visits while Damar is there, Dukat says, “No, stay.” He doesn’t bother to look at Damar as he says it.
Blood rushes hot through Damar. “I don’t want to intrude—”
“If it were intruding, I would tell you to leave,” Dukat says sharply. He undresses Liana there, in the main room, barely two meters away. He lavishes kisses on her as he does it—her mouth, her neck, her bare shoulders, then her breasts over and over, and her entire body flushes red. She’s breathing hard, staring up at Dukat with her eyes shining, and no wonder Dukat likes this. No wonder he wants a witness to what he believes is this triumph of his. Damar doesn’t even know if it’s false. Perhaps Liana does want him. Perhaps she has fallen for the charm he projects. Damar doesn’t know Bajorans well enough to tell.
Dukat strips naked himself, sits her down on the table positioned so that Damar will see his cock as he pushes inside her. She moans as he does it, and Dukat stops when he’s fully inside and looks to Damar with a reckless grin. “You see,” he says, one hand stroking her face. “You see, we can be happy here.”
Damar is paralyzed, his entire body hot, a kind of roaring in his ears. Dukat looks away from him, gathers Liana up so that she’s almost crushed against him and mouths at her earring as he begins to fuck her—she wraps her legs around his hips to pull him deeper, throws her head back and exposes her neck to Dukat. Damar sees the way the muscles in his arms tense, the way he grips her hips and pulls her even tighter against him, the increasingly rapid motion until Dukat groans and comes. He kisses Liana again, long and hard, and then pulls out.
“Damar,” he says. Damar can only nod dumbly. “Come over here.” Damar stands and walks over to them. He’s achingly hard, but he knows Dukat well enough to know that he wants something more. Once he’s standing in front of Dukat, Dukat gestures at Liana and says, “She hasn’t come yet.”
So. That’s what Dukat wants from him. They’ve never done this before, but somehow it doesn’t surprise him. “All right,” he says, and his voice isn’t as steady as he wants it to be. He looks at Liana’s face—he’s not sure he could do this if she looked miserable—but she’s at least playacting as much enthusiasm for him as she did for Dukat, and when he puts his hands lightly on her thighs, she lifts her hips a little to encourage him. Damar bends over, then finds himself kneeling between her legs. Bajoran anatomy is similar enough to Cardassian that he knows what to do, knows how to lick and suck until she’s moaning and writhing on the table, clutching the edges. He slides two fingers inside her, pumps them in and out as he licks and he knows he’s tasting Dukat too, knows Dukat must have wanted it. Liana comes, almost wailing—he feels her clench tight around his fingers, likes to think he knows well enough to know that it’s real—and when she’s finally still, he pulls his fingers out gently and lets his hand rest gently on the inside of her thigh.
His chin is wet and everything smells like sex. He stands up, wipes his mouth roughly on his hand and looks around for something to wipe his hand on, but Dukat is already pulling Liana close to him and draping a silky robe around her shoulders. “You can go,” Dukat says, and his tone is cutting, dismissive.
Damar hesitates for an instant of disbelief—Dukat is sending him out into the corridor with a visible erection, smelling of the combination of Dukat and Liana?—and then nods once and walks out of the room. He only gets a few meters away before Weyoun seems to appear out of nowhere. “Damar!” he says, too enthusiastically for the situation. “Is Dukat busy again?”
His purple eyes are wide and innocent and Damar wonders if Weyoun does this on the nights that Damar isn’t here too, if he wanders the corridors hoping to find someone to torment. “Yes,” Damar says shortly.
Weyoun sniffs a little. “What’s that smell?”
“If you don’t know, I’m not going to explain it.” Damar shifts, realizes too late what he’s giving away as Weyoun’s gaze travels down his body, slowly
“Fascinating,” Weyoun says, and the heat traveling through Damar is something more than the shame he expected. “Let me touch you?”
It’s so far beyond the norm of what anyone would say that Damar doesn’t even register it until Weyoun is stroking his hand over Damar’s cock. Even then his first response is to close his eyes and push into it—he realizes what he’s doing and pulls back, even as his hips twitch back toward Weyoun. “That’s not,” he says. “You can’t just—”
Weyoun is still very close. “Why not?” There’s something a little petulant in his voice, something other than the puzzled note that usually accompanies questions about silly non-Vorta things like sex.
“People don’t just—” It’s hard to focus with Weyoun this close to him, with those eerie eyes fixed on his own, when Damar wants desperately to come and his treacherous body is telling him look, look, he wants you—but Weyoun doesn’t want him and Damar doesn’t want Weyoun and this is ridiculous. “Because I hate you.” It doesn’t sound true even as he says it.
And now Weyoun is the one to pull back, but his eyes are still holding Damar in place. “Strange,” he says. “I find you rather entertaining lately.”
Damar tears himself away before he can say something even stupider and gets back to his quarters as quickly as he can. The doors have barely closed behind him before he has his hand on his cock, and when he comes he’s not thinking about those alien eyes, about the softness of Weyoun’s skin—