Chapter Text
There are words to describe how he feels when he wakes up the next morning, but Damar can’t even summon them. He’s in the sonic shower, braced against the wall to keep himself upright, before he remembers what happened and why his entire body feels wrung out. “Kanar,” he grunts to the replicator. There’s a nagging voice in his head saying that he should probably consume something else, that he can’t live on kanar alone, and for once he obeys it. The fried regova eggs produced by the replicator are mediocre at best; he gulps down four and returns the rest to the replicator. At least the kanar is already smoothing out the edges of the morning.
When he looks in the mirror, though, he still feels horror in the pit of his stomach. His neck ridges are covered in the aftermarks of Weyoun’s bites. It takes him a moment to remember that no one is going to know it was Weyoun who left them, not when there’s a station full of other people who Damar could have taken home. The other soldiers elbow him and laugh and ask what her name is, when he finally shows up at his station; Dukat is the only one who stares, eyes narrowed. He’s the only one who knows that Damar left his quarters with Weyoun, the only one who will suspect what happened. It makes Damar’s throat tighten, to think of disappointing Dukat.
Dukat calls him into his office and Damar stands miserably in front of him—straight-backed, because he still has some dignity, but with the blood pounding in his ears. “Damar,” Dukat says, in that crooning tone of his. “Damar, I’m surprised.”
It’s hard to breathe. “It was a—lapse. It won’t happen again.”
Dukat shakes his head. “You mistake me. If you want to distract the Vorta from the lack of progress neutralizing the mines, I’m happy for you to do it. I just never would have expected you to do it this way.”
Yes. Damar can re-frame it in his mind that way. What happened last night was—an intentional act to distract Weyoun. “The opportunity presented itself.”
“Of course, of course. And you took the initiative. I trust you can pursue it further on your own? I’m not inclined to let him into my quarters again.”
“Yes.” It’s a little hard to hear Dukat’s words. He mumbles something else meaningless and returns to his station, reading through mine schematics until his eyes can’t focus anymore. At the end of the second shift change, he goes to Quark’s for kanar and sits at the bar, staring miserably into his cup.
“Do you even bother with a glass when you’re alone?”
He hadn’t even spotted Weyoun when he walked in. Damar is falling apart here on this station, losing whatever edge he ever had. “Quark has kanar worth drinking from a glass. The replicator in my quarters doesn’t.” His entire body feels hot when he meets Weyoun’s purple eyes, those pupils too big in the light of Quark’s bar. Of course Weyoun has no marks, or nothing visible. Damar was careful. Considerate, even.
“I wonder that you can tell the difference anymore.”
The worst thing—apart from Dukat’s blessing to whore himself out—is that Weyoun seems completely unaffected by—whatever happened last night. Damar doesn’t even know how to define it. “Hardly a surprise that you can’t, with your tastebuds.” And oh, his mind presents him with the vivid memory of Weyoun offering his finger to taste, and he pushes himself away from the bar angrily, throws back the rest of his glass before he leaves. No one will think it’s strange. Damar’s dislike of their Dominion friend is well-known, probably too well-known.
Weyoun, damn him, follows Damar into the habitat ring. He doesn’t say anything, and eventually Damar turns and shoves him up against the corridor wall, pinning him there. “Stop it,” Damar tells him.
“Stop what?” Those clever eyes are laughing at him.
“Stop—following me!” He locks one hand around Weyoun’s throat, just enough to make him struggle for air a little, and marvels at how fragile that neck is, how easily it would snap. How easily he could crush that windpipe. Weyoun’s pulse is steady. “You know I could kill you.” He squeezes a little tighter, then releases his hand.
“You know I would only come back.” Weyoun stares at him. “You seem distraught, Damar. Is something wrong?”
Is something wrong. Why would something be wrong? What could possibly be wrong with what’s happened in the last twenty-six hours? “No.”
Weyoun cocks his head to the side. Damar wants to mark his neck, wants to retaliate for however long it was last night that he spent desperate beneath Weyoun. “I see. I’m still familiarizing myself with the customs of humanoids. Have I done something—incorrectly?”
“No.” He desperately wants to escape this conversation. “I’m busy.”
“You are not.” Weyoun’s voice is sharp now, and when he shoves Damar in an uncharacteristic display of physicality, Damar finds himself stumbling back against the opposite wall. His steady diet of kanar has not improved his reflexes. “Look at you,” Weyoun hisses. “Do you think it isn’t obvious, your pathetic reliance on that disgusting beverage of yours? Do you think I can’t see that you’re simply not up to the task of disabling the mines? What use are you here?”
“Dukat—”
“Oh, yes, I’m well aware of the uses that Gul Dukat has found for you,” and it’s stunning how much that actually pains Damar to hear. “You’re happy to oblige him there.” Weyoun puts his thumb on one of his own bite marks and presses, hard, until Damar’s knees almost buckle from the shivery feeling it sends down his spine. Weakness, weakness. “But when are you going to prove yourself useful to the Dominion?”
“I hate you,” Damar says. “You and your Dominion,” and they’re dangerous words to say, too dangerous, but his mouth is thick with kanar and every time Weyoun pushes him he wants to push back and this is the only way he knows how. “But I’m going to find a way to disable the minefield.” He leans into Weyoun’s hand, hard, until Weyoun finally has to step back. “Or even better, why don’t you do it? You—the Vorta, the Jem’Hadar, you’re all easily replaced, aren’t you? Why don’t your ships just come through all at once—if enough of you came, it would overwhelm the minefield.” The scale of the casualties is—unimaginable.
“If the Founders, in their wisdom, instructed us to do so, we would,” Weyoun says, and there’s something sharp behind the obsequious tone he usually adopts when talking about his gods. “But they have not, because they apparently have more faith than I do that you are going to succeed.” He sneers. “Go back to your quarters, then. Drink yourself stupid and sit there in that ridiculous armor feeling sorry for yourself while your fellow Cardassians are dying—”
Damar has him up against the wall before he can finish the sentence, one arm across his throat, the other digging into his shoulder. He isn’t careful now, and he’s pressed so close to Weyoun that he can feel the man’s heartbeat—faster, now, and he likes that. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You have no idea what it is to know—”
“To know what, Damar?” Weyoun’s eyes are coldly curious again, his voice needling, and Damar finally sees that that’s what he’s been doing this entire time, prodding Damar to reveal a soft spot so that Weyoun can slide a knife in.
Damar releases him, but he doesn’t step away. “I’ll clear the damn minefield,” he says.
“Oh, how inspiring. I’ve never heard you say that before.” Weyoun’s breath is hot on his face and Damar’s traitor body wants Weyoun’s hands on him again, his mouth, anything—
“When I do it,” he says, “you had better be grateful.”
“Grateful, that you’ve displayed some modicum of competence?”
Damar has never wanted to strangle Weyoun more. “I like you better when you’re not talking.”
“I like you better when you say please,” and there’s something about the way Weyoun’s lips pucker around the word please, the little change in his tone, that hits Damar too hard. He staggers back a few steps, staring at Weyoun because he can’t tear his eyes away, and then turns and half-stumbles down the corridor, back to his own quarters.
He doesn’t speak to Weyoun for a week, even as he feels Weyoun’s disapproving gaze as he downs glass after glass of kanar at Quark’s. Quark is always happy to listen to whatever drunken ramblings come out of his mouth. It’s obvious that the little troll is conspiring with Kira, Odo, and Sisko’s son in some kind of plan for a rebellion, or will be soon, but it’s hardly worth mentioning to anyone. Dukat is blind when it comes to Kira and Weyoun is blind when it comes to Odo and Damar is the only person who sees anything clearly anymore.
He can’t escape the next meeting of the station’s governing council, not as Dukat’s second-in-command and not as the engineer responsible for the continued lack of progress on the mines. “We’re still experimenting with solutions,” he tells them. Dukat is bored, Weyoun eager, Odo impassive. “Our attempt at concurrent bombardment did not produce desirable results.” In fact, it had caused the mines to increase in number rather than disabling their replication mechanisms. “We’re running a series of additional tests—"
“Maybe if you drank a little less, you’d come up with more solutions,” Weyoun says casually. “How many Cardassians died this week, for lack of that Jem’Hadar support?”
The running tally in his head is what won’t let him sleep without the aid of kanar. “I’m aware.” He struggles to say those two words and no more, to stand still and stare at Dukat instead of Weyoun, make clear that he’s reporting to Dukat and not to the Dominion’s representative here. “We continue to work on the problem.”