Fic: Parallel Evolution (DS9, Garak/Bashir, Jadzia/Worf, Leeta/Rom
I originally wrote this as an unbetaed flash ficlet. So possibly you have read the beginning before. But there's 2000 words of new material here.
I'm watching Worlds right now - revising and posting in between skaters - so I'll have a big skating post later today for those of you who wish I'd shut up about aliens and go back to writing about sports.
Title: Parallel Evolution
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Characters/Pairings: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak (explicit), Jadzia Dax/Worf (explicit), Leeta/Rom (suggestive), Odo, Quark
Rating: NC-17 for explicit m/m and m/f sex; see warnings.
Warnings/Enticements: Kink including pain play, genital injury, gender play, and voyeurism. Also description of panic attacks. In other words, a bunch of stuff that's pretty much canon.
Summary: Seven ways nature solves the paradox of high-level sentience and the reproductive instinct. Or doesn't.
Word count: about 2,700.
Disclaimers: Star Trek: DS9 is the intellectual property of Paramount. This original work of fan fiction is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License; attribution should include a link to this post. This story is a labor of love, not money, so it's protected in the USA by the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976.
Notes: Thanks to tehomet for beta reading. This is a crazy extension of a commentfic prompt from lunabee34 (got that wine and stars in there now!). Set in the middle of season 5, in a time frame that spans from just before "In Purgatory's Shadow" to just before "Ferengi Love Songs."
*
1.
It isn't the pain itself that makes Jadzia love Worf. Not the stab of a cracked rib shooting straight to her clit, the ooze of pleasure as his teeth draw blood from her breast, another laceration because his cock is too big for her cunt, because Trill have not evolved protection against ridges and spines. "Looks like sutures again," she laughs to Julian, who rolls his eyes as she slips her feet into the stirrups.
In her lifetimes, Jadzia has known pleasure. Curzon sought it out in ways that would never have occurred to her if he hadn't recorded them so fondly in his memories. Joran was a sadist. Audrid reached orgasm from breastfeeding. Tobin had a foot fetish that both shamed and satisfied him; he'd pick men up in the public baths and want nothing more than the opportunity to suck their toes.
So she knows the desire for pain to be the quirk and variation of this body, a uniqueness that Jadzia brings to Dax and that Dax allows to blossom, the need to bleed and bruise, to snap and ache with ecstasy.
2.
In the Jem'Hadar prison, Worf listens to Bashir and Garak making love. They are discreet, but Worf is sore from fighting. The fresh ache of his wounds and the muffled noises of sex make him long for Jadzia, her hair loose and wild, holding him in her slim, soft arms after lovemaking. Her hair smells like na'ran and ghe'mat, oranges and vanilla. "Suji and kurrapel, actually," she told him with a laugh when he remarked on it. She went on, "My first week at the Academy, my roommate got me a creamsicle in the cafeteria, and I bored her to tears with the wonders of parallel evolution."
Knowing he'll be drowned out by soft Cardassian cries, he touches himself. He pretends Jadzia has dealt the wounds that plague him now, that she has flung him down and pinned him with a fist in the small of his back so that she can enter him. She knew to replicate a harness of tangqa' leather and chemvaH bone, knew it was the prerogative of a parmaqqay to make him yield to her until he is raw and sated.
The doctor refrains from sarcasm when he repairs those wounds. He knows more about Worf's sex life than Worf would prefer. These sighs and whispers, resonating in the walls of the crowded cell, have evened their score.
3.
Julian slept close to Garak to ease his anxiety. Garak's grief at Tain's death, the neural shock of claustrophobia, the tangle of feelings that Garak denied until they wracked his body. The mind is how we experience neurobiology. Emotions are the sound of neurons firing.
Finally asleep, perhaps dreaming, Garak nuzzled Julian's hair, nudged down to suck Julian's lips. Julian was grateful for the invitation to escape. Julian ducked under the rough blanket they shared and rubbed Garak's scaly sheath until his cock slid out. Julian licked it, surprised to find it slick. "We don't do that. It's vulgar." Julian abruptly quit sucking, but Garak went on, "Oh, be vulgar, my dear alien."
After Garak came, he crawled under the blanket to kiss his own fluids off Julian's tongue. "I think Human mouths are better suited for that than Cardassian ones," Garak whispered.
"Then what are Cardassians good for?" Julian whispered back. Garak rolled onto his belly and guided Julian to thrust between his thighs, damp with fluid and ridged with scales. The act felt innocent and safe, the way it forced their bodies to press together.
They have escaped. They are home again. The abnormal logic of captivity replaced by everyday rules. It won't happen again, and Julian doesn't mourn that, although he can taste the memory, tart and sweet like oranges.
He's patching up Jadzia and Worf. They've celebrated his homecoming the way they celebrate days ending in "y," although apparently with even more enthusiasm than usual. Julian jokes about the familiarity of the procedure. Even Worf laughs.
Julian is gathering his soiled instruments into the replicator when Garak comes into the infirmary. "I was hoping I might trouble you to prescribe me a sedative." He's denied that he's still suffering from phobic anxiety attacks, but Julian can see this is his way of letting the truth slip out.
Julian replicates the medicine. "I can walk you back to your quarters, if you like."
"That won't be necessary." Garak threads his lie with the usual truth. When Julian places the vial of medicine in Garak's hand, Garak presses his thumb into Julian's lower lip, tugging it forward, away from his teeth. Julian can't tell if it's a Cardassian gesture of affection, or if it's something more alien than culture. The reclamation of a sense memory. Neurons firing.
4.
"Odo, I've got a personal question for you," Jadzia says. "You don't have to answer."
Bajoran Intelligence has intercepted a set of encrypted Dominion files. Jadzia and Odo could work on them separately, he in his office and her at her ops station, but Jadzia works faster when she has some companionship. Odo likes her company, and her ear for station gossip is both entertaining and useful. While files decrypt, they've been trading notes on romances and new births, petty schemes and holosuite mishaps.
They're taking a coffee break while a particularly large file grinds through the decryption algorithms. Jadzia is inhaling the aromatic vapors of her raktajino; like most humanoids, she replicates it too hot to drink. Odo used to find that habit strange, but he learned by watching that the point is to enjoy the pleasure of the smell before the pleasure of the caffeine takes over. When he was humanoid, the theory held true. He misses the smell of raktajino. In his time off, he's working on an olfactory organ for himself.
"Well," he snorts. "As long as I don't have to answer."
She smiles over the rim of her coffee mug. "How do you know you're male?"
He hesitates, not because he doesn't wish to answer, but because he very much does, and because he wants the answer to be right. She knows his humanoid form is a loose imitation of Dr. Mora's, but he doubts she'll accept that explanation: there were plenty of women, Cardassian and Bajoran, passing in and out of the lab where he spent his childhood. His personality, gruff and rational, is stereotypically masculine, he supposes, although some of his favorite women have those qualities as well. Both of the women he's loved. His passion for Arissa and his abiding, complicated adoration of Nerys are nothing like the sex drive he experienced as a humanoid. For that matter, they are nothing like his instinct to return to the Link and the ecstasy of linking.
A Changeling who can love humanoids can pass unnoticed into their universe. Odo can imagine times in his people's history when it would have been a matter of survival. But Odo isn't sure, and it's not a theory he wishes to share, not yet. "I've always had a sense of it. Do you think it doesn't suit me?"
"No, I think it suits you well," she says. "It's why I asked." She doesn't prolong the conversation; she's wise that way. She nods toward the computer. "I keep hoping the next one will be the secret stash of Vorta porn."
"Vorta don't mate. They're cloned."
"I don't see why they should let that stop them." Jadzia sips her raktajino; it must finally be cool enough to drink.
5.
Leeta relaxes and flirts as Garak alters the gift he's made her for Rom's birthday. She loves flirting with Garak: he couldn't be less interested in her physically, so he's solely concerned with her artistry. "Are you sure you don't want something more revealing?" he says, pinning a hem.
She tugs the lapels of her jacket, brocaded with a rich-colored abstract pattern, cut to the bottom of her ribcage in front and sweeping almost to knee-length in back. She's wearing it over high-waisted black trousers, a brocade vest whose pattern contrasts with the jacket, and a high-necked silk shirt with a latinum clasp. The latest in Ferengi fashion. "No, this is just what he'll want."
The first time she and Rom made love, she took off her clothes, only for him to blink at her uncomfortably. She told him he didn't have to be nervous, and he gave a cute, awkward chuckle. "No, not at all, I'm - I'm ready," he said. "The problem is, Ferengi males grow up with naked females around the house, so - so when you're all naked like that, you - you remind me a little of my Mougie."
"Well, I wouldn't want to do that," she chirped. She put her bra and shoes back on, and she replicated a short wrap skirt that would cover her but keep things easy. Since then, one of the most exciting things about dating Rom has been choosing her outfits, contemplating what will draw his eye, deciding which parts of her body to arouse him by concealing.
Garak stands and gives his creation a once-over. "You look very dapper, my dear."
Leeta curtsies, then goes to the changing room. She takes the suit off slowly, admiring the craftsmanship of each piece. It's one of the most expensive things she's ever purchased. She'll let Rom undress her with similar care, until she's left in only the blue silk shirt, unbuttoned.
6.
Garak is guilty of copying the files from Julian's computer. From the ease of doing so, he strongly suspects that Julian assumed he would and hid the really damning material. That's not what Garak is looking for, anyway: Julian proved when his genetic enhancement scandal emerged that if he really wants to keep something from Garak, he's extremely talented at doing so. And Garak believes everyone should be permitted the pleasure of a few secrets.
No, what Garak is looking for is the pornography. Not the intricate and expensive fantasies that would require a holosuite rental - Julian's taste in interactive adventures seem to run more toward historical re-enactment and camp espionage anyway - but the simpler holofilms a man collects for his nights alone.
And Julian collects. It's possible he just doesn't delete anything, but Garak knows Julian had a few lonely years when he first arrived on the station, and this library seems to have been curated with some thought. Garak hopes that's the case, as his prurience has a purpose. Garak's skills as a lover are not technical so much as research-based. He's seeking insight into Julian's sexual mind.
There are a lot of women. Garak was expecting that. Mostly alone, or with other women, and of a variety of races, but none Human. A few Cardassians, including one film of two girls in a steam sauna that, while not to his taste, has a playful joy to it that he appreciates. To Garak's relief, it appears that Julian likes to look at an attractive young man once in a while. Garak watches that handful of files with greater interest.
He comes upon one featuring a Bolian male, broad-shouldered and well-toned, a wrestler's build. He's joined in a lamplit courtyard by what appears to be an elegantly dressed woman; Garak is disappointed, but he likes the look of the man, so he keeps with it. The lady undresses, her bright blue body slim and graceful. As her gown slides down her hips, she reveals that she is male. Her lover gasps with delight. Their coupling, which takes place in a flowing fountain whose water the lamps turn gold, is passionate.
Garak saves this one among his own files, then destroys the data crystal on which he has stored the rest. When their schedules clash or Julian goes away on a mission, Garak finds himself loading it, as it makes him think of Julian.
On one such lonely night, Julian drops by, a set of combat drills canceled to fix a technical problem, and catches him. "Oh, I have that one, too!" He seems delighted at the symmetry of their tastes. Or delighted that Garak has pilfered the right files. "It's one of my favorites. They both seem to be having such a good time."
Garak feigns nonchalance. "Oh, Doctor? Is that what you're here for?" It doesn't seem to be more, and that comforts Garak. He's not the type for commitment. Julian is easing Garak's grief for Tain and the pain of his claustrophobic episodes, and it seems like Garak is returning the favor, distracting Julian from the trauma of imprisonment and the near-destruction of his career that followed on their return. Eventually, they'll have less use for one another. Garak knows he will be a memory, and he intends to be a good one.
Garak pauses the holofilm, leaving the Bolian lovers frozen in ecstasy as he leads Julian to bed.
7.
Quark stands at his bar and listens. A good pair of lobes is crucial in the hospitality business. Especially on a bleak space station like DS9, people go to the bar to avoid being alone. An experienced bartender can tease out just what's troubling his clients, and just what will distract them from those troubles. It's his job to calculate the price of each person's happiness, to get them to trade their latinum for a smile.
So couples in love are bad for business. If someone else can give you happiness for free, you're not going to waste money trying to buy it. Rom's gone completely out of control since he started seeing Leeta, donating his surplus salary to the Bajoran Children's Fund. He's celebrating his birthday in his quarters with Leeta, sharing a replicated meal. Quark is ashamed to have grown out of the same gene pool.
Worf and Dax at least still pay for their holosuite reservations. They pay extra, in fact, to turn the safeties off. As far as Quark can tell, they go on battle campaigns, and when they've killed all the enemies they can find, they fuck amidst the carnage. The thought of it nauseates him. When they limp out of the suite, bleeding and dirty, he's sure they repulse the other customers, too.
But Garak and Dr. Bashir are the worst, because Quark has to listen to them. They've claimed a dark and quiet table and are nursing a bottle of single-malt Romulan ale that smells like moss and cleaning fluid. When Quark can't tune them out, he hears snatches of florid and poetic insults that would have gotten them arrested for lewd conduct during the Occupation - not because they're explicit, but because they aren't. Publicly, they claim they're only friends, but the lie is more of a boast.
So it's a sort of relief when Odo strides up to the bar, proud and purposeful, and orders a glass of spring wine. "Something with a strong nose to it. I want to see if I can smell it."
Quark contemplates the house wine but doesn't want to end his horrible night in a holding cell. He chooses a nice vintage from Musilla Province. Odo sniffs it, frowns, pauses like he's making some adjustments to his form, and sniffs again. "That's lovely. Like talitha pods and kheteri fruit. What's made you so honest tonight, Quark?"
Quark shrugs. "Pessimism."
Odo hmmphs, and Quark braces himself for interrogation. Instead, with a generosity that makes Quark terribly suspicious, Odo says, "Well, I can smell it, but I still can't drink it. Why don't you have it?" Quark puts up his hands to decline, but Odo continues. "And then you can buy her a glass." He nods to a woman in Bajoran militia uniform who's sitting at the end of the bar. She's tall, with intense dark eyes and long black curls of hair swept back from her face. Just Quark's type. "She's here on special assignment for Bajoran intelligence. It sounds like she's in the market for a little no-strings adultery with a friendly alien. I don't approve, but I'm sure you have no idea she has a husband."
Quark drinks Odo's wine. By the time he's drained the glass, Odo is gone, and that sound Quark hears is the mellifluous chime of things starting to look up.
I'm watching Worlds right now - revising and posting in between skaters - so I'll have a big skating post later today for those of you who wish I'd shut up about aliens and go back to writing about sports.
Title: Parallel Evolution
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Characters/Pairings: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak (explicit), Jadzia Dax/Worf (explicit), Leeta/Rom (suggestive), Odo, Quark
Rating: NC-17 for explicit m/m and m/f sex; see warnings.
Warnings/Enticements: Kink including pain play, genital injury, gender play, and voyeurism. Also description of panic attacks. In other words, a bunch of stuff that's pretty much canon.
Summary: Seven ways nature solves the paradox of high-level sentience and the reproductive instinct. Or doesn't.
Word count: about 2,700.
Disclaimers: Star Trek: DS9 is the intellectual property of Paramount. This original work of fan fiction is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License; attribution should include a link to this post. This story is a labor of love, not money, so it's protected in the USA by the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976.
Notes: Thanks to tehomet for beta reading. This is a crazy extension of a commentfic prompt from lunabee34 (got that wine and stars in there now!). Set in the middle of season 5, in a time frame that spans from just before "In Purgatory's Shadow" to just before "Ferengi Love Songs."
*
1.
It isn't the pain itself that makes Jadzia love Worf. Not the stab of a cracked rib shooting straight to her clit, the ooze of pleasure as his teeth draw blood from her breast, another laceration because his cock is too big for her cunt, because Trill have not evolved protection against ridges and spines. "Looks like sutures again," she laughs to Julian, who rolls his eyes as she slips her feet into the stirrups.
In her lifetimes, Jadzia has known pleasure. Curzon sought it out in ways that would never have occurred to her if he hadn't recorded them so fondly in his memories. Joran was a sadist. Audrid reached orgasm from breastfeeding. Tobin had a foot fetish that both shamed and satisfied him; he'd pick men up in the public baths and want nothing more than the opportunity to suck their toes.
So she knows the desire for pain to be the quirk and variation of this body, a uniqueness that Jadzia brings to Dax and that Dax allows to blossom, the need to bleed and bruise, to snap and ache with ecstasy.
2.
In the Jem'Hadar prison, Worf listens to Bashir and Garak making love. They are discreet, but Worf is sore from fighting. The fresh ache of his wounds and the muffled noises of sex make him long for Jadzia, her hair loose and wild, holding him in her slim, soft arms after lovemaking. Her hair smells like na'ran and ghe'mat, oranges and vanilla. "Suji and kurrapel, actually," she told him with a laugh when he remarked on it. She went on, "My first week at the Academy, my roommate got me a creamsicle in the cafeteria, and I bored her to tears with the wonders of parallel evolution."
Knowing he'll be drowned out by soft Cardassian cries, he touches himself. He pretends Jadzia has dealt the wounds that plague him now, that she has flung him down and pinned him with a fist in the small of his back so that she can enter him. She knew to replicate a harness of tangqa' leather and chemvaH bone, knew it was the prerogative of a parmaqqay to make him yield to her until he is raw and sated.
The doctor refrains from sarcasm when he repairs those wounds. He knows more about Worf's sex life than Worf would prefer. These sighs and whispers, resonating in the walls of the crowded cell, have evened their score.
3.
Julian slept close to Garak to ease his anxiety. Garak's grief at Tain's death, the neural shock of claustrophobia, the tangle of feelings that Garak denied until they wracked his body. The mind is how we experience neurobiology. Emotions are the sound of neurons firing.
Finally asleep, perhaps dreaming, Garak nuzzled Julian's hair, nudged down to suck Julian's lips. Julian was grateful for the invitation to escape. Julian ducked under the rough blanket they shared and rubbed Garak's scaly sheath until his cock slid out. Julian licked it, surprised to find it slick. "We don't do that. It's vulgar." Julian abruptly quit sucking, but Garak went on, "Oh, be vulgar, my dear alien."
After Garak came, he crawled under the blanket to kiss his own fluids off Julian's tongue. "I think Human mouths are better suited for that than Cardassian ones," Garak whispered.
"Then what are Cardassians good for?" Julian whispered back. Garak rolled onto his belly and guided Julian to thrust between his thighs, damp with fluid and ridged with scales. The act felt innocent and safe, the way it forced their bodies to press together.
They have escaped. They are home again. The abnormal logic of captivity replaced by everyday rules. It won't happen again, and Julian doesn't mourn that, although he can taste the memory, tart and sweet like oranges.
He's patching up Jadzia and Worf. They've celebrated his homecoming the way they celebrate days ending in "y," although apparently with even more enthusiasm than usual. Julian jokes about the familiarity of the procedure. Even Worf laughs.
Julian is gathering his soiled instruments into the replicator when Garak comes into the infirmary. "I was hoping I might trouble you to prescribe me a sedative." He's denied that he's still suffering from phobic anxiety attacks, but Julian can see this is his way of letting the truth slip out.
Julian replicates the medicine. "I can walk you back to your quarters, if you like."
"That won't be necessary." Garak threads his lie with the usual truth. When Julian places the vial of medicine in Garak's hand, Garak presses his thumb into Julian's lower lip, tugging it forward, away from his teeth. Julian can't tell if it's a Cardassian gesture of affection, or if it's something more alien than culture. The reclamation of a sense memory. Neurons firing.
4.
"Odo, I've got a personal question for you," Jadzia says. "You don't have to answer."
Bajoran Intelligence has intercepted a set of encrypted Dominion files. Jadzia and Odo could work on them separately, he in his office and her at her ops station, but Jadzia works faster when she has some companionship. Odo likes her company, and her ear for station gossip is both entertaining and useful. While files decrypt, they've been trading notes on romances and new births, petty schemes and holosuite mishaps.
They're taking a coffee break while a particularly large file grinds through the decryption algorithms. Jadzia is inhaling the aromatic vapors of her raktajino; like most humanoids, she replicates it too hot to drink. Odo used to find that habit strange, but he learned by watching that the point is to enjoy the pleasure of the smell before the pleasure of the caffeine takes over. When he was humanoid, the theory held true. He misses the smell of raktajino. In his time off, he's working on an olfactory organ for himself.
"Well," he snorts. "As long as I don't have to answer."
She smiles over the rim of her coffee mug. "How do you know you're male?"
He hesitates, not because he doesn't wish to answer, but because he very much does, and because he wants the answer to be right. She knows his humanoid form is a loose imitation of Dr. Mora's, but he doubts she'll accept that explanation: there were plenty of women, Cardassian and Bajoran, passing in and out of the lab where he spent his childhood. His personality, gruff and rational, is stereotypically masculine, he supposes, although some of his favorite women have those qualities as well. Both of the women he's loved. His passion for Arissa and his abiding, complicated adoration of Nerys are nothing like the sex drive he experienced as a humanoid. For that matter, they are nothing like his instinct to return to the Link and the ecstasy of linking.
A Changeling who can love humanoids can pass unnoticed into their universe. Odo can imagine times in his people's history when it would have been a matter of survival. But Odo isn't sure, and it's not a theory he wishes to share, not yet. "I've always had a sense of it. Do you think it doesn't suit me?"
"No, I think it suits you well," she says. "It's why I asked." She doesn't prolong the conversation; she's wise that way. She nods toward the computer. "I keep hoping the next one will be the secret stash of Vorta porn."
"Vorta don't mate. They're cloned."
"I don't see why they should let that stop them." Jadzia sips her raktajino; it must finally be cool enough to drink.
5.
Leeta relaxes and flirts as Garak alters the gift he's made her for Rom's birthday. She loves flirting with Garak: he couldn't be less interested in her physically, so he's solely concerned with her artistry. "Are you sure you don't want something more revealing?" he says, pinning a hem.
She tugs the lapels of her jacket, brocaded with a rich-colored abstract pattern, cut to the bottom of her ribcage in front and sweeping almost to knee-length in back. She's wearing it over high-waisted black trousers, a brocade vest whose pattern contrasts with the jacket, and a high-necked silk shirt with a latinum clasp. The latest in Ferengi fashion. "No, this is just what he'll want."
The first time she and Rom made love, she took off her clothes, only for him to blink at her uncomfortably. She told him he didn't have to be nervous, and he gave a cute, awkward chuckle. "No, not at all, I'm - I'm ready," he said. "The problem is, Ferengi males grow up with naked females around the house, so - so when you're all naked like that, you - you remind me a little of my Mougie."
"Well, I wouldn't want to do that," she chirped. She put her bra and shoes back on, and she replicated a short wrap skirt that would cover her but keep things easy. Since then, one of the most exciting things about dating Rom has been choosing her outfits, contemplating what will draw his eye, deciding which parts of her body to arouse him by concealing.
Garak stands and gives his creation a once-over. "You look very dapper, my dear."
Leeta curtsies, then goes to the changing room. She takes the suit off slowly, admiring the craftsmanship of each piece. It's one of the most expensive things she's ever purchased. She'll let Rom undress her with similar care, until she's left in only the blue silk shirt, unbuttoned.
6.
Garak is guilty of copying the files from Julian's computer. From the ease of doing so, he strongly suspects that Julian assumed he would and hid the really damning material. That's not what Garak is looking for, anyway: Julian proved when his genetic enhancement scandal emerged that if he really wants to keep something from Garak, he's extremely talented at doing so. And Garak believes everyone should be permitted the pleasure of a few secrets.
No, what Garak is looking for is the pornography. Not the intricate and expensive fantasies that would require a holosuite rental - Julian's taste in interactive adventures seem to run more toward historical re-enactment and camp espionage anyway - but the simpler holofilms a man collects for his nights alone.
And Julian collects. It's possible he just doesn't delete anything, but Garak knows Julian had a few lonely years when he first arrived on the station, and this library seems to have been curated with some thought. Garak hopes that's the case, as his prurience has a purpose. Garak's skills as a lover are not technical so much as research-based. He's seeking insight into Julian's sexual mind.
There are a lot of women. Garak was expecting that. Mostly alone, or with other women, and of a variety of races, but none Human. A few Cardassians, including one film of two girls in a steam sauna that, while not to his taste, has a playful joy to it that he appreciates. To Garak's relief, it appears that Julian likes to look at an attractive young man once in a while. Garak watches that handful of files with greater interest.
He comes upon one featuring a Bolian male, broad-shouldered and well-toned, a wrestler's build. He's joined in a lamplit courtyard by what appears to be an elegantly dressed woman; Garak is disappointed, but he likes the look of the man, so he keeps with it. The lady undresses, her bright blue body slim and graceful. As her gown slides down her hips, she reveals that she is male. Her lover gasps with delight. Their coupling, which takes place in a flowing fountain whose water the lamps turn gold, is passionate.
Garak saves this one among his own files, then destroys the data crystal on which he has stored the rest. When their schedules clash or Julian goes away on a mission, Garak finds himself loading it, as it makes him think of Julian.
On one such lonely night, Julian drops by, a set of combat drills canceled to fix a technical problem, and catches him. "Oh, I have that one, too!" He seems delighted at the symmetry of their tastes. Or delighted that Garak has pilfered the right files. "It's one of my favorites. They both seem to be having such a good time."
Garak feigns nonchalance. "Oh, Doctor? Is that what you're here for?" It doesn't seem to be more, and that comforts Garak. He's not the type for commitment. Julian is easing Garak's grief for Tain and the pain of his claustrophobic episodes, and it seems like Garak is returning the favor, distracting Julian from the trauma of imprisonment and the near-destruction of his career that followed on their return. Eventually, they'll have less use for one another. Garak knows he will be a memory, and he intends to be a good one.
Garak pauses the holofilm, leaving the Bolian lovers frozen in ecstasy as he leads Julian to bed.
7.
Quark stands at his bar and listens. A good pair of lobes is crucial in the hospitality business. Especially on a bleak space station like DS9, people go to the bar to avoid being alone. An experienced bartender can tease out just what's troubling his clients, and just what will distract them from those troubles. It's his job to calculate the price of each person's happiness, to get them to trade their latinum for a smile.
So couples in love are bad for business. If someone else can give you happiness for free, you're not going to waste money trying to buy it. Rom's gone completely out of control since he started seeing Leeta, donating his surplus salary to the Bajoran Children's Fund. He's celebrating his birthday in his quarters with Leeta, sharing a replicated meal. Quark is ashamed to have grown out of the same gene pool.
Worf and Dax at least still pay for their holosuite reservations. They pay extra, in fact, to turn the safeties off. As far as Quark can tell, they go on battle campaigns, and when they've killed all the enemies they can find, they fuck amidst the carnage. The thought of it nauseates him. When they limp out of the suite, bleeding and dirty, he's sure they repulse the other customers, too.
But Garak and Dr. Bashir are the worst, because Quark has to listen to them. They've claimed a dark and quiet table and are nursing a bottle of single-malt Romulan ale that smells like moss and cleaning fluid. When Quark can't tune them out, he hears snatches of florid and poetic insults that would have gotten them arrested for lewd conduct during the Occupation - not because they're explicit, but because they aren't. Publicly, they claim they're only friends, but the lie is more of a boast.
So it's a sort of relief when Odo strides up to the bar, proud and purposeful, and orders a glass of spring wine. "Something with a strong nose to it. I want to see if I can smell it."
Quark contemplates the house wine but doesn't want to end his horrible night in a holding cell. He chooses a nice vintage from Musilla Province. Odo sniffs it, frowns, pauses like he's making some adjustments to his form, and sniffs again. "That's lovely. Like talitha pods and kheteri fruit. What's made you so honest tonight, Quark?"
Quark shrugs. "Pessimism."
Odo hmmphs, and Quark braces himself for interrogation. Instead, with a generosity that makes Quark terribly suspicious, Odo says, "Well, I can smell it, but I still can't drink it. Why don't you have it?" Quark puts up his hands to decline, but Odo continues. "And then you can buy her a glass." He nods to a woman in Bajoran militia uniform who's sitting at the end of the bar. She's tall, with intense dark eyes and long black curls of hair swept back from her face. Just Quark's type. "She's here on special assignment for Bajoran intelligence. It sounds like she's in the market for a little no-strings adultery with a friendly alien. I don't approve, but I'm sure you have no idea she has a husband."
Quark drinks Odo's wine. By the time he's drained the glass, Odo is gone, and that sound Quark hears is the mellifluous chime of things starting to look up.