Chapter Text
It took a couple of seconds for the sound of the door whispering open to penetrate Julian's light contented sleep, but when it did he stiffened, flipped over onto his back and propped himself up on both elbows. He was surprised to find Garak standing at the foot of his bed wearing a slight mysterious smile — but certainly not alarmed, and even the surprise wasn't as great as it might have been.
After all, it wasn't as if Garak hadn't pulled this particular trick before. Fourteen times in fact, counting this evening, although usually Julian woke up to find him already sitting on the edge of the bed and using one cool grey hand to —
"Come, Doctor," Garak said softly. "Get dressed. We need to be going."
Julian scowled at him, puzzled that he wasn't being asked to divest himself of clothing instead. "Going?" he repeated. "Going where?"
"To Bajor." Garak's tone was gentle and his patient smile remained. Looking at it, Julian felt his shoulders slump.
"So you're not here to…?"
"I'm afraid not." The smile widened fractionally. "Not this time."
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As friends-with-benefits relationships went it was a little strange, but its clandestine nature and the mysterious smoulder of it all was perfectly in keeping with Garak's character and Julian followed his lead in not referring to it at any other time. Lying on his back in his bed and gasping under the expert ministrations of the Cardassian's hands and mouth, Julian sometimes found himself reflecting that this was exactly how a top-level spy would make love: in the shadows, in secret and in complete control of the situation, even to the extent of remaining seated on the edge of the bed fully clothed while his Human partner was panting and naked. Not that Julian really minded. Usually he was the one who tried to be so masterful with the ladies: it was something of a relief to be the submissive party for a change... and furtively thrilling and more than a little hot, especially when Garak slipped a finger inside his ass and did things to his prostate gland that should have been illegal.
Nor had Garak ever pushed for genital penetration, although Julian had ended up licking and sucking his ridged cock a few times and had developed quite a taste for it. In fact his own climax never seemed to be the point of the exercise: when he let Julian perform fellatio on him it was always at Julian's request and permission was not always given, and even when it was he didn't inevitably let Julian get him off. Which all came back to being in control, Julian supposed, and maintaining the power dynamic between them — it was perfectly all right for Julian to end up thrashing and whimpering and making a mess of the bedclothes, but he witnessed Garak's physically restrained orgasms seldom enough that the privilege felt like a gift. Was this a culturally approved way that older Cardassian males related to younger males? None of the literature Garak had loaned him thus far referred to sexual paradigms between men in that society and he didn't want to risk spoiling their arrangement by pressing for details.
And besides, when it came right down to it did it really matter if Cardassia lacked a long and venerable history of tailors showing up unannounced in the middle of the night to inflict delicious sexual torments on the object of their interest? It was how Garak operated, and Julian could accept that, although it had been quite a shock the first time he'd snapped awake out of a sound sleep to find someone standing at the foot of his bed, silently watching him. For a couple of heartbeats he'd doubted the evidence of his own eyes — the figure was perfectly still, not even emitting the slight hiss of breathing — until the general pattern of the man's body resolved itself in the strange half-light coming from the night cycle panels and Julian had realized who had entered his quarters:
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SIX MONTHS AGO
"Garak?"
A familiar flash of white teeth. "Ah, good evening, Doctor! I trust you slept well?"
Still shaking off sleep, Julian stared at him without speaking for several seconds. At last he found words: "How the… how did you… what are you doing here?"
"You left the door to your quarters unlocked." Garak moved up the right side of the bed and sat down on its edge, forcing Julian to scootch over a little to provide room for his hip — the mattresses on DS9, even for senior officers, were impractically narrow. He might as well have been gliding on air for all the sound his boots made on the carpet. "You really should be more careful. What if I'd been a thief, or someone intent on doing you harm?" He shook his head sadly, then wagged a reproving finger. "Constable Odo would be very disappointed in you."
Julian looked up at him, mouth slightly open. Another thought had occurred to him, a frankly appalling one: "How long were you standing there?"
"Long enough to observe that you frequently smile in your sleep." The right side of Garak's face, the one illuminated by the yellow glow from the panels, turned kindly. "Never fear, your secret is safe with me."
"Garak." He had to gain control of this conversation. The sheets had slid down around his waist; he tugged them up to chest level with one hand, trying not to be too obvious about it. He was wearing his usual pajamas but somehow he felt very vulnerable, almost naked. "The Constable wouldn't be very happy to find out you've been visiting my quarters in the middle of the night either — without my permission, I might add."
Cardassians had no eyebrows to raise, but Garak did a passable equivalent. "Are you going to tell him I'm here?"
"I —" Regulations dictated that he do exactly that: get the computer's attention and have it summon a security team immediately, considering that Garak had somehow circumvented the station's systems in order to get in here in the first place. "No, I'm not. What's this all about?"
The quality of Garak's smile changed hardly at all, but suddenly it was the embodiment of predatory instinct. He leaned a couple of centimetres closer, his voice falling to a silky whisper: "What if I told you that I need your assistance in another covert operation? One that can't wait until the morning — I need your help now, this instant."
Instantly Julian was fully awake, his heart leaping in his chest. The incident with Tahna Los was less than three months in the past and he never remembered it without a thrill of excitement. He sat up in bed, almost face to face with the spy, and tried not to look too eager. The sheet fell back to his waist once more. "Really? Right now? Of course, whatever you —"
The words froze in his throat. Garak was looking at him in a way that completely focussed his attention: he'd always known that Garak's eyes were blue, but he'd never before realized how intense that color was, like a clear winter sky at high altitudes. How had he failed to notice that over the table they'd been sharing at the Replimat for the past ten weeks? He was in closer proximity to the Cardassian than he'd ever been, separated by a mere hand's-breadth, close enough to see the finest details of the scaling around his eyes and down the line of his jaw even in the dimness. Then Garak reached up with his right hand and pressed the tips of his index and middle fingers to the bare skin just above the V of Julian's pajama top with great delicacy; Julian's breath suspended as they traced a leisurely little circle, cool against his warmer mammalian flesh, and then touched the pressure closure of the top and slowly began to pull it down.
That freed him from his paralysis. "Garak!" It was a startled yelp, not sophisticated in the least. He jumped back a couple of centimetres, unabashedly wide-eyed. "What are you doing?"
Garak's hand remained where it was, poised mid-air, and he blinked at the younger Human, cocking his head slightly. "I should think that would be obvious."
"You're — " Even his enhanced brain couldn't process this turn of events fast enough. Staring into Garak's face, which now looked serene with an underlying nuance of impatience, Julian quested back in his memory for anything that might explain this sudden sexual overture — because it was a sexual overture, he had not the slightest doubt. He came up with a number of equivalent instances, including the first time he'd met Garak, the insinuating glide of that velvet voice and the sly pressure of grey hands on his shoulders, and many subsequent smiles and glances that he'd written off as Garak trying to play games with him… but now things were being taken to the next level and he had no idea why.
In the middle of the night, after an act of unlawful entry, when he was half-asleep and —
More troubling memories flooded his mind, of the reports he'd read before coming to Bajor — accounts of Cardassian atrocities, many of them sexual — and he tensed, watching Garak with sudden wariness as he readied himself to take defensive action to protect his —
Garak sighed, almost as if he'd been expecting such a reaction but was disappointed by it nonetheless. "Doctor." He reached down and laid his right hand over Julian's left where it braced him upright on the mattress, the pressure light but firm. The contact of skin on skin was unexpectedly electric. "If you want me to leave, you have only to say so." Those bright eyes searched Julian's face and the smile returned, subtle yet knowing. "But I don't think you do. Shall I…?" And he pulled back slightly, watching Julian closely.
The sensible answer, of course, was: Yes, now get the hell out of my quarters! Julian opened his mouth to unleash it only to discover that here, as always, the rules of normal conduct bent around Garak like light waves in the proximity of a black hole singularity. Dear God, Sisko would have his balls for even considering fraternizing with a Cardassian expatriate, much less a Cardassian expatriatespy… but the air between them seemed to vibrate with dark energy, ramped to an almost intolerable frequency where the weight of Garak's hand covered his. What emerged was a short strangled exhalation and a little gasp: "Uh…"
Garak waited, still wearing that enigmatic smile, while Julian gathered his scattered wits — a task made much harder by the distracting throb between his legs. Now where had that come from? He'd never found men particularly attractive. At last he said: "… No. I mean, I don't… I mean yes, yes, you can stay, but —" He knew that the gaze he offered now was pleading but he couldn't help himself: Garak had never provided him with easy answers, that was part of what intrigued him about this cunning man, but right now he needed some clear sense of direction.
"Good." Julian had never heard that much sexual significance packed into a single syllable. The caressing cadence of Garak's voice thrilled up his spine, tingling over the nape of his neck and filling his cock with a pulse of hardening heat. "Now that we've got that settled," and he leaned in again, the weight of the tension between them pushing Julian down without the Cardassian having to touch him at all, "just lie back — there's a good boy — and do exactly as I tell you."
Now flat on the mattress, Julian looked up into Garak's cold yet merry eyes and tried not to swallow audibly. He felt like he was about to take a step off of a ledge into a fall of unknown distance, with no concept of what might lie at the bottom of the drop. Again he remembered the words of so many Bajoran women attesting to the violence and brutality of Cardassian mating practices, and he tried to infuse his gaze with stern warning. "I won't stand for being roughly treated. If you —"
Garak startled him by laughing, briefly but brightly. "You think I've come here to rape you?" Suddenly the laughter was gone, replaced with an expression as serious as any Julian had ever seen on him, and he laid his right hand on the side of Julian's neck, tracing the line of the Human's pulse with his thumb. "My dear Doctor, if that was what I wanted, I assure you I wouldn't be wasting time with conversation." The hand slid down to his shoulder and Garak leaned in; Julian closed his eyes, but the spy stopped just short of kissing him. Cool breath whispered over Julian's lips: "Your cooperation means nothing to me if it is forced. You know," and he shifted up a little to finally press a gentle kiss to Julian's cheekbone, "I've always wondered if you were this delightfully smooth all over…"
Julian had thought he was fully awake. He discovered now how wrong he'd been. Suddenly his whole body was alive, his quickening pulse beating in his groin and his lips and the very tips of his fingers. He reached up to wind his arms around Garak and pull the stocky body down into his arms, but quick as a snake Garak caught hold of his wrists and pinned them to the bed on either side of his pillow. "No, Julian."
"Oh, come on!" He tried to keep the ripple of nervous laughter out of his voice and failed. "That's not fair!"
"Did I ever promise to be fair?" His grip was firm, his expression rebuking. "Now, are you going to be good?"
"I'd be even better if you let me use my hands." Ah, there was the seductive purr he knew he was capable of, but it didn't seem to impress Garak.
"That's not what this is about." There was an element of command in his tone and his bearing that Julian automatically wanted to challenge… but part of him also wanted to obey, if only to see where this was going. The submissive part won out when Garak leaned down to whisper in his ear: "But this once, I'll be merciful and tell you what's going to happen next. You're going to lie back and let me strip you of these dreadful pajamas — I really must make you a new set in silk, something more suitable for all this sweet golden skin — and then you're going to let me explore every inch of you that takes my fancy. You'll be permitted to be as vocal as you like but you must keep your hands where I've put them and accept whatever I choose to do to you, without question. I promise you that I will never truly harm you, although there may be times when you'll be begging me to stop. If you —"
A bit breathlessly, Julian interrupted: "What about a safe word?"
That gave Garak pause. "A 'safe word'?" He sounded as if the concept was entirely new to him and he was highly sceptical about it, so Julian pushed ahead without waiting for permission.
"It sounds like you want to engage in dominance/submission play —" He paused, but Garak did not deny the charge, so he continued: "— and we'll need a way to distinguish between my saying No! Ah! No! and really meaning Yes!, and my saying NO! and actually meaning No. A safe word is one way to ensure that the message is always clear. It's a word or phrase that normally wouldn't come up in the course of sex, one that's so out of context that it's immediately recognizable as meaning that I want to stop whatever it is we're doing."
A pause while Garak seemed to consider the matter. "What a curious notion — and how very clinical of you. I don't suppose I should be surprised though. After all, you are a doctor… so what you're saying is that you want some degree of control over what's going to happen?"
"Yes, that's right."
He sounded genuinely puzzled: "But where's the fun in that?"
"If you don't want to harm me, you'll respect my right to feel comfortable with… whatever it is we end up doing." His mouth was very close to the aural ridges running down Garak's jawline from his ear; he leaned up a little to apply his lips to the scales and whisper more seductively: "If it's any consolation, I'm more than willing to trust your abilities as an instructor. I promise I won't use the safe word unless it's absolutely necessary." He punctuated the sentiment with a teasing flicker of his tonguetip along the lower ridge. "All right?"
Garak's grip on his wrists tightened a little. "Very well." Julian got the distinct impression he was amused. "So if I'm roughly stroking your pretty cock, paying special attention to the head, and you cry out LATINUM! at the top of your lungs, shall I assume that you want me to stop?"
Even amused, he had a sexier voice than any Julian could recall of the top of his head. The mental picture those murmured words brought to mind — heat, pressure, friction, a delicious edge of pain, oh God that's so good don't stop! — made light sweat break out over his entire body, and he whispered back: "If you're stroking my cock like that, I'd say you can do whatever the hell you feel like. But yes, that's a good suitable word. Very mercantile. I don't think either of us will have it in mind unless —"
Garak bit the side of his neck — and not gently, either. He yelped again, wondering who had set up a string connecting that particular patch of skin to his erection, which leaped eagerly inside his pajama bottoms. It was lying against his stomach now, pressed to one side a bit by the waistband of the pajamas but still in a prominent position to be fondled even through the fabric. He let his head fall back and closed his eyes.
"All right," he whispered, forcing himself to relax. "I'll… be good, I promise." To hell with the thousand questions he should have been asking; to hell with the ethical and technical issues of how Garak had gotten in here in the first place; to hell with everything, for that matter, except what the man currently pressing him into the mattress was going to do next. When it came right down to it this moment, which should have felt all kinds of wrong, had an undeniable quality of rightness about it. It was perfectly in character for Garak and… well, even an hour ago Julian would have denied that it was in character for him, but obviously it was, because he was letting it happen, wasn't he?
As Garak finally, finally kissed him full on the mouth, hands running over his forearms with masterful force — pressing him down, ordering him to submit without saying a word — Julian spared one final thought to wonder if there was anything he wouldn't let Garak do to him, safe word or no.
He suspected that he was about to find out.