Chapter Text
The wind is merciless today, freezing and biting at his skin where it isn’t covered by the thin fraying layers of his clothing. His face. His fingers. His left ankle. His neck. It hurts, or rather, it aches in a dull throbbing manner that isn’t entirely unfamiliar.
"Garak," Julian says.
His eyes are impossibly bright for a ghost. His voice is fitting, though: there is a heavy dose of torment mixed in it that makes Garak flinch. He looks away and pretends he cannot see or hear the dear doctor. It wouldn’t do to surrender to the tricks his mind plays on him.
"Garak," Julian repeats, coming closer. Sighs sorrowfully, and then, after a pause. "We need to get you out of here."
Garak doesn’t look, but it’s a close thing. He can’t remember why he shouldn’t, only that he decided not to.
He spares a thought to why would Julian’s ghost want him out of here. Why would Julian even be here. This isn’t a good place for him. It isn’t a good place for anyone, really, but definitely not for Julian’s ghost.
Or is it a hallucination?
Foolishness or insanity — which one…
"Garak, look at me," Julian insists, and he is stepping around Garak, forcing proximity, stubborn as ever.
"Why are you here?" Garak asks.
"Because you are stuck," Julian says. "Why are you here?"
Garak snorts inelegantly, startling himself.
"I don’t exactly have a choice, Doctor."
"You do," Julian insists nonsensically. "Garak, this isn’t real, you are…"
And then he is gone.
Garak freezes and feels the loss claw at him anew. He gets back to work: the graves aren’t going to dig themselves. He’s responsible for every single one, after all.
***
"That is hardly fair," Garak objects, despite part of him believing it is exactly that: fair.
"Don’t be so sour, I’m just teasing," Julian says, smiling.
Garak raises an eyebrow and tilts his head, hiding the unease behind a sticky mask.
"If you say so, Doctor. Excuse my surprise, I would hardly expect you to find loss of life funny."
"Perhaps you are rubbing off on me, Garak," Julian says.
Garak’s smile falls flat. This is all wrong. The lightness. The tension. The way Julian looks at him — with barely concealed disgust, expected and yet entirely unfamiliar. The way Garak himself has been on edge since… well, they are hardly in a peaceful situation, he supposes, but still. Something is bothering him, all the time, pokes at the edges of his awareness.
By the time he is walking towards his shop, the feeling is too strong to ignore.
He needs to find Julian. Not the… whoever it is he’s been having lunches with.
He walks for hours, getting lost in the suddenly unfamiliar passages of the station, circling back to the Promenade and constantly getting pulled away. Ziyal asks for help moving her canvases. Odo keeps following him, silently, shifting in and out of the walls. Chief O’Brien bumps into him, bodily, making him spill the frames he was holding.
"What are you doing here, Garak?" he asks, and Garak remembers. Julian. He won’t find him here.
"Just passing by, Chief," he replies politely and turns to Ziyal to lead her away, but she is no longer there. She must have wandered away, not noticing he’s fallen behind. He needs to find her too, before it is too late.
"Garak," Julian calls him.
He looks horrible: pale, and thin, all sharp angles and dust-covered skin. There is no coldness in his eyes, though. Garak takes him in with an uneasy feeling, and then Julian takes hold of his shoulders and squeezes them.
"You need to listen—"
"I’m sorry," Garak interrupts him. That gives him a confused look and a pause long enough to push it through. "I’m sorry for not realizing it wasn’t you," he says. "I should have noticed. Can you forgive me, Doctor?"
Except he did notice. What is he saying? He knew that wasn’t Julian, that’s why he is here, isn’t he? Garak frowns, trying to retrace his steps. It’s harder than it should be.
"This isn’t important right now," Julian deflects, and he is lying — Garak can see that, he could always see, couldn’t he? Or was he allowed to see? Julian’s hands are still heavy weights on Garak’s shoulders, and his eyes are too sharp somehow. It doesn’t fit. Garak steps back.
"You shouldn’t be here," he mutters to himself. "You weren’t here. I didn’t know that you weren’t here."
It makes way too much sense for how confusing everything else feels.
"So you keep saying. Why wouldn’t you ever just listen to me!" Julian laments, and Garak wants to object, but he is distracted by an unmistakeable sound of an explosion, and then he can only watch in horror as Julian floats away through a hole in the wall. Others, too. He holds onto a table bolted into a floor, but he cannot breath, and once he watches Ziyal and Julian both stop moving, he doesn’t want to, and…
***
He can’t breathe. It’s dark, and he is stuck, and he can hear his own frantic heartbeat hammering in his chest, and he can’t breathe. And then a pair of hands lands on him and tugs him forward, and he resists, frozen in place and terrified, until a voice filters through, and he knows that voice, trusts it immediately, lets himself be pulled through the darkness and into a dimly lit room.
"Breathe, Garak," Julian says, looking worried and excruciatingly sad. He puts Garak’s hand on his own chest and takes a deep breath, his ribcage expanding under Garak’s fingers and then retreating again in a steady rhythm. "Come on. You are okay now. Just take it slow. Breathe with me."
In and out, Garak forces himself to inhale and to push the air out as Julian guides him through it patiently. It is pathetic, needing guidance in such a simple activity. It would have been humiliating if Julian wasn’t filling up his whole world right now, not leaving space for anything else.
In and out.
Gradually he feels better. Then just — good. He expects Julian to push him to lie down and take a break before he needs to go back into the wall, and he gets a strong pang of déjà vu for a moment, until Julian pulls him in, and the feeling dissipates.
"What would our roommates say about you cuddling an old Cardassian spy?" Garak asks quietly. He doesn’t push away, though. He thinks he should, but he can’t bring himself to at the moment, stuck in it and unwilling to fight.
"There aren’t any at the moment," Julian replies, sounding a bit surprised himself. His voice is gentle when he speaks again a minute later. "Garak, can you please try and not freak out after what I tell you?"
"I don’t ever 'freak out', as you put it, Doctor," Garak states, offended. Julian hums noncommittally and pulls back a bit without letting Garak out of his arms. He looks terribly serious. Alarms immediately start to blast in Garak’s mind. He tries to ignore them.
"This isn’t real," Julian says. "You are trapped in a dream."
Garak frowns. It sounds ridiculous. Surely, he can distinguish a dream from reality.
"Excuse me if I don’t immediately jump at the idea, Doctor. This feels perfectly real to me. You certainly do."
"I am," Julian confirms. "I am real. You are real. Not anything else."
"How convenient," Garak chuckles. "And what would you have me do in this dream of yours?"
The alarms inside his mind are getting harder and harder to ignore, and then he remembers: he shouldn’t ignore them, he has been trained to not ignore them, and in the Obsidian Order it was often a difference between life and death.
"This isn’t my dream, unfortunately," Julian says. "We wouldn’t be here if it was."
"Where would we be, then?" Garak indulges him.
"Somewhere safe." Julian smiles and reaches up to touch Garak’s face carefully — without any of the usual confidence of his, frankly rude, medical examinations. "Somewhere warm. Somewhere we can talk without always running out of time."
Garak stops breathing again, and it’s a heady, heavy feeling, the precipice of something, like an airlock before a shuttle that will take him far away.
"But right now I need you to wake up," Julian continues.
"I don’t want to wake up," Garak hears himself say. He can feel reality begin to unravel, the alarms in his mind suddenly going fully quiet. He holds on to Julian’s uniform, and the fabric feels stiff and crusty under his fingers. He knows why, even if he doesn’t want to think about it. Julian lets him, thumbs at the ridge under his left eye gently. It’s wrong. It feels right. He doesn’t know anymore.
"We can’t stay here," Julian says. "We don’t belong here anymore."
"You… shouldn’t be here," Garak says slowly, discovering the words as he says the previous one.
Julian nods.
"You just need to—"
He never gets to finish, because the next moment Jem’Hadar burst in and pull him away. Garak and Julian both fight, but it’s not enough, and…
***
"Garak, you need to listen to me."
Garak lies in the dark, and there is nothing there. There hasn’t been anything there for as long as he can remember, until he hears the familiar voice, and suddenly he can remember so much more.
"Doctor?" he asks. "Where are we?"
Julian is silent for a moment — long enough for Garak to feel the beginning of a panic rise in him — and then he’s back.
"Do you remember how you got here?"
Garak tries to remember, but it is hard. His thoughts are sluggish. It’s frustrating.
"I don’t," he says and feels around. The hard surface under him is smooth, like glass, and when he moves his hand towards Julian’s voice, it bumps into a wall. He checks the other side and finds the same thing.
"Take a deep breath," Julian says, the voice urgent enough to make Garak listen and do as he is told. "Good, now exhale slowly. You are alright."
For someone behind a wall, his voice is surprisingly crisp. The thought calms him down a bit, same as the slow breaths Julian has him take. There must be a connection between their… whatever it is Garak’s trapped in.
Julian’s hand finds his, squeezes his fingers.
"I’m here," he says. "Wherever this 'here' is… What have you gotten yourself into?"
It doesn’t sound as a proper question, but Garak answers anyway.
"My father is having a gala," he whispers. "He wanted me to stay quiet."
"Your father wanted you to stay quiet?" Julian repeats. Garak shushes him.
"Garak, where are we?" Julian asks quietly.
"Do you need an exact address for your records, Doctor?" Garak snaps and sits up. He doesn’t let go of Julian’s hand. Something is scratching at the back of his mind, making him sure he cannot let go.
"You need to focus, Garak," Julian says. "Can you do that for me?"
'I would do anything for you,’ Garak thinks and smiles in the dark. He nods and whispers, "Just because you are here, doesn’t mean you can patronize me."
It sounds weird. Something in it bothers him, but he can’t quite catch what it is, and the next moment it is gone.
"Your father has nothing to do with it," Julian says. "He died, remember?"
Grey walls, Tain’s grey face, shallow breath before there was none... he remembers.
"You shouldn’t be here," Garak says and tugs his hand away. Julian doesn’t let him.
"Neither should you. Garak, this isn’t real, you need to trust me on this."
"What are you talking about, Doctor?" Garak asks in a daze. His father is dead. And Julian is somehow in the attic of his old house, except that isn’t right — the house was destroyed during the war, so what is this place?
"You are dreaming," Julian says.
The surface under Garak is suddenly not there, and he is hanging in the air, held only by Julian’s grip on his hand. Julian groans and pulls, until Garak is stretched on the cold floor alongside him, breathing heavily and still squeezing his hand.
The next moment he hears it — the unmistakeable buzz of a Colgan disruptor, and then it’s too late, and Julian is sticky and shaky under his touch.
"Damn it," Julian breathes out, coughs, and it’s a horrible, horrible wet sound.
"I’ll come back for you," he promises.
Garak can’t even process what Julian is saying, he tries and fails to stop the bleeding, and it’s happening way too fast.
"I’m sorry," he whispers. "Doctor… Julian, I’m sorry."
Julian grabs his wrist, squeezes hard enough to hurt, interrupting his ramblings.
"Garak," he rasps, "it’s alright. This is not real. I will be back, I’ll always come back. As long as it takes."
He coughs again, his grip growing weaker, and Garak holds him up, giving up on trying to stop the blood, trying to keep him alive by the sheer willpower.
"Try… to remember," Julian whispers in his ear. "Until… next time."
He slacks in Garak’s arms, and…
***
Garak startles awake and looks around with wild eyes. Just a dream. It was just a dream. A nasty, ridiculous nightmare — they follow him still, years after he last had any reason to live through one.
He takes a deep breath, grounding himself in the little details of their bedroom: the old wardrobe warped with water damage, the warm blankets layering the bed, the sentimental trinkets Julian insists on cluttering the space with. Garak doesn’t even remember where they are from, but every single one of them helps him push the feeling of Julian bleeding out in his arms further and further away until he is ready to take on the day.
The house is empty. Julian is away, running a month long training program to the starfleet medics in one of the newly reopened hospitals. He is coming back today, though. Garak huffs and shakes his head, frustrated with himself, once he realizes the nightmare borrowed him missing his husband and span it out of proportion. Maybe, the next time he should just come with, as Julian asked him to do many times.
He is just finishing his breakfast when there is a knock on the door.
"Did you lose your keys again, dear?" he scolds softly, as he opens the door, but he cannot maintain the fake frown for long, reaching out to kiss Julian welcome before he can reply.
"My keys?" Julian asks, dazed.
Garak chuckles and pulls him inside.
"Have you eaten?" he asks, and, when Julian doesn’t reply immediately, instead looking around with a rapt attention, sighs and points to a chair. "Sit. Won’t be long."
Julian sits down and fixes his eyes on him. It’s nice — to have him back. Garak smiles to himself as he fusses with breakfast.
"No replicator?" Julian asks, bewildered.
Garak throws him an offended look.
"Did a month away from home tax your memory that much? It’s not coming until the next year."
Julian smiles sheepishly. Garak sighs dramatically and goes back to the cooking. It’s simple food — nothing so elaborate as what they used to have back on Terok Nor — but he much prefers it to even the fanciest meals simply because of the circumstances and the location of their meals.
"Remind me," Julian says to his back, "how long have we lived here?"
"Twenty six years now," Garak says after a moment’s pause. "Are you testing me, dear?"
"Just thinking, you haven’t changed much," Julian notes carefully. Garak chuckles. "Yes, you are also looking quite dashing today, if a bit tired."
He turns to look at Julian. Frowns as he notices he isn’t just "a bit" tired. He looks absolutely exhausted. Still dashing, of course, but…
"You should take a break," he strongly suggests, bringing the plate to the table and sitting down across from Julian. "It won’t do for you to run yourself ragged. Besides, you are not getting younger, dear."
"Ouch," Julian chuckles. He pokes curiously at the stew Garak heated up for him, then takes a spoonful and frowns.
"Is something wrong?" Garak asks, taking the spoon away from him to have a taste. It tastes as expected. He gives the spoon back.
Julian looks at him in shock. He shakes his head after a moment though.
"It’s perfect, thank you. I’m just a bit tired."
"Why don’t you go lie down?" Garak asks then. "You can finish later."
Julian comes out of the shower and stops at the sight of Garak waiting for him on the bed with a book in hand. Garak puts the book down and beckons for him to come closer. Julian walks around to his own side of the bed and sits down.
"I took a day off," Garak explains. "Surely, having my husband come back to me is a good enough reason."
Julian looks at him thoughtfully for a long moment, and then relaxes and smiles. "Sure. We could both use a break. What would you like to do today?"
"Nothing in particular," Garak replies. He slides down on the pillows and opens his arms. "Right now, though, I think you should lie down and indulge me. I have missed you something terrible, it seems."
Julian stretches alongside him, allows Garak to pull him closer and put his head on his shoulder. Garak feels a knot he didn’t know was there unravel inside of his mind.
"You missed me?" Julian asks quietly.
"Of course I did, my dear," Garak says and places a short kiss on Julian’s crown. "I’m embarrassed to say I even dreamed about it, of sorts."
"What kind of a dream was it?" Julian asks after a long moment where they just breathe together, and hold each other close.
"A rather unpleasant one, I’m afraid," Garak frowns. "But you did promise to come back to me, and here you are. I suppose, in the end it wasn’t entirely bad."
"I will, you know," Julian says. "I will come back to you. But Garak, doesn’t this feel… weird to you?"
"What do you mean?" Garak asks.
"You said we lived here for twenty six years. Yet none of us looks our age. There are no other people outside this house. Where are we? How did we get here? What is the job you are taking a break from?"
"You are not making any sense, my love," Garak says, getting worried. He shifts onto his side, so they are facing each other. "Are you quite alright?"
"I’m…" Julian trails off, some mix of emotions battling on his face.
Garak watches him closely, a sense of unease rising in him with every second that Julian keeps him waiting. Something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong, isn’t it? Something is wrong, and it’s going to tear Julian away from him just like in his nightmare, and Garak can almost feel again the hot sticky liquid on his fingers, and…
"Sorry," Julian says, "I must be more tired than I realized. I’m alright. Don’t worry about it."
Garak exhales the panic and chuckles at himself. Old habits die hard. They are perfectly safe here, and Julian is very much alive and in his arms, and if they both kept their youthful appearances, he certainly won’t be the one complaining.
"I love you," Garak whispers into Julian’s lips before kissing him.
Julian doesn’t say it back, but he does chase Garak’s lips for another kiss later, and he does hold him close as Garak falls asleep, the warmth and comfort making him feel sluggish and pleasantly tired.
***
Cardassian sun is blindingly bright. Garak stops in his trek to reach for his water bottle, and then remembers he has finished it hours ago. His throat is aching for relief, and his feet are weary — he’s been at it for hours, since before the sunrise. He has to keep going, though. It is important that he keeps going. The mission is a test, and if he fails… it is better not to think of what that would mean. It would certainly be better to die of his own hand than face the consequences.
The sunset is stunning, the sun — prophetically red and slow as it sinks beneath the horizon.
Garak turns to his target — a dissident professor, teaching his students utter nonsense. The traitor. The test. The man tied to a tree in a particularly painful manner — Garak made sure of that. The conditions are not ideal, and he has only the basic supplies on him, but he can be creative under pressure.
"Garak, stop," the man begs him, "listen to me, please."
Garak frowns: did he introduce himself? Or did they meet before? He looks at the target more carefully, then steps back in horror.
Julian Bashir sighs in relief, recognizing the recognition in Garak’s face.
"What are you doing here?" Garak asks, too shaken to hide the desperation in his voice. "You shouldn’t be here."
"I’m here for you," Julian says. "But we keep meeting under the worst circumstances."
He smiles — a pained little smile, meant to lighten the mood. Garak feels sick.
"I am so sorry, Doctor," he says, taking the syringe out of his bag. "I must do this."
"Garak, what’s in it?" Julian asks, immediately wary. He tugs at the ropes, but it’s no use, Garak has him exactly where he wants him. Or rather, exactly where he is supposed to want him, although everything inside of him screams to stop right now. But that isn’t how this goes, he knows that much.
"Why are you doing this?" Julian asks, as Garak steps closer. "This is just a dream, Garak. I’m not supposed to be here, remember? You can stop this."
Garak hesitates. He wants to stop. Julian is right — he isn’t the one he tied to this tree. Isn’t the one to be injected with the poison and kept in agony until the locations and the names spill out in exchange for the fast death.
"A dream?" he asks. "Explain."
"You’ve been attacked," Julian says. "Do you remember? You were on Deep Space Nine to meet vedek Tolena."
Garak tries to focus. The clarity is fleeing him, but Julian is looking at him with such stubborn hope, he cannot give up. Thinking hurts, though — lashes him with the cognitive dissonance until he can no longer tell what’s real.
He is seventeen, and on his first solo mission to retrieve information on the dissident movement.
He is on Deep Space Nine, telling Julian about the restoration of the Cardassia City, and — oh — the war.
He stares at Julian in a new kind of horror.
"You are in a coma," Julian says. "You need to wake up, Garak. Please."
"How are you here?" Garak asks.
"Does it matter?" Julian counters. "I’m here. I’m getting you out."
"You can’t," Garak says. "This isn’t a dream, Doctor. It’s so much worse."
He steps forward, towards a man who is no longer Julian Bashir, but an elderly Math teacher, terrified and begging for mercy. Garak presses the needle into his neck. Julian yells for him to stop. Garak really wishes he could.
***
"I know this one," Julian says, and Garak turns so sharply, his neck makes an unpleasant cracking sound. He hides the wince under a carefully constructed mask.
"Excuse me?"
"You let them go," Julian says. "All of them. You chose to let them go."
"Nonsense," Garak replies. "Terrorism against Cardassia is punishable by death."
Julian nods.
"I know," he says. "And yet you let them go."
"You have always been too sentimental for your own good, Doctor," Garak notes fondly.
"Is this not weird for you?" Julian asks. "Aren’t you going to tell me I’m not supposed to be here?"
"You—," Garak pauses and thinks. Something is wrong. He can almost see the walls swaying in the edges of his vision — that’s how wrong it feels.
What is he doing here, again?
"You are dreaming, Garak," Julian explains. "Almost exclusively nightmares, it seems. This is the day you make a choice that leads to your exile. You don’t have to relive it. If you just listen—"
"This is not what happened," Garak says slowly.
Julian nods and smiles.
"You weren’t here," Garak continues. "And I didn’t let them go."
He watches that smile fade, replaced by a grim understanding.
"What did you do?" Julian asks.
"What I was supposed to do," Garak replies. He looks out the window. The prisoners are waiting for transport, and a lot of them are so young. Young, and angry, and terrified… mostly, terrified. It’s such a familiar sight, it’s almost soothing.
He feels sick.
He feels darkly satisfied that he feels sick.
"You should go, Doctor," Garak says.
"I can’t do that. And if you kick me out again, I’ll come back. I’ll keep coming back for you."
"Why?"
Julian’s face is so sad when Garak looks at him, that he has to turn away again. He expects some stupid Federation platitude, or some sentimental oversharing — both typical for this ridiculous man Garak cannot seem to convince to give up on him.
"You’ll have to wake up to find out," Julian says instead, and there is steel in his voice where just moments before there was comfort. Garak’s heart makes an unpleasant cracking sound which makes no sense whatsoever.
"Come on, Garak," Julian continues, when it becomes clear Garak won’t say anything in return. "Can’t you trust me just this once?"
"Just this once?" Garak echoes, amused against himself. Julian doesn’t seem to notice. Doesn’t seem to realize Garak trusted him far too many times already.
"I know it’s hard for you," Julian says. "But you know me. You know I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t important. And you can obviously tell something isn’t right."
"You shouldn’t be here," Garak agrees, feeling Julian’s presence grate on him more and more with each passing moment. As much as Garak wants him here, it is unsettling. Wrong.
"I shouldn’t be here," Julian confirms. "But I am here, because this isn’t real. You are dreaming, and you need to wake up."
"Why?" Garak asks, and that stops Julian’s little inspired speech. "If I’m dreaming, let me dream."
Garak looks out the window again. At the ruins of the houses he helped destroy. At the echoes of lives he failed to protect — gave up for the sake of doing the right thing. It’s eerily quiet. It feels wrong.
"You have to wake up because we need you on the other side," Julian says finally. "Because the man I know would refuse to die trapped in his own mind after everything he did to dig his way out."
Garak’s eyes shoot to Julian’s, and for a moment he’s so close to clarity he can feel the full weight of reality, and it is crushing.
"Wake up so you can find out why I won’t leave you trapped in your dreams."
"If what you say is true, I can make different choices here," Garak reasons. "Or pay for the ones I made."
"Come with me," Julian pleads. "Garak, please. Stop punishing yourself for a moment and think. You’ve built a life for yourself. You are helping Cardassia recover. You have things to live for. Would you really rather keep spinning this misery wheel?"
And now the walls truly are crumbling, and melting, and everything is shaky except for Julian’s eyes that are way too alive to be anything but real. Alive, and tired, and determined, and Garak is caught in that determination whether he wants to or not.
"What do I do?" he asks.
"You die here, knowing this is just a dream."
"And if I’m wrong?"
"You’ll have to trust me, Garak."
Julian is looking so hopeful, so desperate to be right to be hopeful, that Garak sighs and gives up.
"I’ve always trusted you far too easily," he notes, and takes a moment to appreciate how surprised Julian looks before closing his eyes and finding the poison pill hidden behind one of his teeth. It’s quick once he cracks it, his nervous system collapsing on itself in agonizing pain. He pushes the pain down, shoves it aside as he was trained to do, thinks through it. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be merciful — the last gift of Cardassia to her loyal soldiers.
Is this the last punishment his subconsciousness lays onto the monster attempting to escape?
"You bloody moron!" Julian grumbles, holding him where he has collapsed to the floor. "I could have done it better. Spare you the pain."
"You are not," Garak manages to push out, "a murderer. Doctor."
Julian’s eyes are wild, and his hand on Garak’s face is burning hot, and Garak only notices then the frozen misery of the time before that.
"I’ll see you soon," Julian promises, and that is the last thing Garak remembers.