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He left the room as soon as the debriefing was over without a farewell: there were no words left in him then. His body carried him through the lift and down the corridor as though on autopilot.
It was not real. The Jem'Hadar, the station, the strange turns of events, nothing more than a cruel and invasive holonovel, and Julian and his friends were strung along through it like lab rats in a shitty Dominion thought experiment: an elaborate, alarmingly convincing simulation, but nothing more. It should have been easy enough to shrug off, once they awoke on the changelings' planet and knew none of the preceding events had taken place, but the thing about it was,
the thing was, thought Julian,
the thing:
Julian braced himself against the wall, shaking. The thing was: he saw Garak die. He had held Garak in his arms and felt the last embers of his life fade into smoke. Julian now knew how it felt to lose him, to be able to do nothing to save him, to be dragged away from him without even time to grieve. The image of Garak's body, still and abandoned, slumped against the corridor wall, never knowing how beloved he was, had been burned onto Julian's memory.
Heartbeat hammering in his ears, Julian did his best to breathe. Garak was fine, he told himself as he ran to Garak's front door. He just needed to see for himself, to feel —
He pressed the bell quickly, breath caught in his throat now. The response was taking too long, what if that meant, what if it wasn't, what if
"Hello?" came a familiar, sleepy voice from within. Garak was there. He was fine.
Julian tried to respond in kind, to let him know who was calling at such a late hour.
"Garak?" It felt like a monumental effort to get the name out, like he was shouting, even if it was barely above a whisper.
"... is that you, doctor? One moment."
The door swished open, and there he was: Garak was demonstrably fine, wearing a warm dressing gown and a perplexed expression. Somewhere in the inextricable tangle of emotions violently pinballing around Julian's heart, at least one of them was now relief.
"Doctor, what a surprise! It's a bit late for a house call, but I confess I was worried when I didn't see you at lunch, and — " Garak seemed to recognise this was a different sort of social call, then: Julian could not know what he looked like in that moment, but the way his gaze remained unfixed and uncertain, every muscle tense with the effort it took to hold himself together, unable to fully take in the sight of his friend, seemingly alive and well, but what if — it must have been enough to tell Garak that something was wrong.
Julian could not speak. There were so many words inside him now, too many all shouting in his mind at once, blocking each other's way. Nothing would come. Garak's expression was inquisitive, soft. All Julian could manage was a pathetic, high pitched hum.
"Come in, my dear." Garak spoke gently, leading the way.
Before the door had even closed again behind him, without meaning to, without thinking, Julian pulled Garak to him in a tight embrace.
They had never hugged before. He knew that Garak was by no means averse to a tactile friendship, with the way he would rest a hand on Julian's shoulder or the small of his back, or accept a sleepy head coming to rest on his shoulder during movie night after a long shift, but never before a full-blown hug. Garak did not move for what felt like some time, though for all Julian knew, it could have been only a moment. All he knew was that he needed to hold on, to assure himself of the realness of his friend, the solidity of him under his softly quilted bedgown, the rhythmic thump of his pulse, the familiar scent of clean textiles and skin and something like sandalwood. Garak softened out of the surprise eventually, bringing his arms around Julian's torso, holding him close. He reached beyond the heavy curtain of static in his head, engaging every gram of focus he had to stay anchored to Garak, to the hand brushing slowly down his back, so patient, far kinder than he deserved, after he —
"Doctor?" Garak asked him, concern evident in his voice. "Dare I ask what's brought this about?"
Julian loosened his grip on his friend, who was attempting to guide him to sit. He let himself be placed gingerly on the edge of the bed, and Garak sat close beside him.
"There we are," Garak said gently, placing a grounding hand on Julian's knee. "Now, whatever is the matter?"
All Julian could do was to screw his eyes shut, and shake his head.
"You're not saying anything. Has something affected your ability to speak?"
Julian nodded. This was a rare occurrence: it had happened to him a few times before, in moments of extreme stress, or after, running on the fumes of exhaustion and overwhelm. He might have been able to force out a sound, or tap out a two word sentence on a padd if pressed, but mostly it was all he could do to keep from breaking down any further. It was too many words coinciding in the wrong order all at once or no words at all, and nothing in between, and neither facilitated communication.
"Do I need to bring you to the infirmary?"
Julian shook his head. The last thing he needed was to be perceived in this state by anyone else.
"Was it Starfleet business that robbed me of your company at lunch, perhaps?"
Julian nodded.
"And is confidential Starfleet business why you can't tell me what happened?"
Julian shook his head. Technically, it was confidential Starfleet business, but he might have been able to say something had his brain and body not chosen to betray him.
"Well, you don't need to talk about it if you don't want do, doctor. Or if you can't. After all, word travels fast on a station this small."
"Sorry," was all that Julian was able to say, his voice broken and small. The effort it took to form the word was monumental.
Garak shook his head fondly.
"You have nothing to be sorry for, my dear," he said, patting Julian's hand. "I'm not used to having to carry the whole conversation between the two of us, but I've been told at times that I can have something of a tendency to go on a bit myself. Perhaps that's why we make such good friends, you and I."
That was the worst part about it: they were friends, and here was Julian, not only being seen to be so much and so difficult and such an imposition when Garak was just trying to rest, but even if he had the ability to get words to come out of him one after the other and in the right order, to burden Garak with the knowledge that Julian had watched him die, or so he had thought at the moment, seemed so incredibly unfair. He wanted to confide in Garak, he craved the comfort of it like it was breathing, but he could not do it, even if he could force more than two pained syllables out of his mouth. How selfish of him, he just about managed to think, to seek comfort from the person he should have been trying to protect, but he loved Garak so much and he was so stupid, so stupid, so stupid, so
"Here." It was when Garak spoke again that Julian realised that a soft blanket had been draped around his shoulders, smoothed down around him by gentle hands. The panicked jumble of emotions that boiled within him was beginning to simmer down, but in so doing, the shame of it all was landing in his gut like a slow-release cannonball.
"I. Couldn't — " said Julian, and that was as many words as would release from him before the unstoppable flood of sobs broke through the silent dam he had apparently held together with soft masking tape, for all the good it had done. I couldn't save you.
Without prompting, Garak folded Julian into his arms. Julian wept against his chest, leaning in as close as he could, holding on with all the strength he had in him, though it was waning from the exhaustion. He did his best to focus on the soothing rhythm of Garak's heartbeat, the rise and fall of the breathing beneath his soft pyjamas, and the familiar scent of him, comforting and good. Garak gently stroked his hair, as Julian's heaving sobs slowed.
"There we are," Garak said softly, as the sobs gave way to sniffles. "Breathe with me."
Garak gently brought their foreheads together, and Julian was bathed in a sudden, comforting warmth, luminous and grounding, familiar and new. It could have been a hitherto unmentioned effect of the Cardassian physiology of that lovely crest of his, or perhaps just the calming intimacy of shared breath; regardless, while he felt Garak momentarily pause, he could not know if Garak had felt what he did, or if he had only noticed Julian noticing. Julian did his best to match Garak's slow, deliberate breaths, still caught by the odd hitch, but coming down.
"I'm going to have to have a stern word with Starfleet," Garak murmured softly. "Clearly they need to be doing more to safeguard the welfare of their staff if Starfleet business has left you so troubled, my dear."
It was only then that Julian began to disentangle tired as one of the emotions he was having: not just sleepy, but the kind of bone-tired that followed such a profound stress. He could very well have fallen asleep right there in Garak's arms, and it would have been all right with him.
Then his combadge beeped.
"Sisko to Bashir."
Oh no no no no no, thought Julian, leaping from the embrace, eyes wide with panic and suddenly acutely, painfully awake, as he shook his head. He did not want to try to speak to Sisko, to fail to be convincingly normal, to invite more questions, to have to sit down at work the next day and talk about how they might accommodate his needs. Garak simply nodded, tapping the combadge for him.
"Julian Bashir's combadge, this is Garak speaking," he said. "How can I help you, Commander?"
There was a pause. Then, "Garak, what the hell do you think you're doing? Where is the doctor?"
"Doctor Bashir is resting," Garak told him. "Whatever Starfleet business he was involved in today must have been... very difficult."
There was an audible sigh over the comm. "That would be an understatement," replied Sisko, "but, at least for the time being, a classified understatement."
"Then I shall ask no questions," said Garak, resting his hand on Julian's back, rubbing gentle circles into his exhausted muscles, melting the tension from them. "Is there a... declassified message you'd like to convey to the good doctor?"
"Fine," conceded Sisko. "Please let Doctor Bashir know that I've told the infirmary not to expect him tomorrow, and that he's under orders to look after himself. These are interesting times we live in, Mr. Garak, and I don't foresee them getting any less interesting any time soon. I need my crew in as good a condition as they can be... all things considered."
"I understand perfectly, Commander," Garak replied, in that perfectly gracious customer service tone he wore so often in general company. "I'll let him know."
"Sisko out."
The call was ended, and Julian realised he had, for some moments longer than was prudent, been holding his breath. He let out a long exhale, as Garak continued stroking his back.
"Perhaps I can take back at least a bit of what I said about Starfleet's lack of care," observed Garak. "But just a little."
Julian took a deep breath. "Okay," he said.
"Okay?" asked Garak.
"It's okay," Julian confirmed, his voice shaken and too quiet, but returning. The moment was passing, and he could feel himself begin to recover. "I'm okay. We're okay. Are you okay?"
"Of course, my dear," Garak assured him once more. "I'm fine. And so are you."
"I should let you get to sleep." Julian was very aware of how late it was now, how he should have just gone to his quarters to ride out the struggles alone. Panic had given way to relief, and relief to embarrassment. "I'm sorry you had to see... all this. Me. This... part of me."
Garak simply smiled, patting Julian's hand. "My dear, you've seen me at my absolute worst, and stayed by my side right the way through it. Do you really think a few tears could make me turn away from you now?"
The veneer of normality — that which he normally held so fast to him he nearly forgot what it was not to wear it - had slipped away, discarded on the floor. Julian sat, stripped bare and afraid, all the mess he worked so hard to contain spilled out of him. And Garak met him there, not with a disapproving rebuke for being too sensitive or too strange or asking where his Starfleet resilience had gone, but with acceptance. Garak was just kind about it. And Julian just felt safe.
He could not help but manage a weak smile in return. "Damn it, Garak, you're going to make me cry again."
"Well, these poor pyjamas are already going to need an extra dose of stain remover before they go into the laundry from the first round of tears," reasoned Garak, gesturing at the slowly drying damp patch near the heart of his silken shirt, "so by all means, if you need to, do your worst."
Julian almost chuckled at that, despite himself.
"You should get some rest, my dear," Garak told him, "and so should I, for that matter."
"You're right. I'll let you get back to bed." Julian made to go, but Garak grasped his wrist before he could stand.
"Doctor," he said, in that way he had of saying Julian's title not as a demand, but a term of endearment, "do you really want to be alone right now?"
If he had been in anyone else's room, Julian would have said yes; indeed, he would never have come. It felt dangerous to be perceived like this, it invited questions and conversations. But with Garak, it felt just as safe to lean into the invitation than it would have been to hide away. Julian shook his head.
Garak patted the mattress between them. "Then perhaps you should stay."
Julian did not have it in him to disagree. He could not help but feel his presence as an imposition, but Garak had had so many opportunities to let him leave, and reiterated his invitation each time.
"Thank you," he said. He was not going to cry again. He was too tired to cry.
With leaden limbs, Julian did his best to shrug out of his uniform overshirt and kick off his boots.
"The bed easily sleeps two," Garak told him, hanging up his dressing gown, "without getting in each other's way, of course. Though if you'd rather, I can — "
"Bed," Julian agreed, perhaps selfishly. The sensory knowledge of Garak's presence near him might be enough of a comfort to let him sleep through the night, he thought.
"Of course," Garak agreed, and the two bedded down. It was not easy to relax at first, with the acute awareness that Julian was interfering in Garak's most personal of personal space, but the linens were buttery soft against his skin, and bore the scent of Garak's comforting perfume.
"Computer, lights," requested Garak, and the room went dark, save for the gentle twinkle of the stars out the window.
"I haven't had a sleepover party since I was at school," whispered Julian, relaxing down at last, still just about able to make out the curvature of Garak's silhouette in the starlight, a little softer than usual in his fluid, silken pyjamas, and so beautiful. "Not that I was invited to most of them... and this is hardly a party."
"Next time, we'll just have to plan it under more festive circumstances," replied Garak, rolling onto his back. Next time, Julian repeated in his head. That was pretty to think about. "Wake me up if you need anything. But not if you don't. We're all right, and you, my dear doctor, need to rest. And so do I, frankly."
"Good night, Garak," whispered Julian.
"Good night, my dear."
This was a side of Garak rarely seen, a softness beneath the pretence, the cunning, and the half-truths. It felt like an unearned privilege to bear witness to it; indeed, even more unearned to be its beneficiary. Julian wanted so much to lay bare his feelings, to tell Garak how much he loved him, but not like this: not dampened by exhaustion, and still clothed in the last vestiges of shame.
Instead, he let himself acquiesce to his body's demand for sleep. Soon after he closed his eyes, he felt a sleepy hand reach out, settling atop one of his own with a gentle squeeze, and that was how they fell asleep.
---
It had been some time since Garak had awoken to a bedfellow sleeping beside him; indeed, it took a split second of that fuzzy liminal time between sleep and waking to remember that there was no imminent danger, that Julian was there, and why.
It was all he could do to keep from smoothing his companion's sleep-rumpled hair back into place, stroking the soft skin of his cheek, finding where it met the rasp of day-old human stubble, and leaving a good morning kiss upon his sleep-softened brow, things he had dreamt of doing on more than one occasion — but Garak did not want to wake him. Julian was still in most of his uniform, curled into Garak's bedsheets, half-hugging the pillow. He looked so calm, so peaceful, unbothered by whatever it was that had caused him such distress the night before. It was not how Garak had ever envisioned inviting Julian to go to bed with him (and he did try not to entertain the idea in too much detail, but sometimes his imagination had notions of its own) but he hoped his presence had been of some comfort, even if comfort seemed a vast distance from any of his areas of general expertise — after all, most of his previous attempts at calming a breakdown had been breakdowns of his own, and thereby rarely particularly successful, or as kind as the good doctor deserved.
Garak took a padd with him on the way to do his morning freshening up, and after a few moments of wandering into the correct clandestine corner of the station's servers, found a report of what exactly went down while Julian was off on Starfleet business. He set the padd to one side of the mirror, and got to reading as he brushed his teeth, zhooshed his hair back into place, moisturised, and dressed for the day.
The substance of the report was concerning, to say the least, and most certainly a harbinger of greater difficulties to come. It could not have been easy on the human psyche to experience an acutely realistic simulation of a scenario like that and —
Oh dear. Well, that explained why Julian had come to Garak in particular, and not just hidden himself away in his own quarters, or sought out a Starfleet colleague. The description in the report was as clinical as usual, but Garak knew enough of the experience of feeling someone die, and a close friend, especially — at least, Garak was fairly sure, hopeful, even, that he could consider himself among Julian's close friends by now. Garak knew that these things were not something easily forgotten, not even by someone whose medical training and experience had prepared him for the inevitability of death, or by the fact that it had never actually happened after all.
"Oh, my dear," he said out loud, but hopefully too quietly to wake his slumbering guest. He shrugged on a clean tunic, the extra soft one in the woad blue wool, with the gold stripe and embroidered cuffs.
"Garak?" Julian's sleepy voice called from the other room. Garak hastened to get his trousers done up, slip his slippers back on, and pop back into view before Julian got any notions that he was not still here and very much fine.
"Ah, good morning, doctor," he smiled his most reassuring smile. "I trust you slept well?"
"Better than I expected," replied Julian, untangling himself from the sheets. "Thank you for letting me stay. And sorry about... all that, again."
He could see that Julian, gaze downcast and fidgeting with a corner of the duvet cover, saw his breakdown as a burden imposed upon Garak, but Garak saw precisely what it truly was: it was a great privilege to be entrusted with such secrets, to support and to comfort as best as he could, to hold Julian close as they wept together, shouldering a little of that overwhelming weight until it lightened again. Unearned as it surely was, it was a trust that Garak would treasure.
"My dear, there's nothing to apologise for," Garak assured him, folding last night's pyjamas into a tidy stack atop the laundry pile. "After all, it's not often I get to entertain such a charming guest for breakfast. I hope you don't mind, but... since I woke up early, I decided to indulge in a little light reading to accompany my morning routine."
"Anything interesting?" asked Julian, pulling his boots on, as if he did not already know.
"Oh, quite interesting, in fact." Garak was facing away from him then, tapping a few selections into the replicator. "You surprise me, doctor. Surely you should know I would never go down that easily. That should have been a sign that something was terribly amiss with the world."
There was a pause in the conversation, a stillness from the other side of the room.
"I couldn't save you." Julian's voice was small, resigned.
"Another serious telltale error in the scenario." Garak set the replicated meals down on the table. "There is no doubt in my mind that you would have found a way."
"At the time, it really felt as real as anything," Julian explained. Garak turned to see that his gaze was fixed on an unremarkable spot of carpet. "Now, I know it wasn't, but the memory of it..."
Garak wanted to offer himself again, to clear away the flurry of feelings apparently still fizzing in Julian's heart, but he had no way of knowing if it was wanted. He settled for a customary hand on Julian's shoulder: a comfort, perhaps, but nothing out of the ordinary.
Besides, there was a little part of him, something that sat quietly but persistently in the attic of his heart, that knew that if he were allowed to hold Julian again, he may never let go.
"It was a very bad dream," Garak agreed, reluctantly letting his hand slip from the smooth, unremarkable fabric of Julian's uniform, "but it was only a dream, and dreams will pass. We are, both of us, very much alive and well, and I've replicated you a tea and a sweet bun. I didn't think you'd want a heavy breakfast after last night, but you really should eat something."
Garak sat down, and beckoned Julian to join him.
"You're probably right," replied Julian, tentatively sipping at his red leaf tea. "Is this cardamom?"
"I thought something from the replicator's catalogue of Earth pastries would be the most appropriate choice, considering. How did I do?"
"Mmm," Julian confirmed, having torn off a generous curl of dough, and already begun eating. "It's garnished with some kind of rock sugar. Good texture."
Garak tried it for himself: there was a pleasant warmth to the spicing of it, a camphorous, almost floral element that paired well with the soft spice of the tea. He made a mental note to have it more often.
"And what do you plan to do with your day off?" he asked. "Perhaps you could go treat yourself to a game of smash in the holosuite, then maybe a nice relaxing hot bath, check in with Kukalaka, who I'm sure will be glad to know you're all right, then come meet me for lunch."
"Smash?" Julian stared at him with that endearing expression he made when he had no idea what was going on: a surprisingly common occurrence for someone with such a clearly well-developed intellect. Garak loved that about him. Garak loved him. "Do you mean squash?"
Garak continued carefully unravelling another pillowy morsel of his breakfast bun. "I mean whatever it is I said, my dear."
Julian chuckled at that, shaking his head. "I'm more of a racquetball man, anyway."
"I know," Garak grinned. "But smash is much more fun to say."
Julian sipped his tea. "That all actually sounds like a good idea," he said.
"And you're sure you'll be all right on your own?"
It occurred to Garak belatedly that his suggestions might have seemed like he was moving Julian out the door in order to get on with his day. He had his work to attend to, of course, but nothing that could not be shuffled about if his dear friend was still in need of quiet company, or even if Julian wanted to sit quietly in the studio while Garak went about his embroideries and alterations. There was little more he could offer to ease Julian's heart, but this, just passing the time together, was something he would gladly give in abundance.
"I'll be fine," Julian assured him. "I know you have work to do. Don't let me keep you."
"But you'll still meet me for lunch, won't you?"
Julian stared down at his hands. "If you're still interested in my company, even after..."
Before he could tell himself not to, Garak reached across the table, clasping Julian's hands in his own. "I could never lose interest in your company, my dear."