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The Cardassian theater was exactly as opulent as Julian’s debriefs had portrayed: all stark architecture and dramatic lighting, all designed to focus the senses toward the grand stage. Soaring columns disappeared into shadow above, while below the stage slanted to ensure each theatergoer could see the lessons and devotion each character embodied.
Nobody could be afforded the excuse of missing an instant of their cultural lessons, after all.
The air was thick with conversation and the mingling aroma of scale oils. The play itself: some morality play about that which is placed above the self, the kind of propaganda piece Central Command probably subsidized. Julian barely registered the words echoing from the stage below, though the lead actor's voice carried with impressive resonance through the cavernous space. Something about the military. Something about the state. Something about necessary sacrifices.
Had he expected any differently?
He barely lifted his gaze as he made his way along the private corridor that led to the upper box seats. Years of training had given him that steadiness—the comfort in making himself seem less than he is because nobody suspects the underwhelming; nobody looks twice at the unassuming young man who can’t even meet their gaze. Sloan helped with that too, though he tried not to think about that. At this point he could tell whether Sloan wanted demure, shy glances from under fluttering lashes or bold eye contact, challenging even, just by amount of slackness in his hair.
No one questioned the young "Bajoran cultural liaison" with impeccable paperwork making his way to observe from the private boxes. Secureity had barely glanced at his identification before waving him through. Wouldn’t matter if they had inspected, though. Section 31's work was always flawless.
Julian's heart beat steadily; not racing, not yet. He'd prepared for this. Sloan had prepared him for this. All those hours of scenario work, of low-stakes intel collection, of learning to lock everything away until the mission was complete.
You'll be fine, Sloan had told him that morning, hand warm on the back of Julian's neck. You're ready. Trust me. Trust that I’ve prepared you.
The target sat in Box Seven, alone as predicted. Legate Shorbat: a moderate voice in the Cardassian government. From Julian's brief glimpse through the curtained entrance he could see the man's profile: distinguished, contemplative, completely absorbed in the performance below. A man advocating for de-escalation with the Klingon Empire. A man whose continued existence, Sloan had explained in a lengthy didactic, would destabilize carefully laid plans to keep the Union’s intelligence and decision-making factions quarreling amongst one another.
He's wants to broker more open channels of communication, Sloan had said, passing a padd across the table. Before we're ready. Before we have the strategic advantages we need to confront the possibility of softened Klingon-Cardassian relations. His death will be blamed on hardliners within his own government, will destabilize their moderate faction, will give us the time we need to position our assets.
One life to ensure the safety of millions, should the Union or Empire then turn to the Federation as its new target, Sloan had said, his eyes holding Julian's with absolute certainty. You don’t need an enhanced mind understand those mathematics, do you, Julian?
Julian didn’t.
He drew a slow breath, centering himself the way Sloan taught him. Focus on the mission. Everything else is noise.
The hypospray seemed to weigh down his leg through his pocket, though rationally Julian knew it was no heavier than any other tool he’d carry. The compound inside would trigger a catastrophic cardiac event, virtually undetectable, leaving markers that would read as natural causes to all but the most sophisticated autopsy. And Shorbat was hardly in the best of health to begin with; the investigation would be cursory.
Julian slipped into Box Seven during a particularly loud dramatic declaration from the stage—some wife of a Gul bemoaning his lack of courage, the chorus listing his many supplementary sins. His footsteps were silent. The box was decorated in the fashion favorable among the high-ranking crowds who valued discretion: heavy fabrics, crisp lines, privacy.
Shorbat barely turned his head, assuming it was an attendant. Perhaps someone bringing refreshments, or adjusting the temperature controls. His attention remained on the stage, where the lead actor was clearly building toward the triumphant rejection of temptation.
By the time he registered Julian's presence—by the time he tensed with awareness that something wasn’t quite right—the hypospray was already against his neck.
The hiss was barely audible.
Shorbat's eyes widened. Julian watched the pupils dilate, watched understanding and fear flash across his features in that split second before the compound took effect. One hand came up toward his throat, fingers grasping at nothing, and Julian caught him as he slumped forward.
Don't think. Just do. Complete the mission.
Julian eased him back into his seat, arranging the body to look natural: head tilted back as if sleeping, hands resting on the armrests. Just a tired official who'd dozed off during a lengthy performance. It happened. No one would think anything of it until the play ended and an attendant came to wake him.
He stood, smoothed his jacket, slipped the hypospray back into his back. The smoothness was trained, divorced from conscious thought. His hands were still steady. His breathing was still controlled.
I just killed him.
The thought tried to surface, but Julian pushed it down, locked it away. Later. He could process it later. Right now he needed to leave.
He turned, slipped through the curtains, turned right toward the corridor exit—
And locked eyes with a Cardassian man standing in the doorway of Box Eight.
Time slowed. Julian's heart, which had remained so steady until now, suddenly kicked into overdrive, adrenaline flooding his system.
The Cardassian was middle-aged, unremarkable in civilian clothing. But his posture was wrong for a simple theater patron. Too alert. Too focused. And his eyes—pale and sharp and analytical—took in the scene in the instant it took the curtain to swing closed. Julian standing in Shorbat's box. Shorbat slumped in his chair. The slight strain of something with weight in Julian’s pocket. The tension in Julian's shoulders.
They stared at each other.
Julian's mind was a filing cabinet, thumbing through options. Run. Fight. Bluff. What did he see? How much does he know? Obsidian Order—has to be Obsidian Order, no civilian would be that calm, that still. Do I eliminate him? Could I even—
The Cardassian's head tilted slightly, almost imperceptibly. His eyes narrowed just a fraction, and Julian saw him processing, calculating, coming to conclusions with frightening competency. There was intelligence in those eyes—dangerous intelligence. And something else. Curiosity, perhaps. Or recognition of a fellow player in this game they both played.
Then, inexplicably, the corner of his mouth curved. Not quite a smile. Just an acknowledgment.
I see you, that expression said. I know what you've done. And I'm letting you walk away.
Why?
Julian didn't wait to find out. He moved, walked past the Cardassian with his heart hammering in his chest, his voice in his head screaming at him to run but Sloan’s voice reminding himself to maintain his previous casual pace. He could feel eyes on his back: that penetrating stare following him down the corridor. Waited for the shout, the alarm, the hands grabbing him, the security materializing from nowhere.
But nothing came.
When he glanced back from the end of the corridor, pulse pounding in his ears, the Cardassian was gone. The hall was empty, as if Julian had imagined the entire encounter.
But he hadn't. Those eyes had been real. That moment of being seen, truly seen, was real.
Julian made his way through the theater's service corridors, following the extraction route he'd memorized. His legs felt bandy, numb. His breathing was shallow despite his efforts to control it. By the time he reached the alley where he was to beam up, his hands were finally shaking.
Mission complete. Target eliminated.
#
The ship was dimly lit and the hum of the engines provided a steady, distracting drone as they put distance between themselves and Cardassia Prime. Julian sat in the co-pilot's chair, staring at the viewscreen without really seeing it. Stars stretched and blurred ahead as the Union fell away behind them, and with it, the body of Legate Shorbat cooling in a theater box.
His hands had stopped shaking. That, at least, was something. But the fading adrenaline made space for other sensations to creep in: the memory of Shorbat's warm neck under his hand. The weight of the body as it slumped. Those wide, terrified eyes in the split second before the fear left them.
I killed someone.
The thought kept circling, unavoidable now.
I murdered a man.
"You did well tonight."
Sloan's praise pulled Julian from his spiral. He’d moved from the pilot's seat at some point to stand behind Julian's, and Julian felt the warmth of his reach before hands came to rest on his shoulders.
Those hands. Julian could recognize them by touch alone after these five years: the calluses on the fingertips, the strength in the grip, the uncanny ability of Sloan’s fingers to find and press against his sore points.
"First elimination," Sloan continued, thumbs rubbing small circles at the base of Julian's neck, working at the knots of tension there. "Always the hardest. How do you feel, Mr. Bashir?"
"I'm fine," Julian said automatically. His voice sounded strange to his own ears: flat, distant.
"Julian." Sloan's hands squeezed gently, reproach and comfort in one gesture. "Don't give me the official response. How do you really feel?"
Julian closed his eyes, letting his head drop forward slightly to give Sloan better access. The massage continued, methodical and probing. It would be so easy to lie. To give Sloan what he should be: the perfect asset who felt nothing, who compartmentalized perfectly, who understood and upheld the logic of necessary sacrifice.
But Sloan always knew when he was lying. Had always known, from the beginning.
Even before the beginning. There was a reason Sloan was his handler, after all.
"I feel like I crossed a line I can never uncross," Julian admitted. "Like something changed tonight. Like I'm..."
"Like you're exactly who you need to be," Sloan finished for him. His hands stilled on Julian's shoulders, then slid forward to rest upon Julian's collarbones, a grounding weight. "Like you've proven yourself capable of doing what's necessary. Like you're finally becoming the agent I always knew you could be."
Julian opened his eyes, staring at the blurred stars. "Is that what it takes to become a good agent? Becoming a killer?"
"You're a protector," Sloan corrected gently. "A guardian. Someone willing to make the hard choices that keep millions safe." His breath was warm against Julian's ear. "Someone strong enough to bear that burden."
Julian wanted to believe that. Wanted it desperately, so badly that he could feel that inner core of him become as hard and choking as any other organ in his too-tight body. The alternative—that he'd slowly, gradually, yet eventually let himself be molded into something dark, like it was an inevitable process rather than demonstration of his compromise—was too terrible to contemplate.
"I did what was necessary," Julian agreed finally.
"Yes." Sloan's hands pressed into him, pulling Julian back against the chair, the words feeling like both absolution and damnation. "That's exactly right."
Then Sloan's lips were on his neck, thin and familiar and hungry, and Julian's breath caught in his throat like it did every time. It had started remarkably early, this part of their relationship: shortly after recruitment, long enough after he was placed on a separate track from other section initiates, when resistance to interrogation training had blurred into… something else. When Sloan had stopped being the bringer of pain and became a source of comfort and pleasure and control. When Julian had been overwhelmed and desperate to maintain his self, and Sloan had been there to guide him, to shape him, to want him with that intent that bordered on possessive: intoxicating and terrifying in equal measure.
Sloan's lips traced the line of Julian's throat, placed open-mouth kisses up the way to his jaw. Julian tilted his head back, granting access, breath coming faster. While early on he’d have preferred the body belong to someone else, he soon discovered that the sensations Sloan brought chased away thought, chased away doubt, chased away everything except heat and pressure and the promise of more and more and more until he could almost confuse release for absolution.
"Come here," Sloan murmured against his skin, and Julian let himself be pulled up from the chair. Let Sloan draw him toward the small sleeping berth at the back of the runabout.
They fell together onto the bunk, Sloan's weight pressing Julian down into the mattress, grounding and uncomfortably familiar. His mouth found Julian's, and Julian kissed back with desperate intensity—trying to forget, trying to feel something other than the memory of Shorbat's eyes going wide, going dull, trying to lose himself in pure sensation.
Sloan kissed like he did everything else: with complete control, with learned knowledge of just where to press to make Julian crack, with just enough roughness to bellow that flame tucked deep inside him. One of Sloan's hands buried itself in Julian's hair, angling his head exactly how he wanted it. The other slid under his shirt, grasping inelegantly at his waist, then chest.
Julian arched into clumsy touch, his own hands clutching at Sloan's shoulders despite everything, pulling him closer, needing more contact, more sensation, more of anything that would drown out the thoughts still circling—
Sloan’s tongue swept into Julian's mouth, claiming and possessing, and Julian opened for him despite the faint curl in his gut at the taste. Sloan mouth always carried that bitter tang of replicated coffee that never quite covered some faint persistent staleness, but this time the taste was working in Julian’s favor. If he focused on the staleness hard enough it could distract him from—
"That's it," Sloan breathed into his mouth, grinding down in a slow, deliberate roll that made Julian's eyes flutter shut. "Let it out. Let it all out. Let me shape that rough edge into something refined. Something perfect."
They moved together in a long-established rhythm: Julian writhing beneath Sloan like his desperation was another raw material to mold, Sloan controlling the pace, drawing out Julian's pleasure and guilt and need until his body blurred them together the way it learned to in that Section 31 cell. Sloan's mouth traveled from Julian's lips to his jaw to his throat, teeth and tongue marking a path.
Julian's fingers tangled in Sloan’s shirt, pulling him closer, needing more contact, more sensation, more of anything, small sounds slipping out when he couldn't quite suppress them. Each roll of Sloan's hips sent friction sparking through his nervous system, made him forget for precious moments that he'd just committed murder.
"Perfect," a murmur, Sloan’s lips brushing the shell of Julian's ear, sending shivers. "So perfect under me."
The praise. He could let himself focus on that, let it wash over him until he was sinking in it, drowning in it. He turned his head, captured Sloan's mouth again. Oh, the revulsion it churned in him—he could certainly focus on that, the heat, the insistent words and grind that had his cock straining against his pants, leaking in helpless response. Sloan grasped his jaw, wrenched him just hard enough to make Julian gasp, and then Sloan was controlling the kiss again, tongue delving deep, taking what he wanted, giving Julian what he needed.
"Did everything go smoothly?" Sloan asked, pulling back just enough to speak. His thumb brushed across Julian’s kiss-swollen lips, pressing just firmly enough to demand focus. "Any complications I should know?"
Julian's mind flashed to the Cardassian in the doorway. Those sharp, knowing eyes. That slight tilt of the head. The way he'd simply... watched. Let Julian walk away.
Who was he? Why didn’t he—
"No," Julian heard himself say, his voice rough. "No complications."
"Good." Sloan’s hips rolled again, making Julian shudder, and his hand returned its journey down, fingers working at Julian's waistband. A sigh, almost fond. "You're so good, Julian. Everything I knew you could be."
He got Julian's trousers open quickly, hand wrapping around Julian's cock with just the right amount of pressure: firm and unyielding, stroking from base to tip with enough drag to make Julian's hips buck. Precome slicked Sloan's palm as he stroked him steadily and Julian tried to choke down a strangled sound before it could escape.
Sloan's hand paused in its stroking and he brought it up to Julian's lips instead.
"Shh," he soothed, fingers coming up to cover Julian's mouth gently, pressing against his lips in a gesture firm and silencing. "Quiet, now. Let me take care of you."
They didn’t leave Julian’s mouth. Ah. That.
Julian parted his lips obediently, and there was a moment where he could see Sloan’s eyes darken before he pushed his fingers inside, scoping Julian's mouth in shallow, deliberate thrusts. The taste of himself—salty, musky—flooding Julian's tongue.
Julian worked to keep from gagging as Sloan pressed deeper, fingers brushing the back of his tongue with heavy intent, testing his limits as he did in everything else. He swallowed around them, saliva pooling, wetting Sloan's hand further as his throat constricted in reflexive protest. Sloan's eyes narrowed at the gag—the way Julian's eyes watered but held his gaze, the faint hitch in his breath—and Julian knew that look, would have had to be blind to miss how Sloan relished these moments.
Finally, satisfied with the slickness, Sloan withdrew his fingers, trailing saliva across Julian's chin before wrapping his now-wet hand back around Julian's cock. The glide was smoother, horribly slicker, and Julian's eyes fluttered closed as Sloan stroked him, building pleasure with the same singular focus he applied to everything: twisting his wrist at the head, thumb circling the sensitive slit, drawing out whimpers. Each stroke sent sparks of sensation through Julian's nervous system with that handler’s touch that was always just shy of too knowing, too paternal, chasing away thought, drowning out guilt and doubt—
With each spark he saw the Cardassian'. Felt the weight of that knowing stare.
I should tell him, part of his mind whispered. I’m supposed to tell him.
But another part—a newer part—that part whispered something different.
A secret. You have a secret.
The thought sent a shudder through Julian that had nothing to do with Sloan's hand on his cock.
Sloan's mouth was at his ear then, breathing words of praise between kisses pressed to his temple, his cheekbone, his jaw. "So good for me. Always so good."
The words should have disturbed him. Instead, they made Julian's breath catch, made heat coil tighter in his belly, made him turn his head to seek Sloan's mouth again even as a faint nausea lurked in the pits of his gut.
They kissed messily then, Julian's care fast fragmenting as Sloan's hand worked him toward the edge—ever-faster, the obscene sound of skin on skin filling the small space. Sloan swallowed his gasps and moans, his own breathing growing heavier. Julian could feel Sloan's arousal pressed against his hip, hard and insistent, grinding against him in time with the strokes, but Sloan made no move to free himself, focused entirely on Julian's unraveling.
"Come on," Sloan murmured against his temple, his hand twisting just right at the head of Julian's cock and making more stars blur behind his eyelids. "Let go. Show me how good you feel. Show me what I do to you."
Julian's hands fisted in Sloan's shirt as his orgasm crashed through him, white-hot and overwhelming. He buried his face in Sloan's shoulder to muffle the sound, his whole body shaking as Sloan worked him through it, pushing him through until Julian was whimpering from overstimulation.
When the waves finally began to subside, Julian lay trembling, boneless and spent. Sloan's hand gentled on him then, soothing now rather than stimulating, and his other hand stroked through Julian's hair, carding through the damp strands.
"There," Sloan said softly. "Better?"
Julian nodded, not trusting his voice.
Sloan shifted, reaching for something—a cloth from storage—and cleaned Julian with surprising thoroughness, his touch lingering on Julian's spent cock, tracing the softening length as if admiring his work, before settling back beside him. The berth was too narrow for both of them really, but Sloan made it work, pulling Julian close. So very close.
Julian could feel Sloan still hard against his hip, but he made no move to seek his own release.
"You did well tonight," Sloan said again, and Julian felt the words rumble through the chest against his ear. "Your first real test of everything we've built together. And you were flawless."
Was I?
But he didn't ask it. Instead, he pressed closer, breathing in the familiar sweat and sex, and let those hands touch him.
Behind closed eyes, he could still see that Cardassian's face. Those sharp blue eyes. That almost-smile of secrets and recognition and answers to questions Julian hadn’t dared ask in years.
For years now, Sloan had known everything. Had controlled everything. Had shaped Julian exactly how he wanted him: capable, calculating, compromising. Every aspect of Julian's life had become transparent, every decision influenced by his careful guidance. Even this—the sex, the so-called moments of intimacy—was orchestrated to bind Julian more tightly to him.
But this... this one thing: Sloan didn't know.
He had looked Sloan in the eyes and lied. And Sloan—for the first time—hadn't seen through it.
The thought was intoxicating. Dangerous. Exhilarating.
"What are you thinking about?" Sloan asked, his fingers stilling on Julian's arm. "You're smiling."
Julian opened his eyes, tilted his head back to meet Sloan's gaze. He let his smile widen, let it become something pleased and satisfied and adoring—the expression Sloan expected to see. The expression of a well-fucked operative, grateful for guidance and praise.
"Just that you were right," he said, reaching up to trace Sloan's jaw with his fingertips. "About everything. About me being ready. About being able to do what’s needed." He leaned in, brushing his lips against Sloan's. "About becoming who I need to be."
Sloan's answering smile was warm with approval and satisfaction and desire. "Of course I was. I'm always right about you, Julian. I know you better than you know yourself."
Do you? Julian thought, even as he kissed Sloan again, deep and slow and convincing. Are you sure about that?
In the back of his mind, he held onto the image of the Cardassian like a talisman.
I have a secret, Julian thought again, and felt that same dangerous thrill. Something that's mine. Something you don't know.
His smile widened against Sloan’s lips.