#kirashir

Feelings 1:

Bareil, as far as I can see, has never called her Major on screen, called her Kira a few times before they got together and then called her Nerys very consistently, notably in The Collaborator. But in this episode, he doesn't call her by name once. But when he wakes up from the brain surgery, this happens:

"Bareil?" "Yes, Major?"

AND I AM SO DEVASTATED FOR HER.

Feelings 2:

Just Kira and Julian's whole interactions with each other:

(For context: Julian usually calls her Major; "Kira!" has been used once when rescuing her, and "Nerys" once when he was flirting. Kira usually calls him "Doctor"; "Julian" has been used on three occasions, once under duress when he was flirting, twice when she was protesting his orders to take a break.)

Julian breaks the news that Bareil has died

"Thank you Doctor. I'm on duty in Ops. Excuse me." "Kira. I think they can get along without you in Ops today."

Kira slides into her usual formality, since she's using work to distract from grief. Julian drops his usual formality and gently calls her by a friendly, but not intimate name.

When he is debating the first brain surgery with Kira and Winn

"I think she's right, Julian. I think Bareil would want the positronic implants." "Kira, if I go through with this, the man who wakes up may not be the man you used to know." "I realise that, but I know how important this is to him, and I know he wouldn't want to just be put into stasis indefinitely, waiting for some medical solution that may never come. Do the surgery, Julian. Let him finish what he started."

Kira begins to his name as she tries to persuade him. Julian continues to call her Kira; almost unthinkingly, he's more concerned about saving Bareil than about Kira's feelings here.

When Bareil is dying.

"It's the other half of his brain, isn't it? But you can still help him can't you? You can replace the other half of his brain with a positronic matrix." "I'm sorry, Nerys, but this is where it ends."  .... "Julian, you can't give up now." "Nerys, if I remove the rest of his brain and replace it with a machine, he may look like Bareil, he may even talk like Bareil, but he won't be Bareil. The spark of life will be gone. He'll be dead. And I'll be the one who killed him."

Kira continues to use his name to cajole him into saving Bareil - You're Julian, you're my friend, why won't you help me, Julian?

And only two characters turned out to have a mutual "subconscious attraction" and proceed to spend a quarter of the episode making out

Can’t Fight This Feeling by jadztone

A continuation of this game. These ficlet are responses to individuals I offered ficlets for.

🤧 Julian Bashir/Kira Nerys for @thoughts-i-have-had-in-passing

(I do like this ship (if it couldn't be Garashir), but I left the "endgameness" of it ambiguous to make it come off more authentically; I couldn't get them to endgame believably within 300 words)

----

Don’t fall in love with him. The thought came from seemingly nowhere, but it wiped the smile from Kira’s lips.

Why would she fall in love with him? she thought, almost angrily. Because it was just the two of them left now? She wasn’t desperate or lonely…

They met to play springball after weeks of talking about it. Julian showed up in a skintight bodysuit, all black, eccentric, yes, but not as outlandish as Miles had described years ago, and then he’d turned around, and she’d seen the animal paw prints emblazoned on his ass cheeks. She’d howled with laughter for so long she’d had to take a holo-pic to explain, but he'd already known. "It’s a popular design on Bajor!" he’d insisted, forcing Kira to sheepishly explain Bajoran animal worshippers of all things to Julian, a subculture of Bajor her government would’ve no doubt preferred never to acknowledge. So they'd abandoned springball and adjourned to Quark’s where Julian filled her in on all of Earth’s eccentric little subcultures.

Julian was fun. She knew that, through Miles and Jadzia, but Kira wasn’t one for role-play or holosuite games. She was serious...

They continued to meet for springball, lunch, drinks. They talked about anything and everything. So what if she missed him all day long? So what if his smile stopped her short?

She used to think Bareil would fix her. That only Shakaar could understood her history of violence. Neither man had been exactly what she’d expected.

Soon she was dressing a certain way for their evenings together…and so was he.

“Is it because we’re both lonely?” she asked one night while nestled in his arms.

He looked at her seriously. “I don’t know,” he said, so gently.

They kissed, slowly, hardly breathing.

Don’t fall in love, she thought.