#the askbox

one josh levy meal coming your way!!! in fact!!! you get a BONUS josh because he’s my actual favourite who i like of my own accord instead of my stupid brain worms telling me to.

- @islandstealer2763

@pillow-bfdi-rp (?)

- @thel0nelinessnumber

FUCK OFF!

My artfight has my three earliest OCs: Valerie, Goggly, and Rosie.

Valerie is a DW OC, and the other two are object OCs with actual names!!! Rosie's actually a tulip, and Goggly is a nickname that Gale prefers. For important notes, Goggly's nonbinary and both Goggly and Rosie are children and friends with each other.

for the fic ask game, may I humbly request POV flip of the confession scene in Irises?

(I don't think I've left a comment on that fic of yours, but I adore it. It's so good. everything I've read of yours has been phenomenal❤️❤️)

OUGH thank you, anon!! for the comment, and for the ask. here it is: i hope you enjoy :3c

It’s a shri-tal, of sorts.

Certainly his dear doctor is the only one he’d allow to take it. And in many ways, this is his last, worst secret: that in the end, with all of the blood staining his hands, he had still chosen Julian Bashir over everything else. 

The reaction is a reality Garak had been preparing himself for since—well, probably since he’d coughed up the first perek petal at the realization that Julian would be staying on Cardassia after the bombing; Garak had always known this is how it would end. And, just as he’d predicted: first comes the shock. After that, he knows, will come the sorrow, as Julian realizes how doomed the endeavor was from the start, and then—and this is the part that Garak has been bracing himself for—there will surely be pity. It’s why he’s waited so long: the selfish desire to preserve what they had for as long as possible. 

But instead: “No—no, I don’t understand,” Julian says. He pushes away from the bed to instead pace beside it, shoving a hand into his already messy hair even as he mutters, “Of course there’s the aspect of perception, but how is it possible—”

“Doctor,” Garak tries, more hesitant than he’d like. After all the time he’d spent imagining this situation, this is an unexpected development. 

And then: Julian’s gaze snaps back to him, and Garak’s breath—what little of it he can actually draw—catches in the painful tangle of his chest, because he’s never seen his dear doctor so visibly furious. 

“Garak,” he cries, voice rising. “I’ve been on Cardassia for years. We live together! How in the fucking universe could you not know I love you back?!”

Garak’s eyes go wide. He cannot speak, and in that silence Julian throws his hands up.

“I can’t believe you!” he shouts. “I’ve never been angrier with anyone in my life! You almost let yourself die for me?!”

As if there would be anyone else worth dying for, but that thought is a minor isle of calm in the sea of uncertainty that Garak has found himself in. “My dear—Julian,” Garak says, when he can say anything at all. “You’re serious.”

“Of course I’m serious! Good lord, Garak!” And then, of all impossibilities, Julian is climbing into the biobed. He straddles Garak’s hips, and takes his face into his hands, bowing his head to press his warm, smooth brow to Garak’s chufa, and—it’s very nearly too much to bear, even as Julian keeps talking. “I thought I was going to lose you,” he hisses, “And it turns out it was all my own fault?!”

And now, at last, Garak finds his voice fully, because he cannot allow that to stand. “It was not your fault,” he whispers, pressing a hand to Julian’s cheek. “You did everything in your power to get me to accept treatment—to tell you. You know very well my own obstinance is to blame, along with my inability to conceptualize—”

“If you insinuate you don’t believe me, Garak, I will not be responsible for my actions,” Julian warns. “I may very well stab you.”

Garak would laugh, if he was capable of doing so; as it is, all he can manage is a weak chuckle against—oh. A fairly significant sensation in his chest, actually. He’d not even been aware of it himself, until this moment, but: “Oh, I believe you.” 

Even realizing what’s about to happen, it takes all his willpower to take his hand from Julian’s face and ease the human away. “In fact, I believe I’m going to prove exactly that momentarily,” he adds, with his last vestiges of control, and Julian—of course, Julian understands immediately. His eyes widen, and then he’s scrambling off the bed; Garak would mourn the loss of his warmth, but in the moment, all he can really manage is feeling desperately grateful when a biohazard container is shoved in front of him. 

Perek romances are popular, but they tend to leave this part out; it’s ugly, and painful, and entirely undignified, hacking up the tangle of bloody flowers that had taken up residence in his chest. But Julian stays close, running one warm, broad hand over Garak’s spine, and that, at least, helps.

“It is nice to have proof, at least,” Julian mutters, distantly. “And now I know why you were coughing up Earth flowers as well as Cardassian ones. I’m writing a paper about this, Garak, just you try and stop me. Comparative biogenic botanical manifestation in cross-species Perek Syndrome causation.”