tin snips

Next to him, hunched over in the driver's seat and barely visible except for the flicker of streetlights, Miles growls, "This is a drive."

As Julian stared at Garak, who'd composed himself somewhat and was now sitting semi-calmly at the table, hands folded neatly, he felt it didn't seem nearly long enough. Then again, Garak was glaring at him. Seventeen minutes with an angry, defensive Garak might just feel like forever.

Garak was all greys: his high-collared tunic, his trousers, even his shoes were grey. No colours, no flash, just bright blue eyes in a wash of grey. He almost didn't look like himself at all, and Julian blinked and swallowed and still, even through everything— Hello! Hello, I see you, I love you— he was almost stupid enough to open his mouth—

Garak blinked, exhaled, and said conversationally, "She's actually quite a pleasant person."

Ah. Okay. He gulped down the romance, hoping he wouldn't get heartburn. Let’s fence, then.

—down the stairs, struggling against the arm of the guard until he’d almost slipped out of his hold and then another guard had grabbed him, two Cardassians to hold one Augment, and they’d pulled him along the hallway (his feet scrabbling on the stone floor) and through a door and he’d been thrown into a cell, forcefield flashing into red life behind him, a small bench to sit on, a small fresher, completely exposed and no way out—

Here it was very, very bright.

Probably to be uncomfortable, he imagined. The guards had put on small red visors. It was probably blinding to them. To him it was just irritating. So that was something. Take that, Cardassian jail. You won’t defeat me that easily.

He found he was sitting down, leaning forward, and very suddenly had to suppress a powerful urge to be sick.

My own fault. All of it, my own fault.

It had seemed so simple, once he was off the Hamalki ship: make himself presentable, go to the Central Plaza, find Garak, and fix things - one way or another. And it had been. He’d tidied himself up quickly in a small washroom in the spaceport. He’d force-fed himself something from what was probably a fast-food restaurant; it had been unrecognizable and mostly tasteless. He’d rented a small orienter from a self-service stall. The air outside the spaceport had been unexpectedly pleasant, not the sauna heat he'd grimly expected - but of course it was winter here now, wasn't it: a comfortable sixteen degrees Celsius, and he'd stepped outside and blinked up at the sun, surrounded by side-eyeing Cardassians in parkas. There had been little trees, and a train stop. It had been so weirdly, strangely… normal.

It had only taken one train ride and a short walk to reach the Central Plaza. There hadn’t even been restrictions on entry at the Plaza, at least not to reach the first few government-related levels, and that was all he’d needed anyway. As he’d walked into the hall, he’d been furious: at Garak, yes, but also at himself, because after all this worrying and self-recrimination and what-if, all he’d had to do was get here and Cardassia had just been another place, no barrier at all, it had been so easy—

He stared at the poured-plascrete floor of the cell, forehead rested on his hands, arms braced on his knees. Right. Easy.

It was very hot in here. It hadn't been so bad in the huge, airy great hall, but here it was… close. Not much in the way of air currents. Just him in his uniform, sitting there, quietly sweating.

One of the guards had left, no doubt off to harass other idiots. The other had seated themself at a terminal that faced the cells and begun working away at God-knew-what. They didn’t seem very interested in Julian. That was probably a good thing. It didn’t seem likely that it was good to be interesting in Cardassian jail.

Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. The horrible spaceport food had been bad going down; he couldn’t imagine it would be better coming up. Oh, God. What an embarrassment I am…

He curled into himself, sweaty and tired, adrenaline and lack of sleep catching up with him.

Time passed. The guard pecked away at their terminal, occasionally making and taking calls. The lights stayed bright. Julian eventually settled himself on the little bench and tried to rest, letting his eyes slip shut. He couldn't sleep, but he managed to drift a little, and the noises of the holding area floated by him mostly unnoticed: doors opening and closing, the steps of people in other cells, someone's fresher activating, the guard murmuring…

He snapped to wakefulness, eyes opening, when he heard the click of heeled shoes, and a voice he had not expected to hear again—

"Good day, Guard."

"Secretary," replied the guard politely, also sounding a bit surprised; Secretary Nuril was not apparently someone who spent a lot of time in the basement dungeons. "Can I help you?"

"I need to talk to that one," and she was pointing at him. "Alone."

More surprise in the guard's voice now. "Secretary?"

"The discussion will be above your clearance, Guard. I wouldn't want you to compromise your opportunities by accidentally overhearing it."

The guard was frowning. "It's not safe for you to be alone with a prisoner, Secretary—"

"Unless you have Indigo-clearance personnel tucked away around here somewhere, I don't see much of an alternative. Do you?" Nuril's voice was quite complacent.

"I won't do anything," said Julian, knowing he shouldn't talk and for some reason not being able to not do it anyway. "I don't want to hurt anyone, I just want to talk to—"

Nuril wheeled on one heel, staring at him, and he shut up.

The compromise the guard arranged was a small interrogation room just off the cells, with Julian in a very uncomfortable chair and Nuril staring down at him across a small table, and the guard bowing themself out with repeated assurances that they would be observed - yes, Secretary, with sound off, yes, understood…

Julian looked up at Nuril, who glared down at him—

And closed her eyes, and sighed, and dropped herself into the interrogator's chair with a put-upon hand over her eyes. She had long red nails, Julian noticed. Claws, really; one of the few Cardassians he'd seen who didn't file them into polite nubs.

"Secretary, I—"

"Shut. Up." She sighed another elongated sigh and dug into a little purse slung at her side, pulled out a small drawstring pouch, and tipped out something round and reddish into her hand. She took it between thumb and forefinger, claws clicking, and stared at it meditatively.

"Do you know what this is, Lieutenant?"

Um. "No. Should I?"

She ignored him. "This is a kobel nut."

"It looks very—"

"It's sweet. It melts in your mouth. It calms you down. It's not refined to suck kobel, but it's hard to stop, because it's addictive. I've been trying to quit." She frowned. "The brand I like best is Golet. Their kobel comes in a variety of flavours. My favourite is baked-lafa. This one is mulvan. Not as good, but I don't have any of the ones I like with me, because I haven't bought any, because through force of will I actually haven't sucked kobel in three weeks."

Staring at him, furious, she popped the nut into her mouth and sucked at it loudly, then rolled it into her cheek. She pointed at its bulge and said indistinctly, "This is your fault."

There didn't seem to be much to say to that.

Nuril looked at him, waiting, then dropped her head into her hands and made a sound of growling deep-throated irritation. "So, Lieutenant," and she peered up at him between her long red claws, "are you actually mentally deficient in some way? Or just incredibly selfish?"

Ah. All right. "Honestly, a bit of both."

"Of course you are." She rubbed at her eyes. "Or, perhaps, you think you're better than everyone else."

"That, too."

"The only one who truly understands the best way to manage a situation."

"Sometimes."

"The only one who can see the path we should take to move forward. The one who won't listen to anyone or consider that someone might have a better idea. The one who takes things into his own hands despite the advice of his superiors every single time."

Um. "I think you might be projecting—"

"I don't think so, Lieutenant," said Nuril around her kobel nut. "I think I'm exactly right. I think you are going to keep circumventing blocks, and inverting rules, and making everyone's life very irritating until you get whatever it is you want. Aren't you."

Julian shifted in his chair. It was uncomfortable. On purpose, I'm sure. "That's my plan, yes."

Nuril scratched idly at a forehead ridge with her claws, indenting the flesh slightly, and looked at him coolly for a moment, then: "Why?"

"I'm not sure it's your business—"

"His business is my business, Lieutenant. Top to bottom. That's how it works now. And you're here on your business, not on his."

He felt his nostrils flaring; he kept himself quiet, somehow.

"What benefit is it to him that you are here? What will improve his situation? What will he get from your presence? Does he need another insect buzzing in his hear?" She scratched a claw across the table, making a little metallic noise. "He has many of those already. Many, many people would like the ear of the Minister for Accountability. And you're… just more noise."

His fingernails were digging into his palms. "Am I?"

"So far you seem to be," said Nuril, and clicked her claws against the table in a quick rap rap rap. "He told you that things between you were over."

Julian hated that she'd read that letter. "He did, yes."

"Is there some reason that you don't believe him?"

"He's a liar. You know him, so you know that."

Nuril put up her brow ridges. "That's a very forward thing to say about a Cardassian government official, Lieutenant."

"He's not that to me. He's my friend. He's someone I know very well. Better than he knows himself, sometimes."

"Oh, certainly. You strike me as very insightful," said Nuril drily.

"I'm serious. I… we've been in tight spaces together, and I know how he reacts, and he knows me, I— Listen. You do know him, and I think you care about him."

Nuril didn't say anything, watching him.

"Do you know who he was, before?"

More nothing, more cool eyes, slitted pupils reflecting little. "What has that to do with why you're here?"

"All right. This is probably an overstep, but…"

"Oh, this should be good."

"But he needs to be with people who care about him. Who will protect him—"

"I'm sure he can protect himself."

"Who will protect him from himself."

Nuril tilted her head, and rolled the nut from one cheek to another. "Self-destructive, is he?"

"No! No, just— he'll do anything. Anything, for what he thinks is right. It may not be what you or I would think is right, but if it's what he thinks needs to be done… he'll do it. Even if it's absolutely not going to end well. Even at the risk of his own life."

"It's his life," said Nuril, resting her head on her hand and looking at him.

"All right! All right, fine, look at it as— as resource preservation, then! Is he good for Cardassia? Is he doing a good job?"

"The Minister is overseeing many projects in an effective way," said Nuril, "and although the current situation in the city is non-ideal, I would say things are moving in a direction I approve of." There was a dry undertone to her voice, and Julian thought he understood: no one is getting away with anything much lately.

"All right, good— then listen. I imagine this is a strain on him. And Garak can take a lot of strain. But eventually something will snap, and then… it can go wrong for him. Quite quickly."

Nuril popped her kobel nut out between her lips for a moment, then tucked it away again. "You've seen this happen, I take it."

"More than once."

"But he's still here."

"Because I was there!"

"You do think quite a lot of yourself, don't you, Lieutenant," said Nuril, and Julian had to bite his lip, had to pull his feelings in and breathe for a moment before he said, as calmly as he could, with as much authority as he could muster in a sweaty uniform in an interrogation room in a place where he was no one at all:

"I will take care of him. Whether he wants me to or not. I've done it before and I'll do it again. And you have my word on that."

Nuril rolled her eyes. "The word of a Starfleet Lieutenant—"

"The word of me," said Julian, calm and plain and very, very certain. "And whoever you may think I am, I think you know that I follow through on my promises."

He meant it. All through him, he meant it.

Secretary Nuril stared at him, hands in front of her on the table, fingers interlaced, then smiled at him. A small smile. A very irritated, last-nerve kind of smile. But definitely a smile.

"Do you know something, Lieutenant Bashir: you are very irritating." She pointed at him, like a teacher making a point: "You are the most irritating person I've met in some time. You deserve some kind of small award, like in little-school: 'Most Irritating Person'. But you'd probably like that."

Julian looked back, trying on a little smile of his own, and Nuril rapped her claws pensively against the table, then nodded once sharply: "You deserve each other. The two most irritating, self-righteous, know-it-all, obstinate people I've ever met… You can bother each other, and perhaps that way neither of you will bother me."

"Thank you," said Julian, and Nuril groaned out loud and said, "Shut up," so he did. She tapped quickly at an armband communicator, stood, looked at him impatiently: "Are you coming or not?"

Outside in the main cell area, the guard looked up as Nuril clicked over to him. "Secretary?"

"He'll come with me. Release him to my recognizance, clearance code Atvik-HetUl-Four-Five-Green.”

The guard looked extremely surprised. "Secretary—"

"I should not need to repeat myself," said Secretary Nuril, suddenly very mild, almost pleasant, and Julian nearly found himself feeling sorry for the guard, who appeared to have had an acute attack of indigestion.

"Understood," said the guard, tone slightly choked.

Out they swept, Julian trotting along to keep up with Nuril who was making very good time despite her heels, out and along a hall and through a key-coded door into a stairwell and up the stairs, and Julian couldn't wait, had to know—

"Where are we going?"

"Where you shouldn't. Stop talking."

"But I—"

"You are just like him. For the love of my sanity, stop talking."

He kept his mouth shut and focused on climbing endless stairs, which turned into endless turns through endless hallways until Nuril finally stopped at a door which looked like every other door. She tapped on it, waited, nodded, unlocked it with a code. Inside was…

An empty conference room. Which, it turned out, looked on Cardassia much like a conference room everywhere else. A table, chairs, some kind of little refreshment station in the corner. No windows, which was a bit concerning, and a camera blinking down at them from one corner of the ceiling, which was more so.

Nuril saw him looking at it and pursed her lips. "Offline. Because I'm not an idiot."

He didn't say anything. There didn't seem to be much point.

"Sit," said Nuril, and pointed at the chairs. She fiddled with the refreshment station until it produced some kind of pastry and a cup of, surprisingly, coffee, both of which she slid to him down the table. "Eat. You look like pudding with a skin on it."

Julian blinked, stomach churning. "I, uh… I don't—"

Baleful exhaustion on Nuril's face, and Julian gulped and bit into the pastry. It had little fruits in it. Not awful, actually.

Now Nuril seated herself in one of the rather plush chairs around the long table. She rocked the chair slightly back and forth, apparently waiting, and sucked angrily at her kobel nut, in between slurping sips of her own coffee. Another cup steamed next to her, apparently extraneous. She was waiting. Julian waited too, carefully, eating his pastry and drinking his coffee-analogue, still half-expecting guards to burst in, but there was… nothing. Nothing but waiting in a dim conference room. It was strange. It was banal.

And then he heard footsteps in the hallway, a cadence he recognized, and a knock at the door in a quick twice-repeated rhythm—

"Ah," said Nuril, watching his face. She smiled a sideways smile around the bulge of the nut and rose from her seat to unlock the door.

Garak came through it, rubbing his eyes, posture tired and irritated; "Nuril," he said, leaning on a chair, "this day will be the death of me," and then dropped his hands from his eyes, looked over, saw Julian—

Julian had seen Garak surprised before, but only for a given degree of the emotion: mildly surprised, say. Slightly irritated. Taken aback. Perhaps even aghast, once.

This was none of those. This was flabbergasted. Enormous blue eyes, dropped jaw, gaping mouth - Julian could have sworn Garak's hair stood slightly on end as he jerked upright with clenched hands—

—down the stairs, struggling against the arm of the guard until he’d almost slipped out of his hold and then another guard had grabbed him, two Cardassians to hold one Augment, and they’d pulled him along the hallway (his feet scrabbling on the stone floor) and through a door and he’d been thrown into a cell, forcefield flashing into red life behind him, a small bench to sit on, a small fresher, completely exposed and no way out—

Here it was very, very bright.

Probably to be uncomfortable, he imagined. The guards had put on small red visors. It was probably blinding to them. To him it was just irritating. So that was something. Take that, Cardassian jail. You won’t defeat me that easily.

He found he was sitting down, leaning forward, and very suddenly had to suppress a powerful urge to be sick.

My own fault. All of it, my own fault.

It had seemed so simple, once he was off the Hamalki ship: make himself presentable, go to the Central Plaza, find Garak, and fix things - one way or another. And it had been. He’d tidied himself up quickly in a small washroom in the spaceport. He’d force-fed himself something from what was probably a fast-food restaurant; it had been unrecognizable and mostly tasteless. He’d rented a small orienter from a self-service stall. It had only taken one train ride and a short walk to reach the Central Plaza. There hadn’t even been restrictions on entry at the Plaza, at least not to reach the first few government-related levels, and that was all he’d needed anyway.

As he’d walked into the hall, he’d been furious: at Garak, yes, but also at himself, because after all this worrying and self-recrimination and what-if, all he’d had to do was get here and it had been so easy—

He stared at the poured-plascrete floor of the cell, forehead rested on his hands, arms braced on his knees. Right. Easy.

One of the guards had left, no doubt off to harass other idiots. The other had seated themself at a terminal that faced the cells and begun working away at God-knew-what. They didn’t seem very interested in Julian. That was probably a good thing. It didn’t seem likely that it was good to be interesting in Cardassian jail.

Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. The horrible spaceport food had been bad going down; he couldn’t imagine it would be better coming up. Oh, God. What an embarrassment I am…

He curled into himself, adrenaline and lack of sleep catching up with him.

Time passed. The guard pecked away at their terminal, occasionally making and taking calls. The lights stayed bright. Julian eventually settled himself on the little bench and tried to rest, letting his eyes slip shut. He couldn't sleep, but he managed to drift a little, and the noises of the holding area floated by him mostly unnoticed: doors opening and closing, the steps of people in other cells, someone's fresher activating, the guard murmuring…

He snapped to wakefulness, eyes opening, when he heard the click of heeled shoes, and a voice he had not expected to hear again—

"Good day, Guard."

"Secretary," replied the guard politely, also sounding a bit surprised; Secretary Nuril was not apparently someone who spent a lot of time in the basement dungeons. "Can I help you?"

"I need to talk to that one," and she was pointing at him. "Alone."

More surprise in the guard's voice now. "Secretary?"

"The discussion will be above your clearance, Guard. I wouldn't want you to compromise your opportunities by accidentally overhearing it."

The guard was frowning. "It's not safe for you to be alone with a prisoner, Secretary—"

"Unless you have Indigo-clearance personnel tucked away around here somewhere, I don't see much of an alternative. Do you?" Nuril's voice was quite complacent.

"I won't do anything," said Julian, knowing he shouldn't talk and for some reason not being able to not do it anyway. "I don't want to hurt anyone, I just want to talk to—"

Nuril wheeled on one heel, staring at him, and he shut up.

The compromise the guard arranged was a small interrogation room just off the cells, with Julian in a very uncomfortable chair and Nuril staring down at him across a small table, and the guard bowing themself out with repeated assurances that they would be observed - yes, Secretary, with sound off, yes, understood…

Julian looked up at Nuril, who glared down at him—

And closed her eyes, and sighed, and dropped herself into the interrogator's chair with a put-upon hand over her eyes. She had long red nails, Julian noticed. Claws, really.

"Secretary, I—"

"Shut. Up." She sighed an elongated sigh and dug into a little purse slung at her side, pulled out a small drawstring pouch, and tipped out something round and reddish into her hand. She took it between thumb and forefinger, claws clicking, and stared at it meditatively.

"Do you know what this is, Lieutenant?"

Um. "No. Should I?"

She ignored him. "This is a kobel nut."

"It looks very—"

"It's sweet. It melts in your mouth. It calms you down. It's not refined to suck kobel, but it's hard to stop, because it's addictive. I've been trying to quit."  She frowned. "The brand I like best is Golet. Their kobel comes in a variety of flavours. My favourite is baked-lafa. This one is mulvan. Not as good, but I don't have any of the ones I like with me, because I haven't bought any, because through force of will I actually haven't sucked kobel in three weeks."

And still, even through everything— Hello! Hello, I see you, I love you, and he was almost stupid enough to open his mouth—

Garak blinked, exhaled, and said conversationally, "She's actually quite a pleasant person."

Ah. Okay. He gulped down the romance, hoping he wouldn't get heartburn. Let’s fence, then.

"Nuril, you mean?”

“The one and only.”

“Ah. Well, we've mostly only communicated by letter. Perhaps she's different in real life.”

“Perhaps,” said Garak. "She's almost unflappable, you know. But you do seem to leave quite the impression on her. ”

Hmm. “That’s nice to hear.” Probably not.

“Mmm,” said Garak, whose tone confirmed the probably not. “Do you know, I would imagine she's not at all happy with you at the moment. She was three weeks off kobel nut, you know.”

"So she said. Sounds like a nasty habit."

"Oh, it is. Easy to pick up, and very difficult to get rid of," said Garak, tilting his head, dropping the friendly, casual demeanour in an instant: "And now, Doctor, you are going to tell me: What are you doing here?"

And time stretched for Julian as he realized: this was it. This was now. So many months waiting and hoping for now, and it was here, and he could say, I came to find you. He could say, you bastard, where have you been? He could say, please give me one more chance. He could say, I love you, don’t you love me?

All of these would be very wrong things to say to Minister of Accountability Elim Garak, whose vulnerability appeared to be at an all time low.

All right. Drop it all. Start over. Watch me, Tozen!

“Well,” he said, shifting in the too-plush chair, “I’ve wanted to spend more time on Cardassia. My last visit here was so brief.” Garak didn't say anything, so he plowed on: “And I thought I’d start with sight-seeing the capital buildings. The Ministerial Hall is really very lovely, although I didn’t get to spend as much time there as I would have liked either. They took me downstairs before I got to poke around and put me in a cell. At least Cardassian jail wasn't as bad as I thought it might be.” He smiled: please smile. Please laugh. Some inkling that the Garak he’d thought he’d known was in there…

And Garak did laugh, but it wasn't the laugh he’d wanted. It was Garak’s horrible dry-leaf laugh, no humour in it at all: "That was not,” he said, “a Cardassian jail. That was a Cardassian holding cell. A very nice Cardassian holding cell. You see,” and he stood and started to pace the conference room, and Julian watched him as he moved back and forth, back and forth, “no one would dare take you to Cardassian jail. Not you.”

“Is that so?”

“Oh, I assure you it is. Not when you’re in some way linked with me.”

“They’re afraid of you?”

“What do you think?”

“That must be nice for you. I’m sure you missed it.” Which wasn’t a nice thing to say, but he wasn’t feeling very nice right now.

Garak took it in stride: “It has its conveniences, certainly. But maintaining the proper respect also has its requirements, one of which is that one can have no liabilities. A person with liabilities is a person who can be manipulated, you see. And here you are, clearly involved with me in some way, shouting loudly in the middle of the Ministerial Hall that you simply must see Secretary Nuril, who is known to work closely with me, and do you see,” as Garak stopped dead and stared at him, coldly and calmly furious, “how you are already a liability to me?”

“Garak, I—“

“You’ve been on this world, what, a day?”

He swallowed. "Three hours.”

“Impressive. And you are already destabilizing my situation.”

Julian narrowed his eyes. “If I can do that in three hours then it isn’t very damned stable, is it.”

“Nothing is stable on a world that is changing this rapidly, Doctor,” said Garak, still furious and still so calm. “Nothing can be taken for granted. I need to establish that I am something that is absolutely stable. That nothing can be slipped by me. That there is no way to have leverage over me. And now your presence here threatens everything I am trying to accomplish.”

Oh, that was hyperbolic even for Garak. “My mere existence on Cardassian soil—“

“Is exactly what I was trying to prevent! Exactly what I wanted to avoid. Sentiment. Exposure. I cannot afford to have secrets, Doctor, and you are far too enticing a secret to conceal for long. There is no way you can be here without compromising—"

"Do you still love me?"

Oh, God. He'd said it. Out loud. He'd shouted it, actually, half-rising from his seat with hands braced on the table, voice sharp enough to cut through Garak's diatribe, and now it was just hanging there between them and anything could happen—

And of all the reactions Julian had imagined over the months of silence - impassioned affirmation, shock, sadness, amusement - Garak, full of surprises, still came up with one that he hadn't expected:

He looked at Julian like he was an absolute idiot.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"It—" Damn! "Garak, it has everything to do with everything, I'm only here because—"