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doctor_tailor2011-12-08 06:16 pm
crowdog66) wrote in doctor_tailor2011-12-08 06:16 pm
Entry tags:
Fic: "Tender is the Night" 3/?
Title: Tender is the Night 3/?
Pairing: Jadzia Dax/Bashir, Garak/Bashir
Rating: PG-13 (so far)
Word Count: 1988
Summary: A glass of wine and a surprise encounter at a Starfleet-hosted masquerade ball lead Julian to re-evaluate certain aspects of his life.
Notes: Set a couple of months post-"The Search".
WARNINGS: Intoxication and flirting.
Part One here.
Part Two here.
*************************************
That actually made Garak blink and cock his head slightly. "Dance?" His tone was neutral, his gaze wary.
"Dance," Julian confirmed. He looked toward the open space beyond the railing and down one story, where couples were swaying together to a dimly audible slow tribal beat of more leisurely music. "That's a notable trait of Bajoran culture: in social situations like this men may dance with men, and women may dance with women, and nobody thinks anything of it." He took a step toward the stairwell leading down to the first level, turned, and held out his hand in a way that he hoped was both inviting and challenging. "Well?"
Garak's gaze never left his, and after a moment he smiled again. It did not quite reach his eyes. "Of course. I'd be delighted." With a bow of his chin he indicated that Julian should proceed him, and Julian complied that much, turning away to find a path through the press of bodies with Garak close on his tail. He found he was a little unsteady on the stairs but with care and a slightly slower than normal descent he was able to get to the bottom of the spiral without incident; at once point he felt Garak's hand lightly laid on his left shoulder and was both absurdly grateful for and absurdly annoyed by the subtle interference. From the base of the staircase it was only a few meters to the edge of the crowded dance floor. He stepped onto it, turned around to face Garak —
— and found himself momentarily at a loss. He'd never danced with another man before in his life: that wasn't something one did unless one was sexually or romantically interested in the fellow male in question, at least in his social stratum, and although Julian had felt mild same-sex attraction to a schoolmate when he was in his teens (an incident he'd long since categorized as youthful experimentation) he'd never been in a situation where this sort of activity was an option. While he hesitated Garak moved smoothly in, caught hold of Julian's right hand, and laid his own right hand on the small of the Human's slender back before it occurred to Julian to put his free hand on Garak's shoulder. "I. Ah. Sorry."
"It's quite all right." He fixed Julian with a gaze that seemed to calculate his precise state of inebriation: at such close range Julian could see every striation in his irises, facets of slate grey layered with threads of paler ivory and serpentine strands of startling blue. "Ready?" Julian nodded, feeling sheepish, and Garak led them both into the first gliding step of a sedate, restrained waltz that didn't overtax the Human's compromised sense of balance. Julian supposed that he should have felt annoyed — after all, he'd led Garak down here to get the upper hand and show off how suave and debonaire and commanding he could be, and now…
…well, Garak had taken control, because Julian was clearly intoxicated. When had Garak gotten rid of the Tamarian sunset he'd been drinking? The thought of the spy slipping it into the hand of another partygoer in passing, so smoothly that the man had been left blinking at the glass he was suddenly holding, made Julian smile in spite of himself, the expression accompanied by a snort that was almost a giggle.
Appalled, he felt compelled to announce: "I'm not that drunk!"
"Of course you aren't," Garak assured him, keeping firm hold of his waist and moving slowly and smoothly.
"Just a little…" His train of thought trailed off into the awareness of exactly how his partner was moving, and the easy strength it implied, immediately followed by the observation: "You're very good at this." There was that filter — or rather, there it wasn't.
Garak responded with a slight inclination of his chin and a faint smile. "Why, thank you! I like to think that my education included all the basics for a successful social life."
It was difficult to let the Cardassian lead — Julian was used to being the one with his arm around the waist of a lithe young lady — but he concentrated on getting used to it, reminding himself to relax and let Garak take charge of where they were going. "Including waltzing in the Human style?"
"Can I tell you a secret?" Julian nodded, and Garak leaned briefly closer to whisper in his left ear: "I studied the forms especially for this party." When he drew back again his eyes were sparkling in the dimness. "It doesn't show, does it?"
"Oh, no!" Not that he could really tell in his current condition. "Not at all! You dance like you've been doing it for years."
Another bow of the chin. "You're too kind."
"Who were you planning to dance with?" He wanted to kick himself — hard — but Garak's smile only widened.
"I find that when one is properly prepared, all sorts of opportunities present themselves." Without warning he stepped into a sweeping turn, the sort that often ended in dipping one's partner, but spared Julian that travail and finished with a long sideways glide. "Not too much, I hope?"
"Uh… not really…" His left arm was fully around Garak's shoulders now and his head was still spinning in the direction of the turn. "But maybe you could warn me next time?"
Garak laughed out loud, and the thrill of it unexpectedly warmed Julian right down to his toes. "I'll keep that in mind."
Knowing his friend's sense of sometimes cruel mischief Julian braced himself for another sudden disorienting change of direction, but Garak restrained himself, and after perhaps thirty seconds he began to relax again, enough to ask:
"What about Cardassians? And dancing?" It wasn't terribly coherent — perhaps the sudden turn had disordered his mind more than he'd realized, or at least tangled his tongue, but Garak seemed to understand what he was getting at.
"You'll have to be more specific than that. Cardassians of what historical era?"
"The present." Of your era, you infuriating lizard! he thought but managed not to say out loud by actually biting the tip of his tongue. Perhaps the effects of the wine were starting to wear off.
"Well." He shifted a little closer on the next step and lowered his voice to speak directly into Julian's left ear again. "In the modern era women may dance with women without attracting too much attention, but when two men dance together it's considered something noteworthy."
Suddenly Julian's pulse was pounding under the line of his jaw. It was mildly distracting. "Noteworthy?" he asked almost desperately. "In what way?"
Garak's voice fell even further, dropping in pitch to a sneaky murmur that was definitely sultry. "In much the same way as it is in your culture, I expect. It's not something that two friends would do, is it? Or a teacher and a student."
Oh God, caught! The thought was a bright spark of truth stricken from the dark metal of his own soul, and in its sudden illumination Julian became aware that people were definitely watching them. He tried to swallow his awkwardness before whispering into the ridged ear a couple of centimetres from his lips: "I, ah, well… not really…"
"I'm glad to see we're on the same page." His arm slid further around Julian's waist as he shifted the pace of their dancing down to little more than a slow rhythmic sway. Julian nearly stumbled at the change of tempo but Garak's embrace held him steady. "My," and his voice in the Human's ear was distinctly amused, a caressing movement of air warmer than the glove cradling Julian's hand or the grey cheek now almost touching Julian's brown one, "you have had quite a bit to drink, haven't you?"
Julian blushed. Surely it couldn't be seen in the darkness punctuated by flashes of colored light… but Cardassian vision was significantly better than Human under such conditions. "Only one glass, not even that much, really… Sorry, is it on my breath?"
"A little. But mostly," and he tightened his grip on Julian's waist again, pressing body length against body length, "you're unsteady on your feet."
"It's that damned Karellian wine," Julian babbled, trying to sound as calm as possible even though his heart rate and blood pressure had just taken a leap upward, along with certain other parts of his anatomy. "Playing holy hell with my —" Garak's hand shifted along his waist, sliding down a few centimetres to settle on his hip with thrilling pressure. "Uh. Um, Garak…?"
"Yes, Doctor?"
"Are you doing that… I mean, do you have any idea what you're…?"
"I always know what I'm doing." There was that ripple of laughter again, but this time it didn't feel like a thing separating them: no, this time it felt like innumerable coils tightening around him, a predatory embrace he had no desire to escape. "Surely you've learned that much about me by now."
"You smell amazing," he had to confess, because it was true. "Like cinnamon and leather and… what is that? Like some dark flower that only opens at night. Is that your hair?" He rested his cheek against Garak's, pressed the tip of his nose to the wave of ebony that flowed back from Garak's left temple, and drew a deep breath. "Yes — yes, I think it is. Mmm… heavenly… do all Cardassians smell like this?"
"I sincerely hope not!" Indignation now, or at least a well-phrased simulacrum of it . "Take Gul Dukat, for example, whom I suspect walks in a cloying odor of gunmetal, sexual musk and perpetually frustrated ambition."
"You don't know?"
Garak executed a small but dramatic shudder of his broad shoulders inside the brocade tunic. "I try to keep at least two meters' distance between us at all times… such things, however, do tend to carry."
"So you do know!" His triumph was exultant. "I knew it! You probably even know what he eats for breakfast every morning!"
This time he sounded startled and virtuous. "My dear Doctor, I have no idea what you —"
"Damn it, Garak!" He could feel the gulf opening between them again — youth and experience, verity and falsehood, helpless transparency versus infinitely layered and carefully crafted masks — and frustration and perversity combined to produce an urge that he immediately acted upon. He had the satisfaction of hearing Garak's breath catch sharply when he bit down on the lower ridge of scales that ran forward from Garak's ear along the line of his jaw. "Don't tell me you don't," he hissed against the leathery grey skin. "I know what you are. Tain told me what you are."
"And yet here you are," Garak countered at once, taking ever-so-slightly tighter hold of both Julian's hand and of his waist and drawing both a little closer. "If I were you, I'd do some serious thinking about how well your own sense of self-preservation is serving you."
Julian smiled fiercely, letting Garak feel the curve of his lips. "Here I am," he agreed, moving in as close as he possibly could. Let the spy feel the way his cock was lifting and thickening inside the pants a tailor's hands had so carefully shaped for his body: this was, after all, a night for truths, no matter how unexpected on both sides. Running his left hand back along Garak's left shoulder to the broad nape of his neck, he found the fall of sleek black hair as cold to his fingers as still water on a moonless autumn night: he could almost taste the tang of ice crystals forming on his skin. "The question," he murmured as he pressed himself brazenly against the sturdy figure that stood firm against his sensual assault, "is what do you intend to do about it?"
[TO BE CONTINUED…]
Part Four here.
Pairing: Jadzia Dax/Bashir, Garak/Bashir
Rating: PG-13 (so far)
Word Count: 1988
Summary: A glass of wine and a surprise encounter at a Starfleet-hosted masquerade ball lead Julian to re-evaluate certain aspects of his life.
Notes: Set a couple of months post-"The Search".
WARNINGS: Intoxication and flirting.
Part One here.
Part Two here.
*************************************
That actually made Garak blink and cock his head slightly. "Dance?" His tone was neutral, his gaze wary.
"Dance," Julian confirmed. He looked toward the open space beyond the railing and down one story, where couples were swaying together to a dimly audible slow tribal beat of more leisurely music. "That's a notable trait of Bajoran culture: in social situations like this men may dance with men, and women may dance with women, and nobody thinks anything of it." He took a step toward the stairwell leading down to the first level, turned, and held out his hand in a way that he hoped was both inviting and challenging. "Well?"
Garak's gaze never left his, and after a moment he smiled again. It did not quite reach his eyes. "Of course. I'd be delighted." With a bow of his chin he indicated that Julian should proceed him, and Julian complied that much, turning away to find a path through the press of bodies with Garak close on his tail. He found he was a little unsteady on the stairs but with care and a slightly slower than normal descent he was able to get to the bottom of the spiral without incident; at once point he felt Garak's hand lightly laid on his left shoulder and was both absurdly grateful for and absurdly annoyed by the subtle interference. From the base of the staircase it was only a few meters to the edge of the crowded dance floor. He stepped onto it, turned around to face Garak —
— and found himself momentarily at a loss. He'd never danced with another man before in his life: that wasn't something one did unless one was sexually or romantically interested in the fellow male in question, at least in his social stratum, and although Julian had felt mild same-sex attraction to a schoolmate when he was in his teens (an incident he'd long since categorized as youthful experimentation) he'd never been in a situation where this sort of activity was an option. While he hesitated Garak moved smoothly in, caught hold of Julian's right hand, and laid his own right hand on the small of the Human's slender back before it occurred to Julian to put his free hand on Garak's shoulder. "I. Ah. Sorry."
"It's quite all right." He fixed Julian with a gaze that seemed to calculate his precise state of inebriation: at such close range Julian could see every striation in his irises, facets of slate grey layered with threads of paler ivory and serpentine strands of startling blue. "Ready?" Julian nodded, feeling sheepish, and Garak led them both into the first gliding step of a sedate, restrained waltz that didn't overtax the Human's compromised sense of balance. Julian supposed that he should have felt annoyed — after all, he'd led Garak down here to get the upper hand and show off how suave and debonaire and commanding he could be, and now…
…well, Garak had taken control, because Julian was clearly intoxicated. When had Garak gotten rid of the Tamarian sunset he'd been drinking? The thought of the spy slipping it into the hand of another partygoer in passing, so smoothly that the man had been left blinking at the glass he was suddenly holding, made Julian smile in spite of himself, the expression accompanied by a snort that was almost a giggle.
Appalled, he felt compelled to announce: "I'm not that drunk!"
"Of course you aren't," Garak assured him, keeping firm hold of his waist and moving slowly and smoothly.
"Just a little…" His train of thought trailed off into the awareness of exactly how his partner was moving, and the easy strength it implied, immediately followed by the observation: "You're very good at this." There was that filter — or rather, there it wasn't.
Garak responded with a slight inclination of his chin and a faint smile. "Why, thank you! I like to think that my education included all the basics for a successful social life."
It was difficult to let the Cardassian lead — Julian was used to being the one with his arm around the waist of a lithe young lady — but he concentrated on getting used to it, reminding himself to relax and let Garak take charge of where they were going. "Including waltzing in the Human style?"
"Can I tell you a secret?" Julian nodded, and Garak leaned briefly closer to whisper in his left ear: "I studied the forms especially for this party." When he drew back again his eyes were sparkling in the dimness. "It doesn't show, does it?"
"Oh, no!" Not that he could really tell in his current condition. "Not at all! You dance like you've been doing it for years."
Another bow of the chin. "You're too kind."
"Who were you planning to dance with?" He wanted to kick himself — hard — but Garak's smile only widened.
"I find that when one is properly prepared, all sorts of opportunities present themselves." Without warning he stepped into a sweeping turn, the sort that often ended in dipping one's partner, but spared Julian that travail and finished with a long sideways glide. "Not too much, I hope?"
"Uh… not really…" His left arm was fully around Garak's shoulders now and his head was still spinning in the direction of the turn. "But maybe you could warn me next time?"
Garak laughed out loud, and the thrill of it unexpectedly warmed Julian right down to his toes. "I'll keep that in mind."
Knowing his friend's sense of sometimes cruel mischief Julian braced himself for another sudden disorienting change of direction, but Garak restrained himself, and after perhaps thirty seconds he began to relax again, enough to ask:
"What about Cardassians? And dancing?" It wasn't terribly coherent — perhaps the sudden turn had disordered his mind more than he'd realized, or at least tangled his tongue, but Garak seemed to understand what he was getting at.
"You'll have to be more specific than that. Cardassians of what historical era?"
"The present." Of your era, you infuriating lizard! he thought but managed not to say out loud by actually biting the tip of his tongue. Perhaps the effects of the wine were starting to wear off.
"Well." He shifted a little closer on the next step and lowered his voice to speak directly into Julian's left ear again. "In the modern era women may dance with women without attracting too much attention, but when two men dance together it's considered something noteworthy."
Suddenly Julian's pulse was pounding under the line of his jaw. It was mildly distracting. "Noteworthy?" he asked almost desperately. "In what way?"
Garak's voice fell even further, dropping in pitch to a sneaky murmur that was definitely sultry. "In much the same way as it is in your culture, I expect. It's not something that two friends would do, is it? Or a teacher and a student."
Oh God, caught! The thought was a bright spark of truth stricken from the dark metal of his own soul, and in its sudden illumination Julian became aware that people were definitely watching them. He tried to swallow his awkwardness before whispering into the ridged ear a couple of centimetres from his lips: "I, ah, well… not really…"
"I'm glad to see we're on the same page." His arm slid further around Julian's waist as he shifted the pace of their dancing down to little more than a slow rhythmic sway. Julian nearly stumbled at the change of tempo but Garak's embrace held him steady. "My," and his voice in the Human's ear was distinctly amused, a caressing movement of air warmer than the glove cradling Julian's hand or the grey cheek now almost touching Julian's brown one, "you have had quite a bit to drink, haven't you?"
Julian blushed. Surely it couldn't be seen in the darkness punctuated by flashes of colored light… but Cardassian vision was significantly better than Human under such conditions. "Only one glass, not even that much, really… Sorry, is it on my breath?"
"A little. But mostly," and he tightened his grip on Julian's waist again, pressing body length against body length, "you're unsteady on your feet."
"It's that damned Karellian wine," Julian babbled, trying to sound as calm as possible even though his heart rate and blood pressure had just taken a leap upward, along with certain other parts of his anatomy. "Playing holy hell with my —" Garak's hand shifted along his waist, sliding down a few centimetres to settle on his hip with thrilling pressure. "Uh. Um, Garak…?"
"Yes, Doctor?"
"Are you doing that… I mean, do you have any idea what you're…?"
"I always know what I'm doing." There was that ripple of laughter again, but this time it didn't feel like a thing separating them: no, this time it felt like innumerable coils tightening around him, a predatory embrace he had no desire to escape. "Surely you've learned that much about me by now."
"You smell amazing," he had to confess, because it was true. "Like cinnamon and leather and… what is that? Like some dark flower that only opens at night. Is that your hair?" He rested his cheek against Garak's, pressed the tip of his nose to the wave of ebony that flowed back from Garak's left temple, and drew a deep breath. "Yes — yes, I think it is. Mmm… heavenly… do all Cardassians smell like this?"
"I sincerely hope not!" Indignation now, or at least a well-phrased simulacrum of it . "Take Gul Dukat, for example, whom I suspect walks in a cloying odor of gunmetal, sexual musk and perpetually frustrated ambition."
"You don't know?"
Garak executed a small but dramatic shudder of his broad shoulders inside the brocade tunic. "I try to keep at least two meters' distance between us at all times… such things, however, do tend to carry."
"So you do know!" His triumph was exultant. "I knew it! You probably even know what he eats for breakfast every morning!"
This time he sounded startled and virtuous. "My dear Doctor, I have no idea what you —"
"Damn it, Garak!" He could feel the gulf opening between them again — youth and experience, verity and falsehood, helpless transparency versus infinitely layered and carefully crafted masks — and frustration and perversity combined to produce an urge that he immediately acted upon. He had the satisfaction of hearing Garak's breath catch sharply when he bit down on the lower ridge of scales that ran forward from Garak's ear along the line of his jaw. "Don't tell me you don't," he hissed against the leathery grey skin. "I know what you are. Tain told me what you are."
"And yet here you are," Garak countered at once, taking ever-so-slightly tighter hold of both Julian's hand and of his waist and drawing both a little closer. "If I were you, I'd do some serious thinking about how well your own sense of self-preservation is serving you."
Julian smiled fiercely, letting Garak feel the curve of his lips. "Here I am," he agreed, moving in as close as he possibly could. Let the spy feel the way his cock was lifting and thickening inside the pants a tailor's hands had so carefully shaped for his body: this was, after all, a night for truths, no matter how unexpected on both sides. Running his left hand back along Garak's left shoulder to the broad nape of his neck, he found the fall of sleek black hair as cold to his fingers as still water on a moonless autumn night: he could almost taste the tang of ice crystals forming on his skin. "The question," he murmured as he pressed himself brazenly against the sturdy figure that stood firm against his sensual assault, "is what do you intend to do about it?"
[TO BE CONTINUED…]
Part Four here.
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He certainly does! He's being particularly smooth in this one. :0)
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