Stuff and Things

Forgiving Garak is a conscious decision, one he makes for his own peace of mind long before Cardassia is destroyed, and one he admittedly makes when he fully expects never again to be confronted with the man who ruined his life. When, as what Terrans might call Sod’s Law kicks in, he inevitably is and spends the next few hours vibrating out of his skin and trying not to scream, it’s a decision that’s a little hard to stick to – but Kelas Parmak is a tenacious man and Garak is not just a colleague in the effort to rebuild their world but also (and more importantly) a patient, so he grits his teeth and does his best.

Somewhere among the rebuilding and the chaos, between the hallucinations and the hyperventilation and the slightly-clumsy honesty Garak manages to offer up despite force of habit even while lucid, though, he finds he’s made an unconscious decision, too – one that ought to worry him a great deal more than it does, but as he looks into those eyes (his eyes, his eyes) and realises that he trusts this man, this murderer-torturer-liar, not just with his life but with the fate of their entire world, he can’t bring himself to feel anything less than wonderful.

Julian has shared a bed with more than one person before, of course, in situations romantic and platonic and not-exactly-either, and has never dreamed of using the phrase ‘three’s a crowd’, but it’s usually been a larger bed than this, and it hasn’t been on Cardassia in the summer, and it definitely hasn’t usually been with a pair of Cardassians, who are – even taking into account the malnutrition on Cardassia since the Dominion War, and the fact that Parmak is relatively slender for a Cardassian – built like tanks. Julian is, at the risk of sounding a little melodramatic, fucking dying, and he articulates this (through a mouthful of Parmak’s usually-beautiful-but-right-now-really-goddamn-annoying hair) a few times, at regular intervals, between the hours of dawn and ten past dawn, in the hopes of assistance in extracting himself from the hell that is being crushed under a sheet between two large lizards (whom he loves very much, etc, obviously) on a pallet bed in at least 40 C heat.

Finally, Parmak – angel that he is! a thousand blessings on his soul! – takes mercy with a grumble and slips out of bed in the direction of the kitchen, and Julian takes a moment to spread out on top of the sheet and relish being able to breathe… at least for the few moments until Beloved Husband #1 returns, accompanied by undignified snickering from Beloved Husband #2, which is – alarming, actually, and Julian opens his eyes just in time to see Suddenly A Whole Lot Less Beloved Husband #1 upturning a tray of ice-cubes over him, and he only just has time to scream.