Chapter Text
Garak stared gloomily into his plate, and Julian couldn't help a small smile. His Cardassian lunch companion was rather heavy-handedly soliciting a worried what's wrong, Garak, but Julian refused to take the bait. Instead, he focused down on his food, which was delicious, and let his friend pout. Garak, of course, wanted Julian to use his Starfleet Medical privileges to get a certain rare, slightly contraband delicacy without paying Quark's exorbitant fees. Julian was completely sure that Garak could procure the chocolates if he wanted, as he'd done so before, but Garak rather enjoyed seeing how far he could convince Julian to go, especially by using the sympathy play. Something about Julian's Federation values, making him an easy target. But he'd caught it early, this time, and he couldn't stop himself from laughing when Garak sighed dramatically.
"What?" Garak asked, drawing up his mock-offense at Julian's giggles.
"Nothing," Julian said, shaking his head. "It's just... Have you ever heard the term 'crocodile tears', Garak?" he asked, finishing the last of his meal and moving on to the tea.
Garak quirked an eye ridge.
"I can't say that I have," he said. "A human phrase? It doesn't quite translate. What, pray tell, is a crocodile?"
"Well," Julian said, mirth pulling at the sides of his mouth. "At the risk of being wildly offensive--"
"--not that that's stopped you before, dear Doctor," Garak interjected.
"Indeed, nor has it stopped you. Or, need I remind you of a little incident involving a Bajoran war history panel and a man simply attempting to offer a 'Cardassian viewpoint'?"
Garak's eyes glinted despite that he was still trying to maintain an air of put-upon suffering.
"At any rate," Julian continued, "a crocodile is a type of large reptile, on Earth."
"Charming," Garak demurred. "And I suppose you're going to compare me now, to an unintelligent house pet?"
"A house pet!" Julian cried, laughing breathily. "Whatever gave you that impression? No, not at all. Crocodiles are dangerous predators. They lurk, with their heads just barely above the water, waiting for mammals to drink and let their guards down."
Garak straightened, as Julian sipped his tea. "Why, then, are you so preoccupied with their crying?"
"Why, indeed?" Julian replied, putting down his mug. "You see, despite being predators, crocodiles have tear ducts. However, they only cry in order to wet their eyes; often when the eyes have been out of the water for a little while. So..." he trailed off, waving a hand, taking a sip of his tea.
Garak seemed to take a little of his meaning. "So they seem like they're crying, when in fact they might be hunting," he said, in that slow, teasing, methodical manner that Julian sometimes forgot lurked underneath the veneer of his humble tailor friend. There was something dangerous about the way his entire being seemed to shift, and yet Julian never really felt afraid with him.
Julian hummed in affirmation of Garak's hunch, finishing off his drink.
"We used it often as a charge against politicians showing hypocritical sympathy, or false displays of solidarity. Or, I suppose, one might say save your crocodile tears, if one's friend was huffing and sighing about something, in order to elicit one's sympathy and trick them into doing something wildly irresponsible."
Garak drew up, preparing to act affronted, and Julian stood smoothly.
"And with that, Garak, I'm afraid I've got to run," he said, "seeing as how you've already ensured I'll be fifteen minutes late to my shift by baiting me into an argument about Shakespeare."
"We still haven't discussed some of the more pressing elements of Caesar, I believe," Garak pointed out, though he'd dropped the pouting act. Julian was ecstatic.
"Fine," he said, grinning, "if you'd like, we can discuss it after my shift is over."
"Here?" Garak asked, a little incredulous. "I don't know how much discussing you expect to be able to get done on the night of the last workday, in the replimat."
"Quark's, then, and we can go back to my quarters if it's too noisy."
Julian didn't miss the sudden dropping of Garak's incredulous expression, and the easy smile that replaced it which suggested that was exactly what his friend wanted to hear. Well, fine. Julian had finally won one of his little verbal sparring matches with Garak, he could at least afford the man a small consolation prize. Especially since he had an ace up his sleeve for tonight. He turned and left the replimat, but was fairly certain he caught Garak watching him on his way out. Two aces up his sleeve, rather.
After his shift was over, he sent a quick message to Garak and practically raced home. He showered and changed quick as anything, trading his Starfleet uniform for black slacks and a turquoise shirt; perhaps a little more like a lateral move than an actual stylistic change, but he was at least trying to piss Garak off and he actually rather liked blue. Like the slightly terrifying steel-blue gaze of Garak's that could put seasoned criminals on the back foot.
Julian still hadn't managed to beat Garak to Quark's. The man was dressed in a swirling, dark red suit jacket, with his usual thermal wear underneath. He'd picked a spot typical of the Cardassian's taste, on the middle level in partial darkness and with a good vantage of the rest of the space. Julian waved up at him conspicuously, just to ruin the Cardassian's mystique. He went to the bar and bought a bottle of wine at what he was fairly certain was a surprisingly good price. Garak must have had a preemptive word.
"Ah, Doctor," Garak said, as Julian reached the top of the winding stairs, bottle in tow. "I see you've brought something to help your argument."
Julian proffered a glass from his other hand, and Garak took one, ribbing aside. He poured them both a hearty serving, and they ordered only a small amount of food.
"In the interest of cross-cultural cooperation, was there any character you did like in Caesar?" Julian asked mildly. Garak tilted his head forward perceptibly.
"I suppose you'd like me to say Cassius," he intoned.
Julian rolled his eyes at the gambit, didn't take the bait, and let Garak continue.
"In fact," Garak said, switching tactics, "I wonder if he didn't factor into your choosing this particular play. I've read up on your Shakespeare, and he was quite prolific."
"Yes, but Caesar is his most political play, and I thought it might make a good foil to the Cardassian meditations on power politics."
"Did you?" Garak asked, grinning warmly. "I'm not so sure. I think you see yourself as Brutus, the good man. The honorable man, trying his best to do the right thing. But he's beset on all sides by Cassius, telling him tales and ensnaring him with clever words. Circling him, at all hours of the night, pouring this poison into his ears. Brutus is intellectually seduced by Cassius' trickery, in the end very willingly."
Garak's smile had changed from something warm and contrarian to something sharp and glinting. His voice had slowed, lowered, and Julian felt a little lulled. He hadn't even noticed until Garak had stopped talking, but they'd both leaned in over the small bar table, so much so that they were intimately close. Heat rose to his face, and he made the conscious effort to shove it aside.
"Well," Julian said. "That is certainly an interesting interpretation. But I worry that you're focusing too much on your meta narrative, rather than the work itself."
"You're trying to suggest I'm overthinking it," Garak simplified, taking a tentative sip of the wine. Julian waited for his response on the wine, to which Garak made a mildly approving face.
"You must admit, it would be rather on-brand," Julian pointed out. "It's at least a possibility that I simply thought you'd actually enjoy one of the most celebrated plays in the history of my planet."
"I don't know if I buy that," Garak said. "You're smarter than you like people to believe you are."
Julian froze, at first, but relaxed. Garak knew. He knew about the genetic modifications, and he didn't care. The doctor repeated it in his head for a moment before continuing.
"Careful, Garak," he said, tilting his wine glass, "that sounds dangerously like a compliment."
"Trust you to find the compliment in the insult to your people's literature."
"Can't things have more than one meaning?"
Garak inclined his head, conceding the point.
"For example," Julian continued, pressing his advantage. "There's one interpretation of the play that I'm sure you've picked up on, which I've already touched on myself. The political thriller. A treatise on power and the state which might run contrary to your own ideas on the state but is nonetheless focused on the same issues a Cardassian play might reflect on. This is doubly so when one considers the second interpretation as to what the play is about."
Garak's expression was that of the fish hesitant to take a bite, but he went regardless. "And what else is the play about?"
Julian put down his glass. "Family, of course."
The Cardassian frowned, at that. Family was a central element of Cardassian culture, after all.
"There's a line suggesting that Caesar's wife can't concieve," he said, hesitant.
"Yes, she couldn't. She never gave him a child. Octavius, later Augustus, isn't his biological son but an adopted one. But there are other sons."
"Marcus Antonius," Garak demurred. "Who, personally, strikes me as rather more Cardassian than your Cassius."
"I never agreed to that interpretation of Cassius, if you'll recall. Yes, Mark Antony looks up to Caesar, much in the way a son might. And?"
"And nothing. In the end he opportunistically schemes to use Caesar's death to launch a political career he'd hitherto been entirely uninterested in."
"Yes, yes, but you're missing the... ah," Julian said suddenly. "You know, I think this might be the result of a bit of that Cardassian superiority complex. You did all your homework about me, about Shakespeare and why I might have picked this out. I'm willing to bet you did next to no research on what actually happened."
"What does it matter what actually happened? The truth is irrelevant. It's a fictional account. After all, no one who's been stabbed that many times has the strength to speak at the end."
"And I suppose you would know?" Julian asked, without any hostility behind the question.
"Not really, but you humans are quite fragile," Garak said, halfheartedly, gesturing for Julian to continue.
"It matters because Shakespeare had two understandings of one of the key characters in the play, because of the source he based Caesar on. The history book he had access to was essentially the Roman equivalent of a gossip reporter, and in it, he relayed a very particular rumor about Brutus' mother."
"Brutus," Garak frowned. "Brutus, an illegitimate son of Caesar?"
"Possibly," Julian admitted. "We don't know for sure. Perhaps he didn't, either."
Julian watched something click into place for Garak.
"So," Julian said. "He was perhaps, as you say, seduced intellectually by Cassius. Or, maybe, he was a man struggling to decide if Caesar had ever really accepted him. He saved Brutus' life, once, and heaps him with praises and accolades and power, yes, but..." Julian left it to hang in the air.
"But he never acknowledged him. He never... Hm."
"It reminds me of that Cardassian pulp genre you mentioned, once. Brutus is guilty of a stabbing, and now it's up to us to decide why. Was Caesar a tyrant, or a bad father, or neither, or both? How much was Brutus aware of any of it? Was Cassius' hypocritical promise right, that empire was inevitable, not for the reasons he thought, but because Caesar's successors were all too broken?"
"An enigma tale," Garak supplied. "A human enigma tale."
Julian nodded. "I thought you might like it."
Garak sat back, contemplative. "Fine," he said eventually. "So we're both Brutus, then."
"I'll drink to that," Julian said, grinning, raising his glass for a toast. Garak's glass touched his, and despite his defeat, not to mention the terribly personal subject matter, he seemed to be in extremely high spirits.
They'd finished the bottle, and dinner, and Garak suggested he might call it a night.
"Oh go on, Garak," Julian pouted, still basking in the glory of his twin victories today. "You don't open the shop tomorrow morning, what's the harm in staying up a little longer? For me?"
Garak made a show of being won over. "Fine," he said. "But we're not drinking any more of this human alcohol, it's simply too weak."
It was true, with Julian's enhancements he was barely buzzed. Before, he might have tried to act up his drunkenness, and he was relieved not to have to play that game. It made him think how tired Garak must be, keeping it all so twisted.
"Quark's kanar is a travesty," Julian complained.
"For once tonight, Doctor, we're in complete agreement. I've got a bottle in my quarters."
Garak was confident, damn him. He moved to get up in one fluid motion, and Julian found himself following suit.
"Julian," the doctor said insistently. "Ah, well, that is, if you'd prefer. Everyone else has called me Julian from the start, and you only do it in emergencies." It was a bit backwards, really. They'd been friends for this long, and Garak only called him by his name when they were in dire straits. He was the same, though. He'd find some time to point that out tonight. Garak paused. They were very close, again, and Garak's pale blue eyes swept over him.
"Julian," he agreed warmly. "Of course."
They left Quark's together. At the bar's exit, Garak put a hand to the younger man's hip, and gestured to the left with the other.
"This way, my dear."
Julian rolled his eyes at Garak's game: trying to ascertain how uncomfortable he was with this turn of events by reminding him what they looked like from the outside. Julian couldn't care less, now that his secret was out and he was free, and purposefully spoke a little too loudly.
"I know where your quarters are, Garak," he drawled lazily.
His Cardassian friend grinned and they ducked out.
Garak's rooms were smaller than his, and warm, but Julian was of course only wearing a light shirt. The Cardassian poured each of them a short drink, and they toasted it. Julian made the mistake of knocking it back, and Garak laughed, and chided him, and poured him another.
"Drink slowly," Garak said, over-enunciating, as if Julian were a child. "Although I'm not convinced that word is in your vocabulary."
Julian rolled his eyes and pantomimed an extra-careful, dainty sip. "Happy now, Garak?"
They both sat down on Garak's couch, rather than one taking the armchair. Julian noted that their thighs were touching. As they spoke, Julian was passingly aware that they were growing closer again, just like they were over the dinner table. Perhaps they'd spent too long circling the inevitable. Well, rushing the action was apparently Julian's specialty.
"You can't possibly think that--"
Julian kissed him soundly, and after only a moment's surprise, Garak returned it.