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After three days of battle and sixteen straight hours in surgery, Julian had passed beyond the realm of perpetual anxiety and exhaustion into pure, all-encompassing numbness. He stumbled half blindly and mostly by feel to his designated quarters on the Defiant, where it took him three tries to enter the correct code. Once through the door, he wavered blankly on his feet for a minute or two, blinking and yawning, just trying to recall what came next.
Ah yes.
Clothes. Bed. Sleep.
He clumsily tugged off his uniform and let it drop to the floor before shuffling over to the bunks and climbing into the bottom one, where he flopped onto his stomach with a relieved exhale. He couldn’t even find it in himself to lament the hard mattress or insufficient pillow. All that mattered was that it was dark, and quiet, and he didn’t have to so much as lift a pinky for the next four to six hours.
“Doctor?” The shadows asked quietly beside him.
It was a testament to how drained he was that Julian didn’t even startle when he realized the voice came from a body only a few handspans away, backed up against the bulkhead.
Oh. He’d forgotten that he was sharing space with Garak now. And that his friend had kindly requested the lower bed due to his acute claustrophobia. He pried his eyes open in an attempt to get a glimpse of the speaker, but couldn’t discern more than a general outline. “M’sorry, Garak,” he mumbled. “It’s been a bloody long… few days.”
“Yes, I can see that. Would you prefer I relocate to the upper level?”
Fading off already, Julian attempted to rouse his brain enough to form coherent words. “Doesn’t matter. Stay. I’m jus’ tired.”
There was the shuffling of fabric and a tug from underneath. “I’m not sure there’s room for the two of us. And you happen to be lying on my blanket.”
“Oh.” Julian opened his eyes again. He was supposed to be doing something. What…?
With a small huff, Garak pulled the covering out from under Julian’s body. Once free, he straightened it out to enfold the both of them. “Are you certain you-”
Out of instinct more than conscious thought, Julian automatically rolled onto his side and scooted closer to the other body as soon as it was available. Whatever soft textiles Garak used for bedclothes were soft and sublime, and he found himself pressing into the Cardassian’s chest. Garak cleared his throat. He held his arm awkwardly above Julian, seemingly uncertain where to let it down. The bicep would be intimate, but the hip even more so; he settled in between the two, at the waist.
Julian sighed contentedly. “Tha’s nice. G’night… Garak.” He tucked his head under the tailor’s chin and began to drift off.
The solid pressure of weight against him and the spicy scent of scale oil curled around Julian in a comforting bubble that eased his muscles along the slow journey into relaxation. He could feel breath in his hair and just barely sense a heartbeat not too far from his ear. It’d been far too long since he’d been in someone’s embrace, and even longer since someone had held him rather than the other way around, and it made the experience all the more perfect.
It may have been three minutes or thirty of floating nearly weightlessly in the dark, but it slowly began to seep into Julian’s muzzy consciousness that he was lying next to Garak , of all people . His friend, yes, but a friend that he’d been harboring steadily more complex feelings for, both physically and emotionally, and far longer than he customarily did towards someone.
His friend that he occasionally fantasized about to the point of distraction and occasionally embarrassingly quick release.
Julian and the interrogator-turned-exiled tailor-turned-codebreaker had been relatively close for years now, and lunch companions and accomplices for even longer; in that time, the man had become more than a passing acquaintance or patient, more than a co-conspirator, mentor, or intriguing enigma… and transformed into a permanent, irreplaceable, and dear figure in Julian’s life.
There had been hiccups and outright grievous transgressions along the way--most of them on the Cardassian’s end--but they’d maintained their relationship throughout it all, because underneath it had always been something a little more. Something deeper, more pervading. Something bewitching, hypnotic, insidious even. Julian knew better than to give it a name, because in his personal experience, acknowledging such an attraction provoked it into moving forward and into the light, which never failed to result in a spectacularly blazing disaster and final distancing, a loss of the friendship that had inspired the change in the first place. So he’d chosen to do nothing, say nothing. Maintain a distance.
But in this proximity, it was difficult to ignore the warm, buzzing, fuzzy puddle of unbridled fulfillment that had expanded inside him at the sudden tangible nearness of the object of his inner yearnings. And after the horrors they’d weathered over the past eighty-plus hours… the battles, the bodies, the futility of it all? It was only everything Julian had ever desired, no craved, to come back to on a dark and solitary evening.
As soon as he shifted, he heard a change in Garak’s breathing, signaling his companion’s mutual wakefulness. Had he even fallen asleep, or had he stayed alert, keeping watch… or thinking the same thoughts that had slipped into Julian’s head? The doctor knew that they wouldn’t be able to discern each other’s faces, not well, but he lifted his own anyway so that they would be even with one another. Neither of them moved for several moments, except for an occasional blink, and Julian smiled into the darkness at the scent and feel of Garak’s breath on his lips. It was fresh and dry, with the distinctly sweet but bitter tang of redleaf tea. He wanted-
That was it. Julian just wanted.
When the hand draped around him tightened ever so slightly, his heart sped up enough to bring him out of the deepest dregs of drowsiness and into aching anticipation.
It couldn’t-
They weren’t-
Maybe…
Julian might have imagined being guided forward; it was possible he wanted it so badly that he’d have used any excuse. But regardless of the reason, the next thing he knew, the two of them were drawing together until one mouth met the other. It was brief. Soft. Barely a touch. But it was followed by another touch, and another. It was unhurried, leisurely, treading the waters before a full submersion.
The kiss deepened by degrees, Garak sucking Julian’s bottom lip between his, Julian tangling their tongues to taste and feel every detail within reach. The Cardassian’s had tiny little raised bumps along the rim, and what would it feel like if he were to use it for other purposes…?
Julian’s thoughts derailed when a hand traveled up his side to glide along his neck and into his hair. The fingers curled in, twirling across his scalp, then gripping a handful to angle his head for a more controlled approach. Tingles rushed down his spine. The hand braced his head in place, tightened further, and as soon as his mouth dropped open in a gasp, Garak rumbled in satisfaction and began licking over his lips, top and bottom in turn.
It tickled, almost itched, but in a spectacularly arousing way under the pebbled tongue that flicked and darted nimbly over increasingly sensitive flesh. Soon the Cardassian was nibbling instead, and the nips traveled from Julian’s mouth to his chin, then trailed down his neck.
“Ga- Garak,” he sighed breathlessly, twisting fingers in his bedmate’s shirt to pull him closer. A long, wet stripe was licked up his throat, followed by cool breath blowing over the skin. “Wha- Please…” He wasn’t sure what he was asking for, only that he wanted more, and Garak obliged, sucking the tender flesh into his mouth until it felt like it was going to bruise.
Julian wiggled downward in a silent plea for the oral affections to work their way back up again. Never one to miss a signal, Garak immediately moved his focus back to Julian’s face, where he dragged his teeth along the jawline, then dipped in for another draught from the open mouth. Julian, whose hand had been running impatiently up and down Garak’s arm, squeezed in entreaty. “I… Garak, I want… I need to feel you. Your skin. Your scales.” He plucked at the cloth between them. “Shirt. Can you remove your shirt?”
There was a worrying pause, a noticeable stillness, but when the Cardassian spoke, there was a note of amusement coloring his voice. “Doctor, you seem to have lost something of your verbosity and vocabulary. Should I be concerned?”
Julian made a sound between a groan and a growl. “These past few days have been miserable. Interminable. You know that; you’ve been here with us.” He took a panting, shuddery breath. “Garak, we could be vaporized into space dust any day. I don’t care if we don’t do anything else. Just… Could you take off your clothes? I want to feel someone else against me. I need to hold someone and be held. Please.”
Another brief silence. “You’re certain, Doctor?”
“Yes. But only if you call me Julian.”
“Alright… Julian.” They parted far enough for Garak to carefully remove his sleepwear, then pulled the linens back over themselves. “How…?”
But Julian had already closed the gap between them and begun nuzzling into Garak’s shoulder, one arm under his side and the other wrapped around the tailor. He snuffled along the ridge, huffing in the unique aroma while testing the rubbery texture of the scales that comprised it. When he hummed against the thick, ropy tissues, Garak stiffened with a sharp inhale. “Lovely. Just lovely,” Julian murmured, rising just far enough to bring their mouths back together once more. He couldn’t get enough of the flavor, the texture, and the eager, sucking attentions that his jaw received in return.
Working into a rhythm, they flowed together. Julian draped one leg around Garak’s thigh and Garak slid an arm around Julian’s back. They ran their hands up and down each other’s bodies in a long-awaited and yet sedate and undemanding exploration, grazing, teasing, tracing as if they had the entire night to themselves and nowhere else to be. Julian dragged his fingers over every scute along the ridge down Garak’s back, mentally mapping the way for future reference with the pads of his fingers. Garak’s claw-like nails scraped softly from shoulder blade to hip along Julian’s spine, triggering prickly shivers and another muffled gasp.
At nearly the same time, the two of them rolled over so that Garak was on his back with Julian straddling his waist. Consequently, their groins came in contact for the first time, and both of them arched into it with a needy groan. Garak’s hands made their way to Julian’s arse and kneaded deeply into the giving flesh, grinding their bodies together even more roughly but still at the same steady, deliberate pace they’d maintained thus far. Julian’s cock grew plump and heavy at the sensation of scaled ridges through their undergarments, and a cool, silky wetness bloomed through the cloth of his partner.
Eyes rolling back in bliss, Julian fell forward to brace his hands on the mattress to each side of Garak’s neck. He circled his hips while unknowingly grinding his teeth, losing himself in the glorious heat spiraling from where they were pressed together.
The resultant groan beneath him was as deep and musical. “I want to see you, my dear. I need to watch you enjoy yourself in a way I’ve never seen before.” Garak brushed his thumbs over the sharp but undoubtedly handsome hip bones that were currently obscured in the murkiness. “Computer: reading lights at twenty percent.” A dim glow filled the small compartment, draping them in warm, golden light. “Exquisite. Divine.” The Cardassian’s blue eyes sparked with a burning intensity. “I’ve always dreamed of your lissom body dancing over me. To see you wriggle and writhe in an ecstasy that only I can give you.”
In a lust-fueled haze, Julian licked his lips. “Only you.” No one before had ever fueled a fire in his blood like Garak. It was distinctly possible that no one ever would again. “Only you,” he repeated roughly, rushing back in.
The next thing he knew, both of them were peeling off the final barriers, shoving the scraps of clothing down to their toes, and pulling the blankets back up to create a secluded cocoon up to their shoulders. With a small gush of fluid and a relieved sigh, Garak everted into their bellies so that their erections could slide alongside each other, crushed between them as they stared one another down through rolling twists and thrusts.
The air grew thick with heavy breaths and pheromones, a sweet and musky perfume that made Julian dizzy with desire. He’d alway been self conscious about vocalizing around lovers, but with Garak he couldn’t help himself-- didn’t want to help himself-- and moaned with each flare of sensation that swelled through his abdomen. He had a feeling that his partner would appreciate the responses, and it felt so very good to not have to hold himself back. One moan was particularly loud when the tip of Garak’s shorter prUt nudged the underside of his glans.
“Yessss,” the Cardassian hissed in response, repeating the movement.
Julian dropped his head to nibble along one shoulder, lick into the spoon-shaped crest under Garak’s throat, then continue across the other shoulder. He delighted in every catch of breath, every twitch of the member next to his that gave away his lover’s secrets, every ridge and rise and valley. He planned on storing away every spot, every scale that had an effect, and using them mercilessly some night in the uncertain future when they had a real bed beneath them, and all the time in the universe to act on it.
They rolled their bodies together, serpentine and sensual, mimicking an even more carnal, passionate act, but satisfied to keep the tone and pace where it was for that moment as they chased their rapture. A kiss, a lick, a sweeping of hair from a forehead. Meeting eyes, panting sighs, undulating together like a single wave of the ocean traveling towards shore but never quite reaching it.
It was the most intimate, most erotic encounter of Julian’s life. He pushed up and in, then circled his hips around to bring them back and thrust again. Garak’s slick was smeared between them, and it drove him senseless as his cock rubbed over the scaled and concealed region beneath it. It became an exploration, his elbows propping him up while his thumbs and fingers pinched at Garak’s neck and shoulders, and his mind focused on the mysteries below. There was a phallus, and a cavity beneath that had it emerged from, swollen scales that surrounded it… and above all that seemed to be… a third crest. He maneuvered himself to prod at it with his cock, gently, and was met with something close to an electric shock, but not nearly as painful. “Wha- ohhhhh,” he murmured threadily as a buzzing hum filled his blood.
As a doctor, he was fuzzily aware that he’d want to examine the fascinating phenomenon in a much more clinical manner, eventually, but as it was, tricorders and the infirmary were the farthest things from his mind for the foreseeable future. Especially when Garak grabbed him by the shoulder blades to pull him in tighter and lick and suck at his throat.
“Oh Julian,” he whispered between kisses. “My doctor. My love.”
All movements ceased as the pair processed what had just been unintentionally revealed.
Julian recovered first, tenderness flowing through him, and bore down. “Say it again,” he rumbled into his partner’s ear.
“My love.” Garak brushed down Julian’s sides and squeezed fiercely at the globes of flesh that tightened under his touch. “Beloved. My dear doctor. My Julian.” He hissed in a rattling, sibilant breath. “Mine. Mine.”
How could one respond to that? Was Julian? Was he… Garak’s? Julian lifted up so that they could face each other directly. The blue eyes that met his were clouded with desire and dark with possessiveness. Yet there was still a wall behind that, a hesitancy that refused to let him see deeper within. “Elim,” he tried. A flash of vulnerability flitted past, but only for a second. “May I call you Elim?”
To Julian’s utter amazement, there was a tremor. It was quelled immediately, but its presence was sobering. The hands on his rear skimmed up to his lower back, where they curled and released in uncertainty. “I haven’t been called Elim in a long time.”
That wasn’t a yes. He’d have to go about this carefully, then. “ Julian and Elim has a certain lovely ring to it, doesn’t it? Or perhaps Elim and Julian? ” He eased the pressure between their bodies and slid off to the side. Garak let him. “If I’m yours, does that also make you mine?” he tried instead.
Rather than cave in to sentimentality, Garak rolled over and maneuvered Julian beneath him. “I don’t believe that’s how possession works, my dear.” He insinuated his knees between Julian’s so that the doctor was forced to spread his legs. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted you like this. My beautiful, clever, and spirited plaything, trapped beneath me. Putty in my hands. I could have you trembling and pleading before the night is through.”
As incredibly arousing and tempting as the idea was, Julian’s mind had raced towards a different conclusion. As long as he’d known Garak, the tailor had never been so… forthcoming or direct about what was going on in his head. Such behavior was rare to the point of being almost nonexistent, making it immediately suspect. Everything’s true, he reflected. Especially the lies.
“Am I yours, Elim?”
“Yes. Completely.”
“Tell me what you want to do to me.” His stomach quivered.
“I want to feel myself inside you. I want to take you apart and put you together again in a way that makes you forget everyone else before. I want-” Garak’s voice deepened. “I want to take you, to mark you, to stake a claim against all others.”
“I see.” Julian pressed one hand into the mattress and the other to Garak’s chest. “And why?”
“Because there’s nobody else but you.”
With that, Julian flipped them back over. “Lights down ten percent,” he commanded. “I’ve got a secret,” he purred into the sultry glow. “I think I’ve begun to have you figured out, my dear Mr. Garak.”
Obsidian pupils widened with arousal. “Perish the thought.”
“Hush. I think that everything you just said you want to do to me is actually what you want me to do to you. Except you’d never just right come out and say it. That would be too easy. However. I’m more tired than I’d like to be, and I don’t want either of us to regret this later, so I’ve got to ask to make sure. Do you want me to make you mine? Do you want me over you, around you… inside you?”
There was an exasperated pause and condescending raise of brow ridges before the answer. “My dear Doctor. For over two decades, I permitted all manners of depravities to be visited upon my flesh in the name of fealty to the Order. There’s nothing you could do that hadn’t been done before, or that would be unwelcome.”
Julian took a deep breath and curled a hand into Garak’s stiff hair. “I want a yes or no . Do you want me to claim you? To take you and mark you?”
A mild glare. But also a surrender. “Yes .”
Thank the heavens. “I’m going to trust that this time your answer is a pure and unmitigated truth. But I hope that if anything happens you don’t like, you’ll feel free to speak up. That is… assuming you’ll be capable of it,” Julian taunted.
Garak let out a low growl. “I always have admired your brazenness.”
Julian dipped his head in for a kiss to silence him, planning on plundering it with dominance and abandon, but was pleasantly surprised at how sweet the flavor had become. He instead explored the joy of lapping drops of nectar into his mouth like a shy Bajoran honeymouse, sip by sip. Garak relaxed muscle by muscle beneath him.
As the heat slowly built back up from embers into flickers of flame, Julian skimmed his hand down Garak’s scaly side, then swept it inward and between them. Reveling in the praise for his confidence, Julian maneuvered his hips to keep their shafts rubbing together while dipping his fingers below to explore the base of Garak’s and where it emerged from his lover’s body.
The inspection yielded a ring of swollen scales that fluttered beneath his fingertips, and he traced circles around it with a teasing, light touch. Garak startled and shuddered but didn’t let a sound escape. The warm trickle seeping out provided enough lubrication for Julian to press in, only just as far as the entrance. He circled his finger again, stretching the muscle to the slightest degree, and smiled as Garak grabbed his other arm in an involuntary squeeze. The ring of scales at the bottom of Garak’s erection turned into ribbing on the inside, and Julian followed the curious texture deeper inward and upward, over what he assumed were the muscles that controlled eversion.
Garak outright spasmed and yelped at the pressure, a shocked cry that he cut off by clamping his mouth closed, possibly embarrassed at the loss of control. But Julian was determined to provoke it again, so he inserted a second digit to join the first. He rubbed over the furrowed tissues with a curling motion, gratified at the way Garak’s sphincter muscles clenched around him, squeezing his fingers together and tugging them deeper. He drank up every whine and sigh, every parting of lips and twitch of facial muscles as he explored the nooks and crannies of the alien channel.
When Garak began to keen, high-pitched whines that reversed into hisses on the way in, Julian withdrew and soothingly ran his palm over the tender region. “Tell me, Mr. Garak. What would you do if you had an utterly prepossessing and irresistible subject at your whim? How would you dismantle all of their carefully erected barriers, reveal all of their secrets, capture the man inside? Would you slip in stealthily, clad in shadow and starlight, or would you crash though like an Algorian mammoth, trampling stone and metal in a display of power and aggression?” Tell me what you want me to do, he pleaded silently. Tell me how to woo you, to possess you.
Garak’s eyes shone in the dark. “Like a Tarkalean hawk, swooping down from above. Diving out of the sky from the direction least expected, completely catching my prey unaware.”
Between the two of them, Julian was the more athletic one, the one currently on top, and the one who almost always drank Tarkalean tea. If his assumptions were correct…
He could picture himself as a hawk. He could swoop down and ensnare his quarry, he could… “Then fly away with the prize, clasped tight in your talons, to devour piece by piece at your leisure?”
“Yes.”
Such a short word capable of conveying the weight of a thousand suns.
Julian lifted his waist so that his dick trailed down along Garak’s until it reached the root. Nudged lower. Hovered, like a raptor on a thermal before the plunge. . “Elim,” Julian locked their gazes, caught the vulnerability in the other man’s. The desire. The need. “I love you.” And with a precise thrust, he dove.
It was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. Slick yet ridged and tight, just this side of cool in comparison to a human’s core temperature. Muscles that rippled and clamped down around him in a shocking display of control.
Or maybe the spontaneous loss of it, based on the satisfyingly astonished display that overtook his lover’s face.
Almost completely sheathed, Julian shook as he balanced himself on his elbows. The envelopment was unbelievable, the immersion mind-bendingly exquisite. Unable to bring himself to withdraw from the wondrously adorned and tight cavity, he instead twisted to one side and then the other. No deeper, but enough to feel changes in texture and flutters of tissue, and for a small gush of fluid to escape where they were joined.
“Stars above,” Garak rasped, arching beneath him.
“So lovely,” Julian sighed back, referring to both the vision of pleasure being presented to him and the sensation of their coupling itself. If he had known this was what he’d be coming back to this evening… Oh gods, he didn’t want it to end. He corkscrewed his hips again, eliciting another “ah!” from his companion and a chest-deep groan from himself.
Normally at this point, his body would switch into a pistoning escalation, but he was somewhat more endowed than the space available, and Garak seemed to be very much appreciating what he’d begun with the swiveling side to side motions, so he decided to keep up with that for the time being.
The throb of both their heartbeats pulsing inside his partner’s body, Julian stole a moment to once again admire the mosaic of scales and ridges that adorned Garak’s frame. He’d dreamed of this moment, fantasized, and now that he had it he was going to drink it up like a man dying of thirst in the desert. Garak returned the stare, eyes darting from hairline to neck, shoulder to shoulder, and lower as if he could see the point of penetration. Twin journeys were traveled by sight alone, dipped and looped, trails traced and crisscrossed, until their eyes met, joined, held.
The heat between them seemed to increase exponentially, and Julian moaned at the intensity. He wasn’t going to last much longer. It was time. The moment to stake his claim. He hadn’t the foggiest clue how--not yet--but he’d never been one to resist adventure and was absolutely certain he’d be redirected in the event of a misstep.
Poised as he was just a tad higher up, Julian began by licking a thick stripe inside the divot on Garak’s forehead. The tailor shut his eyes and whimpered, scratching at the sheets on each side. Julian chose a brow ridge and kissed his way down the knobbed scales, then around an eye socket. He worked his way around the aural shell, switched to nibbles below the ear. Garak’s internal muscles clenched around him in erratic presses and releases, milking him mercilessly with each kiss.
“Oh. Oh Jullian,” Garak mumbled faintly. “The neck. Cardassians… the neck.”
Julian smirked to himself at the disjointed speech of his normally loquacious companion. Of course the neck. That was his next destination. The question was where to begin. The scales all looked so delectable. Chewy. Thick and sweet. He stuck his tongue into one at random and suckled at it, biting down ever so gently around the edge.
It must have been the right one, had to be, because all at once Garak let out a strangled sob, his whole frame going rigid and insides flaring hot. Julian felt like his prick had been suddenly stuck inside a scorching vice. His thoughts melted to mush as his last remaining vestiges of control barely held him back from tipping over the edge.
Garak’s legs intertwined with his, tethering him in place, and his arms curled around Julian’s chest to pull them into a smothering embrace. “H- Harder! Now!” Garak begged.
But Julian hesitated. He wanted it to be done right. If Garak desired to be taken apart and put back together, to be completely and utterly helpless under another’s hands, to not only be marked but permeated and claimed… then that was what Julian was going to do.
He hummed as if considering his lover’s plea, but instead of a bite, he softly licked up and down the neck ridge, a teasing flick into the center of each scute, tiny nips at random intervals. When the entire length had been moistened, he blew a soft breath over the skin.
Garak shivered and hugged tighter. “Julian, you infuriating, insufferable-”
“Shhh.” He circled his hips leisurely, then gave that one special scale another suck. Garak jolted but didn’t voice any other complaints. Julian turned his head sideways. “I do love you, Elim,” he murmured into the cool gray throat, battling to hold on just that little bit longer. “I love the idea of belonging to you, and of you belonging to me. You- You have no idea how much…” But no. Now wasn’t the time for that. Later. “Tell me you’re mine, Elim. Tell me you belong to no one else.”
“I’m yours.”
Julian withdrew just a little, slipped back in, and pulled back out. “Tell me again.”
“I’m yours.”
“Again.”
“I’m yours. ”
“Tell me…” Julian sheathed himself as far as he could. Garak scratched at his back. “Tell me you love me.”
“Ju- Julian…”
Julian focused back on that one scale, and swirled his tongue in the dip. He could feel Garak tighten against him as if being wound up on a string. On a hunch, he ran a hand up the other shoulder and found the twin scale on the other side. With a few gentle pinches and tugs, Garak was soon shaking and mumbling incoherently, his body rocking of its own accord into the one above it. “Tell me,” Julian ordered into the pliant flesh.
“I… I-”
Julian bit down.
Garak cried out on an anguished choke, a sound that could be pain or ecstasy or both. Everything from incisors to canines sinking into the scales, Julian secured his jaw even deeper. Something leaked out to dribble over his tongue, metallic and thin, that he swallowed down eagerly like morning dew at sunrise. He could feel it under his fingertips on the other side as well, and used the fluid to massage up and down the other ridge.
They writhed together on the mattress, bodies pressed lengthwise, rapidly losing all restraint or purpose. Their moves turned frantic, frenzied. When Garak lifted his head to gnaw on Julian’s own bare shoulder, he knew this had to be the moment. Julian bit down the rest of the way, as hard as he could, and felt his teeth puncture the skin.
Garak roared into his clavicle and grabbed Julian so tight it felt like his ribs might snap. But then he jerked, gasped, and jerked again, and hot ejaculate spurted between them while his channel pulsated and surged around Julian’s cock. It was too much all at once and Julian was flung over the precipice with him, scarcely enough room in his lungs to suck in a breath and shout. Head spinning and blood thrumming, the release flashed through like a wildfire that roared from head to groin, where it erupted out of him and into his quaking partner.
“Mine,” Julian declared blearily, collapsing onto the gray, scaly chest.
After a minute or so of heavy breathing, he eased out and slid over to settle against Garak’s now lax arm. His mouth opened to inquire how the experience had been, or demand that final confession, but a yawn came out instead, and before he had the chance to say a word, the week’s exhaustion and the night’s exertions caught up with him in one fell swoop and his consciousness slipped away.
He woke less than three hours later to the amorous tugs of lips and teeth on his earlobe. Julian smiled to himself, at first just basking in the sensation and not calling up any specific details from his earlier exploits, but as memories worked their way in, he was overcome with both elation and unease. “Elim?”
“Mmm?” A cool, wet tongue explored deeper into his ear.
Julian cleared his throat and tried not to get distracted. “About what we did…”
Garak’s fingers traced the crease above his thigh, inward and outward, then inward again. “I’d be more than willing to do it again.”
“A-As I can tell. But…” Heat was building back up in his groin, and Julian fought to reign in his rising libido, wrestling with the temptation to just say fuck it all and then do precisely that. Reluctantly, he grabbed at the wandering hand and stilled it. “Talk first, then other things. I want to discuss this now in case I get called back to the infirmary.” When there was no reply except for an escaped digit tickling the hairs of his groin, he rolled his eyes and mock frowned. “I’m beginning to think you’re trying to get me sidetracked so you don’t have to do anything uncomfortable like talk about your feelings.”
Garak’s shoulders slumped. “You’ve become rather perceptive, my dear. But I should have expected that you would want to complicate things with dialogue and labels.” A sigh. “Get on with it.”
Julian couldn’t help needling him a little after all the years his friend had given him a hard time. “I hate to tell you this,” he really didn’t, “but you and Miles have more in common than you’d like to believe.” He chuckled at the expected bristling as Garak pulled his hand away with an almost wounded purse of the lips. “ He doesn’t like to talk about feelings either. Anyway… I want to know: what does it mean when you mark someone?”
“I should think it would be fairly obvious.” Garak angled his head to show off the ridge of scales extending down his neck and shoulders. There was a dark outline of Julian’s bite surrounding a central scute. It was almost like a tattoo.
“So yes, everyone can see that you’ve got that, um, imprint on your skin, but what does it mean ? That you’re sexual partners, or in a relationship, or… ah… something closer to a, ahem, proposal?”
Garak’s eyes widened comically. “Doctor, I’m shocked! You didn’t know the meaning of your gesture and yet you barreled ahead with it anyway? What would Starfleet say about such reckless behavior?”
Julian laughed. “That it’s nothing they haven’t had to deal with before. And it’s not like you care what they think, anyway.” He rearranged himself to get more comfortable, propping his head up on one arm to take in what he could of his lover’s body and delightful expressions. “What I care about is what you think about all this. And that’s why I did what I did. Because I thought you wanted it. Whether it was sex or some sort of Cardassian mate bonding or something you just made up on the spot to get me to take charge, I was happy. I am happy. But I’d be happier knowing if it held meaning outside of this room.”
With a sly smirk, Garak tilted his head. “Oh, it won’t mean a thing on this ship. The Vulcan officers might notice something, but not be aware of the significance. However, if you were to cross a few of my people, it’d be instantly obvious by their demeanor that they’d identified you as- what’s the human term? Ah yes: off limits. Unavailable.”
“Wait a second. Me ? I thought you were the one who was marked.” Julian pointed to the discoloration on Garak’s shoulder.
“Who said marking was visual and not olfactory? You know my people’s physiology, Doctor. Large pheromonal glands, acute sense of smell? Didn’t you taste the secretion when my shoulder was in your mouth?”
Julian’s mouth dropped open. “You marked me ?”
Garak smiled serenely.
“But- But the whole thing about me marking you, when I talked about you wanting me to do everything that you said you’d do to me, what was that?”
Garak simply continued to beam maddeningly.
Julian shook his head in defeat. “I’m horribly confused.”
“My dear doctor, just because I desired to claim you as my own doesn’t mean I didn’t also desire to be claimed in return. Especially when you seemed so very willing.”
“I supposed it did still work out that way, didn’t it?” Julian mused out loud. “Everyone knows that we’re sharing quarters, so if you were to leave this room sporting the Cardassian equivalent of a hickey, then they’ll all know what we’ve been up to.”
Garak blinked. Apparently he hadn’t considered that. “I assumed you would use the dermal regenerator.”
“I could. But I won’t. You said that you wanted to be marked, and now you have been. So you’re stuck with me. For better or worse.” Julian slithered closer and ran a finger down the center of Garak’s chest. “Although I’d like to think it’s mostly for the better.”
The gray face winced slightly. “Julian, there aren’t a lot of advantages to being associated with me. I know that we made some rather intimate promises to each other in the heat of passion, but you may wish to change your mind now that you’re a little more clear headed.” Garak had never looked so tender--or honest--as he did at that moment.
Julian attempted to lighten the mood. “I’ve been told I have a terrible fashion sense, so I could definitely benefit from having a tailor for a partner. And I seem to recall someone telling me that I really ought to expand my exposure to other cultures, especially their poetry and novels. You do read on occasion, don’t you?” he teased.
Garak sighed in exasperation. “ Doctor. My people are active members of the Dominion. I’m not only held under suspicion by most, but downright reviled by many. It would pain me for any of that hostility to be aimed in your direction because of me .”
“Elim. I don’t know what I can say to make you believe that I truly don’t care what other people think. I used to, but… Remember what I said before? We’re in the middle of war. Every day could be our last.” Julian reached out and brushed a few errant hairs from Garak’s forehead. “I love you.”
They regarded each other in silence for a few seconds before Garak glanced away. He looked… distressed. Ashamed.
Julian’s heart sank. “But you don’t… Elim, did you mark me because you thought it wouldn’t matter since we weren’t going to be around any Cardassians? You thought you could make a promise and then not have to uphold it?”
Garak jerked his head up. “Oh, no no! Doctor, my people take such an action very seriously. You should know by now that we are very stringent about our cultural practices. But when you say that you- that you-”
“That I love you?”
“Yes, that. I find it difficult to-”
Julian moved closer again so that he could hold Garak’s chin and give him a soft kiss on the lips. “It’s alright. You don’t have to say it back. You came close, a little while ago. That’s enough for me. More than enough.”
Were Garak’s eyes just a little bit watery? Surely not. “You’re too good to me, my dear.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to find some way to repay me.” Julian kissed him again, this time lingering longer. When Garak reciprocated, he ran his hand down the unmarked side of the scaly neck. “What would it mean if I were to leave my mark on both ridges?”
“Whatever you want it to mean. I’m already yours.”
Overcome with emotion, Julian closed his eyes and drew in a shaky breath. “Will you be mine forever?” Steeling himself, he reopened his eyes.
“Yes.”
Julian straightened in surprise. Really? Just like that? Joyously, his mind ran through a hundred scenarios: sharing the news with Jadzia, Miles and Worf’s faces at the declaration, filling out paperwork with Captain Sisko, moving in together… a potential thousands of days, followed by thousands of nights… And speaking of- “Then you’ll have plenty of time to show me how good you can be. Shall we begin now?”
Garak licked his lips and pulled Julian back against him eagerly. “With pleasure.”