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“Doctor,” Garak said in a mild voice. Julian was leaning heavily on the doorframe, so drunk he was swaying even while standing still.
“Hullo, Garak,” Julian said. His words had the clumsy edges of true drunkenness. Garak had never seen the doctor so much as tipsy before, and so had no idea what to expect. Alcohol was a highly unpredictable variable. It could turn the most patient individual into a raging berserker, or cause an upright soldier to weep like a child.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Can’t a friend come to say hello?” Julian asked. His face split into a wide, foolish grin, and Garak decided it would be safe enough to allow him entry. Julian was apparently a friendly drunk, and likely the biggest risk would be that he would transition into maudlin as the alcohol took further effect.
Garak stepped aside and waved Julian in.
Julian wove his way inside the room, that overly wide smile still plastered across his face. Garak shut the door and carefully herded the doctor over to the couch. Julian flopped down bonelessly, letting his head fall back and his arms dangle limply by his sides.
“I take it you enjoyed yourself at the little ‘holiday party’?”
“We all did,” Julian said. “Even Odo.” He frowned and said in almost a whine “Why didn’t you come? I said you were invited.”
“I am not one for parties, these days. Certainly not ones where I am expected to get as drunk as you.”
Julian’s grin reappeared.
“Because spies can’t get drunk,” he said, in an attempt at a whisper. “Got to, to stay sober to keep your secrets. Mr Plain. Simple. Garak.” He snickered.
Garak sighed and fetched Julian a glass of water. The doctor accepted it and took a gulp.
“Did you ever do that?” Julian asked. “Get, get a lot of alcohol in someone to get them to say things they shouldn’t?”
“On occasion,” Garak admitted. Julian leaned forward to put the glass on the table; seeing he was about to miss by several inches, Garak intervened. “But only the very foolish allow themselves to be caught in such a situation, so it was rarely useful. And alcohol clouds the mind – one cannot always trust what is said.”
Julian frowned thoughtfully.
“People say that a lot, don’t they? They get, get drunk and then say something and then the next day, ‘ohh I didn’t mean it, I don’t actually think that’, but that’s never true. They did mean it. Alcohol don’t—doesn’t—doesn’t, it doesn’t make you a different person. They mean they shouldn’t have said it, or, or they meant it but they didn’t mean to say it.”
“Quite so,” Garak said. “May I ask what brings you here, Doctor Bashir, and not to your own quarters? Other than a chance to say hello at one o’clock in the morning?”
“I wanted to see you,” Julian said, grinning. “That’s what alcohol does.”
“Make you want to see me?”
“Nooo,” Julian said, rolling his eyes and nearly sliding sideways in the process. “It makes you do the things you want to do but don’t do if you don’t have any.”
“I see.”
The doctor’s words were growing increasingly slurred, and Julian’s eyelids were beginning to droop.
“Come, doctor, why don’t you finish that glass of water and I’ll put you up for the night.”
“I’m not tired,” Julian said instantly, opening his eyes wide and sitting straight up. “I’m just comfortable. I wanted to talk with you. Sit. Sit with me and talk.”
Garak gave in, deciding to find the doctor’s drunken ramblings charming and to tease him about it tomorrow morning. He sat.
“Do you agree?” Julian asked.
“With what, doctor?”
“That people mean the things they do when they drink. You know. Just because they were drunk doesn’t mean they don’t mean it when they do it?”
Garak considered.
“I think it depends,” he said. “Alcohol increases the intensity of emotions. Someone too drunk to think clearly may say something they don’t mean simply to hurt, or to get a reaction.”
“But that’s lying, that doesn’t count.”
“Ah, but how is one to tell the difference?”
“But if somebody said something nice to you, you’d believe them? That they meant it?”
“As you say – they may mean to say it at the time, but they may regret it later.”
“But regretting doesn’t mean they don’t mean it! D’you see? See, because, because you mean it, you just didn’t mean to mean it. I mean, mean to say that you meant it.”
It was very late, and Julian was very drunk, and even Garak was having a difficult time following the rather circular conversation. Julian took his silence as invitation and plowed on.
“If, if I said something to you, you’d believe it, wouldn’t you? You know? Even when I’m drunk, you’d believe that I meant it.”
“Even if you said you didn’t mean it, later?”
Julian nodded a little too vigorously and Garak had to help him balance again.
“I would believe that you meant it, yes,” Garak said.
“Good!” Julian said triumphantly. “Because you…” He poked Garak in the chest. “You, you are, Garak, you—listen, Miles is my best friend but you’re, you know, you’re also my friend, but you’re not, not second to him, you know, it’s, you’re my best friend but in a different…in the different way, you know, it’s a different feeling. And I’ve felt it for, for years, you know, all the lunches that we do, it’s the best part of my whole day, my whole week!”
“That’s very kind of you to say, doctor,” Garak said, managing to keep his face straight by great effort.
“No, no, you don’t—you don’t get, I mean, I’m trying to say, you are so important to me. Right? I mean it. That’s what I mean. I mean you, and me, and we, we’re, you know.” He held up a hand with the index and middle fingers crossed. “Like this, you know? That’s, that’s me and you. To me.”
Julian tipped forward so abruptly Garak thought he had passed out sitting up, but instead found himself trapped in a loose, lopsided hug.
“It’s like…you know. Being friends but being better than best friends. Bester. Better. Better friends. You know. I love you. Is what I mean.”
Garak sighed inwardly and rolled his eyes. He should have known Julian would be this kind of drunk – even sober, Julian loved the whole world. He’d probably be telling the plants on the promenade that he loved them, if left alone for long enough.
“I care for you, too, doctor, thank you.”
Julian snored in his ear. Garak sighed out loud this time and gently laid Julian back onto the couch.
“You are going to regret every minute of this in the morning,” he informed his friend, and got up to fetch a blanket.
Garak woke up to a long, drawn-out moan. He smiled.
Rising from his bed, he padded out into the living room where Doctor Julian Bashir, Chief Medical Officer of Starfleet Outpost Deep Space Nine was curled up in a ball on the couch, holding a pillow in a death grip against his head. Through the pillow, his words were muffled, but Garak could still make him out clearly.
“—no no no no no no no—”
“Good morning, doctor,” Garak said cheerfully. Julian froze. “I hope it wasn’t too much of a surprise to wake up on my couch. I wasn’t sure how much of last evening you would remember, given your…condition.”
With every word, Julian coiled in on himself into a tighter and tighter ball until his knees were against his chest.
“You make for a fascinating conversationalist.”
Julian shot out from under the pillow and into the bathroom, his retch echoing off the tile.
“I’ll make you some ginger tea,” Garak called after him.
When he judged that the worst of it was over, Garak approached the bathroom door. He reached up to knock and paused, hearing whispering.
“…bloody idiot, couldn’t keep your bloody mouth shut if your life depended on it, oh god…”
Garak knocked.
“Doctor?”
“I’m fine!” Julian shouted, far louder than was necessary. “Everything’s fine! I just…need a minute!”
“I’ll be putting together a light breakfast. Do let me know if you need anything.”
“Will do!” he replied with painful enthusiasm. Garak smirked and stepped away from the door, then paused for a moment until he heard the soft moan of “Oh god.”
Breakfast was toast, tea, and a few slices of mild fruit – all of earth origin, for the sake of the doctor’s stomach. When Julian finally stumbled out, he had a sickly pallor under his golden skin but did not seem blinded by the overhead lights. He all but collapsed into the chair opposite from Garak. He did not look at Garak, his gaze instead fixed on his empty plate.
“Listen. Garak. About last night. I was—”
“Utterly incoherent,” Garak said calmly. Julian’s head shot up.
“What?”
“You seemed to be attempting to have some sort of philosophical discussion about truth, which I quite honestly could barely follow,” Garak said, buttering his toast. “And then you were very complimentary about the importance of our friendship, before falling over on me and passing out.”
Julian slumped back in his seat with a gasp, covering his face with his hands.
“I am so sorry,” Julian said, dropping his hands. Despite this, the color was beginning to come back into his face.
“Not at all, doctor. None of us are at our best when we are that intoxicated. And I shall choose not to take it personally that you felt the need to specify so strenuously that I rank below Chief O’Brien—”
“Now hold on,” Julian cried, sitting up. “My entire point was that your friendship doesn’t mean less to me than my relationship with Miles! I only meant that it’s a different kind of relationship!”
Garak opened his eyes wide in an exaggerated expression of skepticism.
“If you say so. Last night you were quite insistent that people always mean what they say in the moment.”
“It is uncharitable of you to hold me culpable for my drunken ramblings,” Julian protested, hiding his smile as he helped himself to a slice of apple.
Garak decided not to mention that Julian had said he loved him. The doctor might take it the wrong way.