Mea culpa (Closed)
Who: Garak and Bashir
What: Garak decides the time has come to make amends with Doctor Bashir if he can, and if he can't, to reach an arrangement they both can live with in the hotel.
Where: Bashir's hotel room
When: After their unpleasant conversation when Dukat abducted Janeway.
( mea culpa, mea maxima culpa )
What: Garak decides the time has come to make amends with Doctor Bashir if he can, and if he can't, to reach an arrangement they both can live with in the hotel.
Where: Bashir's hotel room
When: After their unpleasant conversation when Dukat abducted Janeway.
( mea culpa, mea maxima culpa )
Seeing as Garak was in no hurry to leave, Julian concentrated on calming down and settling in. He took a deep breath and moved to the shelves on the opposite side of the huge room, taking his stack of selections with him.
He browsed for a while, not really seeing the words as much as noticing the colors of the lettering on the bindings. But then he found the works of another childhood favorite J.K. Rowling and his anxiety was forgotten.
"Garak! I've found the Harry Potter series! I'd always loved stories about wizards and dragons and other magical creatures and British author Rowling created the most fantastic universe based on them! It takes place in a school for young wizards and follows the adventures of Harry Potter and his two best friends."
He turned back to the books and pulled one down, leafing through it as he continued. "I was thrilled to find out she gave one of her character's the same last name as mine! His name was Ali Bashir and he was a magic carpet dealer. But after they were banned because they were considered to be a misuse of muggle ... that's the term for non-magic folk ... items, they were no longer imported into Britain. But they were clever because they were more comfortable than brooms, could hold more than one person, and you could put a canopy on them to protect yourself from the elements! I sure loved this series. I haven't read it in years!"
He took down all seven books from the series and added them to his pile.
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As Garak drew closer, Julian tensed. On one hand, he wanted nothing more than to run to his room and stash the book. On the other, he wanted to spend time with Garak, even if they were reading literature and not actually discussing it. He was afraid if he did leave to hide the book, he would not be able to make it back to sit and read with his friend.
As if plucked from his mind, a door opened out of the dark wood panel in the wall and a library clerk walked to a desk in the far left corner of the room.
"I'll stay. I just want to give these books to the librarian and have them sent up to my room for reading at a later time."
He took his stack, except for the first Potter book, and gave them to the silent clerk. "Please have these sent up to my room, please. Thank you."
As the mysterious generic man did his bidding, Julian sauntered back over to Garak and picked up his book. He pointed to a cluster with three large easy chairs, a sofa table, and a floor lamp at each chair.
"How about this group of over-stuffed chairs?"
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He stayed away from the bland attendant. He never liked dealing with the people he had come to see as strange sort of simulacrums. They had such little life to them. It was disconcerting. Nodding, he walked shoulder to shoulder with the doctor as he so often had on DS9 toward the seating. "If any of those books in your stack are worth a debate, let me read them when you're done with them," he offered. "Don't give me a children's book. I'll gladly toss it at your head," he finished with a mostly playful warning.
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"I've got one for you, but it's not a novel. It's an ancient earth debate poem written between 1189 and 1216 and it's called The Owl and the Nightingale. No one is exactly sure who wrote it, but some think, as I do, that the poem is generally regarded as one of the earliest and finest examples of a popular medieval literary debate. The owl is sombre and the nightingale is lighthearted. It reminds me of you and I when we debate literature. Like our debates, this one becomes spirited, but ultimately inconclusive."
He sat down and flipped through the book. "It combines the characteristics of comedy, parody, traditional fables, and popular verse satire of the times. I think you will like it."
He handed the thin leather volume to Garak and took a seat. "This edition includes the Old English original and the modern English translation along with a detailed history of the text."
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He listened to the description and leaned to take the book when it was offered. "Thank you. It does sound interesting," he said. Sitting back again, he got settled, crossing an ankle over his knee and flipping open the book. The rest of his selections were in a neat stack on the low table in front of him. In no time, he was as absorbed as he ever allowed himself to be in an open space.
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Julian had always been able to focus on more than one thing at a time before the hotel, but now, that wasn't the case. He read four more paragraphs without retaining any of it and soon he started to move around in his chair. There was a lot of room to squirm as the chair was very wide. What was most uncomfortable was how the chair sat so low to the floor. His long legs weren't comfortable unless they were stretched out in front of him or tucked under his body.
Soon, he was switching from one position to the other and growing a bit anxious again over the book. Should he even read it? How could he not? What would it tell him that Garak had not mentioned? He needed a distraction and reading J.K. Rowling was not absorbing enough to do the trick, so he leaned forward and tried not to act obvious as he looked at Garak's pile. He didn't realize he was chewing on a fingernail as he read the Cardăsda print on the bindings. But the language was no longer easy for him to decipher. His gut twisted painfully as he thought again if he might be slowly losing his enhancements altogether.
He had to relieve the anxiety, so he set his book on the table, stood, and made his way to the area where Garak had found his books. When he first met Garak on the station five years prior, he had wanted to learn everything he could about Cardassia and Cardassian culture. He learned their language over time and practiced it when given the chance.
From his research, Julian had discovered that the Cardassians had their own form of sign language used for not only the speech or hearing impaired, but for use in situations where whispering or speaking softly were needed. Due to their sense of hearing, Cardassians are not as able to pick out more subtle sounds and the sign language was very useful in military, government, and other situations where silent communication was needed.
Julian wanted to learn the sign language so he could surprise Garak and even help in his role as a Starfleet officer, but it seemed something was always keeping him from doing so, until now. Now he had a lot of time on his hands and he searched for a book that would teach him what he wanted to learn.
Finding a book on the subject was proving difficult, however, and Julian wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that most Cardassians of the modern age considered using the language as a sign of weakness. Biting on his thumbnail, Julian continued to look.
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Climbing down, Julian slid the ladder as far right as it would go on the track and climbed the five rungs back up. Still, the books were just out of his reach by mere inches. He grumbled as he climbed down once again and walked over to the next ladder over to the right and slid it as far left as it would go. Encouraged, Julian climbed up and discovered the books he wanted were still out of reach; only this time they were too far to the left! Julian ran his hand through his hair. Why would the three books he wanted be between the two ladders? He rolled his eyes and took a deep breath to calm down. It was the hotel. The hotel was playing games with him again.
"Terrific!", he hissed. Leaning as far over to his left as possible by leaving only the toes of his right foot and the fingers of his right hand on the ladder, he reached for the book closest to him. Still, it was out of reach and he strained harder; to the point where his foot slipped off the ladder. The momentum from his foot slipping caused Julian to lose his grip on the side of the ladder and he barely caught himself from falling by clinging to a shelf by his fingers.
"Ugh!" His first thought was not how he was going to make it back to the ladder, but that he hoped Garak was too absorbed in his book to notice what had happened. Looking down, he realized it was at least a twelve foot drop to the floor and suddenly his fingers started to ache. Looking back up, he saw the three books he wanted directly in front of his face. He had worked too hard to let those books just sit there and he was not about to ask the freaky librarian to get them for him when he'd put so much effort into the task. Getting a leg up on a lower shelf, he managed to pull the three books down. He watched as they fell and made an obnoxiously loud noise as they hit the hardwood floor.
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"The books I needed were exactly mid-way between the reach of both ladders. The hotel did it on purpose." Pouting, Julian realized how much he sounded like a petulant child who indeed need a babysitter. Not wanting to see Garak's expression, he bent down, picked up his books, and headed to his stack of Harry Potter books on the low table.
"Thank you."
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He followed behind and gathered up his own books, picking the one Bashir had given him off the floor. "Speaking of rooms, I think I'm returning to mine. It's quieter. I do hope you enjoy your reading."
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Watching Garak leave, he realized he'd just been given the "brush-off", but he convinced himself he didn't mind as much as he normally would. He had the Dominion War book in his room, after all, and he was anxious to get to it. Whether or not he'd be able to make himself read it was another story, however. Besides, he also had the sign language books now and he really wanted to learn them to surprise his friend.
Gathering his books, Julian shrugged his shoulders and thought of how much Garak had changed. He wanted to turn himself into the person Garak wanted to be around because obviously he was not that person now. He didn't know how to be anyone other than who he was, but the war had changed his friend and maybe it was time for Julian to leave his youth officially behind.
Thinking back, he started to remember the times Quark had called him 'a pup', Worf had called him 'a child', and Jadzia had always seemed more like his mother than an older sister or older friend. She was over three hundred years older than him, of course, but that was Dax more than Jadzia herself.
He sighed as he turned to make his way to the exit. Garak's bombshell about the war had probably aged him ten years all ready and finding himself a prisoner of the hotel had helped push things along even further. Who knew what reading the book on the War might do.
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He took the next lift that came along and found himself at the door to his suite without remembering the walk down the hall. Shaking his head, he balanced his books while he fished his key from his pocket. Once inside, he put the small stack he had down in favor of looking for the books the hotel was to have delivered.
As expected, the stack of books were sitting on his coffee table in the living room. His heart began to pound as he approached the stack to read the bindings. There was no Dominion War book! He got closer and picked up the stack. It wasn't there. He put the stack down and looked beneath the low table, but found nothing.
One hour and twenty minutes later, he still had not found the book. What the hell? Was he going mad? He tore his place apart and walked the route from the lift to his room twice, but no book. He checked the lifts and the book was no where to be found in any of them.
He ran his hand through his hair and rubbed his eyes. There was nothing wrong with his vision and he was clearly awake. Worried he might be hallucinating again, he thought of calling someone, but who would he call? Both Kathryn and Garak were out of the question.
Julian snapped his fingers and walked to his computer. The next person to come to mind was Dean. Dean would not know of the war nor would he know Julian was not supposed to find out about it's outcome. His fingers flew over the keys as he composed a private message to Mr. Winchester ... demon, and hopefully, book hunter.
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