DS9 FanFic, "Shadow," G/B, [PG], 1/1
Title: Shadow
Author: PrelocAndKanar (Prelocandkanar@aol.com)
Series: DS9
Part: 1/1
Rating: PG
Codes: m/m implied, G/B
Summary: Garak mulls his life and relationships during and immediately following “Chrysalis,” with references to “Afterimage.”
Disclaimer: Paramount owns all. I own nothing.
*****************
Everyone needs a hobby.
Tailoring is, alas, not quite as intellectually stimulating as one might assume. Relaxing, certainly. Calming, even. Challenging, in its way. Often creative. But intellectually stimulating? Hardly.
As a person used to and indeed rather dependent upon adequate use of the mind, I engage in various hobbies, shall we say, to stay sharp. I keep up with many things. The intricacies of Cardassian politics is one. Bajoran, too, to a lesser extent. Keeping up with literature is another. Keeping up with the lives and deaths of my enemies. The care and feeding of my many contacts.
And Julian Bashir.
I watch him. I follow his life. I don’t interfere.
Well. Not often.
Once I was a spy for an entire empire. Now I am a spy on this tiny world. Very little escapes my notice, if I care to look. Of course I knew about the arrival of Dr. Bashir’s flock.
I knew of his desire to help Sarina. I knew of his struggles with the equipment. I knew when he performed the surgery. And I knew of his disappointment when it seemed to be a failure.
His eyelids look hooded more often than not these days. His eyes look heavier. They look old. I never wanted to make him over into my image, cynical and disillusioned. But this was not entirely my doing. The callous chain of events of his life has done more than enough to transform that bright, open, eager face that I first encountered into this more shadowed one.
He throws himself in his work, but he is a lonely man. He has his friendship with O’Brien, of course, but it is the most surface kind of relationship. It has been a long time since we had lunch together. I avoid the replimat these days.
His eyes slide over me now without interest.
My mystery, my allure, my whiff of danger, has dissipated. How long ago was it that I felt him jump at my touch on his shoulder, saw his eyes open and his chin quiver at my innuendoes? I smiled at his touching attempts to appear suave and knowing. Now I hold no such spark for him, and he knows too much.
I was there on the promenade when Sarina emerged, pushing out of herself like a fast-growing Iridian orchid. I saw Julian’s face as he watched her. I haven’t seen that look in his eyes for a long time. I turned away.
I play the buffoon far too often these days, but it is easy to hide behind the broad strokes of the clown.
My embellishments are not as crisp as they once were. I keep myself fit relentlessly, however, for no discernable purpose other than foolish pride and vanity.
I wonder why I stay here, on this station. I have no ties, no home, no friends, no family, many skills and a few assets. I could leave this system and go anywhere. I still have many years to live. I could make a new life for myself. I am nothing if not resourceful.
But I stay here. It may be my last mystery.
By helping the Federation to defeat the Dominion, I help to destroy my homeland and my people. And if I were to help my homeland in its unholy alliance with the Dominion, I would be destroying it just as surely. Were I not an exile, were I younger, were I a thousand times more foolish and less selfish, I would lead a doomed rebellion against the Dominion and die like a Klingon in glorious defeat. Should I look to Kira Nerys and her onetime cohorts, who fought the good fight for those many years against my people, struggling until they finally thrust off the yoke of our Occupation? What an absurd notion. This situation is quite different, and I am certainly no Freedom Fighter.
So, then. Why do I stay?
I watch him. Not all the time, and not always literally. I should say, I follow his activities. Often I do it through the many paths of my closest ally, these comfortable and familiar computer systems. Occasionally, when it is necessary, I follow him in the flesh, so to speak.
I’m not obsessive, though. My one, let us say, mental deficiency, is quite enough, thank you. My claustrophobia. It has actually helped me play the fool on many occasions. I use it to my own ends. When that little curlicue of a Dax entered my shop, daring to analyze me, it was all I could do to keep from throwing her out at once. Instead, I dangled in front of her a counselor’s fevered dream: a stunning tale of being locked in a dark closet by a frightful father. Her eyes grew large and she crowed her triumph, then she let me be.
Obviously, there was no closet. My father was certainly a disciplinarian, but his methods were both more and less subtle than a closet, and certainly much less pleasant. No, my discomfort with small, enclosed places has another origin.
Let’s just say it was work-related, and leave it at that.
So. I watch him. I watch in a casual way, as his presence catches my eyes and whispers to my sleepy libido. When it is necessary, I watch him in a more professional manner.
I keep to the shadows. It is good to keep in practice, even if there are far fewer shadows on this station now than there were in the days when my fellow Cardassians were its occupants.
He doesn’t know that I watch him. I don’t know why I do it. He draws me still, but perhaps more from habit than anything else. We do become creatures of habit as the years chase closer. For some of us, habit is the only solace we have.
So I still yearn for him, but I smile at myself as I do. I know there is no such yearning in him. He feels himself an exile, cut off from the world, so lonely. He had seen a vision of someone young, naïve, just as cut off and as different as himself. To her, he seems larger than life. Naturally, he had imagined that their similarities would draw them together, and he could introduce her to the world. I had thought the same thing, once.
We are so alike yet so different. We are both exiles in our different ways. We do not enjoy the close connections that others do. Yet, he is a healer, a curer, a creature of compassion. My skills lie in un-doing, un-making. I destroy. I tear down, I unravel. I once did it to people. Now I do it with codes.
I do so much un-making that I desperately turn to making when I can. Creating clothes. Gardening. Spinning beautiful lies, even if they are only lies I tell myself. Lies about the future. Lies about the past. Lies about my heart, as if I even had one.
I am too practical. I may speak in lies, but brutally, I see only the truth. Julian once told me an old Terran saying, “The truth will set you free.” Nonsense. The truth will bind you up. Lies, now - they can set you free.
I watch him watch her get on a transport. I have noted the name of the transport and I have learned of her destination and the research job which awaits her. I have a contact on her new world; well, at least, I have a contact who has a contact there.
So. In a year or two, perhaps, she will receive an assignment to do research off her facility. Her assignment will take her back to the place of her awakening, to DS9.
I can’t predict where her heart and mind will be at that time. I can’t predict Julian’s, either. I can’t predict or orchestrate the spinning of the quantum particles, the vicissitudes of fate. But I can weight the die, I can fix the table, I can shave the ball. I can nudge.
I watch him watch her transport pull away. He cannot take his eyes off the sight of that vessel racing further and further away. He does not notice the faint reflection in the window of a small man who stands in the far corner, watching him.
I do not stay long. Long before he turns to go, I have left.
He doesn’t see me. He hasn’t, not for a long time.
Author: PrelocAndKanar (Prelocandkanar@aol.com)
Series: DS9
Part: 1/1
Rating: PG
Codes: m/m implied, G/B
Summary: Garak mulls his life and relationships during and immediately following “Chrysalis,” with references to “Afterimage.”
Disclaimer: Paramount owns all. I own nothing.
*****************
Everyone needs a hobby.
Tailoring is, alas, not quite as intellectually stimulating as one might assume. Relaxing, certainly. Calming, even. Challenging, in its way. Often creative. But intellectually stimulating? Hardly.
As a person used to and indeed rather dependent upon adequate use of the mind, I engage in various hobbies, shall we say, to stay sharp. I keep up with many things. The intricacies of Cardassian politics is one. Bajoran, too, to a lesser extent. Keeping up with literature is another. Keeping up with the lives and deaths of my enemies. The care and feeding of my many contacts.
And Julian Bashir.
I watch him. I follow his life. I don’t interfere.
Well. Not often.
Once I was a spy for an entire empire. Now I am a spy on this tiny world. Very little escapes my notice, if I care to look. Of course I knew about the arrival of Dr. Bashir’s flock.
I knew of his desire to help Sarina. I knew of his struggles with the equipment. I knew when he performed the surgery. And I knew of his disappointment when it seemed to be a failure.
His eyelids look hooded more often than not these days. His eyes look heavier. They look old. I never wanted to make him over into my image, cynical and disillusioned. But this was not entirely my doing. The callous chain of events of his life has done more than enough to transform that bright, open, eager face that I first encountered into this more shadowed one.
He throws himself in his work, but he is a lonely man. He has his friendship with O’Brien, of course, but it is the most surface kind of relationship. It has been a long time since we had lunch together. I avoid the replimat these days.
His eyes slide over me now without interest.
My mystery, my allure, my whiff of danger, has dissipated. How long ago was it that I felt him jump at my touch on his shoulder, saw his eyes open and his chin quiver at my innuendoes? I smiled at his touching attempts to appear suave and knowing. Now I hold no such spark for him, and he knows too much.
I was there on the promenade when Sarina emerged, pushing out of herself like a fast-growing Iridian orchid. I saw Julian’s face as he watched her. I haven’t seen that look in his eyes for a long time. I turned away.
I play the buffoon far too often these days, but it is easy to hide behind the broad strokes of the clown.
My embellishments are not as crisp as they once were. I keep myself fit relentlessly, however, for no discernable purpose other than foolish pride and vanity.
I wonder why I stay here, on this station. I have no ties, no home, no friends, no family, many skills and a few assets. I could leave this system and go anywhere. I still have many years to live. I could make a new life for myself. I am nothing if not resourceful.
But I stay here. It may be my last mystery.
By helping the Federation to defeat the Dominion, I help to destroy my homeland and my people. And if I were to help my homeland in its unholy alliance with the Dominion, I would be destroying it just as surely. Were I not an exile, were I younger, were I a thousand times more foolish and less selfish, I would lead a doomed rebellion against the Dominion and die like a Klingon in glorious defeat. Should I look to Kira Nerys and her onetime cohorts, who fought the good fight for those many years against my people, struggling until they finally thrust off the yoke of our Occupation? What an absurd notion. This situation is quite different, and I am certainly no Freedom Fighter.
So, then. Why do I stay?
I watch him. Not all the time, and not always literally. I should say, I follow his activities. Often I do it through the many paths of my closest ally, these comfortable and familiar computer systems. Occasionally, when it is necessary, I follow him in the flesh, so to speak.
I’m not obsessive, though. My one, let us say, mental deficiency, is quite enough, thank you. My claustrophobia. It has actually helped me play the fool on many occasions. I use it to my own ends. When that little curlicue of a Dax entered my shop, daring to analyze me, it was all I could do to keep from throwing her out at once. Instead, I dangled in front of her a counselor’s fevered dream: a stunning tale of being locked in a dark closet by a frightful father. Her eyes grew large and she crowed her triumph, then she let me be.
Obviously, there was no closet. My father was certainly a disciplinarian, but his methods were both more and less subtle than a closet, and certainly much less pleasant. No, my discomfort with small, enclosed places has another origin.
Let’s just say it was work-related, and leave it at that.
So. I watch him. I watch in a casual way, as his presence catches my eyes and whispers to my sleepy libido. When it is necessary, I watch him in a more professional manner.
I keep to the shadows. It is good to keep in practice, even if there are far fewer shadows on this station now than there were in the days when my fellow Cardassians were its occupants.
He doesn’t know that I watch him. I don’t know why I do it. He draws me still, but perhaps more from habit than anything else. We do become creatures of habit as the years chase closer. For some of us, habit is the only solace we have.
So I still yearn for him, but I smile at myself as I do. I know there is no such yearning in him. He feels himself an exile, cut off from the world, so lonely. He had seen a vision of someone young, naïve, just as cut off and as different as himself. To her, he seems larger than life. Naturally, he had imagined that their similarities would draw them together, and he could introduce her to the world. I had thought the same thing, once.
We are so alike yet so different. We are both exiles in our different ways. We do not enjoy the close connections that others do. Yet, he is a healer, a curer, a creature of compassion. My skills lie in un-doing, un-making. I destroy. I tear down, I unravel. I once did it to people. Now I do it with codes.
I do so much un-making that I desperately turn to making when I can. Creating clothes. Gardening. Spinning beautiful lies, even if they are only lies I tell myself. Lies about the future. Lies about the past. Lies about my heart, as if I even had one.
I am too practical. I may speak in lies, but brutally, I see only the truth. Julian once told me an old Terran saying, “The truth will set you free.” Nonsense. The truth will bind you up. Lies, now - they can set you free.
I watch him watch her get on a transport. I have noted the name of the transport and I have learned of her destination and the research job which awaits her. I have a contact on her new world; well, at least, I have a contact who has a contact there.
So. In a year or two, perhaps, she will receive an assignment to do research off her facility. Her assignment will take her back to the place of her awakening, to DS9.
I can’t predict where her heart and mind will be at that time. I can’t predict Julian’s, either. I can’t predict or orchestrate the spinning of the quantum particles, the vicissitudes of fate. But I can weight the die, I can fix the table, I can shave the ball. I can nudge.
I watch him watch her transport pull away. He cannot take his eyes off the sight of that vessel racing further and further away. He does not notice the faint reflection in the window of a small man who stands in the far corner, watching him.
I do not stay long. Long before he turns to go, I have left.
He doesn’t see me. He hasn’t, not for a long time.