It’s only with the greatest restraint that I refrained from posting this straight away when I started this blog, but as with all my favorite favorites, I made myself hold off until I had a couple hundred followers (over 300 now!). I did this despite knowing that this particular story is pretty legendary in DS9 fic / Garashir circles, because it is SO good and hits all the right notes. I love it. Love Julian’s relationship with the old doctor in the clinic, love how he’s so unsure, love Garak not saying anything outright but being an outrageous tease, and love the way it all ends. I bow to you, thehoyden.
I also love the podfic of this fic – recommend it. The fic has also been translated into Chinese and Spanish (links on the AO3 page).
Excerpt*
* I’m so tempted to put in 3-4, but just go read it :)
“Computer, record message,” Julian said, rubbing his eyes a bit. “Hello Garak, I’m alive, although I suspect you’ve already independently verified that fact. Our relay got scrambled in the storms last week, so I didn’t receive your messages until just now. Kevna and I paid the repair person in ration bars and kanar, so I’m only too glad to hear that actual food might be available to the population in the future, courtesy of the new water treatment plant.”
He paused to collect his thoughts. In the first messages he sent to Garak, he’d aimed for a sort of perfected oral report – but as weeks went on, he stopped thinking about how he must look and just talked about what was on his mind.
“The new antiviral seems to be doing the trick – combined with the prospect of clean water in the future, I think we can forecast some stability in the region. The loss of life has been appalling, even on this continent – but I see things on the street everyday that seem encouraging.”
Julian stopped again. He really was exhausted, but he didn’t want to let Garak’s blatant flirtation go unanswered. If he really thought about it, they’d been teetering on this edge for too many years to count – and he’d never really told Garak why he came to Cardassia.
“I hope you’ll have fun making up an appropriate title – I intend to stay on Cardassia for the foreseeable future.” He took a deep breath, and smiled just a bit. “But I hope that we won’t spend all of that time on separate continents. Someone has to look out for my fashion faux pas, after all, and I certainly don’t trust anyone with my inseam but you. Good night.”
He worried for a moment that he hadn’t sounded seductive, that he’d merely sounded foolish and that there was no way that Garak had finally drawn a line in the sand and jumped over it. He played the first message again, and concluded that if Garak was going to look at him like that, like he wanted to lean over his desk and pull Julian out of his chair, a little return flirtation was definitely in order.
But it was late, and he had rounds to make tomorrow. He dragged himself over to his cot and was asleep almost immediately.
Metadata
Title: Letters from the Northern Continent
Author: thehoyden
Year Posted: 2010
Approx. Word Count: 8,000
Chapters: 1
GB - Slash or Platonic: Slash
My Rating (1-5): 5
Keywords: Post-Canon Cardassia, Epistolary, Courtship, Romance, Smut, Cross-Cultural, Flirting, Literary Discussion
deepintheshadyglen