Oooh.

***

    A turn, a click, clumsy in the suit gloves and – yes, all right, he’s in, and that means he just has to wait three seconds, breathing recycled air, while the playing-dead station pretends not to be scanning him…

    Well, he’s not dead. That means it worked. 

    A quick moment now, by himself, moving into the station, and he looks around. Empok Nor is dark beyond dark; still, the lighting is much more comfortable than Deep Space’s blue-tinted glare. It’s almost restful. Ah…

    His suit UI blips at him. Oh. There’s breathable air.

    He shouldn’t… but it’s untouched air, and it’s mixed for Cardassians.

    No one is here to see him be stupid.

    Whhhshhhh seeps the air from his faceplate as he lifts it slowly, sipping air, too cold but tasting right. Dead air, but air and still flavoured as air should be. Hmm: hints of Cardassians, old and stale. Property claims, mostly. Yes, yes, this is not my place; he knows that already, he doesn’t need some long-dead Glinn arching at him. 

    Not his place… but strangely closer than most. 

    He twists the suit gloves, releases them, holds them in one hand while he rests the other hand against the bulkhead. It’s cold. Amusingly, that surprises him: he’d almost been lulled by sight and taste to believe, for a moment, that this really was a proper place. The cold steel reminds him that it’s still wrong.

    If the environmental systems were brought fully online… mmm. He toys with the thought for a moment. The air would warm quickly; the metal would take its cue from the air; cool would warm and soon everything on the station would feel… 

    Mmm… no. Dead things shouldn’t feel warm. Disrespectful to consider it.

    Another moment to rest. He’s aware of how he feels in the suit. He’s comfortable. It’s almost a pleasure. He can, for once, dial his own micro-climate, and so he’s resting in warmth, slightly too dry, hands now cool in the outside air, face braced against chill, but the rest of him… warm.

    His memory flickers, places past against now, and he sees both:

    “What do you mean, you’re going too?”

    “I only meant to reassure you that no harm will come to your good friend the Chief with me along—”

    “Garak, I don’t want you anywhere near that place! Anything could happen—”

    “Your worries are baseless, my dear. The only reason I’m needed at all on this little excursion is to be Cardassian long enough to turn on the lights. After that, I’m sure the Chief would prefer that I simply rest in the runabout and knit.”

    Silence.

    “Oh, don’t glare like that. You’ll hurt yourself.”

    “…be careful. Don’t be stupid. Don’t be brave.”

    “I should hope I’m not known for either of those things.”

    After that, reproachful eyes, and mollification; then, soft hands, thin bones, delicacy and gentleness and the eliciting of warmth, and he’d pressed himself against and into that warmth until he was warm too; until, afterwards, Julian had laughed quietly, stroking his skin, feeling how warm matched warm: “Why, Elim, you’re positively cozy.”

    His hands, his fingers, his lips, his centre, all now warm to the touch with heat pulled from his lover, and he’d basked…

    The present re-asserts itself, more real, as memory fades to gossamer, and the suit’s inorganic warmth reasserts itself in his senses.

    It’s funny. None of the ways he finds warmth now are the proper way. But they are as close as he’ll ever come to proper warmth again, most likely.

    Mmm. Strange thoughts on a cold, dead station, and by now they’re probably wondering if he’s dead too.

    It’s tempting to go on a brief wander, explore a bit, be himself in a place just for him… he could say he was being brave, he could say he was checking for traps…

    Now, now. We don’t want to worry the Chief, do we?

    No, indeed, no bravery, no more stupidity, and so he sighs and triggers the comm, and soon the quiet half-warmth in darkness is driven quite away by Starfleet handlights.