Dancing in a Dance Club - tinsnip - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine [Archive of Our Own]
Summary:
Julian Bashir needs to unwind, and the best way he knows how is to go dancing. Elim Garak gets dragged along. Frothy, my goodness!
Doneski! Enjoy! Very frothy, and very sweet - just like the Federation…and it’s insidious… just like the Federation… and if you drink enough of it, you get to like it… just like the Federation!
Lady Yate-xel, I hope you enjoy this half as much as I enjoyed writing it. These two, I just don’t know~
Lady conquers the read more problem by reblogging as text!~ look at this fucking read more, look at it!
Oh, delight of delights, can I just tell you how pathetically and lip-quiveringly I’ve been checking my phone all day, hoping you’d respond? Sighhh, I can breathe. Not to be creepy or anything. But I did so hope you’d approve~
Hee, treasure huntery! One of the reasons I want so badly to pull these little details out of you is so that I can use them – I mean, do I enjoy them, hell yes, you should see how I reacted when you told me about Garak and his chocolates, I screwed up my face and squeezed my phone and said “ohhhhhhh~” – but what delight to be able to paint these two as close to the original as possible! Reinterpretation, yes, but the little details, that’s where things can shine~
Yeah, Miles salting the sidewalk was just a no-brainer for me. God knows nobody else would think of it. He also shovels the parking lot if there isn’t too much snow; otherwise they just wait for the plow.
Re: elegantly sad and pathetically smitten Garak – ah, yes, well said, and exactly what I was aiming for, and I’m so glad he comes across properly – I try to get into his headspace, and what is his headspace like? Dignified. Well-trained. But, at the same time, he hasn’t really been allowed to be himself for ages and ages, and he’s just completely flipped his lid, far more quickly than he could have anticipated, and he now feels like he’s doing damage control – too late to stop the security breach, but perhaps he can mitigate the repercussions… God, weird metaphors for this, but I guess that’s kind of how I think he thinks. And yes, very much, “oh, smiling, smiling is GREAT~~” – he has little plans, and he holds his face just so, and tilts his head, and then Julian smiles, and he could just roll on the ground and howl, he really could~
Re: Garak dancing – because if he doesn’t, he’s a giant ass, yes? I love your quote – super-quotable, actually, I may use that – “Here you are slightly in over your head, but I really want to see you swim.” Julian loves it, finds he can swim better than he thought, is actually thriving on the challenge – but sometimes you don’t want to be challenged, sometimes you just want to do something that you know you love, and there’s this person you really enjoy, and are they as much fun when you aren’t trying to please, trying to prove you’re not a waste of movie tickets and dinner? (to steal another phrase that I loved) Tables are turned indeed. But this wasn’t a test on Julian’s part. This was just Julian doing something he wanted to do, trying it out. He actually does regret it a bit in the cab on the way, and Garak picks up on it. That moment of “oh, God, have I just ruined this evening, is this going to be miserable, am I dragging this person along to do something they don’t want to do, yerrrrrgh, oh well, too late now…” But Garak manages to rise to the occasion, in his own way, and Julian gets to hold his hand and dance, which I think he kind of hoped for but didn’t really expect, and it’s not all that embarrassing, and it actually turns out to be kind of awesome, and then things get… a little… blurry…
Heh, a few people have commented that they identified with Garak here. So do I. I like dancing but I hate clubs. I was able to use that, which was nice. So goddamned noisy and somebody always spills a drink on you and you get bumped into, grumble grumble…
Re: Rijal – glad you like her, because she’s a thing. She actually showed up first in my DS9 setting fic, not quite on purpose, because Julian needed a workplace bro. I mean, McCoy had Chapel, Crusher had Ogawa, the EMH had Kes or Paris, and Julian has… nobody? Random nurse? So it made sense for him to have someone he can chat with when things aren’t too busy in sickbay, someone to grab raktajinos with first thing in the morning. Meet Tanylek Rijal. I hope she’s not too OC for words, because I quite like her. I enjoyed bringing her over to DD9. She’s very protective of Julian, but she’s definitely a bro – at least, I think she is; who knows what else she might be. /hmm hmm
Re: allies – do you know, I don’t think Garak was consciously looking for such a thing, but I think he sees it if it’s there. He knows O’Brien disapproves (he might even know who O’Brien is, in the context of Cardassia, if my little DD9 headcanon for O’Brien proves out), he knows Jadzia thinks it’s kind of funny (but Jadzia thinks everything is kind of funny), he knows everybody else thinks Garak is trouble on legs and Julian needs to be protected from himself, and because he’s Garak, he’ll flip ‘em all the bird, politely of course – but isn’t it awfully nice to have somebody who doesn’t disapprove – who, under the right lighting, might actually be supportive? Rijal cares very much about Julian. They may or may not have history, not sure, but right now she mostly just cares about him being happy and sane. If Garak can help with that, hey, good enough for now. But she’ll be watching.
I think this Garak, unfortunately, pretty much thinks of everything as enemies and allies. And mostly the former, sadly. Assume everyone is a target or an impediment to one’s goal, and that way one will never be surprised. He needs to lose that, because it’s going to keep him from ever having any kind of normal life (not that he ever will, really, yeesh). And he’d like to lose that. And I kind of see him working really hard at losing that. But formative experiences being what they are, he’ll probably not going to ever quite lose it.
Re: swearing - Julian said “fuck yes” and I kind of stopped and went, really, Julian? And then I thought about it, and yes, that’s what he said, because he’s at a bar and he’s a student and he’s keyed up and ready to go and here’s his friend, this is great, let’s do this! I don’t think he particularly swears like a sailor (although I’m sure context is everything, my goodness), but sometimes a swear word is the right word. I guess he… probably…? swears in DS9? I don’t know? Do they even use the same swear words? I guess they do. I guess “fuck” has been a swear word for a really long time, so I can see it hanging around. I wonder if it’s a swear word in Kardasi, too? Hmm.
Re: flirty silent conspiracy – can I tell you how much I died when I saw that in your fic? I had it loosely written up in my outline for mine and was really looking forward to getting to it, and then here they were doing it in yours – ahhhhhhh, I was dying, the most wonderful death possible. And yes, it was me loving it in your doodles, and as I recall, making the most randomly gushy slightly drunken text post about it, complete with illustrative gif. I just love that connection so very, very much. It carries over from canon to post-canon to DD9 more than anything else, for me. The whole “this might be fun” aspect of it, and the whole “if you fuck with one of us, you fuck with both of us” aspect too.
I really like that statement – “they spend a lot of time thinking very differently”. That is ringing little bells in my head. I wonder if anyone has ever written anything with the same situation viewed through both of their different lenses? I somehow have a feeling that I may have to do so.
Julian in cab is adorable and tragic at the same time, and I’m glad that kind of comes across~ There’s more going on there than just kind of brave and what-the-hell and awkward babble. But also head in lap and oh God, get me out of here, do I have to climb up on the roof, and Garak losing his words – but not completely, not for a while yet – (oh god lady the things I have written that may never see day)
You want me to write moooooore? /flirtatious flutter of lashes
It may already have happened, I think. But not the day after, not yet. I’m not sure how it goes yet. I do think that Julian is a bit hazy on the previous night – but not even close to blackout hazy – so he knows he’s kind of laid some groundwork here, and he feels a bit weird about it – into the idea, yes? maybe? but that moment has kind of passed, and he’s no longer willing to jump into bed and see what happens – and getting drunk again is not appealing, not for this reason, especially because Garak would be wildly turned off and incredibly disappointed, and so what is Julian going to do about this? We’ve all had moments we regret. We’ve also all had moments that we don’t regret, at all, but now what the hell do we do about it, now that it’s morning and we look at ourselves in the mirror and touch our lips and think, oh, yep, that happened… (hmm hmm hmm)
Re: reveal – oh, God, I hoped it would be okay – and apparently it is – and I’m so glad. I’m amused and not really surprised that we settled on the same ages. I mean, of course, right? It kind of seems to sync.
I can’t wait can’t wait can’t WAIT for your reveal… I mean, how old they are, not super relevant, right, unless somebody’s going to do something very hinky with the timeline and stick Julian under the age of consent, which would kind of squick me out, so whatever the numbers are, they matter more to Julian and Garak than they do to me and thee… but oh, I’m dying to see how it happens, I’m dying…
please don’t show me even if I beg (unless you get bored with it and decide not to write any more in which case show me all of it but I would much rather that not happen)
Ahhhhhhhhh, sternum punch – a good thing? I hope? Please understand that I don’t want to step on your toes in any way with this thing, I just enjoy these two so much, their little world and personalities and the myriad ways this could go – anything I do is not to be taken to heart – I hope that’s all right! /awkward Julian hands
Got the gesture right? Good. I wanted to. I alluded, too, to how hand-holding means more to Garak than it does to Julian – well, not more, but different, you know? I am curious. What does it mean to your Garak? To mine, thus far, palms together = kiss on the cheek in a friendly way, and fingers interlaced = kiss on the mouth, but not quite – you greet a lover that way, not a friend, and in Cardassia, if you’re holding hands with fingers interlaced, you’re making a bit of a statement. Holding hands without fingers interlaced is still very affectionate, but not as intimate; friends can hold hands without fingers interlaced, but as soon as those fingers tie together, mmmm, well, you don’t do that by accident. But all of this may change~
Re: natural development – because that’s more fun, yes, for me too. But it’s great fun to work in little show references wherever you can (did you see the root beer? did you? /dances for your entertainment). OH – brick to the ribcage – that doesn’t sound good – again please remember that nothing that these two do affects what your two do in any way – and my Julian may be a bit more forward than yours is – but my Julian is also playing a bit of a role – and finding that he is actually very much enjoying the role, and is it entirely a role, and and and – and I think our characterizations differ there…
There’s more to this re: a little fucked up, and I’ll address it in another post, but you’ll see –it’s why that song is their song – you’ll see~~~
Thanks again for this lovely long chewy response. It makes it all worthwhile for me. /internet hugs
cucumber-s
