Anonymous asked:

garak + books

letstalkabouttrek answered:

Garak loves physical books. Growing up lower-class on Cardassia they weren’t really something he had access to; most things were on data rods in the name of efficiency, so the only print copies tended to be antiques or luxuries, status symbols held by the wealthy meant to sit on shelves. Tain had an extensive collection (including a first edition of The Never Ending Sacrifice), and as a boy Garak would occasionally try to sneak into the library to look at them. 

He read most of the major Cardassian classics in school (on data rods), and was told what the messages were, what everything meant, and how important it was. He learned quickly not to ask questions, to accept the lessons, file away the information, and move on. 

Life in the Order meant a surprising amount of downtime - weeks on long-term undercover missions, flawlessly integrating his cover and gaining the trust of his marks, late nights spent awake waiting for a rendezvous. Garak would read in order to pass the time, burying himself in short burst in the realm of fiction. The storyteller in him tended to critique, to rewrite and improve as he read, but those thoughts tended to be pushed down and lost once reality resumed. Once again, everything was on data rods (easier to hide, easier to destroy), and the one physical book he owned was a beaten copy of an old poetry collection mostly forgotten by history, neatly stowed away in a drawer in his apartment. 

That book was lost in his exile, along with his other possessions, but his time on Terok Nor actually gave him access to more books than before. No data rods this time, though - loading them into the computers to read would be logged, and he wasn’t willing to give Dukat and his cronies any form of knowledge about him to use as leverage. But Quark occasionally had second hand books mixed in with his other assorted wares, and Garak struck up an arrangement with him to get his pick. The Cardassian epics of his past were generally beyond his reach, so he was forced to branch out and accept what he could get, and he ravenously consumed the literature of dozens of planets, all carefully hidden behind a wall panel in his shop. He let out his pent-up bitterness in vicious criticism of these books, his upbringing not subconsciously constraining him from tearing apart their values, stories, and characters.

One the Occupation ended and he was left alone, he craved some connection, some feeling of still being Cardassian. He wrote up a list of Cardassian books and told Quark to procure as many of them as possible through whatever channels were necessary - mostly the major classics, a few philosophical texts, and one old forgotten book of poetry. He put these up on a shelf in his shop, prominently portrayed as a reminder to himself and others of the culture he had come from. The other books he organized neatly in his quarters, and he occasionally added to both collections.

Falling into a lunchtime book club with Bashir happened practically by accident. The doctor was simply going on and on one day about some old earth playwright and how perfectly amazing he was until Garak couldn’t take it anymore. He marched Bashir to his shop, grabbed a Cardassian book off the shelf at random, handed it to him, and told him to educate himself. The next day, the doctor dropped by and handed him a data rod and it continued from there. Garak lent Bashir his physical copies when he could, but always with his most menacing glare and warning to return them in the exact condition in which he received it. Bashir mostly gave him data rods, having only a few print copies that were gifts throughout the years.

Garak couldn’t quite say he was surprised at Bashir’s many passionate attacks on his cultural canon, but hearing the books he grew up with torn down with such vitriol was definitely a new experience. He fired right back, ready to both defend his background and finally put the years of silent criticism to use. The Terran classics the doctor thrust upon him were varied, and some he hated and some he found he could tolerate. Eventually, the books almost became a coded message between them, a way to passive-aggressively comment on the other’s behavior or, occasionally, an unspoken act of compassion and understanding. 

When it came time for him to return to Cardassia, he trimmed down the number of possessions he owned significantly, casting off one life for another. He brought 5 books with him - 3 Cardassian classics, a copy of Crime and Punishment that was a birthday gift from Bashir, and an old forgotten book of poetry. The rest, including the box of multicultural hodge-podge no one had seen but himself, he boxed up and had placed in Bashir’s quarters.