Finding Heat

Title: Finding Heat.

Series: Star Trek DS9

Pairing: Garak/Bashir

Rating: R

Word count: 1331

Warnings: None

Beta:

tli looked it over despite a crazy busy work schedule. Thanks, darling!Feedback: Yes please.

Disclaimer: I don't own any Cardassians or Doctors. *sigh* Not mine. At all. Oh I only wish.

Notes: Birthday fic for

taricalmcacil !Summary: Julian acquires a bath tub and sets about demonstrating to Garak why that is a good thing. Not as much sex as you might think, though.

Link to this fic on LJ and on DW and on AO3.

'I could get used to this', Garak thought to himself. 'I really could'.

He was sitting, naked (the thought still mildly scandalized him) in wonderfully warm water, for no other purpose than just being there. Not like a pool or an ocean where you would swim and move around for the novel sensations of movements under water or for whatever healing properties the individual body of water held. No, this was more like a sauna, only with water instead of steam. And nudity.

He'd been puzzled earlier that day when Julian had shown him the latest improvement to his wash room.

“What do you think?!” He had opened the door with a flourish, clearly expecting some excited form of response, but Garak had been mostly puzzled. It was fairly decorative in an exaggerated sort of way. An elongated, white, ceramic tub with feet carved to look like actual feet of some creature or other, and Garak could smell several pleasant things set out on the rim, clearly meant to be used in connection with the thing, somehow.

Feeling like he should offer some sort of reply, Garak had decided to try for approval, since it was apparently what his dear Julian expected. “It's... nice. Whatever it's for.”

Julian's eyes had done that mildly annoying thing with the widening and narrowing they did whenever their owner was truly baffled. “You... don't know what a bath tub is?”

Annoyed, Garak had rolled his eyes. “Yes, I know what is. I have a perfectly functioning brain, you know, and all your Human literature has actually taught me a thing or two. I'm just... unsure of what the purpose is. You have running water for a shower AND a sonic shower as well, so I fail to see the point.”

“It's just... nice,” Julian had dead-panned, as if that somehow explained everything.

Trying his best to at least seem interested, Garak had asked: “How so?”

There had been a long stretch of silence where Garak could almost hear the gears grinding away in Julian's brain before there was a reply. “It's for relaxation and pleasure. You just fill it up with hot water and perhaps some bathing salts or bubble bath, then you simply hop in and stay there until you turn into a prune.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Then had followed a long and frankly disconcerting explanation of how Human skin reacted when kept under water for too long. Garak found it eerie and a little disgusting, but Julian seemed to think it was perfectly natural, which (Garak had to admit) to a Human it probably was.

Then he had quite frankly been ambushed. Julian knew very well just how to distract him and in the middle of the most wonderful distractions, he had casually asked: “So, would you like to try it out with me?” As had of course been Julian's plan, Garak had been somewhat addled at that point, so he had simply nodded and let Julian lead him into the wash room.

They had filled the tub with water so hot that even Garak had found it more than warm enough, but it soon became clear that Julian had given this whole thing a lot of thought. “The only problem with a tub is that the water tends to cool rather quickly, so I was thinking that you could get in first, while the water is still hot enough to scald my skin and as soon as you're settled, the water should have cooled enough for me to get in and then we can both enjoy the most possible heat.” He'd been grinning from ear to ear all the time while explaining his idea and Garak had had to admit that it was a good plan.

Julian had stripped Garak naked and while he knew that was part of the experience, he had still been torn between being embarrassed and aroused, because that was what one usually felt when naked. As unusual and naughty as it felt, the water also offered some form of modesty and he'd gladly slipped under the surface of the water, gasping at the delicious heat. Julian had put his hand in the water too, and when he decided it had cooled enough he'd gotten in behind Garak with much gasping and stuttering before finally setting down with a deep sigh.

So here they were. Garak leaned against Julian's narrow chest and despite the slightly awkward bending of their bodies, he had to admit that he was very comfortable indeed. Julian was sweating profusely, but he didn't seem to care and Garak was so warm and felt so languid that he found it hard to care about anything at all.

It was almost like the feeling of a proper volcanic sauna. The kind that warmed Cardassians to the very core and made the scales lift to let out excess heat. The effects of a decent sauna could last for hours. Not like the flimsy holo-version which was the only kind he had access to these days. As soon as he left the holo-suite, the heat would drain from him and by the time he was back in his quarters, he was just as chilled as he always was.

Thinking of bath tubs in sauna-terms helped Garak understand why Julian would want such a thing in his own quarters. The warm water was a luxurious feeling, but it was fleeting and would fade just like the effects of the sauna from the holo-suite to Julian's quarters. Suddenly the idea of going straight to sleep after this, not even bothering with sex (which he usually came to want when he was undressed for any reason near Julian) seemed like an excellent idea.

In fact... why not do both? That would be even better.

Under water or not, the movements to build Julian's pleasure were familiar and easy and while there wasn't really room to manoeuvre in the tub, it took no time at all to get Julian to the peak. Water sloshed over the side and onto the floor when Julian bucked through his orgasm and for a while afterwards he seemed completely drained.

Garak waited patiently and was rewarded a short time later when Julian recovered enough to return the favour. Climaxing in the water was an unexpected pleasure, since certain intimate scales lifted and let the warm water touch the overly sensitive skin underneath. Garak was glad the water had cooled significantly by then, because as much as Cardassians loved heat, the skin under the scales couldn't withstand half as much as the scales themselves, which was kind of their purpose in the first place.

Finally spent and thoroughly warmed up, Garak kissed Julian's hand and was shocked to discover that the pruning skin had become a reality. He barely avoided scrambling out of the tub with horror and he felt quite proud of himself for managing to sound perfectly polite and even a little amused when he suggested that it was time to leave the water and go to bed.

Julian was all too happy to comply and to Garak's considerable relief, the pruning had subsided almost entirely by the time they were dry and into their nightclothes. Julian had occasionally teased Garak about his obsessive need for sleepwear, even after hours of very naked tumbling in bed, but he'd also quickly accepted it as just a part of Garak's nature, which in turn made Garak proud of his empathic, young lover. With a little seasoning he could make an excellent diplomat or ambassador.

But for now, he was a young, naïve doctor, who for some unfathomable reason chose to spend most of his nights with Garak and was yet to understand why this was such a monumentally bad idea. But until Julian found that understanding, Garak thought (as indeed he did every night) that he would damn well enjoy it while it lasted.

End.