No Subtlety Please

Title: No Subtlety, Please!

Series: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Pairings: Garak/Bashir

Notes: Written as a quick birthday surprise for my wonderful friend

prelocandkanar . I miss you! Word count: 1230.

Rating: PG-13.

Warnings: Spoiler for episode 5x22: Children Of Time.

Beta:

tli was my grammar dominatrix for this one. Thank you, mistress! *grovels*Feedback: Yes please.

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

Summary: People are playing matchmaker for Julian, but he'd much rather handle things his own way!

Link to this fic on AO3.

No Subtlety, Please!

It started after the Defiant returned to the station from Gaia. Julian decided that the best way to handle the shock of losing his descendants in the blink of an eye, was to charge ahead and sweep Ensign Kirby off her feet. Surely she would be open to the idea, since they had practically founded a whole generation of brilliant doctors together. To his great disappointment, however, she threw him the curb of the ages and threatened to go to Odo if he ever so much as looked at her again.

Disillusioned and confused, he consequently spent the better part of a month burying himself in work and research and since he showed no signs of changing that pattern any time soon, his fellow officers decided it was time for an intervention. Meaning Jadzia was tired of seeing him mope and felt it had been too long since she'd meddled in someone else's business.

Surprisingly, both Kira and O'Brien were completely on board with the plan and even Sisko seemed to think it was a good idea. Each had their own motives, of course. Sisko needed his CMO at his best, O'Brien needed his playmate back and Kira was tired of being the target of Julian's research. He had chosen to examine the effects of the the phase distortion on her neural pathways for his latest paper, and hardly a day went by without him asking her to come in to be prodded and poked. And she was sick of it.

So they all agreed that Julian needed to move on with his life and start dating again. After some debate, they decided to set him up with one of O'Brien's engineers; a sweet ensign with a playful disposition who they thought would suit Julian nicely. Sadly, the plan failed. When they finally managed to convince Julian to take the girl out for a drink, claiming that she was lonely and needed cheering up, she came back afterwards looking like a storm cloud and declared loudly that he was an ass and unfit for Human company.

Jadzia wasn't discouraged by this, though, and decided to take the ensign at her word. Kira provided a distant cousin from Bajor who was on the station looking for work. She was more than happy to try and make a pass at the handsome CMO and went at it with considerable determination. After a week of no luck what so ever, she went off with Morn without a word to anyone, and Julian's friends were forced to consider it another failure.

At the third matchmaking attempt, Julian caught on that something was off. He complained to Garak at their next lunch.

“Honestly, there is something really odd going on here! First there was the ensign from hell, practically crawling onto my lap after a single synthale, then a Bajoran woman stalks me for a week before disappearing without a trace!”

Garak nodded attentively, greatly amused by the doctor's troubles. After all, nothing pleased him more than finding that yet another one of his dates had been a disaster. Not that there was any hope for himself, as far as he could tell, but some discreet schadenfreude never hurt anyone. Julian nattered on, not really knowing or caring if Garak was paying attention.

“And then... my god... I have no idea what species or even what gender it was, but it practically assaulted me on my way home yesterday! Am I missing something?!”

Garak sipped his tea and decided to be merciful for once and clear things up for his young friend.

“Really, Doctor, don't tell me you have no idea? Obviously, someone is trying to... what's that phrase... ah yes! To get you back in the game.”

Julian blushed hotly and sputtered: “Excuse me?!”

Barely containing a grin, Garak replied casually: “Oh come now, Doctor, I'm sure that whoever is doing it only has your very best interests at heart. After all, you have been rather unlucky in love and considering how subtlety has been a less than successful endeavor, you can hardly blame the prospective dates for being... obvious.”

He could literally see the pieces coming together in Julian's head and was having the time of his life simply watching the emotions skitter across the Human face. He became briefly concerned at the piercing look Julian directed at him, but after a few seconds of stunned silence, Julian practically growled: “Jadzia...”

Garak's gleeful response was cut off as Julian jumped out of his chair, grabbed Garak by the arm and hauled him out of the Replimat, protesting: “Doctor, what do you think you're doing?!” without getting any reply from his furious lunch companion. He was only released when they entered the turbolift and Julian barked: “OPS!” The lift lurched into action, as if startled by the cross order from someone who was usually fairly composed. Garak maintained a shocked silence for the whole trip and followed meekly when Julian stomped into Ops.

Everyone looked up as he arrived and fell silent one by one as they realized how angry he was.

“May I have your attention, please?” he shouted. “I'd like to announce that the fun is now officially over! I will no longer tolerate all your damned matchmaking! I don't want your cousins, nieces, friends or whoever else you've tried to push on me to relieve me of my apparently horrible single state! I've had enough and if I feel lonely, I'll damn well find someone myself! Understand?!”

Not waiting for any response from his shocked friends, he turned to Garak with blazing eyes.

“And you! I've had enough of you leading me round in circles. You're going to make the choice right here and now if you want this to go anywhere. I'm not going to play your little games any more! And furthermore-”

With a move that took Garak completely by surprise, Julian grabbed the front of Garak's tunic and pulled him in for a passionate kiss, taking hold of his hair with his other hand to prevent him from pulling back. Garak looked somewhat ruffled and shell shocked when Julian finally broke the kiss and the whole room were wearing expressions ranging from disgust to glee. Julian pulled his uniform jacket down briskly before continuing: “That was for keeping me guessing for five bloody years!”

He turned back to his stunned audience, wearing a neutral expression completely out of tune with his outburst a few seconds ago. “Now... if anyone needs me, I'll be in the infirmary,” he said, turning on his heel and leaving the Ops crew to pick up their dropped jaws.

Jadzia was the first to speak and with complete disregard for anyone's nerves, she fixed Garak with a wicked smile. “Well... I think you'd better go to the infirmary!”

Garak turned to her with a start as if he had forgotten where he was. He quickly smoothed his hair and his tunic, before clearing his throat. “Ahem. Yes, I... I think I agree with you there, Commander.”

With as much dignity as he could muster, he followed after the doctor with a spring in his step. Jadzia snickered, O'Brien looked rather green and Kira frowned so much that it looked like her nose ridges had spread to her forehead.

In his office, Sisko was blissfully unaware of everything that had happened.

End.