Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It has been some weeks.

Uncharacteristically, I find myself with nothing at all to say. I have spent much time in oppressive silence, only prolonged because any alternatives are more oppressive. Everything is small, too small, mockingly crushingly miniscule, my house, my planet, my life. I cannot breathe, much less speak.

Even if I could, what purpose do words serve without anyone to perceive them? Truth is in the eye of the beholder, and cannot be found elsewhere; without an eye to behold, there is nothing. Anything I have to say to you is obsolete.

But Kelas says I should mourn - what a ridiculous notion! To have once, not long ago, spent each day digging corpses from rubble and giving children with commonplace waterborne diseases terminal diagnoses, all in the ashes and dust of one's home, and to be arrogant enough to think pathetically lamenting one's personal losses is worth the time it wastes! Still, if there's one thing you and Kelas don't have in common, it is that I have never been able to argue with him.

Even when he is wrong.

As I said, it has been some weeks. Five, give or take a few days. Five weeks, that is, since I was notified. One line of text: Julian Bashir permanently paralyzed, unresponsive, presumed brain dead. Details classified. They did not even allow you your rightful title, Doctor. You can imagine my response.

Five weeks since I received the message, yes, but whatever the specific date was, it was twenty-three hours after that I became convinced the correspondence was legitimate. Twenty-three hours of cross-checking, verifying, calling in of favors, illicit hacking, denial, panic.

I cannot clearly remember the days after that. The effects of discreetly brewed backyard kanar on a pathetic, middle aged politician, formerly tailor, formerly agent.

Five weeks since I received the message, yes, but you were lost to me long before that. It took three weeks for the message to reach me on Cardassia Prime. Three weeks of commonplace existence, ignorance anything but bliss but at least simple, repetitive, forgettable even to my Cardassian memory. Three weeks Julian Bashir was dead and the planet continued to spin, time continued to pass, neither having any difficulties despite being deprived of your vibrance.

Even before that, you were lost to me. You had not sent correspondence in months, having departed for fool's errands in the name of that wretched, deplorable Section 31.

Tell me, was any of it worth it? Did you not understand? Were you younger and more obtuse than I took you for? I told you, time and time again, do not play the game, Julian. The game eats you. It tears you apart, piece by piece, starting with your innocence, then your joy, then your ideals. It breaks you into crumbs and rebuilds you in its hideous image, makes you a tool, an object, kills everything that makes you you before it ever kills your body, but eventually it does that as well. There are potentially trillions of spies in this inscrutable universe of ours, and ever single one of them are wasting their lives. There hasn't been anything left of Elim Garak in decades, but I thought, perhaps, this new man I had created was better, kinder, a more fulfilling facsimile than anything before. The lie that became the truth. You are gone, and so is that man.

Perhaps I lost you even before then.

Was it the day Cardassia was destroyed? The day you used that mind probe on Sloan? Earlier still, perhaps? In the holosuite, with the gun? Internment Camp 371? The day your enhancements were revealed, and you no longer had to keep up pretences of ignorance, or naivete, or friendship with an aging fool? When I tried to wipe out the Founders?

Maybe I lost you earlier still. Perhaps I'm a besotted idiot who mistook a pitying smile from a beautiful man for something more meaningful. As hazy as thought feels in this cloud of alcohol and weak, almost laughable despair in which I've been floating for five useless weeks, when I allow memory to overwhelm me, I realize how little our fraternization was. Seven years with you in that freezing, hellish cell is nothing to the grand scheme of my lifetime. I was only your close friend for what, the first three? An amusing filler to be discarded once more appealing, younger, more pitifully human friends came along.

Of course, I lie. A painful one, to be sure, but one that prevents further anguish. One cannot agonize over the things that could have been if there was never anything in the first place worthy of speculation over.

Somehow a lie is less helpful when I'm telling it to a blank page. There's nobody else to believe it for me.

I certainly can't. Nobody who met you even once would dare argue that you went about any part of your life without caring. Your care was an obvious thing about you. And an endearing one, if occasionally dangerous. Many times I could've hurt you, killed you, a few times I tried, and still you cared, with all the bright enthusiasm that would've been cloying and irritating in anyone else but was beautiful in you. The husk that is left of you may share your admittedly attractive features, but it does not have any of your true beauty because it cannot care.

Why am I burning? And choking, and crumbling, and feeling a tight band constrict around my chest, depriving me of air, however dusty, and making me want nothing more than to collapse and never again rise? I have no right! I have always been aware that my devotion to my home exceeded anything I felt for anything or anyone else, but the cold, empty numbness of the Fire is nothing to this. What kind of man am I to mourn one over millions? What kind of Cardassian?

Five weeks of hell, and I have said nothing but a few empty words to Kelas. One would think years in a labor camp would harden him, but instead he kept his empathy and care in the face of everything. He is a stronger man than me. As were you, steadfastly healing and hoping after a lifetime of fear and years of a war that went against ever fiber of your being. I am a lesser creature, one who has lost itself. I should have died long ago. Instead, I am condemned to watch all the good people around me fade away. Mila. Ziyal. Damar. Ghemor. And now you.

I may as well say whatever I want. I was writing you letters I never sent long before I knew what had happened, and five weeks of silence begs to be broken with a bang. You were the best man I ever had the luxury to lay eyes upon, much less befriend. You probably assumed I had as vibrant and varied a life as you, outside our weekly lunches (not often enough, not long enough, not enough in their own right but still the sparks of light in that dark prison sentence of an existence). The truth is, besides tailoring, I spent my hours reading books to discuss with you and constructing a pathetic fantasy of showing you Cardassia. You were the hope I held, and resented to hold, that one day I might live unfettered by expectations and the bleakness of daily survival, and instead exist on my own terms, warm, content, never lacking conversation or care.

Love is another meaningless word, one of the many that Federation Standard touts as "abstract" and "complex" when nobody can agree on its definition. What I felt for you cannot be adequately expressed in your language. Nonetheless, it is gone. Permanently stilled along with you and replaced by a persistent, suffocating tightness.

I have requested your body be brought to Cardassia. I have told myself it is only reasonable, since you would want your parents and therefore Earth as far as possible, and there are no acceptable facilities on Deep Space Nine. I have also refused with my every ounce of political sway to let you be snapped up by an institution. You spent too long denying yourself in order to avoid them.

Yes, I tell myself these things, but maybe my true reasons are far more selfish. Some asinine part of me would like to believe you'll be back to yourself someday. And then we can be as close as before, perhaps closer, and I can bask in your light like a regnar in the sun. Asinine, like I said. I deserve no less than my current anguish for this stupidity.

I was certainly wrong about at least one thing. I did not truly have nothing to say.

Or perhaps I did. None of this is meaningful anyway. It was only your participation that made anything I had to say matter.

Yours, forever and despite it all,

Elim (unsent)

Chapter Text

I am back to otiose letter-writing again. What a waste. Not nearly as much of a waste as your death, but a waste nonetheless. This PADD could be used for something useful, as could my time, but I cannot bring myself to think of anything but this for very long. Even now, you are a distraction I cannot afford. A beautiful, terrible distraction. One I would gladly kill myself with if you were capable of reciprocating the attention. There are worse ways to die, ways I observe every day, ways I used to dream up with glee.

I do not know how to communicate this, but I will try.

(Imagine that! The silver-tongued, loquacious Elim Garak, finally at a loss for words. All it took was to make him talk to a dead man no longer capable of appreciating an entertaining turn of phrase).

No, I do not know how to say this in any sensible way, but I must regardless. Why? Because I am a pathetic old fool.

Yesterday, before we both got to sleep, Kelas said to me, "Ss'arim kAh, Elim. TEcht nem." 

Loosely, "I devote myself to you, Elim. Good night."

While humans convey their sentiments with abstract nonsense words like "love," Cardassians prefer a more realistic declaration, with specificity. To a Cardassian, a statement of devotion is one of many options to evoke the same emotions as a human "I love you." Others include statements of unconditional forgiveness, physical desire, emotional need, intellectual equality, the absolute necessity of one's presence.

Kelas has been my anchor for a long time now; we have traded sentiments before. Never that particular one. It implies permanence, a scarce commodity on this planet where life is fleeting and miserable and falling rubble or contaminated water means death, this planet of displaced people, moving from place to place in want of a home that no longer exists. I fear an acceptance of this permanence with Kelas; I have believed in such things before, and none of them survived. There was a time I hoped we, together, could be a permanence. In whatever form you'd take me.

With great care, I repeated the words to him. I meant them. He may have already been asleep.

He is a wonderful man, Julian. I take no issue with our complex yet simple relationship. He has probably saved my life just by being present, by refusing to give up on me.

My problem is that I heard his words, for a brief moment, in your voice. A bright, beautiful voice, lilting and accented and used for everything from quiet wonder to boisterous conversation to teasing remarks to terminal diagnoses to cracked fury to declarations of sentiments you never harbored for me. A voice that will never again sound, wasting away with your immobile vocal cords.

Kelas does not sound like you. At a glance, his voice is harsh, coarse from hardship. His accent is as Kardasi as my own, all long s's and rasps, nothing like yours, with its round vowels and clipped t's and softened r's. If I heard you in him, it is not a coincidence caused by resemblance, but by aching loss and a desire to hear those words from your lips. Have I grown so weak?

You and Kelas have much in common, and it makes me worry that I only value in him what reminds me of you. He deserves much better than to devote himself to a man who cherishes him as nothing more than a shadow of a memory. He deserves much better than me in every respect. That man is far too wonderful to attach himself to a morally deplorable has-been who, instead of appreciating his softness and sensitivity, took advantage of them in the name of the Obsidian Order. A man who cannot release one Julian Subatoi Bashir from his thoughts. A man who wants nothing more than to be left alone for all eternity to weep.

Kelas is everything I adore in a man, but he cannot be my everything, not while you still breathe. I can devote myself to him, and I do, but a piece of my heart can never be his and he stays anyway. He'd be better off without me, but I'm too cowardly to leave. I need him. 

Is this only the beginning? Now, I hear your voice when he speaks. What could be next? Feeling your slender arms when it is his embracing me? Seeing your hazel eyes when it is his adoring gaze pointed just to the side of my own? Imagining your lips when his are on mine?

I'm afraid that I'm going mad. I'm afraid in general. I blame you. You are no longer in a position to defend yourself, so I blame you.

I blame you for not hating me as soon as you looked at me, though you should have. I blame you for your fascinating ability to play a game and paint a picture with the same conversation. I blame you for your lopsided grin. I blame you for your relentless optimism. I blame you for  being so beautiful. Most of all, I blame you for your compassion, given freely to everyone, including those who deserve much, much less.

I blame myself for corrupting you to death. Myself and the revolting Section 31.

Perhaps, in some better universe, you and me and Kelas are all alive and together, reading and bickering and doing absolutely anything other than abandoning each other for meaningless martyrdom.

Ss'arim kAh, Julian. TEcht nem.

Yours, without reserve and against the express wishes of the universe,

Elim (unsent)

Chapter Text

I am quite ill.

Kelas tells me I will survive. I do not know whether to be relieved or disappointed at this knowledge. At the very least I am confident in his judgement as a doctor.

Do you know, I may have gotten rid of him permanently earlier today? The very thought terrifies me, but it is my own fault.

He brought me rations, my own plus a piece of his ("for your recovery, Elim"), and asked me how I was feeling. I told him I was miserable and to keep his rations, and my own to boot. I don't know whether he read this as an attempt at kindness or an attempt at suicide, but it worried him. He is far too perceptive for his own good.

He walked to the sleeping mat we usually share, though in my illness I am its sole occupant, and simply placed his hand on my cheek, fingers pressed to my temple. Perhaps to take my pulse, but likely to reassure me with his warmth. The unexpected contact did anything but.

Somehow, it felt like a violation, an insult, a mockery, as if to say look how the mighty have fallen! The self-reliant, clever Elim Garak, brought so low as to trust this simple man, so weak as to melt at the prospect of painless touch, so pathetic as to crave this intimacy. Anger bubbled up within me, untempered due to my sickness but still my own. A vague hallucination of Tain lingered at the corner of my vision, oozing disapproval.

If you were not already convinced that I am an irredeemable monster, let this show you.

I gripped his arm, hard, yanking it away from my face with unnecessary force and throwing it to the side like it was something disgusting. I raised my voice higher and higher, telling him all the lies I though would hurt him most. You have been privy to this side of me, doctor, and his response was the same as yours, albeit with the addition of a few tears. Briefly hurt, then distanced, continuing to care for me without reserve. Couldn't he see I needed to be alone with my misery? That I needed to punish myself, free from his well-meaning but pointless endeavors to help me?

When he moved to pull our thin blanket over my shoulders, I breached our oldest, most solemn boundary. I grabbed his jaw, digging my thumbnail into the side of his face, and twisted his head to face me. Putting on my most threatening stare, though likely altered by emotion and illness, I stared directly into his eyes for as long as my wavering grip would allow me. To his credit, Kelas did not look away, but I felt him tremble, heard his steady breaths quicken and catch. As soon as I let go, he left the room without a word.

You know our history, doctor. You know the meaning of that wretched gesture for him. He may have left the room never to return. I hope he did, for his sake, but my selfish instincts cry for his presence.

I cannot be alone.

I do not want to be alone.

Panic is setting in. Is a room really so much smaller with one occupant rather than two? It feels so. My hallucinations are becoming stronger now. As always, Tain scowls, and the walls press in.

What have I done, Julian? I should be stoic, cold, able to function on my own, but I am weak, and this has never been the case. I hate myself for craving care and gentle attention like I do, for needing it, aching for it, for being so blinded by my terror that I inevitably kill it. I have failed you. This is not what you would have wanted for me.

The room is colder now, or at least my fever makes it so. I cannot suppress shivers, a sign of my weakened resolve. My hallucinations are such that I can no longer convince myself of the true size of this room. Ten meters across? Five? Frozen, icy, small. The Tain hallucination becomes more vivid; has he brought me here? Has he found something more harrowing than a supply closet? I am in this freezer, shrinking, shrinking, this icebox, to atone. To think about my crimes. The false Tain chuckles. The real one would not have punished my for my treatment of dearest Kelas; this is the man who oversaw the initial interrogation. But I know I need to be punished. I have hurt too many innocents too often.

Any time Tain discovered I had formed too strong of an attachment to some unfortunate man or woman, even boy or girl in my school days, there would be a mysterious disappearance. Or a transfer to a military unit known for its low survival rate. Or a sentence to a grueling labor camp after evidence for an old crime was luckily unearthed. Or a sudden claim by a distant, nameless, faceless aunt or uncle. From the beginning I was shown that these sentiments, these longings for another person, only ever hurt them. He could have punished me. He never did, knowing that I was pathetically soft and that the alternative hurt far more. I have killed people by daring to seek in them a hand to hold.

I have him to blame for these early occurrences, but only myself for all the rest. Like any good tool, I learned to do as my master wanted without being told, and everyone I cared for still ended up worse off, even without his intervention. Even after his death, I could not permit myself the luxury of acting on my feelings for you in any truly free and fulfilling way, but even the pittance I allowed myself was too much.

Despite earlier lessons, I was convinced I could simply allow myself to be your friend, to speak with you once a week, to watch your face light up at an interesting topic or amusing event. My intoxication with you blinded me to the effect I had, that I always have. Like everyone else, you ended up hurt, and I have only myself to blame.

It is colder. Colder, icy. Small, so small. I cannot move but somehow I can still write. Where am I? Where is Kelas? Where is Julian?

Cold, so cold.

Whose arms do I seek warmth from? I cannot... I do not know. Names are fuzzy. A very beautiful doctor will be here, to protect me from the cold. He must.

He? Palandine is a woman. Silly Elim. Silly Ten, I forgot.

No, no, she's... not here.

Or is she? I see her, behind the Tain figure appraising my every move. Father? Please, I don't understand what I've done wrong, just let me out and I'll do whatever you ask! Please - 

Yes, whatever you like, doctor. I'm at your disposal, of course.

Cold, small. Tzenketh?

New figures. Children. Bajoran, children I've hurt? No. Old classmates, Eight? No, he is gone. Orphans. Cardassian. On Bajor. They ask me if I'm here to take them home. I'm sorry, I cannot. I am as lost as they are, as far from my home.

No, I'm here, aren't I? On Cardassia. Yes, in my shabby makeshift residence, a sleeping mat and crates instead of a bed and chairs. If so, why is it so cold?

A new figure, nearly stilling the wobbling walls. It's Kelas. He leans down, kisses me, runs his hands through my hair, no, wait. He's shouting, heaving sobs, throwing things and words, scared. No, neither. He suffers silently, strapped to a chair, shaking. Just a moment more. A moment more. His green eyes are quite beautiful - it's a shame they're the way to the information I need. A moment more. His resolve cracks, and he bursts like a dam. He shares everything I need to know and screws his eyes shut, wrenches his head around, anything to escape my stare. Well done, Garak. Why is it so cold in these interrogation rooms? So cramped...

His figure fades, and Palandine, and the orphans. Even Tain is reduced to a silhouette. For a moment I see Ziyal, first laughing, then lying dead. Mila, my mother, cleaning, then crushed by rubble. They both leave.

I am confused and angry, doctor. Doctor? What?

My head is clearing, I can think, but so damned slowly! What am I writing? A letter? To Julian? You are Julian? This must be a confession. I have so much to tell you, what else could it be?

A confession, then. How to start? You are the most beautiful man I have ever seen. Only the thought of being with you tempted me away from Cardassia for even a moment. I -

Oh.

Oh.

I have remembered that I cannot send this letter. There is nobody left to send it to. I want to scream, but I haven't the strength. The cold is burning me, white-hot, the walls enclosing me in their twisted embrace. Why? Why are you gone? Why does this universe seem committed to keeping me forcibly alone?

I... I believe I am weeping. How undignified! How weak! What is wrong with me?

I think... yes, I am ill, contaminated water, but this vise around my chest is not a symptom of fever. I am pathetically heartsick over a dead man and there is nothing and no one nearby to break in empty fury.

I see you, by the window, pale and unfeeling. I know you are a hallucination, but I want to walk over and touch you. I have always been far too hindered by my need for touch. Even if I thought I could touch you, I am nauseous and cannot feel my legs.

No, no... your figure fades. There is nobody left in the room. Even the figments of my own self-pity have better things to do than to indulge me. I am alone, completely, miserably, alone. Alone. I try to scream, but all that comes out is a strangled cry. What is this? When did I become so disgusting? Why can't I handle being by myself for even a few moments? Perhaps Kelas...

Kelas.

I hurt him, I remember now. He won't be coming back; I've gone too far. I always do.

He devoted himself to me, and I him, but I have betrayed that, and he is well within his rights to leave me. He should. He will live a happier life with someone capable of treating him as he deserves.

Still, I miss him. I need him. 

I miss you too. I need you.

I need to not be alone.

Your body will be here in a week or so. It may be helpful to look at your slackened face, to remind myself what my affection does to people. At the same time, I don't know if I can bear seeing such a bringer of light completely empty, devoid of that quintessential Julian spark. It may finish me off.

I trust Kelas could save me, but he has hopefully abandoned his efforts to do so. I ache for his presence, but do not deserve it.

The walls have receded some. I may delete this message later, or I may not. I might once have worried about my private thoughts being used against me, but nobody has the freedom or passion or time to care about hurting me anymore. Even if they did, I might welcome such an attack. 

Yours, in sickness, despair, and death without death,

Elim (unsent)

Chapter Text

I feel that it is necessary to preface this letter with an addendum to the previous - I have fully recovered, due in no small part to one Dr. Kelas Parmak. Yes, doctor, he returned. He came back within a few hours (in my stupor I forgot about his obligation to his work! Self-pity makes a fool of a man) with some medication. A half-dose, due to limited supply, but enough to stave off complete agony for a sufficient time as to let me sleep. A fitful sleep, but healing.

When I awoke I noticed he could not look at me. I cursed myself a thousand times over. It took many months of delicate effort to gain his full trust, and in one sickness-fueled burst of hatred misdirected from myself to him, I set us back to near the beginning. He likely would have never grown comfortable with meeting my eyes in any case, but this inability to look even in my direction is new and frightening.

Sometimes I get so caught up in my worry about myself, my work, and Cardassia, I forget to worry over dearest Kelas. He needs the attention and care as much as I do, and I have been neglecting my duty to give it. A duty of the highest importance, despite my lack of qualification.

Still, in spite of all reasons to do the opposite, he stayed. I am bewildered constantly by the depth of his devotion. It is worth more to me than anything, and I must work doubly hard to be worthy of it.

After making sure I was healthy and insisting breakfast upon me, he asked me to talk, gaze still firmly on the wall to my left. His directness is refreshing, though odd for a Cardassian, and serves as a reminder of the life he lived in the labor camp. I must never forget that I put him there. Never. It haunts me each day, and especially in that moment.

I obliged, expecting anything from a gentle letdown to a lecture to a breakdown. He gave none of those things.

In a measured tone, a far cry from the playful, slightly hoarse affection with which he usually addresses me, he told me that he needed time to be able to forgive me, but that he certainly would.

If you'll remember, a statement of unconditional forgiveness is one of the most meaningful a Cardassian can give, and hearing it from Kelas, a man who knows on a personal level many of the unforgivable things I have done, is nothing short of monumental.

He furthermore told me that my actions were unacceptable (I know, dear Kelas, I know) and that I hurt him deeply (few things plague me more).

Lastly, he said that a bond such as ours is something that would nearly destroy him to give up, but that he may be forced to distance himself from me if I ever violate his trust so cruelly again (he is right to prioritize his well-being like this, but those words put a knot in my stomach like no other).

I was torn between the desire to spring up and embrace him tightly and the desire to cry, but could not let myself do either. Such impulsive, emotional actions would be a redirection of focus from his feelings to mine, and this was his moment. Chances are it would have done more harm than good. Besides, I was still a little too unsteady on my feet to spring up, and crying would have been undignified and shameful.

Instead, I simply told him that I agreed with him on every point, and that if he ever believed my presence hurt more than helped him, that I fully support his moving on. I did not mention the internally warring sides of myself, one that wished to beg him to stay and one that wished to beg him to leave. Sensing that he needed more from me to begin to feel safe again, I declared my devotion to him. I have never been one to repeat things expressed clearly enough in one utterance, but I must become more conscious of the needs of those around me.

Sometime soon I will ask him about his time in the labor camp. He has never spoken about it in much detail, but he has also never refused to answer any question I posed to him. I feel this is knowledge I need in order to fully understand him. He has often offered to help me shoulder my burdens, and it is well past time for me to reciprocate.

Before leaving for the hospital (and preventing me from joining him in leaving for my work, claiming that I needed the recovery time. As if my health is more important than the dozens he treats each day, more important than decisions that could make or break Cardassia!) he grasped my hand, tightly interlacing his thin fingers with my thicker ones in a Cardassian romantic gesture, face still pointed away from me but wearing an expression of tentative affection. He did this as if to say there's still hope for us, Elim. I'm not letting you go just yet.

While I have often had cause to resent my life deeply, it is moments like this I feel the luckiest man in the universe.

The feeling fades quickly when I remember who I'm writing to, the man who was the object of my desire and devotion before Kelas crossed my mind twice and still is, the man who made exile - the worst punishment to a Cardassian - bearable, the man whose empty shell is to live in my house for the foreseeable future starting today. I remember you and your loss, Julian, my dear doctor, and suddenly I am transported to a lesser universe, a cold one where goodness is crushed and beauty disfigured.

(Tell me, do any humans still believe in Hell? I have read your ancient mythologies and found descriptions of such a place. None of them describe it as cold, but if an eternal punishment lies beyond, it must certainly be frigid. I am not inclined towards religious belief or practice, but I find the idea of a Heaven and a Hell compelling, the idea that, in the end, we get what we deserve. The living world has no such rules. I believe I have an inkling where I'd end up according to ancient human literature, but no matter how cold it would be, the temperature would be the least of my worries. An eternity without you and Kelas, however, would be the worst punishment possible. I wonder where you would be, in your current state. Are permanently comatose individuals permitted the luxury of Heaven, or are they trapped in their failing bodies until such point as those bodies finally give out?)

This brings me to the original topic of this letter.

What is left of you is here, breathing, but not much else. The doctors with whom you temporarily resided brought you to my residence with instructions for your care, a comfortable chair with movement capabilities (as if they expect you to twitch a finger and move about like the famed Captain Pike. Don't they already know that someone only a few degrees of separation from being a corpse has no reason to travel?) and a few pitying smiles. They left as soon as they arrived, probably relieved to dump you on someone else's doorstep. The lack of respect! Still, one must grudgingly appreciate them for keeping you alive.

At the time, Kelas was not yet home, so I was alone with you. Or rather, alone with an unresponsive body shaped like you. I mustn't conflate the two or I will surely be driven mad. At least, madder than I already am.

Upon looking at your face for the first time in many months, perhaps years, I could not tear my gaze away. You are still, physically, beautiful as ever, my dear. The grey in your stubble, quite the curiosity to Cardassians, has noticeably migrated across your face and up to your temples. Your brown skin has darkened slightly, and the lines around your eyes have deepened considerably, due to hardship, excessive worry, or age. I recognize those same lines on everyone on this planet. Besides that, the only glaring change is your eyes themselves.

Looking into them felt like a violation, like something forbidden to me. I had in the past noticed their depth and gleam, but the true spark of life they held, the ineffable quality that left me weak in the knees and needing your company on the station more than I could admit, was not fully clear to me until I observed its absence. Your eyes now are fogged glass, empty and dull.

Despite painstaking effort, I could not prevent myself from letting out one dry sob, quickly stifled. Has my self-control left me completely?

I have seen, caused, much death in my life. As a child and young man, I was furious and bitter. As an operative, desensitized and remorseless. An an exile, melancholy, but only in secret. After the Fire, numb. I have never felt anything like this.

For a moment, I let myself shake. In fact, I shake now, as I write. Why you, of all people? A universe crammed full of miserable, selfish fools, and you were the one to die? Justice is a lie. I have always known that, but iit has never cut so deeply.

The doctors mentioned an infinitesimal chance of your recovery. They said, were it not for your augmented genes, they would not have considered entertaining this chance.

Do they not know how much worse that makes this? Were you buried, a grave to visit rather than a breathing body in my own house, I could perhaps move on, but now that I know there is a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of a chance that your loss is not permanent, the wound will remain open, held there by foolish hope. I will wait and doubt and wait until my dying day, in this limbo between life and death.

(I remember another coma, induced by a theiving Lethean. I remember saying, "you survived because you're strong." I could not have been more wrong. You are stronger than I ever could have known at the time, and that did not save you from this wretched half-existence).

Indeed, a sob and a shake were not enough, and I was soon a tearful mess. I cringe to think of it, such an untempered display of foolish sentiment, but I suppose I am a different man now. One who cries. It is odd to think about, and feels decidedly wrong, but if I cannot control myself, I may as well accept, though never appreciate, my tendency for emotionalism.

I unwillingly think of an Earth story of yours, doctor. Sleeping Beauty. A disgusting tale, of glorified assault and barbaric treatment of women, not to mention poor running of a country. (Ban spinning wheels? But what of those who use them to spin? Once a tailor, always a tailor).

I hope you know I do not condone any morals of this story, but the wider concept strikes me. A young, beautiful individual, forced into an indefinite slumber by evil powers outside the individual's control.

I must cut off this musing here, lest I think too hard about the denouement of the story. It would be ridiculous to believe that your coma could be ended by something as non-medical as a kiss. Better to believe that you will never return. You almost certainly won't.

Having "cried myself out" as the human saying goes, I was discomfited by the quiet. Your voice used to fill a room, fill a planet with its brightness and passion, and now, nothing. "The rest is silence," to quote the overrated (but not as bad as I have claimed to you in the rush of argument) Shakespeare.

I tried to speak to you. I resolved my features into some semblance of a smile (easy, too easy, to forget what a real one feels like) and attempted to make light talk  of my work on Cardassia. The trouble with that was, my work on Cardassia is anything but light, and I trailed off after a few moments. It never even crossed my mind to lie.

Then, I tried to tell you about Kelas, since you never had the chance to meet him, and was strick by the gut-wrenching irony of talking about how happy I am with my current partner to the only other man in the universe who could make me feel that way. I spent so many years longing to have you in some way beyond the platonic that it felt like a betrayal to devote myself to anyone else, let alone talk about it to you.

A few more moments of the deafening silence, and I tried to say something meaningful. Something about what you mean to me. I couldn't find the words, and all that came out was a pathetic high-pitched noise from the back of my throat.

Somehow it's easier to talk to you in this form. I am too cowardly to say anything of import to your face.

Like with the hallucination from the other day, I wanted to touch you. Unlike the hallucination, I was not stopped from doing so by the laws of physics. I still did not. Something other than physics kept me at a safe distance.

I would like to say that what stopped me was a respect for your boundaries. It was, in truth, more of a self-inflicted punishment. If I cannot control missing you so deeply it hurts on a physical level, at least I can stop myself from doing anything about it. I can control prolonging the pain.

So, despite every urge to the contrary, I denied myself a brush of the slackened cheek, a grasp of the limp hand.

It would have been an empty gesture anyway. You cannot grasp my hand in return, lean into my brush of your cheek. Who's to say you would even want to, were you here properly and fully? I cannot help but imagine you laughing at me. Silly Garak! This is how you felt about me all this time? Did you really think someone like me would settle for someone like you? How absurd!

Or worse, revulsion. Eww! Don't touch me like that, Garak. I don't want a pervert like you anywhere near me! You're a Cardassian for goodness sake, a murderer, why would you think I would want you?

Worst of all, pity. I can just picture the dawning realization on your face, eyes widening, mouth already opening to pointlessly apologize. Oh, what a poor, lonely old man, your expression would say. So desperate for affection, he imagined that something other than friendship was possible between us. You would try to let me down gently. It would make it worse.

After some time, Kelas returned home, and immediately began fussing over you in a professional manner.

Seeing you two in the same room for the first time made me imagine a reality where all three of us live together, partnered. I wonder if such a reality can be said to exist, somewhere in the infinite branching of universes.

What does anything mean, if the multiverse is truly infinite? Can any decision be considered final if there exist infinite alternates wherein a different choice was made? Why should I mourn, if infinite Julian Bashirs are living their lives somewhere in that expanse? How is my life, in comparison to the infinite Elim Garaks? I suppose I can't be the worst off of all of them, since Kelas is still here with me.

Pointless meandering aside, I very much envy any Elim Garak who ever got the chance to be with you the way I want to. Against my better judgment, some miniscule, idiotic part of me sees a future in this universe where this Elim Garak and this Julian Bashir and this Kelas Parmak have each other, and don't spend 20 hours a day at the hospital and don't require IVs for nutrients and don't make stupid, stupid mistakes like staring into the eyes of a man who was tortured the very same way.

Theoretically, such a future is possible, but it is truly idiotic of me to entertain it seriously. It only hurts more to think of what one cannot have.

Yours, in this universe and every other of any worth,

Elim (unsent)

Chapter Text

This is becoming out of control. My focus was already dimming, but these pointless, self-indulgent letters are hindering my service to Cardassia. This is where it ends.

As much as I detest politics, I can acknowledge that I am a damn good politician when Cardassia requires it of me. As Castellan Garak, I have done more for my people than Agent Garak ever did, and certainly more than Plain, Simple Garak. I pride myself in a job well done.

Moreso, I pride myself in never having allowed personal struggles to get in the way of my work. The people do not see a claustrophobic, panic-attack-prone, desperately heartsick, morally repulsive "unfinished man." They see a witty, well-dressed, fully composed, selfless patriot who thinks of nothing but Cardassia's best interests at any given moment. I have even gained the explicitly stated respect of my more moderate opponents.

Rumors, both false and true, always circulate. But I have never publicly lost my composure.

Yesterday I participated in an interview. They are always tedious, but a free press demands a fair price. The journalist in question was not particularly notorious for any reason, or at least not enough for his name to be familiar to me, so I allowed myself to relax a small amount. Always a perilous mistake, but it seems that I am always a fool.

Regardless of the repute of the journalist, I always spend time researching before an event like this. Some standard digging into the journalist's past and political leanings, experience with the Order (mostly for fear of a revenge plot that I would likely completely deserve). A bit of studying of the publication itself, whether it tends to publish good or bad news, politics or interpersonal drama, facts or out-of-context gossip. Most importantly, I prepare for any question I can plausibly expect to be asked. 

Yes, the secret to being the smoothest, most eloquent and informed politician on any given holovid is homework. Glamorous, I know.

I neglected to do so for this interview. Between my illness, troubles with Kelas, and your arrival, I would have had only just enough time to prepare adequately (of course, assuming abstinence from sleep).

Instead, I spent my few free hours writing to you. You, a dead man! You, who I can speak to verbally whenever I want! These sentiments are as useless in my brain as spoken as on a PADD, yet I still wasted the time to put them there!

As a result, I walked into the interview blind.
Now, I am not completely incompetent. Most questions I had intelligent answers for already, and the rest were taken care of with deflection or pseudo-patriotic platitudes. It was not until the final question things went wrong.

"So, Castellan Garak, you've spoken a lot about your stance on Federation aid versus interference, being a known ally of several prominent Federation figures, including the controversial missing-in-action Captain Sisko. I was wondering, how does your harboring of the comatose Federation exile, ex-Starfleet doctor and known augment Julian Bashir affect Cardassian-Federation relations, and what does it say about your personal loyalties?"

The nerve! "Federation exile" and "known augment?"  How about youngest ever Carrington Award nominee, savior of the Andorians and Teplans, and wonderful, wonderful man? Respect is dead. Questioning my loyalty to Cardassia? Mine? He would've been killed for saying as much on the old world.

Unwillingly, I froze entirely. The room was shrinking slightly and my traitorous brain playing a constant loop of get out get out get out of here get away get out- 

It would take a stronger man than myself to resist such a forceful call, so I got out. A confused journalist and several individuals wielding cameras trailed after me with their eyes. 

There will be consequences. I cannot afford even the slightest uptick in mutterings.

So, you see, this ends here. No more sentimental drivel, no more dwelling on the past, no more could-have-beens or should-have-beens, no more belated declarations. No more. Henceforth, these unsent letters must be as unassuming as anything I would actually send to you. Perhaps, as time passes, I may phase out of writing them altogether. Cardassia does not care about my pathetic domestic fantasies.

So this is it, my dear doctor. Do not take offense. My decision has nothing to do with a change in my feelings for you and everything to do with my own inability to think about anything else. To drive the nail into the coffin, as the morbid human saying goes, I plan to spend the rest of this letter convincing myself to move on. I find the necessity of this exercise more shameful than you can know, but without further ado,

Reasons It Would Never Have Worked Out

1. I am, quite frankly, not your type. I am too old for your usual tastes, entirely unattractive, and managed to keep a distastefully round figure even through a famine. You would have been much happier with one of your young, beautiful paramours. You could not feasibly have ever been attracted to me, for which I cannot and do not blame you. There's only so much a well-tailored suit can do for a man, and even then, you never did have an eye for fashion.

2. We have fundamentally different priorities. Cardassia will always be my first and strongest duty, and medicine yours. Our friendship survived such conflicts of duty, barely, but anything more would not, I am sure of it. Could you ever be truly satisfied with a man who could not put you first? 

And then there's the matter of where to live. I plan to never leave my home again for longer than a few days. I belong here. You are a wanderer; you belong where you are needed most. You would grow restless, trapped here with me. Cardassia still needs doctors now, but I worry that anything we had would fizzle to a stop as soon as another planet became more of a "frontier" for your adventurer's heart to explore.

3. You may not be inclined to share. I cannot conceive of you disliking Kelas; the idea seems laughable since you two have so much in common. Regardless, I know little about Federation views on such arrangements or about your own preferences on the matter. It would destroy me to choose between the two of you. You would not make me choose, you are too good for that, but were you not amiable to a situation that included him, you might try to leave out of misguided kindness. Losing you that way might even be worse than never being wanted by you in the first place.

4. I do not deserve you. I am a deplorable man. You remember what I did to Kelas. I hurt everyone I care for and you deserve much better than the pain I would inevitably cause you.

5. I am quite broken. I have always avoided showing you that side of me, but you have seen it. The wire. The internment camp. I refuse to let your valuable healing abilities go to waste trying to patch up wounds older than you are on a man who can never heal from them. It would be unfair and a misuse of your time, though I know you can never resist trying to help. You are constitutionally incapable of taking care of yourself when there is someone else to take care of, and I won't let you waste away on my account.

6. I would not have enough attention to give you. My life is a hectic one. I work all day and most of the night. The lack of time already damages my bond with Kelas, and he is Cardassian. I would not have close to enough to offer a human partner, no matter how much I want to shower you with a constant stream of compliments and awful poetry and new clothing. I want to cook for you and patch up holes in your clothes and Kukalaka and debate furiously with you, but you would probably end up seeing me more on the broadcasts than in our own home. That is something I would never wish upon you. You should be with someone who can adore you for hours a day and have the time and energy left to show you that adoration at night as well, when I would simply be working.

7. A life with me would be dangerous. I have enemies still, enemies that will never go away. I have survived several assassination attempts. Someone might go after you to get to me. Political opponents of mine have manipulated Kelas in an attempt at influencing me more than once, and while he has survived unharmed every time, it wears him thin. You would never be able to call yourself safe in a relationship with me, and you deserve safety after surviving an entire, devastating war.

To add to this point, I will mention that I once had to fake my own death to avoid actually dying. I was gone far too long, and the repercussions were severe. I have never seen Kelas more distraught and angry and relieved at the same time. Putting him through that was one of the worst things I have done to him, and should I ever be called to do so again, I do not want to leave behind two grieving partners, not permitted to even mourn me in public, which brings me to the next point.

8. You would have to be a secret. Publicly, Kelas is known as nothing more than an advisor of mine, though rumors float about. It is enough that I am a bastard, an ex-Order agent and a returned exile. To be outed as a homosexual in a long-term partnership with a man formerly imprisoned in a labor camp for treasonous activities would be nothing short of dangerous, for Kelas and myself. You may be shocked at the backwards social views of my planet, or you might not. We have always had a very rigid idea of what a family should look like, you know this. (Though, in these times where half of children are orphaned and half of married individuals widowed, the rules are slowly phasing out). As Castellan, I have been too busy trying to avoid mass death or extremist takeover to enact much social change. Even trying might be viewed as too radical, and I want to  remain in this position as long as it is useful.

If you were to join me here in anything other than a coma that prevents you from leaving my house, you would already be a target, being human. Even if you were a woman, xenophobia would make a public relationship with you impossible. I know how much you enjoy flaunting your romances, and have been on the receiving end of several monologues about your lovers while on the station, all of which were quite painful to listen to (though not for lack of your enthusiasm). You could not have that with me. There would be nothing to look forward to. No weddings, enjoinments, bondings of any sort would be wise or legal.

9. Your friends would disapprove. There is not much elaboration necessary here. Take a moment to imagine the colonel's response. The chief's. You value them, probably more highly than you ever valued me, and I could not in good conscience force you to alienate yourself from them for my sake.

10. You are dead. You are gone forever from the universe, and I will never know if any of these concerns would actually have made us impossible because everything that was Julian Bashir has been stolen from me because you are dead. You are gone, and I cannot pretend not to care no matter how hard I try. You are dead, and still I stated my devotion to your breathing corpse because I am a fool. You are no longer alive, and it drives me to distraction. This is the only reason on this list that matters.

Or perhaps none of it does.

Yours, despite all efforts to convince myself otherwise,

Elim (unsent)

Chapter Text

Ironic that you should be here, permanently silenced, and yet be capable of drowning out all sound.

I do not mean this metaphorically.

While Julian the catatonic body is tucked neatly away into a nicely furnished room where I do not have to look at him, Julian the figment has returned from wherever imagined individuals go when their imaginers goes through a bout of mental stability, and now scarcely lets me have a moment to myself. Worse than interrupting my solitude, he in addition demands my attention when I am not alone. Kelas worries.

You were not exactly a quiet man, but the figment (who is not you, who is a hallucination I must remember is distinct from you, who is nothing more than the weight of wishes unfulfilled) is far louder. Most of my hallucinations tend to watch me from across a room, the heaviness in their disapproving gazes saying enough without the assistance of verbal speech. When they do talk, it is sporadically. It is not so with the figment Bashir.

(-"but you are, forgive me, such a talkative man-")

Since I resolved to cease these incessantly childish letters, the figment has been chattering, invading my personal space, commanding my focus despite my learned mental discipline. He - it - sits as near to me as possible, presses up against me, and speaks to me for hours on end, saying nothing of any import but refusing to stop.

Whether I am trying to reach a state of rest or write an important communique, pull weeds or simply sit companionably with Kelas, it is there, accosting me with empty words and persistent touches neither gentle nor hostile. If I cannot already be considered medically insane (Kelas insists not, but the man, however infinitely dear to me, is a doctor and not a psychiatrist), it may push me over the edge.

I have tried to dissuade the figment with music. Once, I played a Cyrellian water flute symphony on repeat for several hours, but the figment overwhelmed my auditory sense without even raising its falsely beautiful voice. I stopped the music only when Kelas begged me to come to bed and get some rest, and even then, the figment sat next to me, droning through the entire night.

I find that even with the utmost effort, I cannot recall anything the figment has said. I want it to insult me, so I can direct my despair somewhere, or else lavish me with sweet words, so that I can indulge in fantasy, but it simply talks, without urgency, purpose, or foreseeable end. This is no amiable debate, doctor, or enjoyable banter, or even true argument. I do not know which is worse: the oppressive and sickening silence from your slack form a few rooms down, or the endlessly maddening noise of the imagined you right in front of me.

What am I writing? Of course I know which damned thing is worse! Have I forgotten your death so easily?

The figment has quieted since I began this wretched letter, but I still cannot focus, cannot think, cannot write, cannot-

[later]

I tried quite hard not to alert Kelas to your presence - that of the hallucination, I mean - but the man cares deeply for my well-being and can be quite perceptive when it comes to matters of health, as any doctor should be. He noticed that I had stopped my writing, and a few too-long pauses and partially-heard sentences later, he was offering to lead me in breathing exercises. He has learned that I have my ways of showing a desire to communicate about something, so despite his natural instinct to talk through anything troubling either of us, he noted my signs and elected to offer comfort instead.

I agreed to participate (how could I not?), though the figment showed no inclination towards leaving me alone or providing the quiet  that best accompanies such a thing.

There are no words in the universe that share the effect of a simple "deep breaths" from Kelas. I put little stock in the exercises themselves; the true calm comes from him. From holding and being held, cared for. The pervasive shame of my need for touch can be kept at bay in these moments by the hollow concept that deep breaths are an exercise of control, of discipline. Complex thought has no home there, only slow, synchronized breath, arms trapping warmth between us, closed eyes, peace. It is a sanctuary I do not deserve, but one I dearly need.

This time, however, peace was unattainable. The figment should in theory be incapable of independent motivation, but it has one nevertheless. It began its onslaught of speech once I resolved to end my letters, a sign that it somehow seeks to keep my attention on you or an approximation of you over anything or especially anyone else. I cannot picture you as anything less than adoring my dearest Doctor Parmak, but the vision of you regards him with bitter jealousy, trying to redirect the attention I save for him towards itself by any means.

Intentionally or not, I created this being. What does its behavior say about me?

In the practiced dance I had seen so many times before, Kelas beckoned me to sit by him so we could touch chests and feel each other's breath, but the figment stood in my way and I could not force myself to walk through it. Instead, I stood frozen.

I am sure Kelas said something along the lines of "Elim, are you alright?" but I could not hear over the figment, whose chatter was as meaningless and arrhythmic as always but still unrelenting. I curse my eidetic memory for allowing it to have your exact eyes: deep brown, bright, soft but concealing fire. I could not contradict it while it looked and sounded so very like you.

Seeing the worried furrow in Kelas' eye ridges gave me the strength to maneuver carefully around the figment and towards him. This time I was close enough to make out his words.

"Another hallucination, Elim?" he asked oh-so softly, hopefully out of gentleness and not fear for or of me. He has still been fragile after the incident during my illness, so fear is a possibility, albeit one that saps my desire to live.

I could only nod.

"Is it...?"

I nodded again. He could not have meant anyone else.

Even without looking directly at him, I could see that he was internally debating whether to again admonish me for not visiting your physical body, but he decided against it, presumably preferring to walk on regova eggshells in light of my condition. The man wears his thoughts and emotions like his braid - openly, obviously, unashamed, and with strange yet breathtaking beauty.

(Not that he entirely lacks discretion. Kelas is no fool and no weakling, and fully capable of hiding sensitive information, or else the crown jewel of Tain's Obsidian Order would never have been the first choice for interrogation. He has never once endangered us by failing to safely conceal the nature of our relationship).

Satisfied for the moment with the explanation, he pulled me forward to lean into him and breathe, though the action felt stiff with the figment watching and chattering. Still, I managed one pathetically shaky breath before the figment pushed its way between us with unprecedented force. It must have been quite confusing for Kelas to feel me jerk away, but the touch of the false you is as real to me as the sound.

Sitting practically in my lap and blocking my view of Kelas, the figment continued talking, louder and louder, its cadence grating on my skull like your true voice never could. All I wanted was for it to stop, to be as silent as the breathing corpse separated from me by a wall and an eternity, and the full weight of that though hit me in a wave of guilt. How could I ever want the empty husk of you more than an animate one? How could I betray you like that? But it was true regardless and I covered my ears with my hands, desperate to quiet the figment without giving it the acknowledgement it was so determined to pry from me, to feed on. I must've looked like a child.

Finally, I cracked, and shouted for the figment to leave me alone. It shut its delicate mouth, full lips twisted into an almost smug expression, and moved far enough to allow me to collapse into Kelas' arms.

He said nothing, recognizing the need for absolute silence, instead stroking my hair with one hand, the other wrapped around me. I did not have the energy to feel ashamed, only exhausted and very, very comfortable.

But I could not stay there forever, especially with the figment lingering only a short distance away, and eventually sat up straighter and cleared my throat to speak.

"You win," I simply croaked at the figment, and it left the room.

Sensing rather that directly observing Kelas' restrained inquisitive expression, I grabbed this PADD, the one I use to write to you, and pressed it into his palm. I told him that it would explain, though he was under no obligation to read it if he did not wish to. The part of me that normally would have been overrun with anxiety at sharing such a personal effect, even with the man I trust most in this universe, had been too drained by the battle of wills with the figment. I did not even consider fearing his response until several minutes through his silent reading. If he left me because of the revelations of this foolishly sentimental, more foolishly honest chronicle of longing and loss, it would be my own fault.

Several times, he had to remove his spectacles to wipe away tears forming beneath them.

Upon finishing, he first brought me in for another embrace, a grounding one that said I am here. Then, he spoke.

"Oh, Elim... we have much to talk about. Ss'arim kAh, my dear. Are you up for listening?"

I was not sure whether he meant to ask if the figment was still impairing my hearing or if he intended the question on a more emotional level, but I nodded anyway, preparing, as always, for the worst.

After all, what had I just given him? Thousands of words of me pining for a dead man? Transcribed thoughts of a relationship between the three of us that I wrote unthinkingly, deliberately pausing to consider your opinion and not his? A confession that my subconscious mind has at least once replaced his voice with yours? Proof of my insanity?

"Elim, my love-" he had grown fond of the endearment, despite its absence from the Kardasi vernacular- "you write several times in these... letters, that you do not deserve me. I want you to know that my affections are not a reward for moral behavior. I devote myself to you because I adore you, Elim, and cannot imagine a life without you, not because I want to be a prize for the most deserving man I can find. If my affection for you were conditional, do you really think I would have sought you after the Fire, after everything?"

I could not find anything within me to say to this, but he had only paused to habitually clean his spectacles, indicating that he was not yet done, only thinking.

"You don't have to be ashamed to have these feelings for him, you know."

This shocked a response out of me. "I - I'm sorry?"

Deliberately choosing to misinterpret my startled spluttering, he responded, "I know you are, my love. Your remorse is one of your strongest traits, and often you feel it for the right reasons, but this is not something to apologize for. You cannot control your heart no matter how much you've been told it is a necessary sacrifice, and I would never ask you to. If anything, Elim, I am happy to see that your fantasies include the both of us. You do not care for him instead of me, you care for us together. I find that beautiful, not shameful."

It was not until he brushed the tear from my cheek that I noticed I had ever allowed it to be there.

"Elim, my dear, I understand if there are things you want to keep between the two of you, but at least for now, your Doctor Bashir cannot help you with these things. You have been suffering, my love; why would you hide that from me when I can help? Tell me if my touch is triggering a fight-or-flight response, tell me if the hallucinations become too much to bear, and by the gods, please tell me if you have any more suicidal thoughts. I cannot help you if you keep these things to yourself, and believe me, helping you is never a burden to me. I won't lose you, Elim."

Again, all I could force out was an "I'm sorry," but this time I really did mean it as an apology.

"Please, Elim, no more apologies. I know that you're sorry, and you really do need to be, for several things. But you never need to apologize because I care about you, no matter how it conflicts with your self-worth. I've already said that I forgive you, for everything, and if you still feel the need to apologize to me knowing that, you are looking for something I can't give you. You have my forgiveness, but I cannot give you absolution, or redemption. Those come from you."

On these last words, he placed his hand on my chest, and I pulled the rest of him to me, saying, "You are right, as always, my dearest Kelas. You are right."

Having said his piece, Kelas was content merely to hold me, whispering muddled Kardasi and Bajoran endearments into my ear. I could not make most of them out, but it was entirely opposite to the frustrating meaninglessness of the figment's chatter.

Despite looking and sounding like you, the hallucination was not you. It had nothing to say to me, and said it loudly, drowning out all perceived safety with mounting panic and bitterness, demanding my focus on it. Kelas, on the other hand, had everything to say to me, and chose to whisper it softly.

I wonder where the real you would fall on that spectrum, now.

In the past, you would be loud, but sweetly so, talk about unimportant things, but sincerely rather than emptily. Anything profound would either be delegated to your expressive gestures and wonderful eyes rather than your words themselves, or else would come out unexpectedly when you were drunk or afraid.

But you changed, doctor. You became something I never thought you could become, did things the Julian Bashir of that first day in the Replimat could not have conceived of. The Hippocratic Oath you were so fond of states "first, do no harm." It seems you overlooked this in your final years.

Would this man be quieter, subdued by the weight of his actions? Or as loud as the figment, with as little to say? Would you hide your true intentions, or wear them like a badge of honor as Kelas does? Would you be obviously cold and distant, or hide behind a practiced smile and artificially brightened eyes?

The thought is worrying, but ironically so. None of those options are as devastating as the one that sits in my home.

The one I seem to have no choice but to write to, despite lack of comprehension, under threat of an inescapable figment's attacks.

I suppose the writing may not be so bad, if I can keep it under control.

Then again, can I? 

Yours, without needing (but dearly wishing) to hear a word in response,

Elim (unsent)

Chapter Text

Pain is so close to pleasure. Isn't that a human saying? Referencing something inane, I am certain.

The phrase has a more literal meaning in regards to myself.

You see, doctor, from the beginning I was aware that one cannot be had without the other. When Tain spoke to me as a child, I felt I had more power than ever before, that I had a purpose. Pleasure. Speaking with him also meant pressure to perform, an acute awareness of my low social status, and the constant threat of that wretched storage closet. Pain.

That day in the country. Several bruises, a handful of scratches, a hound bite, a sprained ankle, and a dislocated shoulder. Pain. The vague inkling that perhaps, if only I could focus harder, observe more closely, pretend I was not injured and under no circumstances ask for help, that I might have been able to see that he was proud of me. Pleasure.

Later. The internment camp. Watching him die slowly and pathetically, denying and belittling me to his last breath. Pain, as it hurt to see him in such a state when I had known him to be so powerful. Pain to watch the man to whom I had tailored every action, every mannerism, every thought, fade to nothing. Pain to hear that he never did change his mind about killing my mother, and that only laziness prevented him from doing so, that her life mattered so little that it could be decided on a whim. Pain to know that he would not, even in his final moment with me, allow me to be part of a family, that he denied me that basic Cardassian necessity of a people to belong to, and that he did it intentionally. Pain to realize that all my devotion had been wasted.

But pleasure also, as he deserved every second and worse, and I knew it. Reveled in it. Nearly laughed at it. Pleasure, yes, because even in that prison, that gruesome place of death and captivity, I was at last free from his cruel and enduring influence, his expectations.

But this is the nature of the universe. Far too simple and yet far too complex to allow a man one sensation without its pair in due course.

However, doctor, the aptitude of the phrase does not end there. On a physical and psychological level, I experience both simultaneously, no due course permitted to me.

Other than sentiment, my greatest weakness has always been a laughably low pain tolerance. The Order, never an organization to tolerate weakness, took care of that, as you well know, by embedding in my skull an implant designed to redirect that agony to which I was so prone toward an ecstasy I had yet to experience. A plain, simple solution.

Once the procedure was complete, the implant was tested. The test was unnecessary - where my head should have been throbbing from surgery, it instead radiated what can only be described as a pleasantly warm glow and a stark clarity. For the record's sake, it was tested anyway, and who was I to complain?

Punch. Pleasure.

Kick. Pleasure.

Knife. Pleasure.

Soon, I began to seek pain to get a taste of that brief warm peacefulness that came off in waves from every wound. I volunteered for the most dangerous missions, provoked individuals to the point of an altercation which stood a chance of coming to blows, deliberately kept my room too cold and my clothes too tight. The operatives with implants inevitably gained reputations for their vicious streaks and eagerness to self-mutilate in the name of the State. I was Tain's brutal little mongrel. Of poor breeding, kept on a tight leash, and frothing at the mouth for a fight.

And then came exile. The pain of  being torn from my home, rejected by Tain, and of believing in my heart that my presence had only ever damaged Cardassia, was not considered worth reacting to by the implant. As you well remember, I turned to other solutions.

Once the wire operated continuously, everything was pleasure, the good along with the bad. The blinding tasteless lights, the frigid atmosphere, the simple artistry of tailoring, the delectable young man across the table from me, the hateful stares of the Bajorans, the spirited discussions of classic literature. Pleasure.

And then, not unexpectedly, it malfunctioned. For a few moments, you were privy to my shameful lifelong struggle, watched me reduced to a sobbing, whimpering thing. Pain, waves of it, and still, the ghost of the implant fed me phantom pleasure as bursts of laughter and strained smiles. I wanted to die, and the throbbing ache at imagining my death to be so pointless was challenged by the immense relief at the idea of just ending it. Pain fighting pleasure. Neither triumphing.

All the way through, you took care of me for some unfathomable reason. I hated you. Every second of you near me was the stab of a knife, every piece of sympathy the burning lick of a flame, every ridiculous overstep of the boundaries of your profession in the name of helping me the shock of a bolt of electricity. Pain.

And at the same time, the only thing I wanted more than death was to collapse into your arms. No matter what horrible things I said to you, even when I brought physical violence into the matter, you stayed, and it felt good. Like having worth again. The soft words from your softer lips were a balm, a pocket of warmth in a cold prison cell. Pleasure.

And in that last hazy moment before you made the most foolishly well-meaning decision of your life, you took my hand in yours and forgave me, for whatever it was I had done. Pleasure, at being absolved by such a beautiful, effortlessly kind man. Pain, because I did not deserve it, because I could not let myself have it or you, because I had deceived you into trusting me, and because the instinct from the implant was to deprive, deprive, deprive myself of all the soft and delicate things since the lack of them is pain and pain is what I craved, only since I still believed it would morph into pleasure.

And therein lies my problem. Rather, one of several problems, but more accurately the one about which I write.

The specter of the implant told me to continue seeking pain, and I obliged. I continued, against my better judgement, to let you close to me, so that I could every day be reminded of what I could not have, what I was wrong, disgusting, to want. The agony of having all that I desired only inches away and forcing myself to deny it did not turn to pleasure, but I sometimes believed it did.

Eventually, that particular type of torture drifted from my grasp, was available less often for shorter durations, looked not at me but through me at some shapeless creature of war taking the form of despair. And sometime after that, my return home. The innate pleasure of just being there, duty and devotion running through my blood itself, clashed with the misery of observing complete annihilation.

It has been a long time since the wire directly twisted my notions of positive and negative sensation, but its influence persists, doctor. You did as much as you could, and I adore and resent you for that, but even genetically enhanced doctors are only capable of so much.

Kelas has the soft touch of the finest silk. He is not a warm-blooded creature like you are, but his warmth is freely given and thus more keenly felt. When I am with him, the storms calm and the dust settles. But still, there is the never-ending urge to pull away, to get him as far from me as possible, and not just for his own good. It feels imperative to rid myself of him so that I can again be starving and therefore have the pleasure of hunger. I am empty when he is not near me, embracing me, but when he is, I panic, because that contented feeling means I must be hurting myself, that something must be wrong. It is an unbreakable cycle.

There are days I come home and he is on the floor convulsing or pressed to the wall shaking, and I can see that he is not here, but there in that camp or that room. It hurts me more than I can describe to see my partner, the light in my darkness, so frightened and in such pain, and far, far more that I cannot comfort him as he comforts me because mine is the face he sees in his waking and sleeping nightmares. When he is having an episode and he sees me, he will sometimes run away, and each time a part of me dies. But the worst part is, in the midst of the pain, I feel a pervasive and unavoidable pleasure. The gleeful, evil feelings congratulate me on a job well done, a man well broken. Look at him, they say. He still fears you after years of relative safety, and you never had to lay a finger on him. You are so effective, so skilled, this is a testament to your talent, you should be proud of yourself.

Proud! It makes me nauseous. And yet, on occasion, I feel it.

As often as he finds himself in the camp or interrogation chamber, I find myself in various locations. Trapped beneath the rubble on Tzenketh, sometimes, but usually in the closet, begging to be let out. Kelas allows me to keep my sanity when I'm immersed in these delusions, grounds me with his low, hoarse voice (from screaming?) and gentle, calloused hands (from manual labor. Not as a doctor's hands should be). I cannot offer the same to him. All I offer is fear and secrecy.

My dear doctor, even writing to you now is a sickening mix of pain and pleasure. For a moment, imagining that your deaf ears can hear my words, that your unseeing eyes can read them, is salvation. But the knowledge that you cannot and never will is branded into me, burns white-hot. Old instincts turn the salvation to shame and the burning to agreeable warmth, and those same instincts invite revulsion, in turn repurposing that revulsion to joy. I tried to end my lengthy correspondences last letter, but this exact trap of pleasure and pain in false harmony brings me to another, despite my full knowledge that I should be working or at least resting.

Besides, they are the only way I can see you. Kelas continues to casually mention that I should visit your body again, especially with it residing only a few doors from our room. As of yet, I continue to decline. One more look at your face, and I know I will be overwhelmed, either by the fulfillment of looking at you or the void of looking at you like this or most likely both at once.

All I have left is my imaginings. Snippets of you and I and Kelas between us, smiling. Snatches of both of you fitting snugly in my arms. Pieces of a life together we can never build.

These fantasies are pleasurable, deeply so, but false and therefore painful.

Evidently this juxtaposition is not contained by the limits of reality. Even my imaginary universe cannot escape.

Yours, in pleasure and in pain,

Elim (unsent)