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Ben likes to think he makes good life decisions—both for himself and his child. He has no reason not to. After all, every time the fates conspire to make him doubt his decision making abilities, something or someone comes along to reassure him that he has been on the right track the entire time.
When Jennifer died and Sisko blamed his Starfleet assignment for endangering his family, Jennifer’s parents insisted that their daughter knew the risks when she took a field placement beside him.
When he almost immediately regretted bringing Jake to Deep Space Nine, he found a wormhole—and a home.
When he hesitated just a moment too long and saw Jadzia make good on her promise to steal Kasidy away, he still got a new friend and now a wedding to attend next month.
And yet, as he picks a scale from his teeth, Ben doubts this latest turn of events will end well.
Pillows still propping up various parts of his body, Garak languishes on the bed in a rest he frankly hasn’t earned. If anyone deserves to relax right now, it’s Ben. Given how much he exerted himself while Garak just lied there, Ben should be getting his feet rubbed.
Not that he wants any kind of post-coital comforts from Garak.
He doesn’t want anything from Garak.
This was simply a momentary lapse of judgment, a simmering over of professional tensions that due to Ben’s years-long dry spell and Garak’s general lasciviousness ended with sex.
Who could fault Ben for that? He’s not the first captain to be ensnared by…
Perhaps “ensnared” isn’t the word. It’s hard to play that card when the snare in question never activated so to speak. Lying there still but malleable, Garak gave Ben every opportunity to pull away. But Ben never did.
And now he has an inguinal scale lodged in his teeth like a popcorn kernel.
“I hope you’ll pardon any dereliction in my personal grooming,” Garak drawls. “I was not expecting such an intimate encounter tonight.”
Ben glares at Garak’s reflection in the mirror. “You came to my quarters in the middle of the night. What exactly were you—”
“I’ve come to many Starfleet officers' rooms in the middle of the night,” Garak interrupts. “None of them gave me any reason to expect this kind of response.”
At once relieved (at least he hasn’t stepped on Julian’s toes) and bruised (he fell for this and Julian didn’t), Ben turns to Garak sharply. “What were you expecting?”
Garak licks his thumb and rubs at a dry patch of blood at the corner of his mouth—a wound reopened by the meeting of their lips. “You seemed upset earlier. I thought giving you the opportunity to apologize may make you feel better.”
“Apologize for what?”
“You hit me.”
“You murdered two people without a hint of remorse, and yet you think I should feel guilty for hitting you?”
“Of course not. Even the Emissary needs an outlet for his masculine, human energies.” Garak sucks his thumb into his mouth, clearing away the dried blood. “But I imagine you think you should feel guilty for hitting me.”
“I don’t.”
“Don’t what? Feel guilty or think you should?”
“Neither.”
“Pity.” Garak lets his thumb fall from his mouth and trail down his chin, his neck, his chest, the softness of his belly… He opens his legs. “I could’ve stayed home.”
With a sigh, Ben stalks over to the bed. “This is the last time.”
It isn’t.
-
“So…” Jadzia sidles up to him at Quark’s. “Who’s the lucky lifeform?”
Ben nearly chokes on his sazerac. “No one.”
“Come on, Benjamin. You’re sipping sazerac at 1800. You never do that unless… Well, unless you’re getting ready to approach someone for, well, something.” Her eyes twinkle maddeningly. “So, spill.”
Ben sighs. There’s no use denying. “I may be seeing someone.” But there’s no use oversharing either. “But it’s nothing serious.”
Jadzia squeezes his arm, her fingernails biting through the fabric of his uniform. “I need to know everything.”
Ben peels her hand away. “I told you: it’s nothing serious.” He lowers his voice. “It’s strictly physical.”
“Ben-ja-min!” Jadzia squeals, shaking Ben’s shoulders. “I need details.”
“I’m not telling you anything. You’re a married woman now.”
“Exactly. I’ve resigned myself to a life of domestic bliss. How else am I going to live vicariously through my single friends if you don’t tell me every—”
“Old man,” Ben interrupts, “we both know you’re going to relay everything I say to Kasidy.”
“Of course.” Jadzia shrugs. “She’s my wife.”
“And the station’s biggest gossip.” Ben hates to buy into the stereotype, but freighter captains are incorrigible gossips. “Second only to you and Quark.”
“Hey!” Jadzia jabs his chest. “I am a much better gossip than Quark. Half of what he spreads is made-up; I fact check and corroborate everything.”
“Fine. She’s the station’s third biggest gossip.”
Jadzia flips her ponytail. “Thank you.”
“And that’s why I’m not telling you a thing.” Ben raises his glass to Jadzia and finishes his drink. “Now if you’ll excuse me…”
As he makes his way out of the bar, Jadzia calls after him, “You’re a cruel man, Benjamin Lafayette Sisko!”
-
“Oh, you are a cruel man, Captain Sisko,” Garak whispers, writhing against Ben and the walls of the cramped dressing room.
“Shh, someone could hear you,” Ben murmurs into Garak’s ear.
Garak grinds against him. “It’s a slow day.”
Ben’s grip tightens on Garak’s shoulder. “The shop’s still open.”
Garak’s hands trail down Ben’s back. “You told me not to close.”
Ben fights the urge to move his hips, press his body against Garak. But that would ruin the game. “I didn’t want to draw suspicion.”
“And you think this isn’t suspicious?” He digs his fingernails into Ben’s hips, drawing him closer. “You have much to learn about espionage.”
Ben lets out a small gasp as their bodies make contact. Garak stills.
“Keep going,” Ben murmurs.
Garak buries his head in the crook of Ben’s neck. “This is wrong.”
Ben caves to his impulses, wrapping his arms around Garak. “I’m not a gul, Garak. This isn’t Cardassia. You don’t have to submit to me.”
Garak pulls away. “Is that what you think I’m doing? Submitting to your every whim?”
“That’s what it feels like. You never initiate things, you hardly touch me. In fact, you barely move.”
“That’s not submission. It’s plausible deniability.”
“Of what?” Ben’s arms fall to his sides. “That you would ever lower yourself by being with a human?”
“Oh,” Garak scoffs. “Must you think so simplistically?”
“Then explain it. If you’re so smart.”
Garak squares his shoulders. “What would people think if they saw us together? If someone walked in here and saw me with my hands all over you? Me, with no name, no family, no position in society, and you, a Starfleet captain, the station’s commander, and the closest thing Bajor has to royalty? You may not be a gul and we may be far from Cardassia, but the reaction would be the same. And my life here is trying enough as it is without being labelled a shameless social climber.”
Garak drops his chin, guarding his vulnerable neck. “So, yes, I seize every opportunity to act as your prey. I wait for you to seek me out. I keep my hands to myself. I even agreed to a little rendezvous in a confined space. The last place anyone would think I would go willingly.” He narrows his eyes to see clearer in the station’s harsh light. “Does that explain the matter? Or should I go over it again?”
“No.” Ben straightens his uniform. “I’ve heard enough.”
He pushes the curtain aside, gratified to step into an empty shop.
Free of witnesses, he indulges his anger with a parting phrase before storming off: “You may enjoy casting yourself as prey but I will not be your predator. And if you gave a damn about me or human history, you’d know why.”
-
The door chimes, and Ben half-expects to see Dax on the other side there to console him about the fight, having heard about it through the station’s thorny grapevine.
The sight of Garak comes as both a relief and a shock. He hasn’t come to Ben’s quarters since that first night.
Instead, he let Ben come to him like some of kind over-amorous, predacious…
Like the very picture certain New Orleanians once painted of his forefathers.
“May I come in?” Garak asks. Without a pause, he pushes past Ben into the living room. “I did a little reading last night. Dr. Bashir was kind enough to recommend a very informative recording about the history of the geopolitical region from which your family hails. Your father still lives there, no? Well, I for one was shocked to learn how differently humans once treated one another. Not based on anything practical like legitimacy or a family’s position within a one-party government, but due to simple phenotypical variation. Utterly shocking. I think it truly speaks to the baseness of Earth’s culture that a species whose members look virtually indistinguishable from one another—at least to my untrained eyes—could devise such an arbitrary system based on the expression of intergenic DNA. Unthinkable.”
Garak sighs. “In any case, it was a rather long book and my hands were free, so I made you a few uniforms.” He holds up a neat stack of clothes.
“Garak…” Ben ducks his head, hiding a smile. As a man so accustomed to open displays of affection, how roiling it is to be charmed by such restrained (and playfully insulting) overtures. “I have uniforms.”
“Of course.” Nonetheless, Garak sets down the pile of maroon and grey on the coffee table. “But Starfleet tailoring fails to flatter your figure. I’m afraid the standard sizing does a grave injustice to your frame as it expands with age.” Garak lays a hand on Ben’s chest. “Don’t be embarrassed, my dear. It happens to us all.”
Ben grips Garak’s wrist, running his thumb up along the ball of Garak’s hand, the scales hardened by manual, but delicate labor. “Thank you for the gift.”
“You’re welcome.” Garak’s eyes trace the line of Ben’s jugular, the life blood pulsing beneath. “But this isn’t a gift. It’s an apology.”
Ben lifts his chin, encouraging Garak’s gaze and smiling openly. “An apology?”
“Of course. For destroying your old uniforms.”
For a moment, it makes perfect sense; Garak would be the type to torch a lover’s wardrobe after a spat. But then again none of his uniforms were missing this morning...
With a flick of Garak’s wrist, a seam ripper slashes through the layers of Ben’s uniform tops, the laser sending a tickle of heat down his chest.
-
Maybe it’s Ben’s heavy breathing or his pulse thrumming in his head, or his grip on Garak’s ears, but neither of them hear the footsteps approaching the door or the conversation in the corridor.
But once the door slides open, Ben immediately recognizes—as he would anywhere—the sound of Jake’s voice.
Caught between the gentlemanly impulse to cover Garak up and the urgent need to not have his adult son catch him naked, Ben doesn’t notice Nog until he starts shrieking, “I told you I heard something, Jake! I told you!”
“The door was unlocked,” Jake yips, his voice reaching heights not visited since puberty.
Disappearing behind the sofa, Garak hisses, “You should have chimed.”
“This is my house,” Jake protests.
“You don’t live here. You haven’t for over a year. Therefore courtesy demands that you—”
Feeling the situation spiraling out of control and a breeze from the still open door, Ben bellows, “Garak, get dressed. Jake, go to your room. Nog, you are to return to your quarters immediately, and if you tell anyone about what you saw just now, I swear you’ll wear one pip for the rest of your natural born life. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir!” And, god bless him, Nog salutes before turning tail.
-
After dressing, Ben finds Jake sitting on his childhood bed, staring forlornly at his hands.
“Hey,” Ben says, lingering in the doorway.
Having one hell of a teacher, parenting has always come easy to Ben. All those talks his coworkers dreaded having with their children are still some of the highlights of Ben’s life. And yet he never imagined this conversation. Growing up, he counted himself lucky to have never walked in on his parents like so many of his friends had the misfortune to. But now he finds himself longing for his father’s example.
“Hey.” Jake doesn’t look up.
“Jake, I…” Ben trails off. “Look, I’m sorry you and Nog had to see that.”
“It’s fine,” Jake mumbles. “You’re two adults.”
“We are. And there’s nothing shameful about sex but still you’re my son. You should be able to walk into a room without seeing your old man and…” Ben remains at a loss of how to describe Garak in terms of their relationship. “...and the local tailor engaging in adult activities. No matter what Garak says, this is your house, too, and you should always feel welcome. There’s no need to chime.”
Jake glares up at him. “I just walked in on you naked with Mr. Garak in the middle of the living room. I think I need to chime.”
“Well, in the future, you can be sure that you—”
“In the future? You’re planning to do that again?”
“Yes.” The word leaves Ben’s mouth without a thought.
“Fine.” Jake pulls a pillow onto his lap, hugging it to his chest. “Just don’t do it on the couch. I sit on that couch. I may be grown now, but I still sit on that couch. And I think I have a right to be upset when I see someone new sit on the couch. Especially when no one’s really sat on the couch in a long time.” Jake buries his head in the pillow. Ben can barely make out the muffled: “I muddled the metaphor.”
Just as charmed by his son as the day he was born, Ben overcomes his unease and crosses over to the bed.
“I don’t know,” Ben says, “I thought it was pretty clear.”
Jake sniffles. “It was translucent at best.”
Ben squeezes Jake’s shoulder. For the first time, Jake flinches away from his father’s touch.
“Jake, I washed my hands.”
“Oh.”
Jake’s posture straightens, his shoulder relaxing against Ben’s palm. Ben takes this as license to sit next to him on the bed. Jake turns his head to face him, resting his cheek on the pillow.
“How long has this been going on?” Jake asks.
“A few months.”
“Since he helped you with the Romulans?”
Ben swallows. “Yes.”
“When were you planning on telling me?”
“I don’t know.” He pauses. “To be honest, I never planned on telling anyone.”
“Not even Dr. Bashir?”
“Especially Dr. Bashir.”
“But he’s your doctor. You’re supposed to tell your doctor if you—”
“I know.” Ben sighs. “But sometimes an adult—and I’m not saying you should do this—but sometime an adult—”
“What if you’d gotten scale rot?” Jake asks. “Were you just going to let it kill you?”
“Of course, not.” Ben leans down, booping his nose against Jake’s. “Dr. Bashir would’ve done an autopsy.”
Jake grips the back of his father’s neck.
“Dad, you’re a mess.”
“I know.”
They dissolve into laughter.
-
As the door swishes shut behind Jake, Ben feels rather than sees Garak emerge from his bedroom.
“I thought you’d left,” Ben says, turning to face him.
“I considered it but you’d only follow me, bang on my door until I let you in to talk about our feelings, and how we have the right to have feelings, and we’re sorry that we didn’t share our feelings even though we had the right to feel shame about our feelings. And so on.”
“You were listening.”
“Of course. I’m a spy.” Garak punctuates this facetiousness with a pair of jazz hands.
Ben crosses over to him. “And what did your surveillance reveal?”
“That I needn’t’ve worried.”
“About what?”
“Jake.” Garak straightens the hem of his shirt. “Your family handles things very differently than mine.”
The story lurking behind that statement and Garak’s apparent—but misguided—concern for Jake’s safety floods Ben with tenderness. He pulls Garak to his chest, wrapping his arms around him.
“Garak, I would never…” He trails off.
Garak clings to him. “I know. But it never hurts to be sure.”
Ben presses a kiss to his temple, murmuring, “I don’t want you to fear me.”
“My dear captain, I fear everything. Self-preservation demands.”
“I know.” Ben nuzzles against Garak’s cheek. “But if you could fear me less… Even trust me a little…”
Placing a hand on Ben’s chest, Garak pulls away. “Do you even like me? Beyond physical sensation and whatever sympathy my background elicits, do you hold even an ounce of affection for me?”
And that’s when it hits him.
“Do I like you?” Ben scoffs, stepping back. “What man would put up with your crap, your little plots, your insecurities if he didn’t like you?”
“The man who raised me, for one.”
“You see?” Ben jabs a finger at Garak’s sternum. “That’s what I like about you. Any other man would woo me with roses or home cooking. But you? No, you give me your most guarded possession: the truth about yourself. For a man who fears everything, especially the truth, well, that takes courage. And you know what? That’s something I respect.”
“If I’m so respectable, why are we lurking about in the shadows?”
“Because that’s where you live!” Ben gasps.
“But you don’t.”
“No, I don’t. I live my life out in the open where everything I do, everything I say becomes a matter of not just Starfleet’s official record but the Bajoran religious canon. So forgive me if I wanted just one place where I could be myself. Not a captain, or the Emissary, or even a father, but a person with faults and secrets all my own.”
“And out of this entire station, I’m that place for you?” Garak asks.
Ben shrugs. “Who else?”
Garak steps forward. “I can think of several candidates better suited for the position.”
Ben smirks. “I’ve vetted everyone on the station thoroughly, and you’re the best man for the job.”
“For the record…” Garak wraps his arms around Ben’s neck. “I like you.”
Ben encircles Garak’s torso. “How much?”
Garak kisses him. “Beyond the dictates of good taste—or good reason.”
“Enough to step out into the light?”
“I thought you liked the shadows.”
“I do,” Ben says. “But the harsh light of day would be a lot easier to bear with you at my side.”
“I suppose I could indulge your incessant human need for transparency just this once.”
“How generous.” Ben taps his commbadge. “Sisko to Nog. Ensign, I’d like you to relay a message to your uncle and Commander Dax…”