i read this and i’m …???????

i can’t imagine a version of garak who is not secretly the loneliest bean who needs cuddles?? one shoulder pat from julian would frickin send him. like, imagine the hearteyes??? he’s touching me oh what is this unthinkable majesty currently occurring? savour it!! savour it elim

and he is Soft™. he really is. he’s always been Soft™. any non-softness or bitterness or arrogance or anger or bitchiness is a cover for actual softness aka weakness aka vulnerability aka impending doom aka losing a thing he cares about when he has so few things he actually cares about protecting. he’s been hurt so many times and lost so much (or never had it to begin with; had it denied; saw other people have what he coveted taken away) that a whole quadrant of his personality is basically a defensive reflex

he likes Making Things and Fixing Things. he’s in his element when he’s doing those things. a tailor. a gardener. he is ruthless. and SOFT. but the sheer amount of trust he needs to have in someone before he can show it without a cover is MONUMENTAL. (hence “in purgatory’s shadow”/”by inferno’s light” being the episodes where i started shipping garashir. emotional vulnerability, y’all. a part 2 of “the wire” but with the truth being unavoidable this time.)

and i know both he and julian are both super smart but i’ll be damned if they’re not two halves of a whole emotionally messed-up idiot

they both feel SO MUCH but overthink everything constantly (aka princess bride poison cup scene, where they both think the other guy swapped the cups and gave himself the poison but nooo it’s a trick, the cups have been swapped back… except they’re playing that game indefinitely and the poison cups are feelings)

and they just assume wrongly that they’re unlovable. so for years they’re just bonding over “nobody loves me either i’m so problematic and/or annoying haha guess we’ll be unlovable together” only to wake up one day like OH

anyway

glad you’re enjoying how i write garak <3 i love writing him very very much indeed.

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my garashir fics!!

YAY!! \o/

Thank you!!!! Thank youuuuuuu

jfgjdfj this makes me so happy idek what to say but EEEEEEEE thank !!! thank u very much

I really wasn’t sure about this fic AT ALL but then my betas enjoyed it way more than I ever expected, and then I posted it and people love it and I REMAIN PLEASANTLY SURPRISED.

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fic link! Code for Consent (13k Garak/Bashir - Garak plays the evil villain in Julian’s secret agent holosuite program, he ties Julian up, oops that’s a turn-on for them both, explicit consent figured out as they go)

I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHICH ART YOU MEAN BECAUSE THERE’S LIKE 20 OF THEM BY NOW

BUT THANK YOU VERY MUCH INDEED

shoutout to the person who, when asked by Siddig in his zoom meeting “what do you call your Garak doll?”, replied “I call him a

bitter old queen”

*checks notes* uhhhhhhh, one order of “intersex!Julian is pregnant with Miles and Keiko’s baby, and is touch-starved and stressed so Garak cuddles him a lot?? 43k? T-rated so that one 14-year-old who’s following me can read this? yep here’s one of those”

Transference