Work Text:
Garak twisted his wrists inside their bonds yet again, knowing that he should be able to work free of them but also painfully aware that he wasn’t at his best at the moment. Tied to a simple but heavy wooden chair in the middle of the room, all he could do was keep his head down and avoid the eyes of his captor, which under the circumstances was a viable strategy for shoring up his shattered internal defenses.
He tried to analyze what he’d been injected with, but his mind, usually a sharply contoured machine, felt like it was made of dubious smoke. In the Order’s training he’d experienced the effects of many different drugs, the better to be able to resist them in the field; this felt, so far as he could remember, like a combination of r’ok charl and tiothki. And that was very bad news indeed, for r’ok charlmade the subject highly susceptible to suggestion and tiothki loosened the tongue.
Esa Kassar stood before him. She had just dismissed one of her servants, the Cardassian male who’d administered the drug several minutes ago and stood at hand while it took effect. They were alone in the inn room now, the light of a single lantern in one corner barely illuminating the uneasy dimness. He had to give the woman her due, she knew one way to set the scene for an interrogation, a quality which he normally would have found quite admirable. But now...
Now he was the prey, and he’d been crippled to make the hunt that much easier.
“Tell me your name,” Kassar said, her elaborately embroidered skirt swirling by at the upper edge of his vision as she began to slowly circle him. His mind was so compromised that he wasn’t even able to clearly access the ingrained calculations telling him precisely how far away she was, her posture, her combat readiness, how best to kill her. That lack made him feel distinctly off-balance, as if an essential part of himself had been cut away, and although she couldn’t have known that her strategy would have that effect it could only work to her advantage.
“Garak.” The answer passed his lips as soon as it came to mind and he automatically set to work portioning off a place where he could divert all essential information — all the things she must not know. He deliberately did not think about Bashir.
“You have a first name. What is it?”
“Elim.”
“Well, Elim.” Her tone was almost kind. “I think you know now that you should have sold me your slave when you had the chance.”
“He was not for sale.” He heard himself laugh, a harsh bark of sound. The information transfer was not quite complete. “He was never for sale, because he was never a slave.”
“If he is not a slave, then what is he? You told me one lie — I assure you, you won’t tell me any more.”
Garak said nothing. They had entered a blank space in his consciousness, an empty spot in his memory banks, thanks to the Order’s training. It would take more than whatever poison she’d filled his veins with to compel him to betray his lover now.
Kassar paused in her pacing. He could sense her gaze on the back of his neck, curious and burning. “Did you not hear me, hissar?” she asked sharply.
“I heard you.”
“Then answer!”
Silence.
“So you’re going to make this difficult, are you?” She resumed her predatory circling. “Another dose of r’hik’har could permanently damage your mind, although it would certainly shake loose your tongue. Are you going to make me resort to that?”
“No.” He had no desire to die, or worse, end up neurologically impaired. He re-established access to most of the data he’d just sidelined and hoped for the best, as increasingly unlikely as that seemed. If he could just keep her talking long enough... Rescue was still a possiblity, however faint: he’d overheard one of her agents say that Bashir had not been apprehended yet.
“Then answer the question.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to repeat it, and you have nobody to blame for that but yourself.”
She stopped in front of him, reached out in a blur of confused calculations and laid her hand on his left neckridge, digging in her elegant nails. The contact made him shudder with helpless disgust: he had an aversion being touched when he was not the one in complete control. “What is he then, that creature you brought to this city?”
“A Human.” The words were torn from him; he did not want to give this g’tarn anything concerning his a’latli.
“And what is a Human, pray tell? Where do they come from?”
“A species from the planet Earth.”
She paused again. He could almost hear her mind working. “Another planet. He’s an offworlder?” Her hand on his shoulder gripped more tightly. “And you, Elim? Where do you hail from?”
“The planet Cardassia Prime.”
For a long moment she was silent. Then, almost to herself, she said: “This changes everything. The ash’uar will pay well for you, and your — is he your friend?”
“Yes.” Technically it was still true.
“Your friend will make an even finer addition to my catalogue.”
Garak’s heart began to hammer in his chest: by the nine Hebitian hells, did he have no self-control left at all? The truth came out less grudgingly this time: “Lay one finger on him and you’ll die choking on your own blood.”
“By whose hand? Yours?” She sounded distinctly amused now. “What can a merchant, an offworlder, alone, do to me?”
Garak heard his own voice fall to a cold hiss. “Things you could not even begin to imagine.” The words spun out, beyond his ability to control or stop. “I will hunt you to the ends of this world and never rest until I’ve taken your life. That is my trade, and I’m very good at it.”
“So.” She began to caress him, running her hand up to curve it under his sunken chin and raise his face to hers. He met her gaze squarely, feeling the force of her eyes hit him like a disruptor blast — but the thought of taking vengeance for whatever she might do to Bashir lent him a core of inner strength. “You're an assassin?”
“Among other things.”
“I’ll have to have you put down, then.” She sounded quite regretful about it. “A pity. You’re comely enough, in your own plain way. It would have been good to bed you.”
She released his chin and stepped back, leaving him strangely shaken. Her gaze held him spellbound for a few seconds longer, her low voice mesmerizing him: “He’ll be treated kindly, as long as he submits to me.”
Garak lowered his head again, feeling tremors of rage and frustration shake his entire body. He knew what he’d do in her place: have the physician return and administer a lethal dose of some medication or another. “Don’t,” he ground out between clenched teeth, but he couldn’t even lie to save his own life. He opened his mouth, ready to pour out a flood of words, to stall for however many more seconds he could coax out of this rapidly disintegrating situation.
A sudden burst of noise from out in the hallway interrupted him: a yell, running footsteps, the clash of metal against metal. He sensed Kassar's head come up and around, her tall body tensing, and became aware that there was someone else in the room a second before he heard a dull thud of impact in front of him and discerned that Kassar’s body was being caught and lowered to the floor. A familiar voice called out, softly and urgently — “Garak!” -- and another humanoid closed in on him, kneeling in front of him before his drugged brain could calculate the rapidly changing distances. A scent washed over him, instantly recognized, and he almost moaned with the force with an emotion shaken loose from his most secret depths.
He raised his head. He managed to smile.
“Julian,” he whispered, gazing into those worried hazel eyes, and then he stated the simple truth: “I knew you’d come.”
THE END