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Having a friend is a very unexpected privilege.On Cardassia, Garak had returned to an empty, State-assigned apartment after each mission. He had kept nothing around him, added no personal touches: an agent was property of the State and he wasn’t permitted interests or desires.A spy, Garak remembers saying, and you live here?Maybe he has been wrong about a great many things.Unready to face these world-upending thoughts, Garak lets himself in to Julian’s quarters. It has become something of a game between them; Julian adjusts the security nets (such paltry things) and Garak slides through them with ease to say, “A personage as important as yourself deserves better protection, Doctor.” "I should hardly think I need it," Julian had once said, but over time, it had become, his smile bashful and crooked, “You’re looking after me, aren’t you?”Garak had spluttered and denied his suitability to look after anything beyond certain poisonous orchids, but Julian’s eyes had said that he knew better. It isn’t Julian’s subpar security that catches Garak up as he enters the main living space today; it’s some sort of rope - rope and the dripping, clinging garments suspended from it. “Doctor, what — ” Garak begins, but stops when he sees Julian - his friend - stripped to the waist, chest flecked with provocative droplets of water that have Garak’s tongue going thick in his mouth, doing something obscene behind his teeth.Garak hurries toward him, shooing his hands away. “Doctor, no - you will ruin it with that abuse!”Julian’s eyes are shocked as Garak ducks through the maze of rope and water-weighted clothing to knock the crude, wooden pins from Julian’s hand. Reaching inside the collar of an exquisitely tailored shirt - if he does say so himself - Garak locates the concealed tabs that will allow the garment to be suspended without the application of wooden clamps. “Oh!” Julian is impressed and pleased. “I didn’t realize those were there. How very clever.” Garak shakes his head at him - an exaggerated, Terran gesture. “A pleasure to be of service, my dear.” He waves a hand to encompass the strange scene: the rhythmic drip-drop of water onto the floor; the forest of clothing. “But, ah, what has inspired this undertaking?” Julian beams at him and it’s so wild and unbridled that words of caution klaxon through Garak’s mind. He doesn’t need to be wary, he reminds the fierce part of himself that keeps him alive. He hasn’t known an existence like yours. “You’ve created so many beautiful things for me. I wanted to tidy everything up and begin to wear it. I mean - I can’t when I’m on duty, obviously, but why shouldn’t I do research in style?” Garak can see it so clearly - this beautiful boy in the gold and cream tunic with its delicate beading, bent over his machines… “I am… pleased… you like them. However, are you laundering so thoroughly that you have nothing to wear?” Julian bursts out laughing. Garak waits patiently for him to finish and explain; he ignores the way Julian’s happiness tugs at the corners of his mouth. “Stars, Garak, but you’re a prude. Terran men work without their shirts all of the time.”This is true. Garak has glimpsed the practice as he strolled past the station’s gym with its glassy walls. None of those forms had arrested his gaze, however, or caused him to ache with longing. “Indeed, but I can conceive of no exercise regimen that pairs well with hand washing.” Julian’s eyes continue to laugh at him. “I kept getting dripped on,” he explains. “Wearing a wet shirt hardly makes sense.”It doesn’t, but, oh, Garak has dreamed of just such an image: Julian - his, somehow, for dreams can be both mad and kind - emerging from a storm into their home - theirs, together - clothing wind-whipped and clinging, Garak licking rainfall from his skin, then asking Julian to do the same, trading rain for rain…“Do all of these other shirts have those little hangy-thingys?” Garak sighs at him. “They are called drying tabs - and yes. Allow me to help.” He ducks one rope to stand between the improvised clothes lines. “I don’t want you to get all wet,” Julian protests, making Garak shiver at the unintentional innuendo, but Garak ignores him.Shrugging, Julian joins in, making a game of tossing clothespins into the reclimator as his clothes are saved from “ruin.” He turns suddenly to aim his pin. Garak undertakes the same motion and they collide gently, chest to chest. Julian gasps softly, and Garak feels his breath on his face. “Oh.” He reaches out to trace one of the ridges that shield Garak’s eyes. “Oh, I’ve never seen your eyes up close. They put the wormhole to shame, Garak.”This is said lightly - a friend complimenting a friend - but the room is humid from the drying clothes and Julian is so close. Garak closes his eyes and dips his head. “I am glad that any part of me pleases you.” He nods at the clothing; much of it is his finest work. “That these things please you.” A gentle miracle happens then. Julian gets up on his toes and presses his mouth to Garak’s highest crest. “My dear?”“I understand now. Why you made me all of these beautiful things.” They sink down together to sit hand in hand, shielded from the world by a curtain of clothes.