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From: "Keith & Jessica Bratcher" <campbratcher@psci.net>
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Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 23:43:47 -0500
Subject: [ASCEM-S] NEW DS9 Ten Punishments 2/2 (G/B, G/Du, G/m) [R]
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Please see part 1 for codes, notes, and warnings.

------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Ten Punishments, or The Decalogue According to Elim Garak, part 2/2
  by Penumbra, May 2004
------------------------------------------------------------------- 


      If a man lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, 
      both of them have committed an abomination: they shall 
      surely be put to death. (Lev. 20:13)


"We need to talk, Elim."

Garak smiles patiently. Julian doesn't need to say which topic he
intends to address. "When the time is right."

"When will that time be?"

"Not right at this moment, at least," Garak says and gestures around
his office with the padd in his hand. "I'm trying to work." 

For a heartbeat, quiet returns. Garak knows it won't last.

"You're beautiful." 

Julian always describes him with the strangest of adjectives, and not
just when he has Garak's cock inside him. He is always resplendent,
exquisite, incandescent, sublime -- all these loquacious, decadent,
multi-syllable things Garak would find ridiculous if Julian didn't say
them so earnestly.

"I am?"

Julian leans forward. "Superb."

The languid quality of Julian's voice makes it hard for Garak to
concentrate on his padd. "You do realise that we can't procreate the
old-fashioned way," he temporises, knowing where the words are leading
him. "Don't you, Julian?"

"You're dissembling."

"Of course I am, my dear."

"Well, then." Julian adjusts the glasses perched on his aquiline nose
with a haughty little gesture. 

Julian has worn glasses since his fiftieth birthday and Garak relishes
the sight of them. He was so perfect and the glasses make him...less
perfect. More human. With an amused snort, Garak surrenders his
concentration and puts his padd down to look at his husband. Teasing
Julian about his recent obsession with offspring never fails to
incense him, which in turn entertains Garak. 

"Lay down. Please." Garak taps the obsidian surface with the tips of
his fingers, gently, as if it is Julian's body he's touching and not
his desk. Julian complies, but before that, he takes the time to
undress, slowly, as if they are Garak's hands unfastening the catches
of his suit and not his own. 

When Garak slides his finger into him, Julian moans. Two fingers, and
he talks, barely. His glasses are slipping down his nose and Garak
nudges them back up with a finger even as he pushes his by now
severely distended cock into Julian. 

"Please, Elim. Please." He doesn't talk any more; he whimpers,
despairing and pleading. 

Garak smiles through the red haze of his mounting pleasure, looking
down at Julian, his soul tender and bright. "Of course, my
love. Always."

In the end, Julian bucks and kicks and comes with a scream that turns
heads in the crowded foyer of the Cardassian Provisional
Parliament. Those that don't know don't dare to ask, and those that do
know only smile smugly.


-------------------------------------------------------------------

      Whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall 
      surely be put to death. (Ex. 31:15)


Garak is young and new to Bajor, so he doesn't know it's a holiday;
the plant husks and wreaths decorating the house mean nothing to
him. It will be years until Major Kira teaches him the meaning of the
Bajoran Gratitude Festival. The irony of words versus actions will
amuse him to no end. Gratitude, indeed.

"Sheket."

The man flinches at his name, almost imperceptibly but the move is
there. Good, Garak thinks. He has not been in the Resistance long
enough to become hard. His shell is brittle and transparent. 

"I am Sheket," he rallies. 

"You know why I'm here." Not a question but an assertion. On loan from
the Order in an unusual gesture of inter-agency cooperation, in fact,
and Garak wonders what Enabran's plan is. He knows it has something to
do with Dukat, but he's yet to receive his orders.

"I have no idea, Cardie." 

Garak smiles. Like glass, this man. "You'll learn."

He puts his portable kit on the table and opens the box. In the
sunlight, the instruments glitter and gleam with their purpose, and
the man goes as pale as the spring wheat in his fields. Garak knows
that this moment is of importance: the first steps towards the
incredible intimacy a torturer and his subject share. He's slowly
learning to like these moments. His anticipation of the blood, the
seduction of his voice and manner.

All through that sunny afternoon, Bajoran blood crawls across the
floorboards at Garak's skilled touch. Following its meandering path
with his gaze, Garak wonders why the Bajorans won't do as their blood
does: follow the path of least resistance. It would make his life
easier and he wouldn't have to work through such a lovely day. He'd
much rather be back on Terok Nor, sharpening his verbal blade with Gul
Dukat or, perhaps, fucking him. He finds both activities pleasant
enough.

The Bajoran is young and too brave. The Resistance have much to learn,
and so does Elim Garak. Years later, he understands that spilling
blood is too direct a method; the Bajorans, on the other hand, never
seem learn that particular lesson.


------------------------------------------------------------------- 

      He that curseth his father or his mother, shall 
      surely be put to death. (Ex. 21:17)


"Damn you, Enabran!"

A marriage is always a compromise, but also more than the sum of its
parts. Garak knows how lucky he is and on most days, he tries not to
be too smug about it.

Julian has learned to like the odd things he likes, the bites and the
bruises, while he has memorised the gentle things Julian
prefers. Together, they alternate from experiments in something Julian
calls "Tantric arts" to nights that leave bloodstains on the sheets,
and both have taught Garak that there is no end to Julian's
curiosity. His inquisitiveness is Garak's delight, yet that day it's
that trait of Julian's that has brought him humiliation.

"Damn him," Garak repeats, quietly. He wants to use stronger words but
in his mortification, he can't think of any. 

Julian's hand is warm on his. "I'm so sorry, Elim."

Garak's smile is one of his not-smiles. His Julian, the doctor, knows
these things and doesn't smell of fear like he himself must do. The
doctor understands the sesquipedalian diagnosis ("sexual dimorphism
capabilities intact [...] atrophied oviducts [...] oogenesis unlikely
[...] indissoluble haemopoietic tissue abnormalities") and the slowly
rotating diagrams of his blood cells on the screen, when all Garak can
think of is that even from the grave, Enabran has come to smite him.

"There's nothing to do?" His pain is a living thing. In three days,
he'll start calling it Enabran's last revenge. "Nothing?"

Julian shakes his head and draws closer, his fingers making soothing
caresses in that place on Garak's neck he's long since learned. "It's
grafted into your blood markers, Elim. I can't undo it any more than I
can undo my own genetic corrections."

In a way, Garak appreciates Julian's unperturbed demeanour in the face
of his deficiency. To Julian, it's a medical fact, part of Garak and
in no way a shortcoming, but Garak knows better and the irony is
staggering. The alteration of his blood is not something Enabran, his
father, saw as a deficiency (inability to produce eggs), but an
enhancement (immunity to certain neurotoxins). 

"There are other options, Elim. Donors. Adoption."

Garak leans into Julian's embrace. "I know," he whispers. His father's
shortsightedness has robbed him of his breath.

Five days later, Garak walks back to his hotel, mere five blocks from
the Institute where Julian still works to undo the deficiencies in his
body. In his numb sorrow, Garak doesn't see the Bolian girl running at
him until they collide. At first, Garak thinks he has tripped over a
dog or some other Human pet that so often are allowed on the streets
of Paris unleashed. He soon learns otherwise.


------------------------------------------------------------------- 

      Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to 
      death. (Ex. 22:19)

      
Like his father, Dukat treats them like the animals they are. Garak
wonders if that is something Ektor Dukat taught his son, much like
Enabran taught claustrophobia to his. 

When he puts his hand on Dukat's shoulder, he can feel the
tension. "This can wait, can't it?"

"Bajorans," Dukat says, almost spitting the delicate syllables. "I try
and teach them, and this is my thanks?"

Garak nods. He remembers that frustration, too. "Fifty?"

"I'm making it an even hundred this time," Dukat growls as he keys in
the order. "Worthless cattle."

When Garak takes his hand and gently guides him towards the bedroom,
he can still feel the tension singing through Dukat's slender, steely
body. Mass murder gives him headache, Garak knows, and decides to
alleviate the pain.

That night, when he screams Dukat's name and afterwards, before he
falls asleep in a bed sticky with sweat and semen, Garak wonders when
he should dispose of the monster at his side. It's a question of when
and not if -- not because Dukat is a monster, but because he is a weak
monster. His avid appetite for Cardassian men is of no consequence,
but the Order considers his equally unquenchable appetite for Bajoran
women a liability. Enabran's signature is now on the order and as it
was with Tisamet, Garak has no choice but to obey.

Perhaps poison, Garak ponders. The death of a traitor would suit a
beast like Dukat, although using the poniard he has secreted under his
pillow would be far more enjoyable. In his young life, there are few
things Garak loves more than the slight, wet resistance he feels when
his blade slices through warm flesh and the subsequent warm flow of
blood. He unlearns that love later in life, when experience teaches
him subtlety, but at that moment he's still bound by his naivete.

Sleep claims Garak before he can come to a conclusion. His sleep is
untroubled, because he falsely believes he has time to come to a
decision. He doesn't yet know that his judgement is in error and that
his fate is to end his life in the Order only to begin a new one at
the locus for his fall from grace: Terok Nor, the Guardian of Space
and of flawed men.


------------------------------------------------------------------- 

       And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. If 
       you will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart 
       to give glory to my name, ... behold, I will corrupt 
       your seed. (Mal. 2:1-4)


Their family is a riot of textures and tones, from grey to pink to the
pure blue of Mi'boq's skin. Secretly, Garak loves how un-Cardassian it
is. Aliens, orphans, and exiles; artists, doctors, and not one
soldier. 

His Human fingers are cool on Garak's brow. "I always thought they'd
have your eyes."

Garak looks into the deep, warm brown eyes even as he feels the
arousal that skitters through his aging body. He's coaxed into life by
the cool touch that, by now, knows him better than he himself does. 

"We'll never know, will we?"

The brown gaze flickers away, clouded and unclear behind the
silver-framed glasses. "We have Gentor and Mi'boq." 

Secretly, Garak relishes the fact that if nothing else, Mi'boq carries
the colour of his seed. Mi'boq, the brave and fragile that followed
him home on that bleak day many years ago.

Garak smiles although his heart is breaking anew. It always
does. "It's not the same." His words simplify the tragedy to Human
terms. "Is it?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

Garak doesn't answer that time, if only because he's heard the words
so many times already. They've had this discussion in too many times,
in too many words already. He never wanted children but Julian did;
irony, then, that the obstacle was not in his husband's enhanced
genes, but in the weakness of his own blood. His failure. Enabran's
last revenge. 

Later that night, Julian falls asleep in his chair, a padd still
clutched in his hand. He doesn't wake up when Garak comes over and
brushes his greying hair off his high forehead. 

"I don't know how I could live without you, Julian," Garak says. He
can hear the broken glass in his voice. "I'm so sorry I couldn't give
you the children you so wanted."

---------------------
  End of part 2/2.
---------------------




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