Fathers and Sins

by Fabula Rasa

The Promenade was crowded this time of day, thick with hurry and shove, smelling of flat hyperclean generated air and stale humanoid, and Kira generally avoided it. But Dukat never missed a chance to walk it, and she had her suspicions why. Keeping a low profile just wasn't in his nature, for one thing. People who didn't appear to be looking at him still veered out of his way as he cut through the press like a shark, all angular grays and blacks. He had to raise his voice to make himself heard above the din.

"What time is Sisko expecting us?"

"Fifteen hundred. Why, you want to waste some time at the dabo tables?" A passerby made the mistake of brushing her arm, and her hand went instinctively to the phaser belted at her side. Muscle memory. The hapless transport clerk jumped quickly aside.

Dukat smiled. "Not at the moment, Major. Besides, I don't have to play dabo to get what I want. If I need money, Quark gives it to me."

"Yes," she remarked wryly. "I've noticed. No use appealing to your finely developed moral sense on that one, I suppose."

"None at all," he agreed affably. "Ah. Here we are." He ducked into the tailor shop that fronted the Promenade, and she followed.

"What, you want to get yourself a new dress shirt?"

Garak was coming out of the back now, that careful courteous mask over his blank face, and the flash of something else when Dukat was around. Something wary and malicious, like a dog that cringes just before it bites. Never, never would she trust that man.

"Gul Dukat!" His bow was almost courtly. "How you honor me." He gave the word just enough emphasis for it to mean something else entirely. "Tell me, what brings you to my humble little shop? A desire to peruse the new season's fashions, perhaps? Or just old friendship?"

"Oh, the latter, the latter, of course." Dukat inclined his head and matched Garak's smile. He ran a finger along the countertop and took a long moment to look around the cramped little shop. "So tell me." He brought his eyes to bear on the shorter man, his smile deepening. "How is your health, Garak? How have you been keeping?"

His father's severed head produced a shocking amount of blood. It was really the only thought he was capable of at the time -- surprise at the sheer amount of blood, and at the loud thunking noise his father's head made when it hit the floor. It was very loud indeed, but he did not flinch.

Afterward, when he was older, he developed a (probably understandable) fascination with beheadings, and one day in a textpad he was scrolling through he saw an image of an ancient Terran beheading, with the victim kneeling in what looked like straw. It struck him as efficient, that -- straw to absorb both the blood and the sound. And the kneeling posture, ostensibly to improve the swordsman's aim, but his practiced eye knew the kneeling was equally to prevent unwanted roll of the head, so it didn't go flying off and strike some poor unsuspecting bystander. And to reduce the thunking. The thunking at Justice Procal Dukat's beheading had been very loud indeed.

There had been no straw on the floor of the iron-gray room where the execution had taken place. He had been granted the clemency of a private execution, at least. A traitor to the state and a base intriguer he may have been, but at the end of the day he was still a Dukat, and the Council had no desire to shame a great name in front of lesser folk. It would have been unseemly. So he had been executed in a cramped holding cell of the vast and ancient Algolarn prison, in front of his wife and only son. Dukat's mother had not shamed her son by touching him, any more than she had shamed her husband by a single pitying glance or sob. Lady Serin was made of sterner stuff than that.

And afterward, when his father's head rolled at his feet, he had refused to look down, but had stared at the wall, ramrod straight. He had known what was coming. His mother had told him the night before, and there had been no pity in her eyes then either. Elim Garak had bent down and dipped his finger in the black blood pooled on the floor (who had known there would be so much?) and stood, his face somber. He had lifted his hand and smeared the blood on Dukat's meshavar, right in the center of his forehead, in the sacred hollow that it was forbidden to touch in casual contact. He had traced the letter "kash" for "k'surtaf," traitor -- a dip, a line, a swirl.

"So marked be all spawn of traitors and renegades, until the moons collide," Garak had intoned in that gentle voice of his. He had never performed the ritual before, and he had used too much blood. It dripped down Dukat's face, down the central ridge of his nose, and puddled at the corners of his mouth.

~

"The boy has not been in school, my lady?"

"No." She gestured for the maidservant to set the fresh pot of dainurh down before she continued, dismissing her with a wave. "He is my husband's only son, the last of the Dukats. It was felt better he should be educated at home, in the old ways. His father has overseen his education personally thus far."

The handsome young man inclined his head deferentially and sipped his dainurh. "He has been a fortunate lad indeed, my lady."

"Yes," she said absently. "But he is growing up, and Justice Dukat has other concerns that take him from Cardassia these days. He has not the time to spend with the boy that he once had. And it is time he had a tutor. Not for military training -- in skill at arms I think you will find he surpasses any boy his age, and many older. But Justice Dukat wishes him to have a more well rounded education than--" she hesitated, and studied the herb tree at the edge of the garden. "Than the schools presently afford."

"Of course, my lady."

Her gaze came sharply back to her guest. "If you accept the position, you will receive a wage of 70 semyuls a month, with living quarters provided here on the estate, of course. You will be expected to train him in literature, astronomy, history, mathematics, and music. After he has shown sufficient progress in these, his father wishes you to add rhetoric to his course of study."

"Yes, my lady."

"Do you understand what I am asking you to do, Tan Garak? You are to leave no discipline unexplored. Any inadequacy on his part is to be reported to me at once, and I will make report to Justice Dukat."

Garak cocked his head. "Is he resistant to learning, then?"

"You misunderstand me." Lady Serin settled her furred robes about her as the late afternoon began to chill slightly. "He is not resistant, no. But he is. . . headstrong. Strong-willed," she amended. "As befits his breeding. But that is no matter. He will learn, and he will learn well. That is your job. Chief Archon Avarek speaks quite highly of you, and it is on the strength of his recommendation that you are here today. I have every expectation that you are up to the task."

Her words were more command than vote of confidence, and Garak took them accordingly. "I will not disappoint you, my lady," he said as she rose.

"Of course you won't," she replied, as though the idea had not occurred to her.

~

"No, no. Like this." Dukat's tutor reached a gentle hand around his pupil and corrected his fingering on the flute he held.

The boy sighed. "I'll never get it." He frowned in concentration and began again, hesitating only slightly over the fingering this time.

"Good, good. Keep going."

His initial frustration overcome, the boy relaxed into the music, and Garak smiled, watching the thin figure hunched over the flute. He allowed himself to be lulled by the sad tremolo of the melody for a moment, and indulged a moment of pride in his student. Whatever he turned his hand to, young Dukat determined to conquer, be it star charts, the pottery record of the early Hebitian period, or the Andurrian flute. The boy's single-minded intensity was gratifying, if a bit unsettling at times.

"Tan Garak?"

"Hmm? Sorry, Dukat. Excellent work on that section. Here, let's move on to this next one. You can see the notation is a bit more complex, but you're ready for it. Just take it slow and watch your fingering."

"Well. . . all right."

Dukat resumed his playing, more slowly this time, and Garak resumed his watching. He edged closer on the bench to turn the page as Dukat approached the bottom, inadvertently bumping his pupil's leg. Dukat jumped and broke off in a fit of coughing. Interesting, Garak thought. He stayed where he was, his hand on the music stand, but let his thigh rest ever so lightly against Dukat's again. This time the boy did not jump, though he fumbled the note he was playing. Garak ignored it.

~

"Tan Garak?"

"Yes, Dukat?"

"Why are you not in the army?"

Garak gave his odd half-smile and looked up from the textbook. "And what does this have to do with fractal geometry?" he asked.

"I. . . nothing, sir. I apologize. I did not mean to presume."

Garak hid his smile at the boy's courtly manners. He behaved for all the world like a forty year old, not the impulsive thirteen year old his blurted questions sometimes revealed him yet to be.

"I do not object to the question, Dukat, merely to its placement in our lesson. But perhaps we could use a break, yes?"

The boy nodded, still embarrassed at his outburst. "It's just. . ." He bit his lip.

"Yes?"

"It's just that I've never met a grown man who wasn't. . . you know."

"In the army."

"Yes." Dukat looked up and found his tutor's face its usual mixture of gravity and wry amusement. "I was just wondering if perhaps you had been, and you had been -- well -- injured, or something of the sort. And also," he went on hastily, "you know so much about so many things. Most people I know don't have time to learn all the things you know about. They are always off somewhere fighting, or commanding starships, or -- you know. Something like that. Not that I think -- I mean, not that I think you should be. I didn't mean that, sir."

"I know you didn't, Dukat."

Garak closed his book and took a moment to consider. "You have learned a great deal of history, Dukat, haven't you?"

"Well. . . I suppose. I've learned the names of the rulers, and battles, and things like that."

Garak nodded. "I see. Then I have failed you there. History is useful to us, Dukat, for the lessons it has to teach us, not only about others, but about ourselves. And even your admittedly rudimentary study of Cardassian history has surely been enough to teach you that things have not always been the same as they are now."

The boy cocked his head, and Garak could almost see his ears prick up. "My father says something like that."

"Does he," Garak said mildly. "Well, he is right there. Different qualities are valued at different times. Hundreds of years ago, scholars were valued for their contributions to Cardassia. Their studies were subsidized by the government, and people everywhere honored them. They were the leaders of the community, the wise men of the state."

Dukat nodded, his eyes shining. "When I am Chief Legate, it will be like that again."

Garak smiled at the boy's confident ambition. "You might find, Dukat, that societies are not so easy to change as that. On Cardassia now, other things are valued. The way of the warrior is exalted over that of the scholar, and instead of warrior and scholar living in harmony and mutual respect, each recognizing that the other is essential to a civilized society, scholars are looked down upon."

"It should not be that way," Dukat said earnestly.

"No. It should not. Warrior, scholar, artisan, merchant, farmer, priest -- all should live in harmony and balance, respecting each other's place. But now--" he stopped, and studied the floor. "We should not speak of these things."

"You said that we might speak of anything in our classroom. That our minds should be free."

Garak was silent. "I was in the military," he said at last. "Briefly. I served as the lowliest glinn in the ordnance department. I was discharged as unfit after six months. I am shamed, Dukat. That is why I make my living as a tutor. There is no respectable occupation open to me."

There was no word spoken for long minutes, and no sound but the scrape of Dukat's chair as he rose and came to stand before his teacher. His lean, too tall form was taut with fury, and his voice shook when he spoke.

"When I am Chief Legate and Lord of the High Council, I will lay Cardassia at your feet, Tan Garak. You will be honored above all men, and those who called you unfit will be the ones who will be shamed."

The boy's eyes were fierce, and Garak saw that they were eyes his enemies would fear, and that the boy's shoulders were broad already for command. He resisted the impulse to cup the man-boy's cheek.

"I believe you, Dukat," he said softly. "But I hope that you will find a worthier object for such devotion than your old tutor. And now, perhaps geometry?" He smiled and wagged the book in his pupil's face. Dukat grinned.

~

Music lessons were his favorite time of the day, and from the way the boy slammed his books shut and eagerly grabbed his flute, Garak knew it was Dukat's too. They always sat next to one another on the bench, and Dukat no longer flinched when Garak's leg brushed his own. Sometimes, he even casually stretched his leg in Garak's direction, brushing against him in return, and Garak permitted this.

After many months, he placed a hand on the boy's thigh as he played. He leaned over to flip the page and rested his hand just on the top of Dukat's thigh, so casually that it might not have been there. He continued to watch the music and nod the time, as though oblivious to his hand. Dukat's playing became noticeably poorer, his notes breathier and weak. Garak did not remark on it.

He kept his hand in that position for exactly five weeks before he tried to move it. One day he slid it gently down the inside of Dukat's thigh, but lightly, so it was only a feather touch. He did not glance down but he knew he had aimed well. His excellent peripheral vision caught the unmistakable swelling of Dukat's tight trousers, the raggedness of his breath as his flute faltered and shook.

"Pay attention," Garak said sharply.

He considered holding back over the next few weeks, drawing out the process, but the sight of the boy's arousal had decided him. The next day he let his hand glide down until it just rested on the bulge that swelled the inside of the boy's trouser leg. Lightly, so lightly. The boy trembled all over, but he knew better than to stop playing. Idly, as though he was unaware he was doing it, Garak began to circle his thumb around and around, pressing just enough. The flute playing was practically a sob, and after three wrong notes in a row Garak frowned and interrupted him.

"You are not minding your music, Dukat," he said, lifting his hand to point to the offending measure. "You must watch this passage here."

He did not replace his hand, and Dukat appeared to learn the lesson. Next day, his concentration was better. Garak repeated his movements exactly, slowly down the thigh to rest on the bulge. This time, Dukat did not miss a note, but his thighs parted fractionally. Garak smiled.

~

Calligraphy was the only subject that was a torture to the boy; the hands that had learned such dexterity with the flute seemed to acquire extra fingers and thumbs when they came to wield a brush and parchment. Garak had been shocked that the boy had received no schooling in calligraphy, but then, in these days, it was hardly a wonder.

"Up, then down, then around. No, like this," he patiently explained. "You are stabbing at the parchment like you were wielding a kunpar. Delicacy, delicacy. Turn the edge of the brush like so." He reached and closed a hand around Dukat's wrist, guiding the wavering brush. "There. Such an elegant looking name you have. You will be proud to write it, once you have learned the skill."

"No I won't," the boy sulked. "It's a stupid name. Calligraphy is a stupid subject."

"Dukat," he said sharply. "It is the fool who dismisses what he does not see the use of. Believe me, the time will come when you will be glad of this skill. Try again."

He sighed. "Fine. Up, then down, then around. There."

"Excellent. Now. Five more times."

The boy rolled his eyes. "Yes, Tan Garak."

When he was finished, Garak took a long time to examine the paper, holding it up in the afternoon sun, testing to see how the ink caught the light. "Good work, Dukat. You are getting there. It is the true soldier who applies himself to what he has no taste for."

"I don't want to be a soldier."

He replaced the parchment gently on the desk. "It is in your blood. And you have the makings of a great one, you know." He kept his tone light, as if they were discussing their supper.

Dukat studied his hands sullenly, and shrugged. "Maybe. But I like history. And composition. And music. Lots of things that soldiers don't get a chance to do. Father says. . ."

"Yes? Your father says?"

"He says I needn't go to the academy next year if I don't want to. He wouldn't mind if I were a musician instead. He says we have too many soldiers as it is, and that the academy is run by--by narrow-minded ignorant clods whose families aren't fit to wash a Dukat's boots." He ducked his head at this last, speaking hurriedly.

Garak took his time arranging the parchment and inkpots on the little desk. "Well. You certainly are a gifted musician, Dukat. Your father is right to be impressed with your skill. And when you are old enough, when it is time, you will know more fully what you want. Shall we practice now?"

~

Music practice began to take up more and more of their day. He used it as a reward now, for accomplishing other things -- for so many pages of calligraphy, for a mathematics problem correctly and ingeniously solved, for a history lesson well remembered. The boy's mind took him aback at times, with its hunger, its quickness, its rapacity. He would have liked to think it a credit to his tutoring, but he knew better.

And the boy had learned about the hand, oh yes he had. He knew he must not falter or lose a note as his tutor's hand slid up, up to the juncture of thigh and groin, aimless, absent, wanton. He kept his eyes firmly on the music, his body as rigid as his flute. Anyone walking by the open window would have seen only the two of them, sitting there, nothing amiss, their arms not even touching. But all the time, that relentless circling rub against Dukat's groin. Garak took to having music practice at the end of the day, just before supper, to give the boy time to compose himself.

It was an interesting question, and one he speculated upon in his bed, whether the boy could achieve orgasm yet. Cardassian males came later to sexual maturity than most other species, and the boy was young yet. But still. Something in the way the bulge twitched beneath his hand made him think the boy had been experimenting. Once, Dukat made the mistake of trying to push into that hand, just ever so gently, and Garak had withdrawn his hand at once. No, the boy would take what he was given and no more. He wondered if the boy might actually come during one of their sessions, and what he himself might do in such a situation. He rolled over in his bed and ground himself to release, just thinking about it.

~

"So. Lady Serin tells me the boy makes progress." Justice Dukat peered at Garak. "You must try some of these taspar eggs, they are really quite extraordinary. They're from the estate farm, you know. They make all of it themselves." Garak smiled and helped himself to another helping of the admittedly excellent dish. "Back when I was a boy, we prided ourselves on self-sufficiency. Nothing used that we didn't produce on the farm ourselves. Now, of course," he waved his heavy arm, "it is another matter."

Garak daubed his mouth with his napkin. "So many things have changed, my lord," he said regretfully.

"Hm. Yes. So tell me about the boy." He gave a jerk of his head at the boy, lost in his soup.

"He makes excellent progress, my lord."

Justice Dukat tore off another piece of bread. "You'll find plain-speaking valued at this table, Tan Garak. If you have a complaint to make about him, make it to his face. It's best he know his failures. None of this shuffling about. Eh, lad?"

Young Dukat looked up and stared at his father with those inscrutable eyes. "Yes sir," he whispered.

"But I did not dissemble, my lord. I have had many students, and many of them have been clever, but none has ever approached the kind of intelligence your son has. He is very gifted," he said with a glance at the lad. "Very gifted indeed."

"But does he apply himself? Does he work as he ought?"

"He does, my lord. Many days I must encourage him to put down the books and take his recreation. He drives himself far harder than I could ever do."

"Hm. Well." Justice Dukat studied his son, nodding slowly. "Yes, he does go after a thing, doesn't he?" And the harsh face relaxed into a smile, or what amounted to one. The eyes as he looked at the boy softened. "I am pleased to hear he brings honor to his name. It is an extraordinary one he bears, you know, as the only son of our house. I have explained to him many times the honor attached to the doubling of his name, but he does not see it. He is young." Justice Dukat snorted and dunked his bread in the dish beside him. "He should be proud. Dukat Dukat, only son and heir of the House of Dukat. My great-great grandfather was the last Dukat Dukat. They thought our house would die with him, but he had twelve sons. Twelve sons -- think on it."

Lady Serin leaned forward. "Tan Garak. I must implore you to try some of this kanaar. It is really superb."

"Thank you, my lady. I must say, you lay an extraordinary table. And I am deeply honored," he said with a bow at Justice Dukat, "that you invited me to join you this evening. Many families are not so gracious to their tutors."

"Many families," Justice Dukat grunted, "know nothing of courtesy and the old ways. Upstarts, all of them. Well. It will not always be so."

"Ah, my lord," Garak smiled, taking another sip of his wine. "You are more of an optimist than I."

Justice Dukat refilled his glass. "On the contrary, Tan Garak. I am more a man of action than you."

Lady Serin made a quick movement. "Perhaps, after we have dined, you would favor us with some music? A duet, perhaps? We have so little opportunity to hear really fine music when we are in the country, that it would be a positive treat."

"Yes," Garak agreed. He turned to the boy. "His progress on the flute is truly amazing."

~

There were so many ways he could have decided to go. He revolved them in his head at nights, unable to decide. He could allow himself to continue the play at the music lessons; one of these days, and soon, the boy would simply lose control and come all over himself. He thought with delight of the boy's inevitable shame and confusion, of how he would gasp and stammer. And then he could persuade the boy that he must atone for his offense, and he would order him to his knees. What would the boy look like with a cock in his mouth, he wondered? What would his expression be? And his delicious astonishment when come flooded his mouth, the choking noises he would make, and how he would fear to pull off. How he would have to swallow in order to breathe. Or perhaps he could pull out at the last minute and simply come all over that sharp boyish face, that dark unruly hair. Decisions within decisions.

He had not thought of such exquisite pleasures when he had taken the post. Chief Archon Avarek had summoned him into his office and questioned him sharply, and oh, how he had schooled his answers, sensing his chance, scenting it. His heart had been pounding. This opportunity will not come again, Chief Archon Avarek had said. We must find a way to penetrate that household. We must have information. I hear promising things about you, Garak. Do you think you are up to this assignment? And all he had heard was, this opportunity will not come again, and he had leaped at it, masking his eagerness.

That the boy should extend friendship had not entered his head. That the boy should so open himself, should unwittingly, unthinkingly betray his father at every turn -- what an unlooked for joy. And so he had come to see that this. . . this other , this thing between them, was not merely a diversion, but was a chance to complete his hold over the boy, make him more fully his creature. It was an opportunity. Not, of course, an opportunity that would find its way into his final report. But what his superiors did not know could not hurt him; one who dealt in secrets did well to have secrets of his own to guard.

~

Events, as it turned out, overtook him.

He had underestimated -- or misread -- the boy's eagerness. Or perhaps he had not wanted to see it, had preferred to think of himself as the hungry raptor, and the boy as trembling prey. But he should have known that this boy was not marked to be anyone's prey, least of all his. And so it was that he woke one night to the absolute certainty that he was not alone in the room, and found the boy kneeling by his bedside.

"Dukat! What--is everything all right?" The moonlights had sheened Dukat's eyes, and Garak could see the labored rise and fall of his chest. "Are you ill?"

He shook his head, mute, desperate. "I am not ill, Tan Garak. I did not mean to alarm you. You said I would know when it is time."

Garak was fully awake now. He sat up, throwing the covers off, staring down at the kneeling boy, taut as a bowstring. "Time. . . time for what, Dukat? Are you sure you are not ill?"

And then the boy stood, and Garak comprehended -- not least because Dukat's erection, though firmly trapped in his nightclothes, was now level with his eyes. "You said that I would know what I wanted, when the time came. And the time is now," he said, his voice wavering not at all. It had all the earmarks of a speech that had been rehearsed in front of a mirror, and Garak was tempted to suck him off right then and there for it. Instead, he smiled.

"You are so young, Dukat. You cannot know what you want."

"But I do!" The petulant youth was back, and he knelt again, swiftly. "I do, Tan Garak. I know what I want. I know what I have always wanted -- what I have been waiting for all my life. Please," he finished. "Please." And he rested a light hand on Garak's knee.

So sure of himself he was. It was beautiful to see.

"So you know what you want," he mused aloud, and the boy nodded. "Very well, then. But first. Tell me what is the first principle of our studies."

"The. . . first principle?"

"Yes. What do I say to you constantly, when you ask if a lesson is over?"

"Oh." Dukat smiled. He knew this one. "You say that a lesson is never finished, it is only just begun."

"Good lad. That's right. And what do I mean by that?"

"You mean--you mean that we are never to stop learning and studying, and applying what we have learnt."

"That is correct. And so this--" he gestured at the bed he sat on -- "is not the end of the classroom, but its beginning. You wish to learn, and I wish to teach. You will obey me in everything, just as you obey in the classroom. Well--" he amended, with a smile. "Perhaps a little better than that."

Dukat ducked his head to hide his shy grin. Oh, so delicious he was.

"Now take off your clothes."

The long gray fingers trembled on the fastenings and clasps, just as Garak had known they would. It was the trembling that sharpened his own arousal -- caused it, really. The nakedness alone would not have held him. Sex was interesting, but not as compelling as fear. And the boy was afraid, for all his brave words. His spine bent slightly as he hunched, and Garak saw that his hands itched to cover his erection, and his feet shifted as though he had done something wrong, as though he might be reprimanded. It made Garak's balls tighten to see it.

"Dukat," he whispered, still on the bed, watching the moonlights on the pale flat boy's body. "You must tell me the truth. Have you touched yourself before?"

"I. . . do you mean. . ."

"You know what I mean, Dukat. Have you?"

"I--I didn't know it was wrong, Tan Garak. I--I couldn't help it."

"Ah." Garak let the gorgeousness of this admission sink into him, and his cock began a pleasant ache. "Show me."

Dukat's eyes went wide. "Sh-show you?"

"Yes, yes. Show me how you have done it. It is important that I know."

The boy's hand closed around himself, and just as Garak had hoped, the caressing movement, the slow slide up and back and around his shaft, was inexpert and awkward. The boy gasped and stuttered, clearly overcome with arousal and embarrassment, not knowing if he was to be punished, or if his tutor was displeased. And still his hand stroked and fumbled.

"That's very good, Dukat. Very good. You're doing quite well." Garak edged himself a little nearer to Dukat, still standing ramrod straight by the bedside. He extended a finger and just brushed against the testicles that jumped and lifted at his touch. "Don't stop, now." He let his feathery touches become firmer, let the boy's breathing become fiercer, and when he could stand it no more, and he pulled the boy to him, onto his lap, legs asprawl.

Dukat went boneless, and he seized the opportunity to grasp those finely molded wrists and pin them down. "What do you feel, Dukat?"

The boy whimpered. "I--I don't know, Tan Garak."

"Yes, you do. You mustn't lie to me here. Tell me what you feel underneath you."

"I feel your--you."

"My what?"

"Your prick, sir."

Garak closed his eyes and let his mouth fall open with delight. "And what does it feel like, beneath you there?"

"Hard." The boy was panting now. "Warm."

Garak shifted so his cock was pushing up against the crack of Dukat's bottom, nothing but his own thin nightclothes between them, and then and there he made the decision to leave them on. The friction, the almost touching, was far superior to crass and overt nudity. Besides, it reminded the boy who was in charge here, and who was the pupil. He began to push against that sweet heavy furrow, rocking into him. Dukat squirmed.

"Oh. Oh, Dukat. Should you like to--should you like to have relief?" Almost a mistake there; almost he had said "should you like to come now," but he sensed the boy needed the obliquities. And really, somehow they seemed more obscene. "Should you like me to make you feel better?"

"Oh yes--yes please, Tan Garak, I can't--can't bear--" His whole whippet-like body was shuddering and grinding down on top of him, his penis making blind hungry stabs at Garak's belly.

"You must wait," Garak growled, moving his hands from the boy's wrists to his hips, digging fingernails into the cool, naked buttocks. "You must--oh," he gasped, as the boy squirmed some more. He dug in harder and fell back against the bed, the boy still anchored on his lap, but now he could thrust up into him, rub against that lovely crevice. "Don't--you mustn't--do not touch yourself," he managed, forestalling the hands that fluttered near his groin. "Oh, oh Dukat," he moaned, his rubbing frantic now, and he spared a hand to clamp down on the boy's prick, push it down into him, and set up a fast counter-rub, push rub push rub. The boy sobbed and came wetly, thickly, his face an agony.

Garak succumbed then, too -- not to release (he was far too disciplined for that) but to what he had decided against from the very first. He no longer cared. He only wanted to hear the muted cry of protest that was his reward when he pushed the boy off and slammed him into the bed, spinning him around, pinning him in the covers and smearing his tiny pucker with his own juices. And oh, how the cry swelled to a sob as he pushed in, in, into that sweet too-tight clench, too tight for comfort, too tight for much movement at all, and oh, the eye-bright fierce coming as he sputtered into that little hole. Garak could taste the sweet at the back of his throat, like blood.

~

His father's severed head produced a shocking amount of blood.

Eleven days after the execution, it was the custom to release the head to the family, if they so desired. With most executed criminals, it was simply a matter of finding the correct bin in which the thing had been stored, completing the paperwork, and handing it over. The eleven days were pure formality, a reminder of the state's power to reach beyond the grave. But in some, more spectacular cases, the eleven days were no ritual. For traitors, as Justice Procal Dukat and his fellow plotters were judged to be, the eleven days were eleven days in which their heads sat stuck on pikes before the Council Square. It was considered a sacred duty to spit upon them as one walked by, or (more realistically) to hurl things at them.

So when the head of Justice Procal Dukat was pulled off its stake, it was more of a mess than most. Decomposition had begun, of course, slackening the features, softening the flesh. Bits of garbage and dung clung to the hair. The worker assigned to pull it down had retched at the smell, and a bit of his vomit stuck to the ear and streaked the side of the face. So perhaps it was not really blood that dripped from the sack as Dukat Dukat held it, but a variety of other liquids. Nonetheless, it was a shocking amount, and the floor beneath the sack was beginning to slick.

"Sign here."

He made his handsome mark on the paper -- up, then down, then around. His tutor had been right; it was indeed a useful skill.

"Is that everything?" His back was straight as a board, his voice even steadier. He held the dripping sack out from his body with no more care than if he were carting vegetables from market. The low-level functionary assigned to the release shuffled and re-shuffled the papers, appearing to be checking. More humiliation. The one bit of advice his mother had given him was to come at night, to prevent a walk through crowded streets with his precious burden. The Ministry office was quiet and understaffed at this hour. Perhaps, he reflected, it was not intended as humiliation. Perhaps the clerk was genuinely confused.

"Dukat."

He turned at the voice from the doorway. Not his body, but his head. Slowly. With contempt.

"I thought I might find you here. Evening of the eleventh day, after all. Might I have a word?" Garak dismissed the clerk with a nod. He stepped in and rested his hand on the flat of Dukat's shoulder, his voice low with concern. "How have you been keeping, Dukat? How is your health?" He cocked his head. "You look a bit on the thin side, as though you've not been eating. You must keep up your strength, you know."

"How have I been keeping?" The boy stared at him, eyes wide.

"Yes. I am genuinely interested in your welfare, though you might not see that now. In time, you will. When you are older, and more mature, you will come to see that I had no choice in this matter."

"You had no choice," he repeated, revolving the words on his tongue. "You had no choice but to spy on my family, to inform against my father, to steal his papers, to betray him, to bring him to his death. You had no choice."

"None at all," he replied smoothly, dropping the hand. "In time you will see this. But it is about you that I wanted to talk, not about your father. His part in the drama of life, regrettably though it might have been played, is over now. It is yours that is just beginning."

"Just beginning." The boy laughed, a short harsh bark.

"Please stop repeating me. I want you to take thought, to think of your future. I want. . . " He clasped his hands behind his back and walked to the small window, peering out at the dark. "I want to help you. To guide you, if you will let me. You will have need of a patron. I have influence, a little bit. I can help you. If you will let me."

"Influence you gained by selling the blood of Procal Dukat." The boy's voice was quiet.

"That is not the point. My point is, you do not need to be afraid."

Dukat studied the floor under his father's head and the gathering darkish pool. Surely it was not by accident that the floor in this room was some sort of metal. He wondered how many heads had dripped here, and how many mops had swabbed away the mess. Too many to count.

"Afraid," the boy said.

"No, not at all," Garak replied, interpreting it as a question. "The ceremony at the beheading, the marking with the blood -- a mere formality, I assure you. Part of a ritual. No one at the Ministry, not even in the Council, wishes you, personally, any ill. In fact, you have many friends, many who would like to see you rise in the world and redeem your family's fortunes."

"I see."

"Do you? Do you really, Dukat? I have it on good authority that there is a place in the academy, and that you could be considered for it. There are one or two on the Council, I hear, who would be happy to consider you for it."

For an age, it seemed, Garak stood smiling at the window, and Dukat stood there holding the head, the seconds marked by the plunk-plunk of the head draining onto the floor.

"You do not need to give me your answer now. Take time to think about it."

"You are remarkably generous," he said at last. "Are you not afraid to be associated with the son of a traitor?"

Garak made an impatient motion. "I told you, no one here looks at it in that light. You are but a child. You are not responsible."

The boy watched Garak weighing the minutes, an expression of infinite beneficence on his face. Dukat blinked at him. "I tell you what, Garak," he said finally, and it escaped neither of them that the name was shorn of honorific. "I tell you what. I will take you up on your offer. I don't need to think about it. I would like to be considered for that place at the academy."

Garak widened his eyes in -- pleasure? Mock astonishment? Or was that mock pleasure? The boy could not tell. "Excellent. Most excellent. I will talk to Chief Archon Avarek first thing in the morning."

"Good." Dukat picked up his release papers awkwardly, one-handed. The head dripped a little onto his boot. "I would appreciate it, Garak." He stood there for a minute, thinking, watching his former tutor. It had been only eleven days, but it might as well have been eleven years, for the change in the boy's face. His gaze was level as he spoke.

"I tell you what, Garak," he said again. "I am not afraid. You misjudged me in that as in all else. But you ought to be. You ought to be very afraid." He smiled a little, somewhat pleasantly. "I am still going to be Chief Legate, you know. And when I am the most powerful ruler that Cardassia has ever known, do you know what I shall do to you, Garak?"

Garak blinked.

"I shall take very good care of you, is what I shall do. I shall never let anything happen to you. If I were a child still, I would desire a bloody revenge on you. But I am willing to forego a brief pleasure, however intense, for a longer and more lasting pleasure." He stuffed the papers into his pocket and approached the window where Garak stood frozen, and his voice was no more than a whisper.

"I will see you shamed. Publicly. I will see you humiliated, driven from your home, stripped of your honor. For all of this I will need you alive. Very, very alive. You will be alive when your house, all your possessions, and every living thing in it, is burned before you. You will be alive when the women of Cardassia gather their skirts and look away when you approach as though you are a disease. You will be alive when every member of your family -- even relatives so distant you have never seen them before -- is arrested, dispossessed, and shamed. You will be alive when the sentence of banishment is pronounced upon you. You will be alive when you are forced to scrape a miserable living from some demeaning trade light years away from Cardassia, never to see it again. For all of this, you will be alive. I will be very, very sure to keep you that way."

A tiny smile cracked his face. "But I will check up on you, Garak. Wherever you are, I will find you. I will even come to visit you. Oh yes, I will visit you. Does that surprise you? And here is what I will say when I see you."

The smile widened, and he no longer cared about the plunk-plunk of the head as it dripped, or the mess on the floor, or the liquid offal on his boots. His voice could barely be heard, but he had the satisfaction of seeing the muscles in Garak's face tense. He leaned quite near.

"I shall say: How is your health, Garak? How have you been keeping?"

The boy strode out of the room without a backward glance, the head swinging jauntily at his side. Garak stood at the window for some time after he had left, contemplating the ooze on the floor. After a long while he closed the window, shutting it tight. The temperature was beginning to drop at nights now, and the room was cold, but the chill that settled in his chest was not entirely due to the weather.

She listened in silence, her head propped on her hand, and did not interrupt to comfort or question, knowing he would not have welcomed either. When she was quite sure he had finished, she let the silence hang over the bed for a while as he stared up at the ceiling.

"You never told anyone." It was not a question.

"No." Knowing that she did not mean, he never told on Garak, but that he had never told this story before. To anyone.

"Well. I guess it would be a little difficult to work into conversation."

He smiled at that, and looked at her then. She let him look; they had become expert at allowing looks to become caresses, since often looking was all they had. He reached over and brushed a non-existent bit of cinnamon hair out of her face, then let his hand stray to her ear. "Nerys," he whispered, and she listened to the timbre of his voice, storing it away. They were careful of names.

"Dukat," she said back, and watched him watching her. Her mind veered off. "You'll need to get that Diplevian plating on your ship taken care of while you're here. Ask O'Brien. His engineering crew might do fine here on the station, but they wouldn't know arse end from apples on a Bird of Prey."

"You're such a hopeless romantic, Nerys."

"Yeah, yeah. That's why you love me."

He lifted her hand and studied it, pale peach to his gray, warm to his cold. "It is, in fact."

She let the silence settle around that, weighing the words that they resolutely did not speak, here in this refuge where the only rules were that their other selves did not exist. She had broken that rule by talking about engineering, of course; and here he was breaking the biggest rule of all. He kissed each finger individually and pressed the palm to his lips. Rough, and surprisingly warm. They always caught her off guard, those lips, with how warm they were. He broke off and looked at her questioningly.

"'Arse end from apples?'"

She smiled. "Guess I've been hanging out with O'Brien a bit too much."

He cocked an eye-ridge. "Really."

"Oh please. Do you want me to turn up the environmentals? You must be freezing your reptilian balls off." Sometimes she forgot to adjust the temperature, when he was here. Sometimes, like today, they could barely make it in the door, and fiddling with the environmentals just took too much brain space when Dukat had his hands on her, rough and hungry and eager. It was the way they were with each other, and because it was just Dukat, there had never been any worry about making it good or being artful or sexy or skillful or any of the other things you did instead of just fucking, fucking as hard as you could because it felt so goddamned good and you didn't give a shit. Because it was just Dukat. And it had just sneaked up on her, on both of them, until one night in the middle of fucking he had stopped, and he had taken her mouth in his, and everything had slowed and fractured, and when it was over they had clung, shaking, together, and said nothing. Because it was just Dukat.

"How long do you think you've got." There was no question in her voice. There never was. A habit of command, that weighted the end of her every sentence. He was still busy with her hand, so she took her other one and traced the swirl of an eye-ridge. Up, then down, then around.

"Not above two days, I shouldn't think."

For a long moment she considered, thinking about his story. Then she leaned over and slowly, quite deliberately, pressed her lips right against his meshavar, right into the hollow above his eyes. She felt him shudder beneath her, and breathe something that might have been her name or a strangled gasp. She lapped at it with her tongue, circling it, tracing it, cleansing it, and ended with a final gentle brush of her lips.

"Until the moons collide," she said, her voice too thick for whispering.

They watched each other then, because there were no more words after that, and because they both knew what the words meant and what they did not, and exactly how far they went and exactly where they fell short. They watched each other until sleep overtook them both, and she woke only once in the night, to fetch a blanket. Somehow it was easier than turning up the environmentals, and besides, he would be cold.

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