InsaneJournal

The bedroom is lit only by diffuse amber light coming from the adjacent bathroom.  It is enough for them to see each other clearly, but the room itself, decorated in mostly dark hues, fades away outside of the small space they occupy.

    There is a moment in which time slows and Julian finds himself studying Elim's face like a painting.  "I've had five lovers before you," Elim says, and Julian feels suddenly hot. It sounds so imminent. Before you.  It's really going to happen.  Now.  "Three Cardassians, A Deltan, and a Bajoran."  The last two in his list almost shock Julian completely away from the fact again.  He tries to regain his mental balance but he is torn between the concern of here and now, and the idea of Elim and a Bajoran, or a Deltan.  For the first, he has to wonder if it is anyone he knows, and the other - he doesn't know many people who can claim that.  "None of whom I think you would be familiar with," Elim adds.  It is a bit of a relief, but only in as much as life is predictable, and the probability of that Bajoran being of both their acquaintance is low.  He can't even speculate right now.

    Julian realizes Elim is waiting for a similar statement from him and blushes. "Um. Ten," he says, and watches as a reaction develops slowly on Elim's face then stalls, waits for him to finish before completing the transaction.  "All human except for one Elaysian and one Bajoran, who you know, the rest, I think you don't."  Finally, that strange expression on Elim's face develops into mild amusement and Julian tries not to smile nervously.  "I was pretty...um...active, at the academy."

    "I see."  Elim is still smiling and it makes Julian feel on the verge of petulance.  He squirms internally.

    Julian stands there trying to keep his breathing slow and quiet, and feeling hot and shaky as Elim's hands on his arms are burning him and his icy eyes freezing him at the same time.

    "There is something else I want to tell you," Elim begins again, slowly.  There's more? he thinks and clamps down on some nervous laughter with his teeth.  "Despite what I've said about what I need, what I want from you, I don't have any expectations that you should feel you must fulfill, or any ideal you need to live up to."

    Julian smiles bashfully.  "I appreciate that.  I...don't really know what I'm doing.  At all.  Not a state I'm used to either.  I usually make it my business to know what I'm doing all the time, I just didn't get very far with this yet-"  He feels like he's blabbering, and he is glad when Elim cuts him off.

    "Don't sell yourself short, my love.  The fact that you're trying is all the evidence I need that you are in the proper mindset to handle this, that you can run with this the way you do with everything.  I have every confidence in you, I just don't want you to think I have a checklist or...some sort of rubric stuffed under my pillow."  That nervous laughter escapes.  "Like I said.  Slow as you want.  Having you here is enough for me tonight, or any night."

    "Now you're selling yourself short."

    "Well."  Elim shrugs.

    Julian takes a hand in his.  He means to do something, he just doesn't know what or where to start suddenly, and he hangs his head and grins like an idiot.

    "Are you sure you want to do this?"

    "Elim!" Julian shakes his head and laughs again, on the edge of hysterics.  Something is really going to have to give soon, or he is going to implode.

    "Just asking," he says and sighs, and Julian feels some sort of high as Elim closes in, and wraps him up in his arms.  He presses the side of his face to Julian's for a moment, then up, then down, prodding his nose into Julian's cheek, which swells in response as he grins again.  The very idea of a Cardassian nuzzling his face is one he would not have considered even a month ago, but here it is.

    Elim's lips finally find his, softly.  Gentle and warm, and yet again so unlike Julian's expectations, he wonders why he tries to anticipate anything anymore.  His mouth is wet and sweet, and strange despite how many times he has tasted it before now, the hours they spent at this very activity in Elim's living room.  Elim's hands come up and capture his face, and Julian's go to Elim's clothes.  They can't do what they want though, because Elim's hands are stronger, and they begin pulling at the white shirt he just put on an hour or so ago.  Up over his head, and Elim's mouth is latched to his, and his breath comes fast over Julian's upper lip.  Only a tailor could make such quick work of the fastening's on another man's pants, at least he hopes, and before long Julian is once again naked in a room with a fully clothed Cardassian.

    Julian blushes and Elim looks down, then up, then down again.  "I've been doing some reading...thought you might be more comfortable."  Julian digs his toes into the carpet.

    Garak is smiling at him in a way that seems to completely obscure his immediate intention.  He could be thinking about kissing him, biting him, throwing him on the floor and fucking him, or maybe all of those things.  Julian can't tell.  "Thank you," he says, and another possibility that Julian hadn't considered before presents itself as Garak leaves him, and begins lighting candles.  There are a few about the room in inconspicuous places.  Elim lights these and pulls a short pair from the nightstand drawer, places them side by side on one nightstand and lights them as well.   Julian tries to set all of these ideas to the back of his mind for now.

    Garak kisses him again upon his return, and then lets his mouth go.  Though he wants to keep kissing it, there are so many other places to see and feel.  He will come back to the mouth, he promises his lips, and guides them down Julian's neck.  It's hot and alive, and he mouths it down the sensitive line between tendon and throat, feels as his Adam's apple bobs up, then down, and listens to his breath gusting through him.  His hands are not yet brave enough for this, and stay at the back of his neck, rubbing the two strong tendons there where they disappear into his hair.  His mouth moves lower to his collar and rejoices at the discovery of this new territory.  It is all he can do to keep from biting.  Soon, he assures himself.

    Julian's shoulders rise and fall quickly, and his knees want to collapse under him.  A moan escapes his lips, because this isn't enough.  He loves to be touched and kissed and adored by Elim, his hands, his lips, it feels wonderful, but it isn't enough.  "Elim," he says weakly.  "Please.  I need to touch you."

    Elim pauses, looks him in the face for that small instant, and pulls off his own shirts, two layers, quickly over his head as if it were a painful sliver that needed to be yanked out, mussing his hair.  He grabs Julian again, and Julian's hands go flat and open against his chest.  He looks down at them pressed together as Elim's mouth goes to his ear, kissing loudly there, sucking, running the edges of teeth over the ridge.  His own brown skin looks as it always does, but this thing he is pressed against is something completely new.  When he looks at Elim's face, he sees just a face.  He sees the ridges and strange scale markings, but it's like they aren't real sometimes.  His hands could pass for human if not for the color.  His chest is the key to the mystery.  He can see for the first time the way the architecture of his face melds with his body with logic and beauty.  The wide neck swoops downward over his shoulders like a cape.  It fades away there to only hints of ridge and scale down the front and back of his upper arms, two lines like seams in a garment that swirl together over his elbows and become one that runs down his forearms to the back of his wrists to disappear at the heel.  These new kinds of ridges Julian has discovered also define his pectorals, with large flat scales webbing up but not quite reaching the ones on his neck.  A long, graceful collarbone divides them.

    Julian can feel Elim's heartbeat under his hands, and he slides them up, slowly, for the first time feeling this strange new surface.  It isn't rough or flaky as so many people assume, nor is it slimy like Bajoran children are sometimes heard to claim.  His skin is perfectly smooth and dry, each scale reminding him of the waxy leaves of a succulent jade plant, overlapped in some places, and separated by pale, fragile-looking skin in others.  Julian runs a fingertip over one of those tiny strips of flesh and thinks he detects a shiver within Elim even as he lavishes Julian's neck with determined attention.

    And there, between their breasts as they press together, is the most curious thing.  The match to the structure on his forehead, the rebec on his chest is a little larger, but not as defined and dramatic.  It seems to be built out of the surrounding scale pattern, like it arose naturally when some Cardassian deity was busy creating them and tiling their flesh with scales; and when this being saw this shape emerge, they liked it so much they decided it was worth mentioning again, and emblazoned it on their heads as well.

    Julian's fingers move down to the hollow between their chests and find the bottom of the shape, and Garak stops with his nose and mouth buried in Julian's sweat-damp hair.  His thumb traces it up, doesn't push in the middle as he fears he would be tempted to do, but just caresses the edge of it, around the top and back down.  Garak concentrates on breathing and getting anything at all to work again after that.  It's a singular miracle in itself to be touched like this again, but the fact that it's Julian touching him is starting to make him a little drunk with astonishment.  Julian takes him by the shoulders easily now, and pushes him back.

    Julian looks him over unabashedly with studious interest, not obvious appraisal.  He runs the backs of his fingers down one of Elim's flanks.  The scales from his chest downward are smoother, thinner, and appear flexible down to the line of his hips peaking out above the waist of his trousers where they thicken again and grow smaller, shiny, and dark.

    He is beautiful, his scales almost perfectly symmetrical, but he imagines that would be the norm within a perfectionist species.  Julian wonders what his back looks like, and runs a hand over his hip and around to try to feel what he can't yet see.

    Elim swallows and kisses him once more.  Julian takes that as a signal, and thumbs the clasp on Elim's pants.  His heart is racing again and it feels so strange to be doing this, like it still isn't permitted though Elim says and does nothing to stop it.  The trousers come down, and Elim is wearing a sort of low waisted underwear unlike anything Julian has any personal experience with.  The sight doesn't agree with the basic ideas Julian has in his head of male and female, what is associated with what.  Elim is male, and despite what he knows about Cardassian anatomy, it is still odd to see the lack of outward definition there.  It crosses some line between those male and female descriptions, and his mind flip-flops on it for a few seconds.  Then Elim takes his own undergarments down with a quick slide of his large hands, and Julian tries not to stare, but he is wet, absolutely covered in glossy moisture.  He can see it clearly as he pulls the garment down, see the trace on it as it hits the floor, and see how some of the shine to his skin in that area is not just from shiny, healthy scales but from arousal.  The fine scales covering the slit look like they would be heavenly soft to the touch, like graphite sand, and Julian is still wobbling on how to fit this into his head.  This is a man, but he has this part of him that, in no uncertain human terms, looks female - for another three seconds.

    Garak contracts his stomach muscles gently and it emerges from his opening without a sound, points down at the floor as it slicks out with just a taste of delicious friction, drips twice onto his pants on the floor, then bobs up sharply and locks into place between stretched tight cords.  He almost laughs because Julian's mouth goes slack and his eyes go wider than he has probably ever seen them.

    The most shocking thing, is that it is pink.   Pink like the inner flesh of most oxygen-breathing beings.  It shouldn't be all that surprising. Elim's mouth is pink.  His tongue is not black and forked or blue and acidic.  He is not so different really, on the inside, but nothing Julian saw or read mentioned the color, and he imagined it would be grey like the rest of him, not this bright pink glossy helmeted thing that looks so much like his own they could be cousins.

    "I take it you've never seen this before," Elim says with a note of amusement in his voice.

    Julian has the decency to blush a little when he realizes he's staring. "No, not exactly. I mean. Not um."

    "I understand."  Julian doesn't look well, and Garak has a sudden thought.   "Have you ever seen another man's penis?"

    "I'm a doctor," he says.  Of course he has.

    "In context."

    Julian was afraid of this.  He knew it was unlikely he would be able to just pretend and learn as he went, but he couldn't think of a good way to broach the subject.  Julian blinks over and over rapidly the way he does in tandem with his mouth when he doesn't know what to say.  Like an ocular stammer and stutter.  He knows he does it, just can't help it most of the time.

    "Ok," Garak says calmly.  What he thinks is something else entirely.  He thinks Julian is insane for wanting to be in this room with him with no experience whatsoever in the role he is about to play.  He did mention earlier that he had no idea what he was doing.  Garak didn't infer the correct depth to that statement it seems.  Looking at him now, he thinks that maybe Julian is having the same idea.  "Are you alright?"

    "I think I might...be...panicking...a little," he says in paired words, his lungs demanding either an inhale or and exhale between each two.

    "Panicking?" Elim says as if he disbelieves, though his smile is bright and wry and a little sinister.  "Why do people always remark how smart you are, Julian?"  He knows he is joking now of course, but the sudden topic change is disorienting.  It derails the panic for a moment actually, and he is left with simple embarrassment.  "A smart man would have panicked long before now.  Preemptive panicking is really the only logical, considerate way to approach potentially traumatic situations.  It frees you to indulge in a good panic without having to cut it short in favor of real action.  I did my panicking well in advance of this evening.  I even had a small re-panic earlier today just to be sure it was done thoroughly, and I'm afraid I must insist that you refrain from this kind of procrastination in the future, my love."

    Julian laughs and covers his face, as if that was the most embarrassing part of him right now.  He is actually a little more at ease now that Elim knows, but as soon as he moves, as soon as he comes near him again, runs his fingers down his arms, he flies high with fear again.     

    Garak is quiet, sees Julian warring with it, and lets him for a moment.  He may yet regain himself without help.

    Julian realises absently that he is parched and backs away from Elim to the bathroom to drink from the sink without a word.  His hands shake badly as he does and he is absurdly aware of his nakedness even though he doesn't think Elim is really watching him.

    Garak backs away then too, and sits on the corner of the bed.  Seems like they're taking a time out.  Julian looked like he could use it.  He glances in his direction and sees him bent over the sink, and as if he had eyes back there, he sees his hind quarters flex self-consciously.  Garak smirks slightly and looks away.

    Julian dries his hands and face and hurries back to the dark bedroom, looking like he regrets ever leaving, like it was somehow inappropriate, fueled forward by stumbling robotic locomotion, gears stuck with sand and joints frozen.  He is just shaking all over, and Garak, for perhaps the first time in memory, feels pity.

    "Julian," Elim says, low and soft.  He is sitting there, naked as himself, though the evidence of arousal is hidden again, secreted away without Julian even seeing it depart.  "Would I let you come to harm?"

    Elim offers his hand.  Julian takes it on faith and it actually feels warm compared to his own now.  Elim crawls up onto the bed, Julian's hand still in his, and he leaves plenty of room for him on the opposite side.  Elim pulls the covers back with his free hand and Julian can do nothing but climb in without seeming childishly shy.  It wasn't so long ago that he lead them both to this very bed.    Elim covers them up to the hips, and Julian instantly comes down a notch.  Something about just not being utterly uncovered seems to keep him calmer, but he is still trying to conceal a nervous breathing pattern.   

    To Garak's surprise, Julian ventures to speak, but he looks timidly around and down as he does.  He clears his throat and mutters, "Shouldn't we...have a signal.  A word," he shrugs a little.

    Garak smiles easily.  "Is that what has you so worked up?  My dear, I assure you we will not be doing anything tonight that would even make me consider a safe word possibly warranted.  If something isn't right, 'stop' would be sufficient."  Garak teases at Julian's fingers with his own.  Unsurprisingly, Julian doesn't look reassured by this.  He can tell by the look on his face that what is going through his mind is bent toward the idea that Garak should have granted a safe word.  Garak also knows that had he done it, Julian's mind would have supplied enough fear of what they might be about to do that he would need a safe word tonight.
    "Lie on your stomach," Garak suggests with no force.  Julian complies easily, but the wideness of his eyes is killing Garak slowly.  As he turns over, Garak runs a hand over his shoulder and back, down his flank, then back up, rubbing a little with his thumb, squeezing at the shoulder in a way that should feel good.  "You might be more comfortable if you put the pillow under your shoulders."
    Julian does this too, shifts a few times, then settles with his chin on the mattress, elbows bent, hands poised by his shoulders next to the pillow ends.  He could push himself up in half a second.  That needs to change.
    Elim sits up in the bed a little more, and the covers slip from his hips.  Julian can see his naked body in his peripheral vision, just a blur there, but obvious.  "Look at me?" he asks.  Julian lifts his head and looks up at his face.  It is hard to do in that position, looking up at him, holding his head up and back at such an angle.  "What are you thinking about?" he asks then, and Julian has to think of something because he wasn't thinking about anything really, and he can't say 'nothing.'
    "I guess...I was thinking about the candles."
    No no no.  Julian, come inside.  "What about them?"   Garak continues rolling his hands soothingly over Julian's back.
    Julian tries to shrug.  Again, hard with his neck muscles already hurting from keeping his head up to look Elim in the face.  "They're nice.  I've always liked watching the smoke fly away," he says.  Then he shifts uncomfortably because he needs to do something else with his head.  He puts his chin back down on the mattress but his neck still hurts, cramped from that odd exercise.  Elim runs a hand up his whole back, then, watching him closely, stops, lets his hands rest where they lay.  He sits like an idol, perfectly still except for the minuscule movement of his chest with his breathing.  Julian watches as the scales separate almost imperceptibly to accommodate the expansion of his ribs as he breathes.
    "Hey," Elim says, a touch of laughter in his voice.  Julian has no choice but to raise his head again to look at him.  He winces a little as he does and Elim strokes a hand through his hair.  "Are you still thinking about candles?"
    Julian smirks a little.  "No."
    "What are you thinking about then?"
    "I don't know," he says hesitantly.  Garak strokes his hair again and shifts to let his body slide down in the bed, all the way down under the covers.  He pushes his own pillow up out of the way and lays his head on the mattress.  Julian does the same and Garak smiles with mute satisfaction.
    "Perhaps you should just let your mind think what it wants to for now."
    Julian retorts with too much smile and bravado.  It's not believable considering his body language screaming flight.  "That's what I usually do.  And look where it got me."
    Garak only smiles mildly.  He reaches over, then, sideways gravity making his arm bob a little, and runs fingers through his hair again until he closes his eyes.  Then Garak sits up, crawls with steady sloth over him, and watches as his eyes open again and look toward the window.  Garak slides a knee down on either side of Julian's, and runs his hands up his back a little ways, softly, then back down as he lets his weight come to rest on his thighs, low enough, he hopes, to prevent too much unease for now.   His hands rub up again, rolling the muscle under the skin and the skin beneath his fingertips.  He watches a straining artery in his neck pulse fast and hard.
    This isn't the behavior of someone who enjoys this kind of thing, he thinks, but he has also never initiated anyone before.  Garak wants this so much, but he is lucid enough to know that if he can't turn this around in the next few minutes, they're done.  If Julian can't be in this place with him and not succumb to fear, they will never get any farther than this.  Julian will protest, and he will be angry for a long time.  His insides knot at the thought.  He doesn't want to end this, but it's no good if he is going to fake it to be here.  The thought is nice, that he would be willing to try to change who he is just to be with him, but they can't live like that.  This isn't even pain yet.  They need to get past the sex before they can get there, for the most part.  Julian.  Please.  Show me you can do this.
    "Are you sure you're not thinking about candles anymore?"
    "No.  No I don't think so.  But it's hard to not think about candles when someone asks you if you're thinking about candles."
    "Then I won't mention them again, my dear," he rumbles from above him.  Julian's muscles are tense but they can't stay that way under Garak's hands.  He has that victory at least.  He rubs and smooths over his skin until Julian's eyes close again, and then for some time after that as well.  Then he runs gentle fingertips down the length of his folded arms and takes each wrist in them.  He doesn't confine them, just grasps them, and slides his flat hands up and away from his face.  He leaves them loosely spread below the headboard then lets his hands slither back down to warm shoulders and rubs some more, this time with more friction, more weight. Julian's eyes are open again and looking at the few easily viewed objects in his perspective, Garak can see.  They dart from the floor to the window and back.
    "Love," Garak ventures.
    Julian acknowledges the address with a flick of his eyes, and Garak smiles a little, rubs a thumb tenderly over his spine.
    "I'd like to feel you beneath me," he murmurs.  There is an instant response like electricity under his hands.  Maybe it's his own hands imagining it, but it feels like it is coming from Julian.  "Is that all right?"
    Julian nods immediately.
    "Nothing but me," he whispers, and lets his organ emerge again.  It touches Julian's rear end, hot and wet and he jumps a little.  "Just me."  Julian swallows.  "It's alright.  I'm not planning anything, Love, just relax."
    Elim moves forward, shifts and lets his hands lead the way in a diving pose on his back.  He slinks in slow motion across Julian's skin, cold and hot at the same time, and then they split at his shoulders and each snakes up an arm until Elim is suspended over him.  His cock is wet heat and weight lying between the swells of his ass.  Julian reflexively tightens it but Elim seems to take no notice.  Then his trunk moves up as well, and the weight shifts from his hips to his hands.  Julian's wrists are gradually pinned to the bed.   Julian is on fire and he can't quite breathe in a steady manner.
    No no no no no.  Julian what are you doing.  I can't take Julian.  I need you to understand.  I don't need you to do anything else but understand that.  You remember, I know you do.  Just take this from me and come inside with me.  Be here with me, not somewhere else.  Feel this.  This is you.
    Garak presses his wrists down until he can feel the rabbit pulse in each hand, then he wraps his ankles over the backs of Julian's knees.  Slowly, and with a delicious pressure that he does not have the freedom to enjoy right now, he presses his hips down into Julian, sliding his cock through his buttocks and over his hard tailbone.
    Julian gasps and his fear is palpable.
    "Dammit, Julian.  Why does this have to be so difficult?  Why does this always have to walk the line between working and falling apart?"  Garak darts his face toward Julian's, his lips coming to rest at his neck.  He whispers into his ear,  "Can I trust you Julian?"  He stops looking afraid for a split second, confusion added to the mix, blinks.
    "...Yes," he whispers, and Garak doesn't think he is lying.
    Garak sinks his teeth into the back of Julian's neck, slowly enough not to panic, but hard enough to make Julian suck in a sharp breath and then keep trying to inhale after that as he increases the pressure with his jaw.  Garak levers himself down at the same time.  He lifts Julian's wrists the short distance from the mattress to the headboard and presses them there, letting his weight come down on top of Julian, forcing the air out of his lungs and denying him that resistance to the pain of the bite.  He keeps trying to gasp, but his breath can be only shallow with Garak's whole body flattening him.  It all happens over just a few seconds, eternally long though they are for both of them.  But then, just as time had slowed to a crawl as Julian's body vibrates below him with warring impulses, time utterly stops as Julian reaches a peak, and falls.
    Garak almost can't believe what he feels.  Julian.  His Julian is pliant beneath him.  His pulse is still fast, he can taste it in his mouth, juicy now over his salty skin, but it levels out, and his body is lax under him, his eyes slip closed even as Garak tightens his jaw more, leaving marks undoubtedly.  He watches with astonishment as his lips part and a small aching sound escapes them.
    You beautiful brilliant man.

next part