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2020-11-05
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Agoraphobia

Summary:

Shortly after his arrival on DS9, the pressure begins to get to Garak.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:



Agoraphobia
by JA Ingram
cjjingram@directv.net


Garak dressed himself slowly, glancing up at the chrono to check the time. He was running late. Lately, he was always running late--if, that is, he bothered to leave at all. It was becoming harder and harder to leave his quarters. Something always seemed to delay him, some excuse: a sleeve that needed mending, a few extra minutes in the shower, a chapter that couldn't wait to be read. This increasing anxiety about leaving his quarters had begun so gradually that he didn't really notice at first, but now it was becoming harder and harder to simply open his door and walk out into a world that he knew loathed him.

Cardassians were a social people, they thrived on the companionship of others. Family and friends were as important to them as food and water, and Garak had been without another of his kind for far too long. At first his training had helped him. As an agent in the Obsidian Order, he had often gone deep undercover and had worn the face of a stranger for months on end, but there had always been someone to take away some of the burden of loneliness. There had always been someone there; a lover or a handler, someone who knowingly or unknowingly acted as his support system. Here, there was no one. He was alone and would remain so as long as he stayed. If he tried to leave, he would be dead the minute he left Bajoran space. Even here Tain had his spies. Garak knew his old master was patiently biding his time until he cracked under the strain, always watching, always prepared to strike the minute the opportunity presented itself. It was a game to him, a game Garak refused to play. Even in the depths of despair and loneliness, he still had his pride.

He had been on Terok Nor (Deep Space Nine in its current incarnation) for a little more than two months, but he had been away from his home on Cardassia for more than four years. Four years and only conversation he'd had with another of his kind had been during his interrogation and subsequent exile. And that, to say the least, had not been the most pleasant of discourses.

When the humans found him he had been a bloody and bruised mess, barely clinging to life in one of the few remaining biobeds in the infirmary. He'd been given political asylum on the condition he not cause any problems and adhere to the policies of the new regime on Bajor and the occupying forces of the Federation here on the station. The station's new commander had made it clear through his tone and demeanor that he suspected Garak was a plant and not an actual refugee, but allowed him to remain anyway. It was an erroneous assumption on Commander Sisko's part, but one which suited Garak just fine. As long as the humans were watching him, he was safe. He had found the surveillance equipment that had been installed in his
quarters within minutes of entering it and had made sure to leave it all functioning. Let them watch, he had decided, because as long as they thought he was a spy then all eyes would be turned on him. As long as someone was watching he would be safe. The Federation and the Bajorans were now his unwitting bodyguards just in case Tain grew weary of waiting for him to fail on his own, or, in the more likely scenerio, one of the Bajoran residents decided to take the law into their own hands and remove him from the station permanently.

All in all though, he'd had very little trouble out of the station's residents. He'd made sure to let slip a well timed word or two in the right ears, merged into the guise of a simple dressmaker easily, and used a few flamboyant gestures now and again to seal the deal. Bajorans were well aware of the Cardassians view of homosexuality, particularly that of flagrant homosexuality: unless you could produce offspring through a fruitful union of two matched Houses, you were nothing and your place in that House became forfeit. The occasional dalliance with a member of the same sex was fine as long as both parties were discreet and the marriage successful, but 'Garak the tailor' was anything but discreet. Rather than seeing him as a threat, the Bajorans saw him as little more than a joke. 'Look at the funny little Cardassian prance about,' they would whisper and snicker as he passed, and for the last two months he'd given them the show they wanted to see. He'd even picked up a suitor or two among them, their initial disgust giving way to some need to show how much more civilized and open minded they could be when compared to their former masters, but the façade for him was beginning to wear thin. Garak's wide grins made his cheeks ache and his sweeping gestures and coy asides made him cringe internally. He had grown to hate the tailor, hate the trial his existence had become.

He stared at his reflection in the mirror, tracing his facial ridges with his eyes. For more than four years he had worn the face of a Romulan gardener named Nomual. He was still getting used to this face, the face he had been born with, the aspect now taken over by the simpering clown named Garak. Garak, who wore his face and had seized upon his name, but who was as far from the true Garak as one could ever be. At least Nomual had allowed him his dignity. The tailor was a sea of emotions, a whirling dervish of cloth and gossip, and a caricature of his true self. Nomual, in comparison, had been a quiet soul, lonely and grim faced, spending his days toiling in the earth.
At least when he had taken on that role his work, the work he had been doing in protection of his people, had comforted him. Knowing he was acting for the good of the State, knowing he was--but that was gone now.

That was over. Now there was only Garak the fop, Garak the clown.

For so long he'd had to control his emotions and expressions that now even the simple act of smiling seemed forced and the tailor smiled a lot. Romulans were far more emotional than their Vulcan cousins, but they were hardly social creatures. Some days as he donned the persona of the tailor, he felt like he were speaking through a thick, unwieldy mask instead of his own face. He would have almost rather keep his other face, but Tain had him surgically altered before ordering his interrogation. For no other reason than to twist the knife just a bit more he'd left him so he'd never find the slightest bit of succor or comfort as long as he lived. He had given him back his identity only to make him the lone Cardassian in a station full of Bajorans.

He turned away from the mirror. His own face, the lone reminder of the life he'd left behind, had become the enemy, the source of his daily struggle.

The chrono chimed on the hour and he looked to the door of his quarters. He was late. He should have left for his shop thirty minutes ago, but it was as though his feet were rooted to the spot. He hadn't left these rooms in two days telling himself he was merely taking the weekend off, but now...

He sighed, he didn't want to be Garak the tailor anymore. He didn't want to be on this station anymore. He was sick of the whole thing; sick of being the butt of the Bajoran's jokes, sick of feeling cold and alone. In fact, the only thing worse than being alone was being surrounded by hostile strangers and knowing that for the rest of his life, this was how it was going to be. He was free and yet trapped, alone and yet surrounded. It was agony. It was worse than torture--

He paused. "Torture..." he whispered to himself. Torture. Yes, this *was* torture and he had a way to deal with torture, didn't he?

The implant.

He didn't stop to think about it, if he had he knew he might talk himself out of it. Gathering what he needed, he took a sewing kit out of his desk then went into the bedroom. In the nightstand was a
holovisor he had purchased  shortly after arriving on DS9. A cheap alternative to visiting a holosuite, the visor allowed the wearer to slip into a dreamlike state and project themselves into a virtual world of their choosing. Garak tried it only once and had quickly decided that the side effects of using the visor, lingering lethargy and a mild headache, weren't worth it. But this, he thought, if it worked would be worth whatever pain he had to endure in the short term.

And, he thought, his mouth tightening into a grimace, there would be pain. A lot of pain.

Using a few tools in his sewing kit he modified the visor to act upon the part of his brain where a device had been planted years before. The implant was designed to allow the host to resist torture by stimulating the release of endorphins. Unfortunately, it took a great deal of pain to activate it; a simple stubbed toe or pin prick wouldn't work. He had to take himself to the breaking point and pray that the device that had been imbedded inside his skull some thirty-odd years ago was still functioning properly.

When the adjustments were done he looked at it and took a deep breath. There was no way to test it: If it didn't work he'd wind up frying his motor cortex but, frankly, he'd be so far gone by then it wouldn't matter. If it did work though, he thought, he'd be free.

Free from this hell. Free from the demons that haunted him. Free from this feeling of dread which was slowly crippling him.

Free.

Resigned to his fate, whichever way the pendulum swung, he placed the altered visor over his eyes and turned it on.

Raw agony ripped through his skull and he cried out.

Pain!

Pain!

*PAIN!*

He fell to the floor and curled up into a ball. It came in waves, it washed over him like a sea of fire. His skull was being ripped open from the inside and he wanted to scream, to reach for the visor and rip it off his head. The part of his mind that was still capable of rational thought forced down his need to seek relief and he bit down on his lip hard, the taste of hot blood feeding the nausea rising in his throat--then...

Then, just before he had decided that he couldn't go through with it, the pain stopped. A feeling of pure euphoria washed over him. The shift was so sudden and unexpected that he blacked out for a moment.

When he came to, he struggled up from the floor into the bathroom, pulling off the visor and allowing it to clatter to the floor as he went, and looked at his reflection. He had bitten through his bottom lip. Using a small dermal regenerator from the first aid kit, he repaired the damage then stripped off his bloody, sweat-soaked clothes and stepped into the shower. When he was clean, he wrapped a towel around his waist and walked over to the sink once more.

He smiled experimentally at his reflection to see if the skin would hold.

No pain, no blood, no...nothing.

He smiled, this time for real. He was numb--no, more than that. He felt...he felt good. He stepped into the bedroom and looked around for the visor. Picking it up from the floor, he examined it quickly for damage, then set it aside. Perhaps he'd keep the implant on, just for a few hours, just for today. Tomorrow he would face the world alone, but today...today he needed it. Today he just wanted to feel good, to feel anything other than what he had been feeling for the last two months.

This time when he reached for the panel to open the door to his quarters, his hand did not tremble. He did not feel the anxiety rise in his throat, the darkness did not feel like it was crushing the air from his lungs. Today, yes today, he felt like himself again. He felt better than that even. Today he felt truly *alive*.

Whistling a tune under his breath he headed for the Replimat. For the first time in a long time he had his appetite back. Yes, he thought as he stepped into the turbolift, today anything was possible.



END

Notes:

This orphaned work was originally on Pejas WWOMB posted by author JA Ingram.
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