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Sisko stared at his glass of springwine. Then he stared at the intelligence report Worf had submitted a few hours ago. The chances of the springwine outlasting the report, he estimated, were low.
He sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose. It had not been a good day. Any day involving a dying legate, a Jem'Hadar battle cruiser, and Gul Dukat on his station all at once was not even close to good. Especially when there was no hope of improvement in sight.
The door to his quarters chimed and he raised his head, then straightened on the couch. "Come in."
It was an invitation he passionately wished he could take back, because it wasn't Jake coming for a late night visit or Dr. Bashir updating him about Legate Ghemor's condition, or even Quark with yet another of his irritating requests. It was, instead, Gul Dukat who swaggered through the door.
Or "staggered," Sisko distractedly amended as he shot to his feet. He'd left Dukat at Quark's nearly three hours ago, and even then the man had been starting to slur his words. If he'd continued to drink at the rate he'd been going, especially if he hadn't switched from kanar, then it was almost certain that Dukat was a good dozen sheets to the wind.
Sisko wasn't about to wait for Dukat to give an excuse for the invasion; already, he was striding towards the other man with the intent of ejecting him from the room as soon as possible. "Dukat, what the hell are you doing in my quarters?"
Dukat barely paid any attention to him. In fact, he seemed more preoccupied by the art on the walls. "They used to be my quarters."
As expected, his slurring was more pronounced than before, but not to the degree most people would have demonstrated in his situation. Dukat was drunk, that much was certain, but only enough to make him unpredictable.
The sooner Sisko got himself out of this situation, the better.
Before he could begin steering Dukat out the door, however, the other man went on.
"I'm looking forward to having them back."
It had been a difficult day and Sisko had already hit the limits of his patience for dealing with Dukat, and like hell was he giving him the satisfaction of seeing that. He smiled instead. "I hope you're feeling patient, because you're in for a long, long wait."
"Oh, I don't think so." Dukat waved a hand, the gesture larger than usual. "As soon as I feel like it, I'll have them. It's simply a matter of getting around to it."
He could argue, but that would keep Dukat in his quarters while they exchanged verbal blows. Given that was the opposite of his goal, he only said, "We'll see. Now, if you don't mind, it's late, I have a lot of work to do, and if you don't want a terrible hangover, you should be in bed."
"Hmm," was Dukat's only response, and for a moment, he actually seemed on the verge of leaving. But nothing with him was ever that easy, so naturally, he turned. "Your suggestion of bed does sound pleasant, Captain, but I don't think I'm ready for that just yet." He lifted a finger into the air, the picture of a man who'd just had a good idea. "I think I'll pay a visit to Legate Ghemor and see how he's doing."
. . . And just like that, the situation had changed, from irritating to nothing short of infuriating. Sisko took a step forward into Dukat's personal space so that the differences in their height and build would be clear even to someone in Dukat's state. "Don't even consider it."
"Why not?" Now Dukat was smirking, and that was not helping him keep his anger under control. "I'm sure it would be a comfort to him to see a familiar face on this cold and lonely station so very far from home."
"If you go anywhere near the Legate, I'll have you arrested," he bit out, his words as sharp as Dukat's were blurred.
"Oh, you wouldn't do that. My friends would be so upset. And I know you'd greatly prefer not to upset them right now." Somehow, Dukat managed to sound and even look affable as he continued. "I must say, I do like Ghemor. I wish all the leaders of the dissident movement would follow his example and die pitifully and painfully just when they were about to become a minor annoyance again. I really should see if there's anything I can do to ease his suffering. . . ."
There was no moment when Sisko chose to act. There was no conscious decision, no weighing of his options. He had been listening to that smug and sneering speech and then Dukat was against the wall by the door, having been thrown there in one satisfyingly violent movement. Sisko supposed he should regret his impulsiveness, but he just couldn't bring himself to care.
Dukat groaned, his ridges flexing beneath Sisko's hands, and Sisko briefly wondered if he'd cracked his head against the wall. He couldn't bring himself to care about that, either. In fact, he only firmed up his grip, the twin textures of Dukat's scales and his uniform rough beneath his palms as he prepared to really tear a strip off the other man.
"Captain. . . ."
Dukat, however, spoke first, and his tone gave Sisko pause. While Dukat's normal speaking voice was deep, now he rumbled the title with an odd sort of wonder.
"I had no idea."
Sisko grimaced at the heavy funk of hours-old kanar delivered to his nose at point-blank range. "Dukat, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Oh, I think you already know."
Then, before Sisko could react, Dukat lifted his hips to press them against Sisko's.
Sisko leapt back, his hands flying from Dukat's shoulders. "Get out!"
Dukat stumbled from the wall, and now Sisko could see that it hadn't been alcohol glazing his eyes just then—it had been lust. "I know you don't mean that."
"Yes I do!" Sisko held his ground. He was not going to let Dukat chase him around his own quarters. This was enough of a farce already! "Now get out or I'll call security to throw you out!"
Dukat stared at him with darkened eyes, long enough that Sisko began to think he'd need to carry out his threat. His hand was halfway to his combadge when Dukat shrugged.
"Very well. I believe I'll head to bed, as you previously suggested." He smirked again and added, "If you want me, you know where to find me."
He wasn't able to make a grand exit, being as unsteady on his feet as he was, but it didn't matter, because Sisko was far too shellshocked to notice.
What the hell had just happened?
*
Sisko had been bracing himself for Dukat to bring up the whole surreal incident the next day, but the few interactions they had were limited to business only. He knew far better than to attribute Dukat's silence to mercy, however. Far more likely was that he was coping with a nasty hangover and biding his time.
He was right to suspect his misfortune had been only delayed: barely a week after Legate Ghemor's death, Dukat and his Jem'Hadar battle cruiser were back. He and his soldiers had been on a difficult mission and were tired. Might they borrow DS9 for a bit of shore leave?
Sisko wasn't stupid. Even if there had yet to be any formal declaration of war from the Dominion, he knew far, far better than to give them the slightest toehold on DS9. It would only make it that much easier for their presence on the station to seem normal, inoffensive.
Dukat knew that he knew. It was clear from the way he made only a token attempt to insist on the leave that he'd known Sisko was much too intelligent to fall for something so obvious.
He had been just about to relax after Dukat's bit of sabre-rattling when the other man manufactured a regretful sigh. "I had been hoping, after the intimate moment we'd shared, that you would be more willing to work hand in hand with me. It seems I was mistaken. A pity. Good day, Captain."
Dukat's image cut out.
The abrupt silence in ops made his ears pop.
". . . Captain," Kira began gingerly.
Sisko spun around. "I have no idea what happened!"
Now it was Dax's turn for a very careful opening. "By 'what happened'. . . ."
"I mean one minute I had him by the shoulders, ready to give him a piece of my mind—" he answered a bit too loudly, but seeing Dr. Bashir flinch out of the corner of his eye put an end to his momentum. "What is it, Doctor?"
Dr. Bashir ducked his head as everyone turned to him. "Well, ah, generally it's a very poor idea to touch a Cardassian's shoulders or neck. Their ridges are very, um . . . sensitive."
Sisko fought the urge to cover his face with his hands. He fought it very strongly. The sudden desire to go boil his palms helped with that quite a bit; he didn't want to touch anything right now until he'd thoroughly disinfected himself.
After a long pause, Dr. Bashir asked, "What . . . happened after that, if you don't mind answering, Captain?"
He did mind—but it was far too late for that now. "Not much. I'll admit to losing my temper and I'm not proud to say that I threw him against the wall of my quarters, but he had been implying that he was going to—what is it now?"
It wasn't just Dr. Bashir who had reacted this time—the Chief had let out an "Oh no" he heard from halfway across the room—but his response had definitely been the most blatant. Sisko had never seen him flush so deeply in the five years they'd known each other, and the face he'd made, coupled with the full-body cringe, promised that he was going to deeply and fully regret asking.
"You, um."
"What did I do, Doctor?" he pressed with just a hint of "I am your commanding officer and I am running out of patience" in his tone.
"Basically, you. . . ." Dr. Bashir's gaze dropped and his lips pressed together. Then he lifted his chin and clearly forced himself to say, "That was essentially the equivalent of promising you were. Well, ah. Going to . . . um, to ravish him. Captain."
Sisko didn't bother to stop himself this time. In one perfectly deliberate, smooth motion, he dropped his head into his hands.
". . . Ouch," he heard Dax say in overwhelming understatement.
Maybe someday, he would uncover his face again. Currently, he doubted it.
After a great deal of the most awkward silence he'd ever witnessed, Sisko said through his hands, "From now on someone else is dealing with Gul Dukat."
"I'm not," Kira immediately responded.
"Don't look at me!" he heard Dr. Bashir exclaim soon after. "Dukat and Garak despise each other. He isn't going to want to work with me, and trust me, the feeling is mutual."
"I guess that leaves you, Old Man," Sisko said and actually raised his head. The look on her face would probably be worth it.
He was right. "Come on, Benjamin, have a heart!"
Now feeling at least slightly better, he crossed ops to clap her shoulder. "Congratulations on your new role as liaison officer. Now if you'll excuse me. . . ." He tried for a smile. It felt—and probably looked—more like a grimace. "I need to go take a high-frequency shower. A very long one."
That got a few chuckles and a "Good luck, sir" from Dr. Bashir, but in all honesty? He wasn't joking. It was going to take a lot of time and a lot of showers before his skin stopped crawling, he already knew.