So much Garak/Bashir
Last night I promised ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
joandarck Garak/Bashir recs. I spent a lot of time putting them together, so I'm sharing them more broadly. It becomes rapidly clear that my preference is for dark fic, but there's some lighter stuff mixed in here too, if you squint.
Condemnation by Elizabeth Helena. NC-17.
You know what I like about Garak/Bashir fic? Sometimes you think you're going to get hurt/comfort, and then you wind up getting hurt/hurt instead. This story will stab you in the gut and twist. The truth behind all of Garak's lies in "The Wire" slowly come out. (Warning: the story's rating reads "NC-17 for torture, dark themes, and a smattering of m/m sex." Take that rating seriously.)
Literacy, by the Hoyden. NC-17.
Here, have a band-aid for the belly wound "Condemnation" gave you. Bashir helps Garak recuperate from "The Wire" and learns valuable lessons about Cardassian "literature" in the process. I read this story whenever I am feeling blue and need a little squee in my life.
Huh, actually I don't have any "Our Man Bashir" fic in my store. Surely SOMEWHERE out there there are many campy stories about blowjobs underneath lasers that are about to set off volcanoes. They are all wearing classy tuxedos and ordering their martinis stirred, not shaken. Instead I'll share:
Paths Not Taken by Selena K
A Five Things story. Five episodes that didn't end with Garak and Bashir breaking each other's hearts. More hurt.
In the Dark, Home, Secrets, by Mark Russell Stanley /mrs260. PG, NC-17, PG.
For the longest time I didn't realize how fundamentally creepy it is that "Doctor Bashir, I Presume" follows immediately on the tail of "In Purgatory's Shadow" and "By Inferno's Light." The man has been in a prison of war camp for four months. Why are you forcing him to deal with his estranged parents a week later, DS9? Oh right, because while you were really good at multi-season arcs involving the war, you were sort of pants about individual characters' emotional development. This series bymrs260 ties all that together excellently, drawing an actual narrative arc between the three episodes that makes them work much better together in context than they did when the episodes actually aired.
Green Silk by Kathryn Ramage. PG.
Pyjama fic. Delightfully sweet and fluffy. I don't normally go for fluff in my G/B but it doesn't matter because this just makes me curl up and coo.
Measurements, byisagel. NC-17.
Changing room porn. Does a fantastic job of capturing the emotional dynamic between Garak and Bashir.
Letters from the Northern Continent by the Hoyden. NC-17.
My personal favorite story of the "Bashir moves to Cardassia post-series" cliche. This Cardassia is really well written as a planet recovering from a devastating invasion, and the development of the Garak/Bashir relationship is awesome.
Emigre, bymrs260. R.
Another awesome "Bashir moves to Cardassia post-series" story.
Frightfully Fun, Let Me Call You Sweetheart, Peace on Earth by Olivia Monteith. PG, NC-17, PG.
Garak and Bashir have a marriage of convenience so that Garak can get Federation citizenship. Romance ensues. So, I sort of have issues with this series, but also like them rather a lot. I absolutely love the developing romance in Let Me Call You Sweetheart, and the first-time sex is blisteringly hot and really sweet. But you have to accept the premise that a twenty-fourth century human of middle eastern provenance would spend all his time with his alien lover explaining "Earth holidays" as they are celebrated in the twentieth-century secular-Christian US. I couldn't and so I found them embarrassment squicky. My advice is to read "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" for the BRILLIANT sex scene, and then decide if the Valentines Day stuff is ok with you. If it is, you should go on to read the others. I did read "Peace on Earth," and couldn't read "Frightfully Fun." [Alas, looks like strangefits.org has gone offline sometime in the last six months, so the links take you to the Internet Archives version.]
You Can Be Me When I'm Gone by Emptyfox
Season seven AU where Garak gets the Dax symbiont after Jadzia dies. Really good trill fic and exploration of the Julian/Jadzia relationship in the context of the growing Julian/Garak relationship.
Converse Symmetry by Terri Drummond. NC-17.
This novel-length story really gets at a lot of things I love about the general universe of Star Trek as a canon and as a fandom, and about Deep Space Nine in particular. It's got excellent Dominion War politics, and a crossover with a heartbreaking alternate universe done in exactly the way that Star Trek does its heartbreaking AU crossovers in canon. And it really does end on a hopeful note, I promise!
The Enigma Variations and The Riding-Hound of the House of Tain by Arcady. Both PG.
These are both excellently-done Holmes pastiche, where Garak goes around Cardassia and Bajor solving mysteries with the good Doctor as his sidekick. Status: made of win. (For instance, before I read these stories I did not know how easy it was to turn Cardassia into England and Bajor into America. It's actually pretty eerie.)
Mr. Gerrick Returns to the Stage by Kathryn Ramage. PG.
Time Travel madness. Secret identities. Shakespeare. An 18th-century England written by someone who actually knows something about 18th-century England. [Smallville fandom burned me for historical AUs; I am still recovering, but slowly.]
Mark's G/B recs.
This definitely fueled my last round of G/B binging. As a result, at least 50% of my recs here are overlapping with his recs. His recs are a ::really:: great way to read a whole lot of fic.
If you have any interest in pursuing officially-licensed mass-market paperbacks, I recommend:
A Stitch In Time by Andrew J. Robinson.
An autobiography of Garak written by the actor who played him. Framed as a letter written to Bashirafter Bashir broke up with him to date O'Brien instead after Bashir stopped hanging out with him all the time and started hanging out with O'Brien instead. Fiendishly difficult to purchase, as it is out of print and all the copies are already owned by vigilant G/B fans who will not give them up. Fortunately, SFPL has a copy.
The Never-Ending Sacrifice by Una McCormack.
It's... not actually about Garak or Bashir at all, but Garak is there for the last chapter being IMPOSSIBLY BRILLIANT AND AMAZING. Like he does. It's a really great novel about Cardassia; I've gone into greater detail elsewhere about how much. Also, I discovered today, all of the author's fic is here. Double squee.
joandarck Garak/Bashir recs. I spent a lot of time putting them together, so I'm sharing them more broadly. It becomes rapidly clear that my preference is for dark fic, but there's some lighter stuff mixed in here too, if you squint.Post-"The Wire" fic.
Condemnation by Elizabeth Helena. NC-17.
You know what I like about Garak/Bashir fic? Sometimes you think you're going to get hurt/comfort, and then you wind up getting hurt/hurt instead. This story will stab you in the gut and twist. The truth behind all of Garak's lies in "The Wire" slowly come out. (Warning: the story's rating reads "NC-17 for torture, dark themes, and a smattering of m/m sex." Take that rating seriously.)
Literacy, by the Hoyden. NC-17.
Here, have a band-aid for the belly wound "Condemnation" gave you. Bashir helps Garak recuperate from "The Wire" and learns valuable lessons about Cardassian "literature" in the process. I read this story whenever I am feeling blue and need a little squee in my life.
Post-"Our Man Bashir" fic.
Huh, actually I don't have any "Our Man Bashir" fic in my store. Surely SOMEWHERE out there there are many campy stories about blowjobs underneath lasers that are about to set off volcanoes. They are all wearing classy tuxedos and ordering their martinis stirred, not shaken. Instead I'll share:
Paths Not Taken by Selena K
A Five Things story. Five episodes that didn't end with Garak and Bashir breaking each other's hearts. More hurt.
Post-"In Purgatory's Shadow"/"By Inferno's Light"/"Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" fic
In the Dark, Home, Secrets, by Mark Russell Stanley /
mrs260. PG, NC-17, PG.For the longest time I didn't realize how fundamentally creepy it is that "Doctor Bashir, I Presume" follows immediately on the tail of "In Purgatory's Shadow" and "By Inferno's Light." The man has been in a prison of war camp for four months. Why are you forcing him to deal with his estranged parents a week later, DS9? Oh right, because while you were really good at multi-season arcs involving the war, you were sort of pants about individual characters' emotional development. This series by
mrs260 ties all that together excellently, drawing an actual narrative arc between the three episodes that makes them work much better together in context than they did when the episodes actually aired.Not tied to a particular episode, aka the fluff section!
Green Silk by Kathryn Ramage. PG.
Pyjama fic. Delightfully sweet and fluffy. I don't normally go for fluff in my G/B but it doesn't matter because this just makes me curl up and coo.
Measurements, by
isagel. NC-17.Changing room porn. Does a fantastic job of capturing the emotional dynamic between Garak and Bashir.
Post-series
Letters from the Northern Continent by the Hoyden. NC-17.
My personal favorite story of the "Bashir moves to Cardassia post-series" cliche. This Cardassia is really well written as a planet recovering from a devastating invasion, and the development of the Garak/Bashir relationship is awesome.
Emigre, by
mrs260. R.Another awesome "Bashir moves to Cardassia post-series" story.
Frightfully Fun, Let Me Call You Sweetheart, Peace on Earth by Olivia Monteith. PG, NC-17, PG.
Garak and Bashir have a marriage of convenience so that Garak can get Federation citizenship. Romance ensues. So, I sort of have issues with this series, but also like them rather a lot. I absolutely love the developing romance in Let Me Call You Sweetheart, and the first-time sex is blisteringly hot and really sweet. But you have to accept the premise that a twenty-fourth century human of middle eastern provenance would spend all his time with his alien lover explaining "Earth holidays" as they are celebrated in the twentieth-century secular-Christian US. I couldn't and so I found them embarrassment squicky. My advice is to read "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" for the BRILLIANT sex scene, and then decide if the Valentines Day stuff is ok with you. If it is, you should go on to read the others. I did read "Peace on Earth," and couldn't read "Frightfully Fun." [Alas, looks like strangefits.org has gone offline sometime in the last six months, so the links take you to the Internet Archives version.]
AUs
You Can Be Me When I'm Gone by Emptyfox
Season seven AU where Garak gets the Dax symbiont after Jadzia dies. Really good trill fic and exploration of the Julian/Jadzia relationship in the context of the growing Julian/Garak relationship.
Converse Symmetry by Terri Drummond. NC-17.
This novel-length story really gets at a lot of things I love about the general universe of Star Trek as a canon and as a fandom, and about Deep Space Nine in particular. It's got excellent Dominion War politics, and a crossover with a heartbreaking alternate universe done in exactly the way that Star Trek does its heartbreaking AU crossovers in canon. And it really does end on a hopeful note, I promise!
OMGWTFBBQ?
The Enigma Variations and The Riding-Hound of the House of Tain by Arcady. Both PG.
These are both excellently-done Holmes pastiche, where Garak goes around Cardassia and Bajor solving mysteries with the good Doctor as his sidekick. Status: made of win. (For instance, before I read these stories I did not know how easy it was to turn Cardassia into England and Bajor into America. It's actually pretty eerie.)
Mr. Gerrick Returns to the Stage by Kathryn Ramage. PG.
Time Travel madness. Secret identities. Shakespeare. An 18th-century England written by someone who actually knows something about 18th-century England. [Smallville fandom burned me for historical AUs; I am still recovering, but slowly.]
Archives, other recs
Mark's G/B recs.
This definitely fueled my last round of G/B binging. As a result, at least 50% of my recs here are overlapping with his recs. His recs are a ::really:: great way to read a whole lot of fic.
In print
If you have any interest in pursuing officially-licensed mass-market paperbacks, I recommend:
A Stitch In Time by Andrew J. Robinson.
An autobiography of Garak written by the actor who played him. Framed as a letter written to Bashir
The Never-Ending Sacrifice by Una McCormack.
It's... not actually about Garak or Bashir at all, but Garak is there for the last chapter being IMPOSSIBLY BRILLIANT AND AMAZING. Like he does. It's a really great novel about Cardassia; I've gone into greater detail elsewhere about how much. Also, I discovered today, all of the author's fic is here. Double squee.
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And A Stitch In Time definitely lives up to promise. Not $100+ worth though. Which was the going rate the last time I checked Amazon.
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(Anonymous) 2010-08-25 01:17 pm (UTC)(link)Thanks for the recs! I used to read G/B years ago. There are so many fics that came out in the years since then. This gives me somewhere to start!
- Thanks again, Wingslapped from LJ
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