Work Text:
"Jules, could you hand me that coil spanner over there?"
It takes a moment until Julian's brain catches up with the way Miles' voice experiences a slight uptick towards the end of the sentence— to how his hand sticks out from the open jefferies tube panel, grasping at nothing as it expects to be handed the requested tool.
"...Julian?" Miles asks impatiently, now slightly more gruff when Julian doesn't respond, too perplexed by the way Miles had addressed him just before that. "The coil spanner."
"Right," he mumbles and draws his legs up a little to lean toward the Engineering kit, then places the spanner into Miles' awaiting palm. "Sorry."
"You were the one who insisted on helping me with this, so make sure to keep up - it's bloody hot in here!"
And Miles isn't wrong. Well, maybe a little - it's bloody hot everywhere right now, what with the environmental controls going haywire yet again and arbitrarily snapping back to Cardassian factory settings. Though Julian usually handles raised temperatures better than Miles, who is sweating harder than he does during the average racquetball match.
"I mean, we could switch if you wanted? I'm sure I can figure out how to fix it with your guidance."
To this, Miles actually pokes out his head from the panel fully, glaring mildly at Julian. "What? And have an amateur like you do a few finishing touches only to take credit for all the work I've done so far?"
"Oh, I could never," Julian smiles angelically at him and waves the sonic driver over Miles' face. "You'll need that one next, don't you?"
With a scoff, Miles grabs the driver and disappears back from view.
The next time it happens the blow is slightly softened by the fact that Julian is very much and incredibly, unbelievably sloshed. Miles is too, naturally, although through some peculiar quirk of nature he still seems to handle his alcohol better than the genetically engineered wonderchild he is currently trying to hold back from throwing up on his carpet.
"'fucks sake, Julian. Get it together."
"Can't," Julian gurgles in his swaying arms. Then, "can we sing again?"
"You're gonna get it all over the upholstery— Keiko loves that bloody sofa—" Miles complains, then pauses. "Actually, maybe— if you can. You should do it. Throw up I mean."
"On th' carpet?"
"No! The sofa!"
"Miles, I don't feel well..."
Apparently Miles takes a moment to contemplate this. "Then sit your skinny arse back down."
So Julian sits his skinny arse back down, although he narrowly misses the sofa and lands on the floor instead. Miles guffaws, still loosely holding onto his shoulders.
"I can't get up," Julian laments and leans back against Miles' legs. "I'm jus' gonna stay right here..."
Miles pats his head like a little boy would pet a dog - a bit too rough, although not without affection. "Suit yourself."
The only real drawback of sitting on the carpet, face almost in Miles' lap, is that from down here Julian is unable to reach the bottle of whatever unholy concoction Quark has sold them for an even unholier sum. Is it Saurian? Bolian? Julian can't remember! What matters is that his head is swimming with it.
"It's empty," Miles slurs unconvincingly. "If that swill came from Earth they'd've called it 'devil's piss', I'm sure."
"It sure does taste like it, doesn't it?" Julian nods eagerly, rubs his chin all over Miles' trousers, then yawns. "Are you gonna kick me out...?"
Miles looks down at him with astonishing wistfulness for a man whose blood alcohol level is far beyond the recommended threshold. "I can't, can I? Lookat you. Should be glad Keiko's away."
Indeed, Julian is glad Keiko is away more often than not. Worse - he feels bad for it, because he actually likes her.
Though maybe he doesn't feel bad enough.
"I'll just— I'll just get a hypo and go sleep... right... right here." He fondles the carpet affectionately.
"I'll get it for you," Miles tells him, because of course by now the replicator pattern for the damn compound has become a staple in the O'Brien's quarters. And once he's back by the couch he even administers the spray for Julian, as if Julian's a sick child that needs to be put to sleep. "Better?" Miles asks, and presses his own dose against the side of his neck.
Nodding, Julian climbs back onto the cushions that Keiko loves so darn much and mumbles "you're th' best, Miles."
"Course I am," Miles says and - regrettably - gets up. "That's why you'd be lost without me. But really, don't ruin the sofa. She'll kill me if you do. But before that can happen I'll kill you."
"You may try," Julian laughs and chokes a little. "G'dnight, Chief."
"Night, Jules."
Then with a swoosh of doors sliding shut he's alone, and even through his drunken stupor a feeling of dread manages to sink to the bottom of his chest.
Julian doesn't know if Miles knows. No, there's no way he does, actually. And if he did he'd never do this. He's just not thinking - the war is heavy on all of them. That's it.
He sighs, rubs the bridge of his nose and tries to focus on the data running down the flickering infirmary computer screen. Both Nurse Kabo and Jabara have brought him raktajinos at this point, each with varying degrees of concern in their voices as they told him to go to his quarters and get some rest. Julian would like to pretend he doesn't know how long he has gone without sleep, but he is distressingly aware of every second that has passed since his head had last touched a pillow.
Nowadays he manages to pull away from research well enough, but when Julian gets stressed he works— and who hasn't been stressed lately? Back to the Quickening, the ketracel white, and even Garak's implant it is. Sure, he has found solutions to all of these problems one way or another, but none of them were ever satisfying enough. People are still dying, the Jem'Hadar are still addicted, and while it is turned off, Garak still carries that darn wire in his head to this day.
"Dr. Bashir," Jabara's voice calls through the com, "Your favourite patient is here to see you."
"I'll be right there." He gets up, finding his legs tingling and numb from having sat slouched over his console for hours now. When he gets to the examination room, Miles is already there on the biobed with a spectacular scowl on his paled face.
"What happened?" Julian asks, slipping into professional mode and whipping out his tricorder to run over Miles' fiery red hands. Lacerations and electrical burns, with blisters so large and angry that they burst through the thick calluses of Miles' palms.
"I was fiddling with transmitter relays on the Defiant - Sisko asked me to get all weaponry related systems running smooth as butter. Damn thing just blew up on me before I had even fully opened the hatch to the access panel." Miles rubs his nose against his shoulder and frowns. "No clue what set it off yet. I'll have to run a few diagnostics as soon as you've patched me up."
Lowering the tricorder, Julian eyes him warily and crouches down to inspect the wounds manually. "You're not going back to work after this. In fact I'm ordering you the rest of the day off."
"Julian--" Miles breathes in exasperation but grimaces when the tissue regenerator runs over his hands.
"If you keep putting strain on your hands after injuries like this you're going to end up with longterm problems," Julian pauses and repeats the treatment on Miles' other hand with a raised eyebrow. "And you don't want to come visit me at work even more than you already do, huh?"
"Not if you're going to make a big deal out of every little bruise, no, Julian."
Perhaps this would be a good moment, with Miles still vulnerable and only now drawing his guard up. Maybe it's possible to get him to repeat his little mistake, a moment of unthinking, unfiltered words.
"Pretend I'm only doing this for Keiko's peace of mind, then," he says instead and Miles rolls his eyes, but there's a bit of a grin tugging at his face as well. It's enough for Julian to feel accomplished.
"Sure. She's damn lucky to have you, Jules— ow! Christ, you're hurting me, Julian!"
It takes one or two seconds for Julian's brain to catch up and he hastily removes his iron grip from Miles' wrist and apologises with a sheepish laugh, shrugs it off as a silly little 'Dr. Bashir getting distracted by research or tricorder readings or possible diagnoses' again.
Is it one thing when Miles speaks fondly, exasperatedly and another when he is upset or in pain?
"Sorry," he says but his voice sounds weirdly hollow and flighty - and of course Miles picks up on this, raising one brow - but staying true to character, his friend does not comment on Julian's slip-up at all.
Funnily enough, Miles looks handsome like that. Julian cannot help but grin like an idiot at his own incredulity.
"What? What'd I do now?"
"Nothing," Julian chuckles and pats Miles' knee. "You're cleared to leave, Chief."
Miles scoffs. "Thank God."
"To your quarters, of course. You don't need me to have Odo send someone to Engineering to make sure you behave, eh?"
"Well, what am I supposed to do all day, Julian?! Sit around and wait for you to come by in the evening to drag me to Quark's?"
"Precisely that, Miles," Julian whistles sweetly and steps towards the door with a deliberate bounce in his stride.
Perhaps it is alright after all. Perhaps he's merely overthinking everything as he does so often. It could be the instinctual actions and words he appreciates so much in people like Miles or Martok, or even Kira. None of them are thoughtless— all of them highly intelligent, from what Julian perceives. But they operate in a way that he finds himself incapable of moving, working, speaking in. For him every little action has to be orchestrated by a previous thought— but no, Miles simply functions by existing, and it makes him so human, so incomprehensible and unobtainable to Julian that he gets nauseated when thinking about it for too long.
He doesn't care to dwell on the pretense that this is a state unique to his own admittedly extraordinary predicament, because his understanding of others is developed well enough to gauge that different types of people act in different types of ways.
For his friendship this means that it's not that Julian himself is so different from others, but that he is simply very different from Miles.
And from this perspective it seems almost blasphemous to assign Miles with a nickname other than the cherished "Chief". There are things he could say, sure, little pet names he's overheard from Keiko or even Molly in an almost teasingly affectionate tone, but that all is far from his territory and strictly something that stays in the O'Brien family. Which he is not a part of. And never will be.
Jules on the other hand, is nothing intimate, even if it certainly feels like something to be kept in an ornate locked box and never to be opened again. Julian had been Jules to everyone - his parents, yes - but also to his peers, to teachers, doctors, strangers. And so, while the name certainly is a thing of the past, it is not something private or inviolable. Even if Julian tenses up when hearing it directed at him, there is zero possibility Miles is aware of this. With that the casual utterance of it appears framed in a new context, one Julian isn't all too sure about yet.
But it is Miles, and Miles is Julian's friend. And shouldn't that be just enough for him to settle on something?
"Julian!? I swear to god, Julian, you have to get up," a voice rings from far away and then from inside his ears all at once. Julian flinches. "Yes, that's good! Keep your eyes open, you're doing grand..."
Blinking doesn't rid him of the blackness clouding his vision, and Julian groans loudly as he tries to reach out to Miles— because despite being unable to see, that voice still unmistakably belongs to his friend. "Miles?" he manages meekly, but his own words sound more like a garbled plea.
"Bloody anomaly fried our engines. The shockwave made the runabout crash right into the blasted rock we were trying to leave in the first place— Julian? Are you listening to me?"
"I can't see..."
"Well, it's pretty dark in here but... ah, let me try to get the lights working. Just a second."
Just a second turns into about ten minutes of Julian drifting in and out of consciousness, but eventually there’s an electric hum and somehow Miles has gotten part of the runabouts machinery to work again.
"Oh Jesus. Are you alright?!" Miles exclaims and there's the sound of fabric ripping, then something soft is being pressed against the crown of Julian's head. "Where's the medkit? You're gonna bleed all over the cockpit if we don't patch you up quickly..." He pauses. "Julian?"
"Miles, I can't see. I think I might be— I might be concussed..."
More silence. Then quiet curses as whatever rag Miles' has torn off from God knows where is pressed more firmly against his skull. Then finally: "I'll get a distress signal going. They should pick it up at the station soon enough."
Julian tries to nod, but it hurts and makes him feel nauseated, so he stays put right where he is - awkwardly folded in his seat of the broken and smashed cockpit, Miles at his side and wiping blood from his face steadily.
"Are you... injured?" he asks quietly, because as dangerous as his own condition might be, it's difficult not to be concerned.
"What? Of course," Miles sputters, reaffirming his hold on him. "But it's just a few bruises and scrapes here and there, that's all."
The console starts beeping before Julian can make further inquiries.
"Ah, thank God. They're sending someone to pick us up."
"It'll take at least... twelve hours for the Defiant to reach this place, Miles," Julian mumbles and blinks blearily, as if doing that could magically return his eyesight. "...are you sure you don't need me to fix you up?"
"What?" Miles guffaws and turns back to him, fumbling around with the rag, then softens his voice. "You're barely conscious, Jules. You need rest."
Julian wants to complain, to tell Miles off because technically he is the commanding officer on this mission, even if he's currently incapacitated. But Miles' touch is gentle and his hands are hot and rough against Julian's face, so even if he cannot see anything it's good enough for now. Good enough for him.
"Why'd you call me Jules, Miles?"
"Huh?"
"You keep calling me that," he says meekly. Somehow it feels silly to point it out directly now.
"Cause that's your name; Julian, Jules - what kind of question is that supposed to be?" Miles must be leaning in a little closer, maybe he's concerned, because the smell of his cologne, and his warmth increase noticeably. "Don't tell me you want me to call you 'sir' again?"
"Oh."
Miles is silent for another moment. "Yeah... I actually don't know. I didn't really give it much thought until now. I suppose it's similar to how you call me 'Chief'."
Despite everything, Julian manages to wrinkle his nose. He's so dizzy now. "That's your title— your, your occupation."
"Well," Miles says, sounding fondly irritated. "You say it like you... well. You know."
But Julian doesn't know. And he doesn't get to think about it until he wakes in the sickbay of the Defiant, with Miles next to him, visibly bruised and beaten up.
It's so much worse than he was led to believe, of course— the man's a right bastard. And a stubborn one at that. But somehow that same stubbornness has pulled them more or less safely through twelve and a half hours of being stranded in a coffin made from metal, plastic and rubber. Julian is very grateful. And very angry.
"You shouldn't have done that, Miles," he admonishes from the side. "You could've died with your ribs fractured like that! What if you'd punctured your lungs?!"
"Well," Miles croaks from his biobed. "I didn't. Had to bring you home, though— no use in letting the doctor perish, is there?"
"Ah, I hope Keiko beats you for it..."
That makes Miles break into a spectacular laughing fit that eventually devolves into a row of wet coughs - Julian reaches out to pet his arm, but fails, instead grasping at air.
"I'm just glad you didn't die on me back there."
Julian peers at him with a lopsided grin. "Likewise, Chief."
When Sloan dies and they are stuck in his pathetically wretched mind Julian finally realises that he doesn't mind when Miles calls him by that name. In fact, he feels comforted instead of alienated or disturbed when it is uttered softly as they steady themselves in a turbolift that isn't on a Deep Space Nine that never should be.
There's no time to tell Miles about it, though, because too many things are spinning through Julian's mind— things of higher importance than his own insecure ego and while he's honest enough to admit that he is, at his core, not a completely selfless person, it still seems like such a waste to get hung up on such a small detail when there is so much more at stake here.
But of course all of his altruistic ambitions go down the drain when he's shot and feels pain even though none of this is remotely real. Miles gets hit too, although not without putting up a fight, and Julian feels a certain childish satisfaction somewhere between his chest and his cheeks at the fact that his dear friend Miles Edward O'Brien refuses to go down quietly, for Julian's sake or his own— he doesn't know nor care.
"You all right?" Miles asks breathlessly as they sink down against the wall, clutching their injuries.
Drawn by reflex more than anything else, Julian feels his fingers twitch because they want to assess the damage, stop the bleeding, heal the wounds that Miles' has suffered, but he has to will it down with all the rationale he has left to make sure he doesn't waste any more energy on this fruitless endeavour. His expensively augmented brain isn't of much help when he tries to drag them out of Sloan's head, or to at least get Miles away from the worst of it. First aid won't help them if his body has already convinced his own mind of the fact that it is dying.
"Do I look all right?" he huffs in irritation, unable to hide his frustration any longer, explaining to Miles that no, they won't get out of here, and that Miles won't get to see Keiko and the kids ever again and yes, it is all Julian's fault for being so damn cocky and full of himself after all.
"Hah," Miles mumbles, defeated. "I don't believe this."
"I'm sorry," Julian pleads, and he means it.
But as expected, Miles would never allow for him to go out in a heap of self-pity, and Julian plays along because if there's one thing he knows it is that Miles bloody loves being annoyed by him, and he owes it to him to deliver just enough of that in their dying moments.
Later, when they're far away enough from all of this - alive - and Odo is finally alright, Julian gives himself a moment to think about the less important things, in between throwing darts.
"Tell me something," Miles interrupts. "If you'd had more time to read the data in Sloan's mind, do you think we would have brought down Section 31?"
It's a loaded question. Yes, Julian thinks in bitter relief. If you hadn't been there I would have stayed longer, even if it had meant losing myself in the process. "We'll never know, will we?" he says instead, casually smiling and blinking gently through the low light of the bar. "Eh, but one thing's for sure. Sloan knew he had the perfect bait... that I wouldn't be able to resist it. Luckily there was one thing he failed to consider..."
"Oh? What's that?"
"You," Julian says simply. Miles doesn't look nearly stunned enough when he raises his glass. "To Miles Edward O'Brien."
Ah, but Miles seems a little abashed at least, a little sheepish— a rather uncharacteristic expression for a man like him. In fact he averts his eyes in a way that's not unlike Molly when she's misbehaved, and Julian tries very hard not to laugh at that.
"To friendship", Miles mumbles eventually, as if that would lessen the weight of the words swaying comfortably between them, and they have a toast. "...I'd better get home. Keiko's holding dinner for me."
"This late?"
"Yeah, well. She's one hell of a woman."
"That's why you love her," Julian agrees.
"That's right. That's why I love her." And Miles steps away, then stops, pauses and turns. "You want to come, Jules?"
This time it feels exactly right. Familiar, in the literal sense. No questions to be asked— no reason for Julian to dig himself into a hole with an unnecessary joke or forced enthusiasm.
It's the same, but it's different, because it is Miles.
Julian nods and follows along. "Sure thing, Chief."