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"Now, Old Man," Benjamin ‘The Captain' Sisko said, smiling his biggest smile, "Hurry up or you'll be late to lunch on your first day!" he did a little spin and offered his hand to Jadzia Dax, who took it.
It was her first day working on that specific kiosk selling Old Spice, but it was also the fifth Old Spice kiosk she worked at, and she couldn't make Ben stop calling her Old Man because of it.
They had met years ago now, when she had first started working at the Old Spice kiosk back in Luna Mall. Ben was working in a sports store at the time, but he'd quickly managed to score a managing position at the current mall, and they hadn't worked in the same place since.
He had been trying to get her to his sports store, United Federation of Sports, but no offer his higher-ups had given had been good enough yet. But to be honest, she imagined she would need to accept it sooner or later, with the frequency she managed to get fired from Old Spice. Bless the one place in the world who had five Old Spice Kiosks in a twenty mile radius. And it wasn't like the Explosion Incident had been her fault! Really!
Ben, as always, had found himself a group. Flocking to his natural charisma, his presence, even. He had told her about them a bit: There was the oldest of them Miles O'Brien, who was the Mall Repair Technician, and married to the Florist, Keiko Ishikawa. Then there was Odo, the Mall Cop, very strict fellow, always chasing people for running in the hallways. There was one fellow named Julian, the nurse of the small Mall infirmary and his — maybe — boyfriend? Benjamin had not been clear about that, but aside from having a small tailoring shop, Mr. Garak's description had been nice enough ‘Plain and Simple', Ben had said. Figure what that meant. There was Worf, the Russian yoga instructor, very serious, always scowling, but she would bet there was a soft and gooey inside. He just had the disposition of someone like that. The brothers, Quark and Rom, owned a small sports bar close to where Ben's store was.
And lastly, but not least was Kira Nerys, the local manager of the big crafts store on the main promenade. Ben had been trying to set them up on a blind-ish date all week, but she wouldn't fall to his bait again. No siree! Not after the whole Boday Fiasco. That man was an airhead.
She shook her head out of her brief reverie, Ben was waggling his eyebrows now, his hand still extended, waiting for her, "Oh, alright! Let's go then!" she said as she took his hand, getting pulled into the busy space of the hallway, pausing only briefly to wave at her colleague at the kiosk.
"So!" Sisko began, as they walked to the food court, "How's your sister doing?"
Smiling to herself, Jadzia turned to look at Ben, "Well, you know how it is, experiencing the Big feeling of being a young adult," she laughed, "But you won't guess where she's going to be working, starting next week," She only went to the trouble of lifting her eyebrows at Sisko, and it took only a moment for him to catch on.
"Wait just a minute," He said, smile getting wider, "Are you telling me that Ezri is going to come work at the Mall?" He almost shouted, so incredulous he was, "Work where?!"
She just looked at him, grinning broadly, "You know that one under construction store on the second floor, close to the parking lot? Apparently it'll be a counseling clinic, and Ezri managed to get a job there!"
Ben shook his head as they went along, grinning as they took the escalator to the second floor food court, "Incredible. It'll be good to see Ezri almost every day again, takes me back to when we were still in Luna Mall and she would come into the store every day after school to wait for your shift to end," smiling he added, "You should see Jake, he's—" He stopped in front of her, almost making Jadzia crash into him, "—Ah! There they are!"
And there they were indeed. And what a group they were. She could see who she would bet was Odo, tall and lanky, leaning forward into a chair occupied by a very short man, wearing a T-Shirt with the bar — Quark's — logo emblazoned on its front. Just beside him, someone with the same height and hairstyle, but smiling much more. That would be Quark and Rom. To their side, she could see who she assumed was Bashir, wearing a nurse uniform, trying and badly, and failing to not stare at the well appointed gentleman across from him, who she could only assume was Mr. Garak, wearing the fanciest professional attire she had ever seen in a mall.
Sitting beside them, talking to a tablet screen, which she could clearly see was some kind of video call, was a broad man with auburn hair wearing a thick uniform in gray edged in yellow, and a woman wearing overalls, with her sleeves rolled back, exposing a couple of floral-themed tattoos. They were probably Miles and Keiko, respectively, from the descriptions Ben had given her. Just behind them, making faces at the screen was a tall man with a ponytail, and she almost didn't recognize Worf, if not for the Yoga wear. She could faintly hear giggling from the tablet, a child, she imagined. And lastly: Oh no.
Oh no.
There she was. The most beautiful woman she had ever seen in her entire life. Jadzia felt like she had just been punched in the stomach, all the air leaving her lungs. She knew she was staring, almost open mouthed like a goldfish, but she couldn't stop it.
And of course that was the exact moment Kira Nerys, for that's who it had to be, chose to look at her across the space separating them. Jadzia had only time to alter her expression into a shy smile before Ben practically dragged her to the tables, "Come on Old Man! Let me introduce you to everyone!"
When they had reached the tables, everyone had seen Sisko, and thus many were waving and saying their greetings, "So! Everyone, this is Jadzia Dax, my good friend who's working at the Old Spice Kiosk, Jadzia this is Everyone!" Ben pointed to the group, who all waved to her, almost all of them trying to introduce themselves at the exact same time.
Smiling, Sisko held his hands up, and the group quieted down, to which he started personally introducing each person: "Jadzia, this lanky fellow here is our local Mall Cop, Odo," Odo waved, face serious, as if trying to communicate that he'd be no more lenient with her if he ever caught her running on the promenade, "This here, is Quark," Ben said, with some resignation, to which Quark just waved, with a small smirk in place, "besides him there," Here Ben pointed to the short, smiley man sitting besides Quark, "Is Rom," Rom waved, a large smile on his face, "That there is Julian Bashir, our nurse, and besides him Mr. Garak," they both waved, Julian with awkward smile, Garak with the face of someone that had seen her soul and was plotting innumerable ways to blackmail her, "And over there, they're talking to their kid, are Miles and Keiko," They both waved, before turning their attention back to the screen, "and right behind them is Worf, the yoga instructor," Worf only nodded once, before going back to make faces at the camera, to the delight of the child, if the giggles were any indication.
"And this," Ben said, taking her attention to the last person he had left to introduce, "This is Kira Nerys, she works at The Kai Supplies, right down from your kiosk Old Man," Kira's eyebrows raised at the nickname, making Jadzia blush.
"Old Man?" She asked, clearly skeptical of Sisko's nicknaming conventions.
Jadzia took a deep breath, ready to start explaining the origin of the nickname, a full blush forming on her face when Ben interrupted and started to give his explanation for it, "You see, this is Jadzia's fifth time working on an Old Spice Kiosk."
Kill me now.
"Now now, Mr. Captain, let's not get ahead of ourselves! I was never fired for doing anything wrong, they couldn't ever prove any of the incidents had been my fault! Besides, the first time it was all your fault! If you hadn't been trying to learn zippo tricks to impress Jake close to the customer trying on products there wouldn't have been an explosion at all!" She said, only to realize that everyone was staring at her in open-mouthed incredulity, before Kira let loose a muffled giggle, quickly trying to cover her mouth before giving up and promptly bending over, cackling, initiating a cascade reaction that took them all. Even Odo, and Worf, who looked so serious, were chuckling.
Jadzia felt a hand on her shoulder, as the laughter was dying down, and when she looked up she was face to face with one Kira Nerys, her eyes warm, her smile soft.
"You'll fit right in, Jadzia," the way she spoke Jadzia's name made her heart thrum against her rib cage.
She started to smile back, and looking Kira in her eyes she spoke before she had even time to think:
"Yeah, I think I'll love it here."