Chapter Text
There is a town on the outskirts of the Kingdom of Bajor. The town has lived its life as an industrial center under its former oppressors, then as a trading center, then as a military outpost, and it wears these past lives vividly; light and shadow contrast one another sharply, between the wide, sweeping boulevards and sun-soaked plazas and remains of the old ore processing factories that jut out from the earth like jagged, crumbling teeth. The town’s patchwork architecture has become a reflection of its identity, seemingly disparate in its composition, yet somehow functional as a whole— not to mention, the deep shadows cast by the old towers quite wonderfully create the opportunity for two adventurous local boys to sneak outside the town limits, unnoticed, one autumn afternoon.
The air is crisp and light, and both boys are carefree as can be, their voices animated and cheery as their questing footsteps bring them closer and closer to the forest.
Both of them— the mayor’s son and the tavern keeper’s nephew— have been told again and again never to set foot in the woods. However, though both boys are old enough that they understand these warnings, they are also too young to fully understand why, and far too young to understand that there are things in this world far worse than a parent’s disappointment.
Back in town, the proprietor of the local tavern wonders where his foolish nephew could have run off to.
“ROM!”
The Ferengi in question pokes his head out from under the sink (which is still very much in pieces, the barkeep notes with annoyance), wrench in hand. “You didn’t have to shout, Brother…”
Quark, the proprietor and his brother, taps his foot impatiently. “Where’s Nog?”
Rom’s brow furrows. “He said he’d be out with Jake, didn’t he?”
“I don’t care about that! Until we can get the pipes working again—” By which he means, until Rom gets the pipes working again, “someone’s got to go get more water from the well. I have to make sure the ale lasts at least another week.”
Rom scratches his head, unperturbed. “I mean, we don’t really have any customers right now, if you wanted to go down to the market and get it yourself…?”
He’s right; at this point in the day, only a few people populate the tavern, none of which seem to be in desperate need of a watered-down alcoholic beverage. Quark makes a face of displeasure at the sight.
He grabs his overcoat and pulls it on, “Fine, but if that boy isn’t back by the time the lunch rush starts, I’m cutting his pay and yours.”
Back in the woods, the boy in question is squinting at a particularly bulbous mushroom cap alongside his human compatriot. “D’you think it’s poisonous?”
Jake shrugs, “Not sure. Probably? It doesn’t look like anything from Mrs. O’Brien’s books. Maybe we should bring one back and ask her.”
“I’m not touching that! It looks gross.”
“Well, we have to bring something back for the assignment.” Jake straightens up, and as he does so, a splash of pink at the corner of his vision draws his attention. He points to a patch of bell-shaped flowers a short distance away, “That looks like foxglove, though!”
“Where?”
As the two step closer to the flowers in order to examine them, neither sees the thin line of tiny white mushrooms in the dirt. Nor do they notice when they cross it, one after the other.
The instant the line is crossed, the pleasant autumn air takes on a chill. The wind suddenly picks up, lashing dead leaves violently across the ground. All around, the trees seem to quake, a low groan sounding across the border as they shudder from their leaves to their roots.
The Dominion of Faerie begins to stir.
Further along the border, the groaning of the trees resolves itself into another sound, a great splintering and cracking, as the bark of a great ash tree splits open from top to bottom.
Out from within the ash tree steps a tall, armor-clad figure, wrought of twisted wood and thorn. Briar and creeping vine twine across its form, curling and shifting as it steps into the sun. Where its face would be is a mask of coiled vines, through which peer two cold, beetle-black eyes that betray no emotion at all. Its steps are soundless as begins walking across the forest floor, directly towards the two interlopers.
Back in town, the owner of the local tavern is beginning to feel his anger give way to worry as citizen after citizen relays that they know nothing of his nephew’s whereabouts.
“Are you sure?” he wheedles, as though repeating the question will somehow produce a different answer. It appears to pay off, however, as this time, the botanist hesitates.
“Well, I haven’t seen him today, but I did talk to him yesterday, after class. He and Jake were asking about what kinds of flower samples they were allowed to bring in for the gardening project.” Keiko finishes planting the last seedling in the row and lightly dusts off her gloved hands. “They both seemed very enthusiastic about it.”
“Really.”
“Yes, really.” She chuckles. “They were even asking about some of the plants in the book they’d never seen before— the ones you don’t normally find in this area.”
Quark suddenly gets a very ominous feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“Where can you find those kinds of plants?”
In the woods, the dryad guardsman watches the two interlopers. From where he stands— barely a stone’s throw away, so perfectly camouflaged he is against the foliage which surrounds him—he can hear every word of their conversation as they bicker over the flowers.
“Aren’t you supposed to pull it up by the root?”
“Don’t be stupid, we don’t need the whole thing. Probably just a seed or something.”
“Well, how’re we supposed to know where the seeds are?”
They’re so young. He had expected that the first disturbance of the border since the war would be an assault, the fragile truce between the fae and the humanoids snapping and giving way under the latter’s boundless greed and desire for conquest. He had expected a battle. But these are only children. Foolish children, no doubt about that, but children, nonetheless.
And yet, he knows, the rules are the rules. The moment they crossed into the Dominion, uninvited, their lives were forfeit.
The sentry begins to move towards them— then stills, once again, torn, his unease manifesting itself as sprigs of poison ivy sprout along the seams of his armor. Surely, in this case, he couldn’t…
As he watches, he sees the earth around the two boys begin to writhe.
It would seem a decision from him would be unnecessary, after all. The guardians would take care of it.
Quark leaves the greenhouse at a full sprint and runs directly to the south of town, where the town borders lie closest to the faerie woods. A few heads turn in surprise as he bolts across the town, but he’s already gone before anyone can so much as ask where he’s going, running faster than he ever has in his life.
Near the edge of the tree line, he sees a hole in the bramble, just the right size for two pre-teenaged boys to have pushed through. Spitting curses under his breath, he plunges into the forest without a second thought.
The two boys stumble back as they suddenly feel the dirt beneath their feet slide away from them. “An earthquake?” the human yells, alarmed, until the situation is very quickly made clear to them.
Dozens of sharp, thorny vines erupt from the earth all around them. They lash and flail viciously, one very nearly catching the smaller boy in the eye before he jerks back with a scream. Finally realizing—albeit, far too late for it to truly matter—that they are in grave danger, the two boys attempt to run.
They don’t get far. More tendrils emerge beneath their feet, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Before they can be seized and torn to shreds, however, there is suddenly a bruising grip on both their arms, yanking them to their feet.
“RUN!” The tavern owner pulls the boys away from the thorny roots and pushes them in the direction of the border.
Jake and Nog immediately comply with their unexpected savior’s words and start running in the direction from which they came. Quark follows behind, his Ferengi hearing helping him to avoid the worst of the thorns. Unfortunately for him, it’s not enough.
As the border draws near, he feels a lancet of agony shoot through his left leg. His eyes go wide, and he can’t quite suppress the sound of pain that escapes him. At the sound, Nog slows and turns his head, his expression concerned and fearful. “Uncle?”
With immense effort, Quark reaches forward and seizes him by the shoulder. “I’m fine,” he hisses. “Keep running and don’t look back. GO!”
With that last shout, he shoves his nephew forward with as much force as he can.
As he falls to the ground, Quark sees Nog catch up to Jake and make it past the little line of white mushrooms, and relief floods through him. He twists his head to look at his leg and sees a tendril wound several times around his leg, dozens and dozens of thorns piercing the skin.
The coils tighten, barbs digging even deeper into the flesh of his leg. He almost screams, holding it in at the last second; if the boys are still in earshot, they might hear him and come running back. Instead he just makes a strangled noise of pain and tries to keep breathing—not that it matters, anyhow. He’ll probably be dead in a minute or two, so what’s the point?
For a moment or two, nothing happens. Then the tendril begins to slowly reel him in by his leg, dragging him towards the crack in the earth it emerged from. Quark squeezes his eyes tightly shut.
The dryad strides forward and, with one of its arms shapeshifted to end in a sharp point, slices through the root of the vine.
A low-pitched keening fills the area as the guardian cries out in confusion and pain, its many tendrils spasming wildly. The sentry utters a harsh word, and they all the slither back into the earth with as much recalcitrance as a mindless plant creature can muster.
Quark’s eyes pop open. Stunned and bleeding, he gawks up at the person standing over him, an imposing figure in intricate wooden armor. Before he can say a word, let alone grovel, he passes out.
It’s later in the day when he comes to. He can tell from the way the shadows in the forest have shifted, how the light that filters through the leaves is softer, warmer, less harsh.
It must be late afternoon. No doubt the tavern will have fallen apart in the hours he’s been gone. Rom couldn’t inflate costs to save his life, and Nog… where was Nog?
Quark suddenly registers some very important things. One is that he’s being carried. There are arms wrapped firmly around him, holding him to someone’s chest tightly enough to make him blush, if not for the persistent scrape of what feels like tree bark against his side. The other thing is that his leg doesn’t hurt, which makes no sense considering the sheer agony he’d been in. How long had he been out?
He looks up, stunned, to see a familiar helmeted face. He opens his mouth to speak, but before he can, he’s cut off.
“We’ve reached the border,” the dryad says, gruffly. It begins to lower him to the ground, “can you stand?”
He’s surprised to find that he can. When his feet touch down on the ground just past the mushroom line, he wobbles briefly before finding that both legs easily support his weight. The momentary joy he feels is quickly dissipated when he looks down and sees that his leg has been very carefully bandaged— using the tattered remains of his trouser leg.
Quark whips his head up to glare at his rescuer. “Do you know how much these cost?”
The being stood on the other side of the border says nothing. It stands still as a statue, the only sign of intelligence in the twin glints from within its helmet that remain fixed on the mortal’s face. Then it changes. The intricate layers and coils of wood that make up its form seem to shift and bend, elongating and distorting its silhouette until it looms over the tavern owner, a monstrous, gnarled nightmare. The warm afternoon air seems to sharpen, the steadily dying light casting dark, forbidding shadows across its helmeted face.
It speaks, in a voice as rough as its appearance: “Ignorant mortal. You seek to meddle with forces you could never hope to understand. Leave the borders of this realm at once and never return, lest you bring yourself and all your kin to ruin.”
The dryad waits for the mortal to flee. Instead, Quark’s brow crinkles with confusion, as he looks from the fae, to his bound leg, then to the fae once more.
“Why did you do that?” he says, incredulously.
The dryad draws itself up even more, even adding a few more branches for effect, “Don’t make me repeat myself, mortal—"
The Ferengi interrupts him. “No, you listen to me. There isn’t any reason you should be letting me get away right now.” He raises a hand and starts counting off on his fingers, “I haven’t been invited, I’m not bearing a sacred relic, I’m definitely not a virgin sacrifice, I don’t—"
“It isn’t your place to question the will of the Dominion!” the dryad growls, exasperation bleeding into his voice.
Sensing a crack in the other’s demeanor and, as per usual, not being willing to leave enough alone, Quark presses, “Oh, so it’s just yours, then?”
“I—” the guardsman seems to be visibly fighting to maintain composure. At this point, the intimidating, more monstrous form has gradually shapeshifted back to its previous appearance, and he crosses his arms. “I am under no obligation to explain my actions to the likes of you.” The last word is spat out with contempt.
Quark also crosses his arms. “But saving my life and healing me is fine?” (He really doesn’t feel any pain, he realizes. It wasn’t just shock numbing his senses— it genuinely feels as though he was ever hurt, the tattered clothes the only evidence of the injury. Whatever this fae did, it was certainly effective.)
The dryad doesn’t answer, only glares at him.
The Ferengi tries a different approach, putting on his salesman voice and bringing his wrists together. “Look, I won’t tell anyone,” he cajoles. “I’m genuinely grateful for what you did for me. And my idiot nephew and his friend, for that matter.” He peers up at the dryad through his lashes. “If you’d like to discuss the matter of compensation, I’d be perfectly glad to make you an offer.”
That gets a response out of the other, and the fae makes a disparaging “heh!” sound. “As if a mortal like yourself could offer me anything of worth.”
Quark grins. “You’d be surprised. How’s a barrel of high-quality ale sound to you?”
“My kind have no need of mortal beverages.” says the dryad, with an audible sneer.
“What a sad life you must lead. No food, either?”
The guardsman looks as though he’s about to respond, when suddenly he seems to realize what he’s doing. His crossed arms drop to his sides, and his posture stiffens. A few thorns split the bark of his shoulders. “This is growing tiresome.” He says, coldly. “Go back to your people, mortal, before I change my mind.”
The tavern owner looks distinctly unimpressed. “Fine. But you still haven’t told me why you—”
“Do you ever stop talking?” the dryad snaps angrily. Before the other can so much as retort, he storms off.
The very next day, three obnoxiously loud knocks sound on a tall ash tree stood near the border between the mortal kingdom of Bajor and the Dominion of Faerie.
After a few moments, the bark splits open, and a very irritated dryad sentry peers out.
“How did you know?” he says, tersely.
The Ferengi gestures to his ears, “Hello? Also, you weren’t exactly being stealthy about it. You just walked a couple meters away and climbed inside.”
“That wasn’t an invitation for you to disturb me.”
“Well, I’m here now. Now, about your compensation…”
They end up talking for much longer than either of them expected to. For as little as the two have in common, the conversation flows easily, and the barkeep remains in high spirits even as sales pitch after sales pitch falls flat.
“Come on.” He holds up the cloak again, as though doing so repeatedly will somehow make it more tantalizing. “What about when it gets cold in the winter?”
“I don’t have skin.”
“Oh, come on, you can’t tell me plants don’t get cold too. I can see the leaves on your house-tree-thing starting to shed from here.”
The sentry just crosses his arms and rolls his eyes. The tavern keeper shrugs and drops the wool cloak into the large basket he’d brought along. “Okay, okay. How about…” he rummages around momentarily, “some nice silver rings?”
“Hah!”
Both are careful to remain on their respective sides of the border line throughout the interaction. After a while, Quark decides to sit on the ground, grousing about sore feet, and the dryad ends up following his lead—for convenience’s sake, of course, not so he can continue to look the other in the eyes. Certainly not.
The dryad also doesn’t try to trick the mortal into giving his name, even though it’s what most fae would do in his situation. What would be the point? He’s clearly just a self-important fool, nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is, he reasons. I’d have little use for it.
“So, is the armor a part of you, or do you have a face under there?”
The dryad blinks. “My duty is to guard. When I was first born, I shaped myself for that purpose.” He adds, scornfully, “I could make a face, if I wanted to. It’s just never been necessary.”
“Oh, yeah? Let’s see it then.”
The fae attempts to do so. After a few moments of concentration, the coiled vines and wood that make up his helmet retreat back into his form, leaving behind his approximation of a humanoid face.
The Ferengi stares. When he doesn’t say anything, the dryad begins to feel self-conscious. “What’s wrong with it?” He’s aware it isn’t quite as detailed as a humanoid mortal’s would be, but—
“No, no I like it.” He looks it over, nodding to himself, then smiles. “It suits you.”
In that moment, unbeknownst to them both, a miniscule fissure forms in the dryad’s wooden heart as something entirely new takes root.
Another hour passes, and Quark expresses that he has to leave before things get busy at the tavern. He stands, brushing dirt and stray leaves from his pants. “A shame we couldn’t figure out something you wanted, though,” he remarks.
The dryad harrumphs, rising to his feet as well. “Yes, a real shame.”
“You’re sure there’s nothing you want? Besides wasting my valuable time, obviously,” the Ferengi adds, albeit without any real malice.
The dryad guardsman falters for a moment. “Well, there is, perhaps, one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Would you come back tomorrow?”
Quark remains completely silent for a few agonizing seconds. The dryad quickly backpedals. “That is to say—” a peony pops out of a gap in his armor near his clavicle, which he staunchly ignores— “You’re clearly an untrustworthy individual. And you’ve already violated the rules of this domain once already. This way, I can keep an eye on you, and—”
“Of course.”
The Ferengi gives a wry grin, “I was just mentally calculating the cost of all the bottles my brother is probably going to drop when I’m not there to catch them.”
“How very touching of you.”
“Why, thank you!”
That night, when Quark returns to his family’s rooms above the tavern, it’s with uncharacteristic cheer, much to the alarm of his brother and nephew.
“Do you think a faerie cast a spell on him?” Rom asks his son in a hushed tone. A room away, the sound of Quark humming to himself while he cooks himself dinner is just barely audible.
Nog, who has largely recovered from his near-death encounter, just shrugs. “He seemed pretty normal yesterday. Maybe he finally got a letter back from Professor Lang?”
“Maybe…”
“___.”
Having one’s true name spoken aloud is a portentous occurrence for any fae. To hear your name in the mouth of another is to feel the weight of your existence all at once, the tangibility and surety of it almost crushing.
In the mouth of the Founder, his name sounds utterly insignificant.
“Do you know why we have called you here, ___?”
“No, Founder.” Even getting those two words out is difficult. Already, being in the presence of such a powerful fae is taking its toll on him. His vision swims, and his body feels heavy, as though at any moment he might sink into the ground.
“Look at me.”
Though all the guardsman’s senses tell him to keep his gaze firmly on the ground before him, he obeys, wrenching his head up.
The being before him defies the senses utterly, shifting and changing forms faster than his own limited senses can perceive. It takes all his willpower to look at her without collapsing or his mind shattering into pieces, such is the strain of being in the other’s presence.
Once, millennia ago, she may have been something like him. But with every passing season, she, like many of those who came before her, came to grasp a higher state of being, and became unbound by the constraints of the world.
Beyond her, in the center of the clearing, stands the Great Link. Its radiance is no less dazzling than the last time he had seen it, a golden fountain of light that extends towards the sky, seemingly infinitely. Just like the last time, it seems to exert an irresistible pull on the very core of his being, calling him to transcend his physical form and join himself with the very soul of Faerie. It is a privilege given only to Founders, and like all other lesser fae who inhabit the Dominion, it is his ardent wish to join them someday.
He does not know it yet, but he never will.
“There is an impurity within you, ___. You have developed attachment to a mortal.” The Founder extends a hand-limb-wing-claw. “Give me your heart, and I will excise it.”
The dryad’s hand goes slowly to his wooden breastplate, resting over the spot where his heart lies, and in that moment, as the tiny green bud within his chest bursts open, he makes an unforgivable mistake.
He hesitates.
When the tavern keeper returns the next day, he thinks at first that he must have come to the wrong place.
The ash tree has been violently uprooted. It lies half-strewn across the border, many of its branches snapped on impact. What leaves still cling pathetically to its boughs are black and withered.
As he walks around what was once the dryad’s home, numb with disbelief, he sees something. Huddled against the base of the fallen tree, unconscious, is an unmistakably human figure, naked, shivering in the autumn breeze.
Looking back, he knows that if Quark hadn’t found him, he probably would have died there, alongside the wrecked body of his former home. To him, his life was over the moment he was exiled. The notion that life might somehow go on—that there was anything left in the world for him to live for— seemed impossible.
And yet.
Quark (it’s still strange to him, being able to know a mortal’s name without any consequences for either of them) takes him in, gives him a place to stay—an act which, he would realize over the next few months, was an action highly uncharacteristic of the town’s local tavern keeper. Rom and Nog’s initial apprehension and shock quickly dissipate when informed as to their new bunkmate’s role in saving the latter and Quark’s lives, and they treat him warmly.
“It’s fine, you can have Nog’s old room.”
“But Uncle, that’s just my room you pointed at…”
“Well, it’s about to be your old room!”
“Hey!”
For the first few weeks, he barely leaves the apartment, wandering from room to room in a daze. Everything seems new in all the worst ways—the sun is too bright, the air is too cold, most fabrics feel too rough, not to mention all the sounds and smells and tastes constantly bombarding his senses. Gradually, however, he becomes accustomed to his new form, although that in itself fills him with resentment.
The town’s appointed mayor, a man by the name of Sisko, is surprisingly understanding of the situation, a far cry from the response he expected. He suspects that Quark may have altered some of the finer details regarding the incident in the woods in order to paint him in a better light. When the mayor hears of his past work as a sentry on the Dominion border, he offers him work in the town guard. He’s reluctant, at first, but he eventually accepts.
“Not that I’m opposed to you finally pulling your weight around here, but do you really think you’re up to this?”
“For the last time, I’m sure, Quark.”
“Alright, alright, but you know, if you change your mind, I could always use another server.”
The standard armor supplied to all members of the town guard does not include any sort of face guard. The mayor suggests, kindly, that he join the night patrol. Where it’s harder to get a good look at you goes unspoken.
“Yeah, it’s for the best. Your face is…well. To be honest, it might be kind of freaky for some people.”
“So back then, when you told me it was perfectly fine, you were lying.”
“I never said it was fine, I said I liked it. My personal opinions don’t apply to the rest of the people in this middle-of-nowhere town.”
At the end of the day, he agrees it’s for the best. The fewer people he has to explain himself to, the better.
He has a name, now. His true name has been wiped entirely from his memory, no matter how desperately he tries to recall it— another reminder of his status as an exile. He spends hours poring over books in the library for a replacement— the Founder had left him the ability to easily parse and learn mortal languages, at the very least— but the name he chooses is one stolen off a peeling label on a jar containing the suspended body of some dead creature, in the laboratory of a tiresome Bajoran scientist determined to study him. Its hollow sockets had seemed to glare at him accusingly, taunting him, saying: you are no better than me. What separates us now is only a few degrees of decay. Stealing its name had felt spiteful, hateful, right. And so, he becomes “Odo”, a name that fits him as though it had been his all along.
“Odo, Odo…doesn’t sound familiar. Bajoran?”
“Cardassian, actually. It can be translated to mean “unknown” or “nothing.””
“…And you’re happy with that? “Nothing”?”
“When the Founder made me human, she took everything I knew myself to be, including my name. Without that, I became…nothing. It seems…fitting, somehow, that I use that as a place to start anew. …I don’t know if I’m explaining it well.”
“No, I get it, turning a non-identity into an identity, or something like that. More importantly, Odo, are you going to finish the rest of the beetle wing salad?”
For all the difficulties that being human brings, things do get easier over time. He doesn’t like crowds, but he likes talking to some people. Patrolling the town at night keeps him alert. He figures out what sorts of tastes and sensations aren’t totally abhorrent. The rooms above the tavern are homey and familiar and warm. Nog is a bright young man when he isn’t using his gift of wits to cause mayhem, and Rom, though he initially came off as rather bumbling and lacking in self-confidence, is helpful and incessantly kind.
Then there’s Quark.
In many ways, he’s still the whiny, arrogant, ingratiating, self-important, absurd little man Odo had met on the border all those months ago. But more than that, Quark is…safe. He’s easy to talk to, even if their talking is usually in the form of petty arguments and squabbles. Around him, Odo feels as though he can relax. He may not know who he is anymore, but he wants to believe that the person Quark sees, the person Quark thinks is worthy of kindness, is someone worth being. It’s an anchor in the times when he feels the most unmoored.
And that isn’t a problem, not really. Not until one night, when he ducks into the tavern on one of his rounds and immediately catches Quark’s eye from across the room. Quark flashes him a smile, and there’s a phantom twinge in his chest, terrifyingly familiar, like something unfurling its petals—
—and just like that, he’s in that clearing again, the damning words of the Founder carving into the core of his being, commanding him to give up his treacherous heart.
In that moment, all he feels is terror.
It’s only a few hours to dawn by the time the last few partygoers stagger out of the bar. Nog’s acceptance into a prestigious academy in the capital had called for a huge celebration, as many of the townsfolk had known him since he was a baby. Quark’s tavern had, of course, hosted the event. It had been a wonderful time. Rom had cried several times, and almost everyone had come out to wish the young man all the best. Though it had now been a good many years since the last war, it was still recent enough in the town’s memory that these periodic moments of joy seemed to hold a special weight.
Only two figures now occupied the bar. One was the proprietor, engrossed in his daily ritual of updating his ledger with the day’s profits. Sat across from him, a member of the town guard, recently off-duty, nursing a tall glass of water as the two idly chatted about the goings-on of the day.
“Feels strange to think that it’ll be just us now,” the bartender remarks, turning the page of the massive ledger.
His companion pauses and lowers his glass. “What do you mean, just us?” The words come out a little more harshly than intended.
Quark looks up. “Oh, right, you weren’t here earlier. Rom’s moving in with Leeta. About time, honestly! Those two have been dancing around each other for so long, I thought they’d never work it out.”
“Hmm.”
“Be nice to have the extra space. I have this idea for—”
“Quark, I think it’s about time that I left.”
The pen freezes on the page, mid-scratch. “Huh?”
“It was kind of you and your family to accommodate me for this long, but I can’t impose on you any longer.” Odo speaks brusquely, his gaze focused on a point somewhere behind Quark’s head. “I have enough wages saved up to afford my own lodgings. I think it’s time for me to move out.”
A beat.
The Ferengi gives a small, nervous chuckle. “I mean, if you wanted to pay rent, you could’ve just said so.”
“It’s not just that, it’s…I’ve become far too reliant on you, Quark. You shouldn’t have to continue helping me out of a sense of obligation when I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.” Odo’s voice seems even rougher than usual, as though strained. “If I stay here, I’d only be taking advantage of you.”
“Taking advantage of me? Odo, what are you talking about?” The bartender sounds openly incredulous. “Did someone say something to you? Because if they did—”
“—no one said anything, I just feel as though I’m not—”
“—then is it something I did to make you feel that way? Because if I did, I swear on the Exchequer, I didn’t mean it. No, wait— is this about the serving dish? Odo, that abomination was practically worthless, the only reason I have it is because my mother thought I could do something with it, which, surprise, I never did, and if you hadn’t broken it I’d probably have tossed the stupid thing out myself the first chance I—”
“Quark.” He says the other’s name sharply to cut off his inane rambling—or at least, he tries to, but what comes out is a horrible, despairing creak.
For a moment, Odo desperately hopes the other hadn’t heard it over the sound of his own voice. But he does, of course. It would be impossible not to.
Quark cuts himself off abruptly. When he looks at Odo, it’s with a gentleness that makes the former dryad feel as though his heart is being ripped in two.
The Ferengi reaches out and slowly, gently, places a hand on top of Odo’s where it rests on the counter. The warmth of the touch sends a jolt through his system. “Odo…”
He jerks away violently and backs away from the counter, chest heaving, eyes wide and panicked. “I can’t stay here, Quark. I can’t.”
Of all the struggles that have come with being mortal, one of the most difficult for Odo has been understanding how they express themselves. And yet, in that moment, looking at the expression on Quark’s face, he understands exactly just how much he’s hurt him.
He turns away and walks out.