Chapter Text
“Mr. Garak!” Quark greeted him from behind the bar.
“Quark.” Garak nodded politely.
“What can I get you? Kanar? Cardassian ale?” Quark asked. “Or I’ve got something new that might interest you.” He reached under the bar, pulling out a bottle of translucent green liquid. “Just came in this morning from one of my connections in the Gamma Quadrant,” he said. “I’m told it’s much more effective than it seems. It better be, for the price I paid for it.”
“The Gamma Quadrant?” Garak asked.
“Mm-hm,” said Quark. “I told them there’s only so much tulaberry wine I can sell, and through a long negotiation, we’ve expanded our deal to other delicacies. Here, I’ll pour you some to taste.” He slid a small glass across the bar towards Garak.
The drink certainly didn’t taste very strong. The flavor was mild, slightly sweet and minty but not entirely unpleasant, and Garak soon finished off his glass. Quark smiled. “I’ll get you another.”
Strangely, Garak was already beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol, despite having a higher tolerance to it than most humanoids. Quark had mentioned that it was stronger than it looked, but surely a few sips wasn’t enough to make his clothes suddenly feel much too large? It certainly couldn’t explain why the edge of the bar now seemed to be looming over his head.
“Quark?” he tried to ask, but… all he heard was a sharp hissing sound. He looked down at himself, but where his hands should have been, there were two reptilian feet, swathed in the blue fabric of what had previously been his shirt.
“Mr. Garak?” asked Quark, leaning across the bar and looking down at Garak. When he saw whatever Garak was, he let out an undignified yelp.
“Brother?” Rom asked worriedly, coming over to them. He stared at Garak with wide eyes, and Garak resisted the urge to run. “What did you do?”
“Nothing!” insisted Quark. “Nothing, I swear!”
“Obviously it was the drink!” Garak tried to interject, but again it came out as a series of hisses. Both Ferengi jumped back, startled, and Garak took the opportunity to try and free himself from the confines of his shirt, feet scrabbling for purchase. Unfortunately, he hadn’t considered that the distance from the barstool to the floor would be longer now that he was… whatever he was.
The drop was a frightening shock, but once Garak had regained his bearings, he was pleasantly surprised that he didn’t seem to be in any pain and he was now in the relative safety of the space under the bar. Still, the relief was short-lived.
“What’s going on here?” demanded Constable Odo, striding towards them.
“Odo!” exclaimed Quark. “I swear I had nothing to do with this!”
Garak hissed again, loudly, hoping that the Constable would realize it was a contradiction of Quark’s blatant lie. To his credit, if Odo had been startled, he didn’t flinch. He crouched down slowly to catch a glimpse of the source of the noise, but quickly stood back up.
“Quark. What is underneath your bar?” Odo asked. Garak would very much have liked to know that himself.
“I don’t know!” Quark insisted. “I was just pouring a drink for Mr. Garak, and the next thing I know he’s gone and this… thing was on his chair!”
There was a rustling noise above him.
“These look to be Mr. Garak’s clothes,” said Odo. “You said he just disappeared?”
Garak hissed again, as if to say I’m right here!
Odo looked down at him again, puzzled.
“Yes!” said Quark. “He just disappeared and that was there in his place!”
“You don’t suppose…” Odo began.
“What?” asked Quark.
Odo sighed. “Is there any possibility that that… creature could somehow be Mr. Garak?”
“You can’t be serious,” said Quark.
“You said Mr. Garak disappeared and then the creature appeared in his place, inside his clothes. Also, it seems to be some kind of Cardassian reptile,” Odo said.
He crouched down again. “Mr. Garak?” he asked.
“Yes!” Garak said, so relieved that he forgot it would only come out as a hiss.
Odo sighed. “Alright. Let’s try this. Make that noise once for yes and twice for no. Do you understand?”
Garak hissed once.
“Are you Mr. Garak?”
One hiss.
“Do you know what you are?”
He didn’t, other than that he was some kind of reptile that couldn’t speak. He hissed twice.
“Do you know what happened?”
For all he knew, this could be a hallucination induced by whatever was in that bottle. Two hisses.
“Alright,” Odo said. Then he reached out two hands towards Garak, as if to pick him up. Garak instinctively shrank back.
“Mr. Garak, it’s imperative that you come with me,” Odo said, trying again, but Garak scrambled out of his reach. Being picked up and carried by the Constable, who had no small dislike for him, while in this vulnerable state… he shuddered at the thought.
“Odo,” said Quark, and Odo straightened up. Quark said something Garak couldn’t quite hear, nor could he see how Odo reacted. He braced for a trap, but instead he heard the beep of a combadge.
“Odo to Bashir. You’re needed at Quark’s. Urgently.”
“On my way,” the doctor said, his voice tinny through the badge.
Garak, meanwhile, was slowly moving away from the Constable’s feet and towards the wall, trying to avoid being picked up. Fortunately, neither Odo nor Quark attempted it again.
Dr. Bashir was remarkably quick to arrive. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Well, it seems Mr. Garak has been… transformed, somehow,” said Odo, “into a large Cardassian reptile.”
“What do you mean? Where is he?” asked the doctor.
“Over here,” said Quark, gesturing towards him.
Dr. Bashir walked over and crouched down beside him. “Garak?” he asked softly.
Garak hissed again, trying his best to make it sound less aggressive.
“He still seems to understand us,” Odo said. “He can answer yes-or-no questions, one hiss for yes and two for no.”
“That’s good,” said the doctor.
“But I tried to pick him up and bring him to the laboratory, and he didn’t seem to like that very much.”
Dr. Bashir considered that for a moment. “Alright. Thank you, Odo. I think I can take it from here.”
“If you’re sure,” Odo said.
Dr. Bashir turned back towards Garak. “Garak, are you alright?”
As alright as he could be, given the circumstances. One hiss.
“Will you come with me to the infirmary?”
Garak generally tried to avoid the infirmary, preferring to keep any medical information as private as possible. But going with the doctor sounded like a much better prospect than being poked and prodded by the laboratory scientists. One hiss.
“Excellent,” said Dr. Bashir. “May I carry you so we can use the transporter? It’ll be much faster that way. But if you really don’t want to, I can walk you there.”
Garak considered it for a moment. He sincerely doubted that the doctor would try to hurt him; the worst he’d suffer would be a little indignity. Better that than having to walk through the station in this form. One hiss.
Dr. Bashir extended both hands towards him, but he wasn’t trying to grab hold of Garak the way that the Constable had. Instead, it seemed like he was inviting Garak to climb on.
Garak gingerly stepped onto the doctor’s hands, trying to ignore how stable and warm they were. He didn’t want to get comfortable; this would be over very soon. Dr. Bashir carefully stood back up. “Odo, could you tap my combadge?”
Odo did, giving Garak as much of a wide berth as he could. “Bashir to infirmary, two for transport,” said the doctor. “Well, one human and one… Cardassian reptile.”