Archive of Our Own

Outside the double doors of the ballroom, Odo takes a moment to steel himself. It will be fine, he tells himself. He's adopted Cardassian form hundreds of times, after all. He's been to dozens of parties just like this—as the main attraction, sure, but surely being one among a sea of guests should be easier than that? He's sure that talking will be the hardest thing, but he doesn't even have to talk to anyone, really. If someone tries to talk to him and at some point the conversation gets too overwhelming, he can make an excuse and slip away.

With these reassurances, Odo opens the doors and slips inside the large hall. He watches other new arrivals and notices that most of them either find a familiar face in the crowd or go straight to the refreshments table. Neither makes sense for Odo, so instead he mimics what others without conversational partners seem to be doing and stands at the edge of the room, near the walls.

Some of those on the edge of the room look down at electronic devices, catching up on messages, but Odo's attention is directed toward the wider room, doing a study of Cardassian and general humanoid behavior.

This is harder than he thought. The thing he wants most is to listen in on a casual conversation, but with the number of people here and the volume of their conversations, it's hard to do that without sidling up to a conversational group and joining their number, and Odo finds the thought of doing that too difficult and awkward, even in this assumed form. He wonders if it would have been better to sneak around the room in the form of a small creature, something people might not notice, and listen in on conversations that way. But he can do that at any time. He doesn't just want to passively observe humanoid behavior. He wants to know what it's like to be taken to be a humanoid.

...Preferably in a big enough crowd, and a dim enough room, that people won't notice small flaws in his shifting, and won't remember him afterward, and won't notice if he decides he suddenly needs to make an exit.

Odo is considering all of these things when someone joins him on the edge of the room.

"So, what do you think about this party?" the stranger says.

Odo looks at him and is surprised by the very un-Cardassian and un-military sight in front of him. A short alien of some kind with very large ears and soft, colorful-looking clothing that doesn't match any of the colors or shapes of the other guests. "It's..." Odo pauses, not even sure what to say. "Entertaining," he says at last. He's quiet for a moment before venturing, "You're..."

"Oh, right. Quark." The alien bows his head in a Cardassian greeting.

Odo returns the gesture. "Gileti," he says, using the name of the Cardassian scientist whose name and appearance Odo based this particular persona on. A silence settles over them, and Odo thinks that he ought to say something. "What... What do you think of this party?" he tries, haltingly.

Quark smiles. "Fancy," he says. "Fancier than anything I've been to recently."

"Yeah... Me too," Odo says, not because it's true but because he thinks it might be true for "Gileti," his adopted persona.

A silence settles over them again. Odo studies Quark in the periphery of his vision. There's a glaring question, begging to be asked. "You're..." Not Cardassian. The sentence sounds clumsy in Odo's mind. "What—what brings you to Bajor?" he tries instead.

"Oh, you know the refinery station—Terok Nor?"

"Yes."

"Well, I won the contract to put in a bar and casino there."

"Oh." There's a thing that Dr. Mora said was appropriate to say in situations like this... "Congratulations."

Quark preens. "Thank you!"

"Have you been to Terok Nor, then?" Odo asks. "What is it like?" He has a lot of questions, and he tries not to ask them too quickly, but now that there's someone willing to talk to him—an alien too, who has traveled through space, and visited Terok Nor and who knows where else—he doesn't want to waste the opportunity.

Quark has a lot of questions for him too, which is a bit more challenging for Odo because most of them, he has to make up the answers. At least he thinks he's listened in on Gileti and the other scientists' conversations enough to have somewhat of an idea of what answer she or the others might give for certain questions. For everything else, Odo either makes something up or answers based on his own experiences, maybe omitting some of the stranger details.

After they've been talking for a while, Quark glances down at his nearly-empty glass. "What are you doing after this?"

Odo hesitates. "I... haven't decided." He knows he has to go back to the institute at some point—and if anyone noticed he was missing in the meantime, he would also need to deal with the resulting chaos. But he hopes that no one has noticed his absence. He wants to stay out a bit longer.

"Well, how about going back to my place? It's just upstairs." He gestures with his glass to the upper floors of the hotel this ballroom is part of.

Odo looks at the rest of the party wistfully. He wants to talk to more people here, although he has to admit he wasn't having much luck doing that before Quark. "Is it brightly-lit?" he asks hesitantly.

Quark gives him a somewhat puzzled look. "Not really—about the same as here. But you can adjust the lighting to your taste?"

"No, I'd like to keep the lights low."

Quark flashes him an excited smile. "Well then, shall we go?"

Odo nods and follows the man to his room on the upper floors. The lights are indeed fairly low, he notices. The room is a smaller space than the large ballroom downstairs, but it's still a big enough space that Odo thinks that Quark probably won't notice any odd details in his form.

"Can I get you something to drink?" Quark asks him once they're inside.

"No, that's fine. I—I don't drink."

"Hm, I noticed that at the party. I thought you just didn't like kanar. I have a lot of other drinks—water? Cola? Tea?" Quark offers.

"No, I... really don't drink." Odo worries that's a bit too strange of a thing to say, but he's also worried about the alternative of having to pretend to drink something—or worse, having to actually drink something. Quark gives him a puzzled look, but seems to accept the answer and doesn't make another offer.

Odo takes a seat on a couch. It is actually nicer here than in the crowded ballroom—quieter and less chaotic... although less anonymous too.

Quark joins him on the couch with a drink of his own, which he places on a low side table. "Now, where were we?" he asks as he faces Odo, their knees touching—it's a fairly small couch.

"Well, I was hoping to get to know you better," Odo says frankly. It's rare he gets to talk to people outside the institute.

"Oh, I'm very much looking forward to that," Quark says, grinning.

"What kind of things do you like—to do?"

"Well, I'm up for anything—I'm not picky. Although a little oo-mox is always welcome."

Odo cocks his head to the side. "Oo-mox?"

"Oh! Not many species have it—it's when you massage the ear lobes. It can be very... pleasurable."

"I can imagine." Exploring things tactilely was one of Odo's simple pleasures. "So... you also enjoy... touch?" He hadn't been aware that some humanoids enjoyed it so much they made it a hobby.

"Oh, absolutely. What about you? What kind of things do you... enjoy?"

Odo paused to think. "I like it when it's... mm, rough? Or hard."

"I can definitely do rough and hard."

"And... bumpy."

"Bumpy?"

"You don't like when it's bumpy?"

"Oh no," Quark says quickly. "Bumpy is fine with me. How do you feel about... restraints?"

"Restraints?"

"You know, being tied up and that kind of thing."

Well, Odo hadn't exactly been tied up but he generally didn't like being put in containers he didn't want to be in. "I don't particularly enjoy that. Does anybody...?"

"Right—forget it, no restraints. Is there anything else you like doing?"

"Well... I don't know if it's too weird but... trying on new..." Forms. No, that was definitely too weird. "...a-appearances. Um... personalities." Was that something that sounded crazy from a humanoid point of view? Odo hopes not.

"Oh! That's not weird at all. Roleplaying—that's fun."

"Yes, roleplaying," Odo says, relieved there's apparently a word for it.

"What kind of scenario do you like? Student-teacher? Boss-employee? Pirate captain and captive?" Quark keeps getting more and more excited as they talk, and the enthusiasm bleeds onto Odo a little too.

He pauses to consider Quark's question. He's never seen this way of breaking down personalities or archetypes. Maybe he should take notes—is this how humanoids practice being someone different? "I suppose all of those sound interesting to me." He would have to try them sometime.

"All right, that's fine. I'll decide. Well!" Quark rubs his hands together eagerly. "I don't know about you, but I'm about ready to seal the deal."

"Seal the deal?"

Quark hits the side of his ear with the heel of a hand. "Oh, huh, maybe that doesn't translate well. You know, get down and dirty."

Odo looks around at the room, which is quite clean with no obvious ways that someone might get dirty, and gives Quark a puzzled glance.

Quark curses his universal translator under his breath. "What is it that Cardassians say... Uh... I'm all blue for you?"

Odo just looks at him in silence, even more lost now.

Quark groans in frustration. "Pardon the language, doctor, but what I'm trying to say is: let's fuck."

The scientists try to avoid cursing around him, but Odo has heard them use that word before, and it seems to have multiple meanings. "'Fuck' as in..."

"I'm trying to tell you I want to have passionate hot sex with you!"

Odo immediately stands up. "Oh—I—I don't do... that," he manages to say, but a thousand thoughts go through him at once. He doesn't do that—but why not? Could he? In the future? What would that involve, was it something he could be good at, did he even want to look into it at all?

"Wait... what? Really??" Quarks lapses into a perplexed silence. "Then what the heck have we been doing? You coming to my room, and..."

"Well, you seemed a bit tired of the party, and I wanted to get to know you better."

"And... you meant that literally."

Odo nods. "I'm... I'm sorry, I... didn't realize..."

Quark lets out an amused laugh. "Oh, don't worry about it. I guess I let my lobes get out in front of me. Uh... do you understand what that means?"

"I... think I can make a guess, yes."

The two of them lapse into an awkward silence. It's a strange feeling, the emotion going through Odo right now. It's the first time someone has shown that kind of interest in Odo, and he's not sure if it's his current form, the fact that he's alone (no scientist "handler" at his side), the things he said, or whatever else. But he finds it strangely flattering.

"Well," Quark says, "now that you know my intentions, are you sure there isn't anything I can do to convince you to have a little... love-making? I can make it quite worth your while."

Odo is pretty sure that's not happening tonight. But... "Maybe... next time."

Odo enters the bar aboard Terok Nor. He supposes he would have come here eventually—not for drink but to find work, for information, to get his bearings aboard this station—if Dukat hadn't immediately summoned him the instant his shuttle landed. Odo's eyes sweep the place, taking note of how much of the wait staff is Ferengi and begins to wonder if it's remained in the same hands ever since it opened. He gets his answer when he goes up to the bar, and there he is—Quark. He looks a bit different from that party years ago, but Odo nevertheless recognizes him instantly.

The same face, the same voice, maybe a bit more confident, and there's no recognition in Quark's eyes—it takes Odo a moment to realize this isn't because Quark is forgetful or Odo failed to make an impression on him. It's because Quark has literally never met him before—in this form, at least.

"What'll you have?" Quark asks him.

"I don't drink."

"A soft drink, then."

"I don't drink," Odo repeats pointedly. There was a brief period in his life, sometime after his early inexperience with conversations and sometime before now, when Odo used to answer offers like that with "I'm not thirsty," to avoid giving away that he wasn't humanoid. Now, though, Odo doesn't put a lot of effort into hiding his otherness.

If this conversation reminds Quark of another interaction he's had, years ago, he doesn't show it. It's a relatively common exchange for Odo to have, but he wonders if Quark often encounters people who come into a bar and insist on not drinking any kind of beverage.

"Wait..." Quark says, and finally there's a glimmer of recognition in his eyes. "You're... that shapeshifter. I've heard of you—you do some... Cardassian neck trick, am I right?"

Odo looks away. It was bad enough that Quark didn't remember him, but why did he have to bring that up of all things?

Odo quickly steers the conversation away from his shapeshifting and back to his questions about the Bajoran, Kira Nerys, hoping to just get the answers he needs and end this conversation. Instead, Quark's behavior continues to be obnoxious and his answers unhelpful.

"She was showing me her..." A smile. "...initiative."

"...Is that some sort of sexual reference?"

"These jobs are hard to come by. Her credentials were, um... very impressive."

As if the Cardassian neck trick reference wasn't bad enough, there's the suggestive tone underneath his voice, the smug bragging, now the outright lying.

This Quark feels very different, somehow, from the Quark he met on Bajor, those years ago. More confident, almost patronizing in his tone. The younger Quark was smug too—even a younger and more naive Odo had been able to recognize that—but it was the smugness of someone celebrating a big win, someone who had waited a long time for their ship to come in and it finally had, laden with all the things they felt they deserved. This Quark, though... this Quark feels like a man in his element in a way he didn't before. Throwing out lies on his own turf like he's used to people buying his bullshit. Something Odo has seen way too much in the past few years and which he's come to have very little patience for. Odo finds himself unreasonably annoyed.

"Hey, listen, what's the problem?" Quark asks him as Odo grabs him by his collar.

"The problem is you're lying."

Dukat shows up then, eager for an update on how the investigation is going. As he and Odo talk, Quark inserts himself into their conversation, trying to restart their conversation from the top. "Listen, uh, I feel we've gotten off to a bad start here," he says to Odo in obsequious tones. "You need anything? Chocolate? Maybe, uh... companionship?" Quark grins, the same suggestive tone from earlier under his voice.

A strange feeling runs through Odo, and he's not sure how to answer. It's definitely a sexual reference, aimed at him, although Odo isn't sure if Quark is offering himself or his holosuites. There's a silence as Odo struggles to respond, and the silence is filled with Dukat's loud laughter—laughter at Quark, and at Odo too. Quark for his relentless flirtation, and Odo for being the most ridiculous recipient of them so far, Odo supposes, and for not having the sense to rebuff Quark straight away. Quark joins in, apparently also finding it amusing.

Odo is very used to being a source of entertainment for people; he still hadn't imagined this is how his second meeting with Quark would go.

"Why do you hate me so much, Constable?" Quark polishes a glass behind the bar and smiles a mischievous smile. "I've always been so pleasant and helpful to you."

Odo rolls his eyes, because the question itself is obnoxious—a self-pitying one designed to either get reassurance or set the hater up as unreasonable and the hated one as a victim. He instead settles for a sort of amused sarcasm: "How much time do you have?"

"Fine, fine," Quark says. "I know you don't like deception, or bribery—perfectly acceptable Ferengi business practices, by the way—but I've never broken the law."

"Not in a way I can actually arrest you for," Odo mutters. Quark has broken half a hundred station regulations but Dukat always comes up with a minor penalty for them and moves on, letting Quark keep his business going, which Odo still doesn't understand.

"And I know you have no need or interest in what my establishment offers," Quark continues on, undeterred. "But still—I feel like I've somehow offended you personally, Odo. And if I have, I would like to know what it is, so I can set it right." He places a hand over his heart.

Odo huffs. Quark is using that most common register of his, somehow a combination of sincerity and pure show. But that's not what prevents Odo from answering—the problem is that the answer is just too embarrassing to tell Quark.

How could he explain to Quark that Odo had put too much stock in their first meeting? That it had somehow made him think that Quark was the rare kind of person who could see past the shapeshifter and see him as a person... just because he had happened to be pretending to be one at that time? Of course Quark would see him as one. It didn't take a genius to figure out why Odo's conversation with him had felt so different from what he was used to, and yet here Odo was—somehow disappointed.

He had also been less worldly then—when Quark had talked about contracts and owning a business, the only model Odo had had for that were the humble family-owned shops he had seen on Bajor, perhaps scaled up for a more bustling, wealthier crowd. At the time, he hadn't been aware of all the corruption, bribes, deception, cheating, cruelty, and exploitation that Ferengi businesses involve, basically as a matter of course. Not realizing that was also probably part of why Odo had built up a rosier image of Quark than he really merited. And Odo felt stupid for having labored under the wrong impression for so long.

He can't come up with an actual answer, so he leans again on sarcasm: "I guess your very existence offends me, Quark," he says with a sardonic smile and roll of his eyes.

Quark pulls a face.

Even though Odo long ago gave up on the idea of ever sleeping with Quark, he has to admit he's curious about something—he's curious how Quark would react to seeing the Cardassian "Gileti" again. Would he recognize her? Have forgotten about her entirely? Would he still interact with her the same way he interacted with Odo years ago? How much has Quark changed, and how much is it just Odo changing?

It's a silly question to have, but it bothers Odo, especially because it would be so easy to get the answer—all Odo has to do is show up in that form again (if he can remember it), see if Quark tries to talk to him, introduce himself as Gileti if he does, see how Quark reacts.

At first, Odo thinks it's a much too self-indulgent experiment to justify doing it, but then he comes to think that the answers he finds might actually give him pretty good insight into the type of person Quark is, and that's actually something that would help Odo in his work.

So that's how Odo ends up going to a party at Quark's, a big one similar to the one in Kedda that he can mostly disappear in, in the old form of a Cardassian scientist. It's been so long since he adopted this form that Odo worries he'll make some obvious mistake in his shifting, but he supposes there's nothing to do about that—all he can do is try his best.

He stands near a table in the bar, talking to various officers of the station, hoping they'll notice neither that this scientist doesn't have particular reason to be here nor that she's not actually Cardassian.

The conversation hasn't been going long before Quark stops by to chat and collect some drink orders, but before he even gets to the latter thing, his gaze pauses on Odo's face. "Hey—you... We've met before."

It can't be... "Have we?" Odo says neutrally.

"Aw, come on, you have to remember me. There was some kind of gala in Kedda, right by the science institute. We talked for hours and you didn't drink a thing."

Both their gazes flick down to Odo's hands, which are indeed empty of drink.

Odo is struck almost speechless. How could Quark remember that?

Now he's not sure how to respond. He supposes he ought to pretend to be that Cardassian woman who met Quark just once, years ago. "Yes..." he says slowly as if just recalling that time.

Quark holds his hands out, indicating the bar. "Quark. See—the business is going well."

"So it is."

"So you're still on assignment to Bajor. Doctor, uh..."

"Gileti."

"Right."

"Do you really remember me?" Odo asks, turning to Quark.

"How could I not?" He scratches his cheek casually with a silver nail. "We, uh, had quite the misunderstanding. Speaking of which, I do believe you said something about the next time we met..."

"Yes," Odo says. "And I believe I said maybe."

"Right, right, maybe. Well, I'm here all night if you make up your mind. And I'd love to hear all about your tastes, in or out of the bedroom, if you have the time." He flashes Odo a smile and then darts off to another table.

Odo feels that now-familiar churning go through him—that uneasy churning that happens whenever Quark suggests sleeping together. But now that he's had his most pressing questions answered, he decides it's a good time to quickly disappear before Quark comes back.

Odo's curiosity about that particular episode was satisfied, but he finds he has even more questions, about Quark, and how he talks to strangers at parties, and what he remembers from those encounters.

Although Quark recognized Gileti, he never seemed to realize it was Odo; now that Odo knows that, he decides it's worth going to more parties in various guises to see how Quark generally behaves.

His investigations, however, are quickly derailed by a somewhat perturbing finding: that Quark always seems to gravitate toward him in a crowded room. It doesn't seem to matter if he's male or female or something else; Cardassian, Bajoran, Kressari, Lurian, Ferengi, or any of half a dozen other species you might encounter in this sector, or as himself, even—no matter what form he takes, at some point Quark sidles up to talk to him. Depending on what Quark is doing at the particular event, he might not be the first or only person to talk to Odo, but it seems somehow inevitable that Odo will see Quark drifting his way... and then the Ferengi will flirt with him.

At first, Odo thought maybe Quark just talks to a lot of people at parties—it was inevitable that he would eventually talk to Odo too. But after observing him carefully, Odo notices that he's always the first stranger in the room that Quark will approach.

Depending on how Odo is feeling and what he's trying to investigate, Odo's response ranges from friendly to neutral to abrasive, but it doesn't seem to make much difference to Quark's behavior. He might give up a bit quicker, but he still tries to chat Odo up, and still approaches him at the next party too.

The only time it doesn't happen at all is when Odo is in some non-humanoid form at the party—as an animal, or a drink, or a chair. In that case, Quark doesn't seem to notice his presence at all, same as everybody else. (There is one time when Quark—unknowingly, Odo is fairly sure—leaned on Odo while he was disguised as a chair, while he chatted to a Cardassian journalist, and Odo spent an excruciating forty minutes worried that each movement of Quark's fingers meant that Quark was just about to sit down. Luckily he didn't but the possibility that he might was so nerve-wracking that Odo ended up missing most of Quark's conversation.)

It also doesn't seem to matter much where Odo stands and whether he's alone or in a group; there Quark is. Quark never shows any sign of recognizing Odo, but Odo still finds himself unsure if that means that Quark doesn't actually recognize him, or if he's just engaging in some kind of mind game. For what purpose? And even if it is some kind of mind game, how is he managing to consistently identify Odo? Does Odo have some kind of tell he's unaware of? And why does Quark keep flirting with him?

The whole thing is frankly driving Odo a bit mad.

Odo sits at the bar during the afternoon lull, a question going around and around in his mind.

"Quark..." Odo says hesitantly. He has to ask but he doesn't want Quark to know why he's asking. "I'm wondering," he says as casually as he can, trying to pass it off as detached curiosity about how humanoid interaction works, "how do you decide who to talk to at parties?"

Quark gives a shrug. "Well, you know, it's... it's, uh..." Suddenly, his voice dies away and he's quiet for a long time. Odo watches in somewhat perturbed confusion as Quark's face goes on a whole journey as the seconds tick away: from an amused smile to open-mouthed shock to a faraway stare of horror.

"Oh... Blessed Exchequer, oh no no..." Quark mutters and then walks out from behind the bar toward the entrance of the bar.

"Wait—Quark, what...?" Odo says, spinning and half-standing in his chair, wondering what in his simple question could have caused that reaction.

Luckily, Quark—who looked ready to make straight for the habitat ring—doubles back and goes back behind the bar. "I can't believe this," he growls at Odo. "It was you, wasn't it?! This whole time, I've been talking to you at parties!"

Odo looks down, awkward. "How do you figure that?" he asks quietly.

"I never really thought about it, but I guess at parties, I approach people who sound nice."

"Sound... nice...?"

"I don't know how to explain it. People make different sounds, and when you're in a crowded room, it's easy to just gravitate toward someone who sounds nice. Like gives off good vibes—literally."

"Oh." Was that it? Did that explain Quark's behavior?

"And I just noticed," Quark mutters, "all those people I talked to... they sound like you. I mean, they were you, weren't they?" He glares at Odo, accusation in his voice.

"I'm... sure there were people you talked to who weren't me," Odo mutters, looking away self-consciously. "It's not like I go to every party on the station."

"Why didn't you just tell me? I can't believe I wasted all that time flirting with you." He lets out an exasperated sigh. "And here I thought I was losing my touch. Oh, but I bet you had a good laugh at my expense," Quark says bitterly.

Odo frowns. "What? No! I thought you were messing with me." He pauses. "You... really didn't recognize me? Any of those times?"

"No!" Quark says as if this was obvious. "Why were you even going to parties in disguise if not to mess with me?"

"I was just... investigating something," Odo says uneasily. Technically true.

"Investigating what?"

"I don't have to tell you that, Quark," Odo says, feigning confidence. "Criminal investigations."

"Oh, no, I can see right through you, Constable," Quark says, grinning deviously. "You just enjoy being on the receiving end of my attentions, don't you?"

Odo is silent for just a beat too long.

"Wait... really?" Quark says, his mouth dropping open.

"No, it's not like that!" Odo protests, a bit too delayed to correct Quark now, but Odo tries anyway. "It's... I was trying to get a sense of how you'd behave around me when you didn't know it was me—not for any bad purposes," he adds, because Quark already looks about to complain. "It was just... curiosity."

"Curiosity about what, though?" Quark asks. "Why's it make a difference how I behave? Trying to judge my character, is that it?"

"Something like that..."

"...Well?" Quark says expectantly.

"Well what?"

"Are you going to keep wasting my time?"

"Wasting your time?"

"Chatting me up at parties all the time and then NOT sleeping with me."

Odo is silent for a length of time that is definitely revealing, but Quark has already put himself out there multiple times in this conversation; Odo could at least reciprocate, just a bit. "It's..." He holds out his hands in a somewhat helpless gesture. "...a bit more complicated now than it was a few years ago." How ironic that he would get a job that puts him in regular contact with Quark, but where they operate at cross-purposes most of the time.

"A few years ago?" Quark gapes. "Wait..." He begins to review his recent interactions. "Dr. Gileti—that was you too?"

Odo nods. "Well, she's a real person too, but the Gileti I came up with was an amalgam of multiple people."

Quark lets out a peal of laughter. A lot of Quark's laughs sound cruel and mocking, but this one just seems amused. Tickled. "Well, that explains a lot," he says simply. "You know, I think you're making this too complicated, Odo."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, let's just say a nice-sounding stranger were to turn up at a party and agree to come home with me, and said stranger has never had sex before but is curious to try it just once—"

Odo feels his insides go queasy. But of course Quark knew; of course Quark had guessed it.

"—well, who could see anything wrong in that?"

Odo doesn't answer.

"Well, I'm just throwing it out as a possibility."

No one would know, except for Quark and except for Odo.

Perhaps Odo could live with that.

"I'll... consider it," Odo says, not really to commit himself to actually doing anything, but more for Quark's response—seeing the way his mouth curves up into an eager smile.