Archive of Our Own

"Remember when I said I hated you and you said you hated me?"

Quark slides his legs off the side of his bed and sits up.

"What the hell are you doing?" Odo snaps.

Quark stands on shaky legs, dragging the metal stand that holds his IV bag with him as he pads over to the side of Odo's bed.

"Get back in bed!"

"I'm trying to," Quark says. "Move over."

"Are you trying to steal my bed?!"

"I'm getting in with you whether you move over or not," Quark says, clambering onto the bed. Odo squawks and moves over rather than get climbed directly onto.

"What are you doing?!" Odo asks again, and Quark sits back on his haunches, throws his hands up in frustration.

"I don't know, okay?!" Quark can hear his own voice rising in pitch and volume. "I just know I don't wanna be over there while you're over here, no I don't know why, and no I really don't wanna examine it right now!" He realizes he's breathing hard, his heart slamming in his chest. Like I'm climbing a mountain, he thinks, a little hysterically.

He realizes, a moment too late, that he's unconsciously brought his wrists together--that pleading, supplicating gesture like his body is desperate for the closeness and knew to beg before his brain did. He wrenches his hands apart, but it's too late; Odo saw them.

He says nothing, and neither does Odo.

They look at each other for a moment, and then Odo sighs. "Come on, then. If you insist."

Quark lies down, nestling against Odo's side. He feels one of Odo's arms wrap around him, instinctively holding him so he doesn't fall off the bed.

"Wonderful," Odo says. "Now neither of us are comfortable."

"Do you remember? When we said we hated each other?"

"Vividly," Odo rasps back.

"I want you to know that I meant every word of it."

Odo shifts onto his side to offer Quark more room. "So did I," he rumbles.

"It's just, I'm realizing that hate isn't mutually exclusive with other, less convenient emotions."

"Hrrmf. It's taken you long enough," Odo complains. "I figured that out years ago."

Oh?

"I mean it." Quark shivers. "On the mountain. Your heartbeat got so faint. Your breathing was so--difficult. Every breath was work. You were dying, Odo."

"I know, Quark. I was there, if you recall."

"Your heart sounds good now. I mean, it's not the ooze sounds you should have. But it sounds good. Strong. Alive."

Odo lets out a breath. A sigh. "Yes, Quark. I'm alive. And I'm going to stay that way whether you like it or not."

"You'd better." A pause. "It would have been sad if you'd died on that mountain."

"I agree."

"Aren't you going to ask why?"

"I wasn't planning on it, no."

"I'll tell you why."

"Oh, goody."

"It'd be sad because you'd have died a virgin! If I'd thought about it, I'd have offered to help up on the mountain, but it wasn't exactly the optimal setting."

There's a long pause.

"Are you propositioning me," Odo says, enunciating every word very carefully, "for sex?"

"Odo, we're in an infirmary bed hooked up to intravenous nutrients. Our extremities are recovering from frostbite and your leg is healing from a compound fracture that will still make me throw up if I think about it too long--ugh, I thought about it. Do you honestly think I'm propositioning you for sex?"

Odo huffs. "Are you saying you aren't?"

"I'm not! Why would I do that?!"

"You're the one in bed with me."

"Okay, point." Quark raises a finger. "Counterpoint: you're letting me in the bed with you."

"Hrmmf. Counter counterpoint: you are the one who just said you have 'inconvenient emotions.'"

"You said you do too!"

"Hrmmf."

He nestles under Odo's chin, ear pressed to his chest to hear his steady heartbeat. Odo's hand is flattened gently against his back. He feels so blessedly warm.

"Do you plan to stay here all night?"

His voice reverberates in his ribcage and is pleasantly loud in Quark's ear. Quark hums. "Yeah."

"Doctor Bashir will see us."

"I don't give a single slip of latinum if he sees or not. Do you?"

Odo thinks on it for a moment. "No," he finally says. "Not really."

Quark smiles. Several minutes pass in pleasant, warm silence.

"I made a voice log," Odo says, finally. "Telling anybody listening what to do with your remains, if they found us dead. The typical ghastly Ferengi customs, of course."

"Yeah? That's sweet. What did you want done with yours?"

"I wanted to be cremated, put in my bucket, and shot through the wormhole."

The morbid intimacy of the moment hits Quark like being thrown in a gravity well. "When I left you and climbed the rest of the way up the mountain, you know what kept me going?"

"Pure spite?"

"Close. I kept thinking of how I wanted to save your life and then rub it in your face. But Odo, right now I'm just happy you're breathing."

Odo's thumb strokes a ridge of Quark's spine through his hospital pajamas, once. "Go to sleep, Quark."

"...If I was propositioning you for sex, just out of curiosity, what would you have said?"

Odo sighs, very raggedly. "Go to sleep, Quark."

"That's not a no!"

"Do you want a yes?"

"Now you're answering a question with another question! That's cheating. That's n--" Quark's words fizzle in his throat as Odo touches the ear that isn't pressed to his sternum. Odo is just running his fingertips over the concave outside shell of Quark's ear, not really even enough to properly stimulate any of the nerve endings there. But it's intimate. It's soft. And it's Odo.

"I don't want to have this conversation right now," Odo says, fingers stilling, just resting against Quark's skin. "I'm inebriated on painkillers and I have zero interest in verbally sparring with you at the moment."

"You don't seem inebriated," Quark squeaks. Odo strokes the rim of his ear with a thumb and Quark gasps. "A-are you just doing that to shut me up?"

"Ask me tomorrow. Now please, Quark: either be quiet and sleep, or I will bounce these miserable ears of yours out of this bed and onto the floor."

He listens as Odo's breathing gradually slows and deepens. It's nothing like it was on the mountain. Rhythmic. Steady. Just like his heart. Quark focuses in on the sounds that prove Odo is alive and lets them lull him to sleep.

-

"Gentlemen, your morning doses of--heavens!"

Quark is rousted unceremoniously into the world of the waking by Doctor Bashir's indignant squawking. "What?" He rubs sleep from his eyes with the heel of his hand. "Never seen two grown men in bed before?"

"Quark," Odo warns.

"You must not be sleeping in the same bed!" Bashir sounds exasperated. "If you move wrong, Quark, you could re-injure Odo's leg! And what were you doing getting up out of bed at all?!"

Bashir continues complaining as he administers new doses of medication to both of them via hypospray--more painkillers, and some sort of serum that promotes muscle repair after severe exertion.

"Get back into your own bed, Quark," Bashir instructs.

"Okay. But consider. What if I don't want to."

"Too damned bad," Bashir says, losing his patience. "I will scoot your beds closer together, but you can not be sharing. Not while Odo's leg is still knitting back together, at least. Get up, chop chop."

"First you tell me I'm not supposed to get out of bed. Then you turn right around and order me to do exactly that. Make up your--"

Odo elbows him in the ribs and Quark snarls his disapproval before he swings his legs off the side of the bed and stands.

He bites back a pained cry as his legs take his weight. Every muscle hurts sharply, pain shooting up his legs and burning like acid. Apparently the ten ccs of terakine that had blocked him from feeling this last night haven't taken effect yet this morning. "That's a little sore," he pants out.

Odo props himself up on his elbows. "Quark? Are you okay?"

"Dandy."

"Swiftly regrowing muscle never feels great," Bashir has the decency to sound sympathetic, helping him back down into his own bed. "Stay put this time."

-

True to his word, Bashir does scoot their beds closer together.

Odo's the first one to extend his hand off the edge of his bed. Quark is the first to take it in his own.

-

Quark is discharged from the infirmary the next day.

"Are you sure you're feeling well? I can keep you for another day if you have any residual soreness."

"I feel fantastic," Quark assures the doctor, "never felt as good as how I do right now."

Doctor Bashir smiles and makes his exit to go tend other patients.

Quark nudges Odo's bed with his foot. "When are you getting out?"

"Apparently I'm at risk for a systemic infection because of the compound fracture. Doctor Bashir has me on antibiotics and wants to keep me under observation until tomorrow." He hrrmfs and crosses his arms where he sits leaning against the headboard. "I think he's being overly cautious. My leg is completely healed. I'm not even in pain anymore."

"If the doctor says he wants to keep an eye on you, I say you should let him. I didn't climb a mountain and damn near freeze my lobes off to save you just so you could drop dead of an infection a week later."

"It wasn't just to save me."

"Nah. You're right." Quark leers. "Besides. You can't die until you're not a virgin anymore."

"Don't you have a bar to be running?"

Quark grins and holds up his hands in surrender before he quits the infirmary and heads in to see how badly Rom has screwed up the bar.

-

One neatly put-together ex-changeling, no worse for the wear, shows up in Quark's bar at 2300 hours the next evening. He stands primly, arms folded behind his back. He looks composed and healthy.

Something in Quark's mind relaxes at the sight, like part of him had been tense without even realizing it.

"You look good," Quark breathes, and Odo gives him an unreadable look with sharp blue eyes. "I mean. You look... better." Quark clears his throat. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, thank you."

"Nothing at all?"

"I simply wanted to let you know I was out of the infirmary and feeling well enough to disrupt any illicit business ventures you should find yourself party to." He shrugs. "That's all."

"You just have to be a buzzkill, don't you?"

"It's in the job description," Odo says dryly.

"Hm."

Instead of leaving, Odo sits at the bar.

"You sure I can't get you anything?"

"Very well. A glass of water."

"Wow, really kicking over the traces tonight, huh? Wanna get wild, I see?"

"I'm not here to get inebriated."

"Then why are you here, Odo?"

Odo maintains eye contact for a long second before he looks away. "I don't know," he says, finally, quietly. "How did you put it? 'I just know I don't want to be over there while you're over here.'"

Oh.

Quark pours Odo a glass of water and adds a lemon wedge just because he can. "Stay as long as you like," he says.

"I was already going to," Odo replies, haughtily, but the look in his eyes doesn't match his words.

So Quark works, serves drinks, tends bar, and generally does his job for three hours, during which time Odo calmly nurses the same glass of water with lemon and reads off his PADD right there, taking up a prime spot at the bar that could have been used by any number of paying customers.

Quark can't bring himself to give a damn.

It's nearly two in the morning now and Quark has chased the last of his drunk patrons out and set his staff to the task of cleaning up. He turns to Odo. "I'm heading home," he says.

"I'll walk you there."

"If you want," Quark replies, because his benevolence knows no bounds.

They fall into step side by side as they make their way out toward the habitat ring turbolift. "Last time we were walking together wasn't nearly this pleasant," Odo says lightly, and Quark snorts.

"Last time was in a desolate frozen wasteland, so yeah, this is an improvement."

They step into the lift and Odo presses the button for Quark's floor. The door closes. Odo's hands fold neatly behind his back. "I am... glad," he says, haltingly. "That you survived."

"Well, y'know, if I hadn't, you wouldn't have either."

"Hrmmf. You know what I mean."

Quark can feel his lips curving into a smile, unbidden. "I don't think I do, actually."

"I mean, Quark, that in a vacuum, independent of my own survival, and despite the ongoing inconvenience you pose to the station as a whole as well as to me personally--"

"Not that this speech isn't going great, but I think I get the point--"

"--I'm glad, inexplicably, that you are alive."

The door opens.

"Yeah," Quark says, "right back at you." He steps out of the turbolift and Odo follows. "So in the, what, week and a half that I was out of the bar, Rom did everything but burn the damn place down."

"Oh?" One word. An invitation for Quark to keep talking.

"Yes! How hard is it to keep simple Terran whiskey stocked, huh? And not to mention what he did to the bar stools..."

The walk to his quarters seems longer than normal. Quark realizes that Odo is shortening and slowing his steps to stretch out the trip.

Well, isn't that curious?

"...And that's how I got the parts to fix holosuite six." Quark taps the panel beside his door and it hisses open.

"Sounds like you've been kept busy."

"I always am." Quark shifts from foot to foot. "You heading to bed?"

"I suppose so. I don't think I'll ever get used to... sleeping." He says the last word with ultimate distaste.

"Well." Quark leans back against his doorframe. "Good night. Thanks for dropping by to let me know you're--what did you say?--well enough to, y'know." He gives a lopsided smile. "Disrupt me."

Odo inclines his head. "Of course," he says, hesitantly taking a few steps back. Something inside Quark's chest fractures like glass. "Good night, Quark." Odo lingers, pausing like he wants to say something else, before he shakes his head almost imperceptibly and takes a full step back toward the turbolift.

The thing in Quark's chest fractures a little more, spiderweb cracks dancing up it.

"Ah, Odo?"

Odo stops, glances back over to Quark quizzically, hopefully. "Yes?"

The thing in Quark's chest shatters.

"You don't have to go," he says, moving closer. "If you'd like to stay."

Odo is struck for just a moment. "I would," he breathes. Quark can hear his heart beating as fast as a beetle's wings. He thinks he can feel the heat pouring off Odo's body.

"Then you can," he says, barely loud enough for Odo to hear. "C'mon."

He steps aside and lets Odo enter the room before closing the door behind them both. He can still hear Odo's heart beating nervously, and he decides then and there not to be awkward about whatever this is. "Come into the bedroom in about three minutes," he instructs, and Odo nods once before sitting down primly on Quark's sofa.

Quark moves into his bedroom and changes into his night clothes before climbing into bed and fluffing the covers out just a little. In three minutes Odo is nudging the door open and Quark is there to greet him. "You just gonna sleep in your uniform?"

"What choice do I have?" Odo grouses, taking off his shoes and placing them neatly by the door.

"I mean, you could go to your place and get your pajamas."

"I don't have any."

"You--what?"

"Quark, I used to be able to make whatever clothes I wanted. I didn't need to own any."

"And you still don't. That's the saddest thing I've ever heard. I'm crying over here. Remind me to take you shopping."

"Hah. I don't see the need to spend money on such things."

"Do you sleep naked or what?"

"I sleep in my uniform."

"I take it back! That's the saddest thing I've ever heard."

Odo takes off his combadge and sets it on the bedside table. "Amazing, because you hear your debt statements with fair regularity."

"Very funny. You gonna get in bed or are you gonna stand there like an idiot?" Quark pulls the covers aside and gestures to the Odo-sized space beside him.

Odo hrrmfs and lies down facing Quark, who wastes absolutely no time in plastering himself to him, settling under his chin and resting there. Odo tenses for a second but then relaxes, curls an arm around Quark, his hand resting at the small of his back.

"Computer, turn out the lights."

The room darkens. Only small lights from appliances and computers remain. He can hear sounds of hard drives spinning, of electronics humming. But mostly he can hear Odo's breathing and heartbeat.

He unceremoniously sticks his leg between Odo's to slot himself closer. Odo makes a mildly affronted sound but allows it.

"'M glad your leg is straight again," he mumbles into Odo's neck. "I didn't like when it was bent."

"You managed to do an admirable job stabilizing it after you stopped retching."

"Ugh. I'd almost blocked that memory and then you had to go and remind me." Odo chuckles. Quark gives a little snarl. "I'm glad one of us can laugh about it."

"Must you incessantly whine about it?"

"Yes!"

"Hrmmf." The hand at the small of Quark's back moves just a bit, petting him through his pajamas shirt. Quark wonders how it would feel if Odo's long fingers slid up the back of his shirt to touch his skin. Would they feel warm? Would Quark shiver at his touch?

Ugh, disgusting. Quark hasn't fantasized about something so innocent since he was in his first set of ears.

"What are we doing, Odo?"

"Sleeping. Or at least one of us is trying to."

"No, I mean why are we in bed together."

"I thought you'd know. You're the one who started it."

"Well, I don't!"

Odo pulls back just enough to look at Quark, barely illuminated in the dim light of the room. "I do have one theory," he says.

"I'd love to hear it."

It's dark, and hard to see, but Quark thinks Odo's eyes are flicking down over his face toward his mouth. His voice is quiet when he speaks. "I can test it right now."

"Yeah?"

"Mm-hmm." One of Odo's hands slides up to the back of Quark's neck. "With your assistance."

Quark tips his face up toward Odo. "What are you waiting for?"

"I don't know," Odo says, and closes the tiny distance between their faces.

Quark's kissed a lot of people for a lot of reasons. He's had good kisses, bad kisses, so-so kisses. To be honest, they don't usually do much for him, no matter the quality. Kissing is nice and all, but it's no ear rub; it doesn't make him shiver with delight or give soft appreciative noises or feel electricity crackling from his lips all the way down his spine.

All of which he's doing right now, and all from a simple, embarrassingly chaste kiss.

Oh, Odo's going to be smug about this.

Odo pulls back and rests his forehead against Quark's, and Quark tries to find words. Odo finds his first. "I know why we're in bed together," he says, breathless.

"Yeah, me too," Quark replies, and stretches to kiss him again. What Odo lacks in experience he makes up for with ardency. His (thin, damn near nonexistent, should-by-all-accounts-be-unattractive-to-anybody-let-alone-Quark but oh, so warm) lips part, trying to deepen the kiss, and Quark pulls back to mumble against his mouth. "My teeth, they're sharp, watch out."

The hand that had been at the back of Quark's neck slides to cradle his jaw, his thumb sliding over Quark's lip. Automatically Quark's mouth falls open and the pad of Odo's thumb presses lightly against his jagged bottom incisors. It's hot for a reason Quark can't identify--maybe it's the vulnerability of it, the trust Odo's displaying by putting a digit between Quark's teeth, or maybe it's the fact that Quark is fighting the urge to close his lips around that digit and suck, or maybe it's the fact that Odo got what he wanted from him without saying a damn word?

"I'll take my chances," Odo says, and the hand at his jaw guides him in for another kiss. Their mouths fit against each other perfectly, somehow as Odo kisses him without fear, licking into his mouth and feeling the tips of his teeth with his tongue. Quark's hands ruck up Odo's uniform shirt, hands flattening against his skin for more contact, he pulls Odo harder against him and Odo presses close like he wants to climb inside of him.

They're so alive, so vital, mouths sliding together beautifully, meeting over and over again in kiss after kiss. They make out like teenagers, like lobelings figuring out what love is, sharing air and pawing aimlessly at each other.

And then Odo's hand slips upward to stroke a palm roughly up the outer helix of Quark's ear. His fingers curl round the outer shell, and Quark moans embarrassingly high into Odo's mouth as his hips hitch forward involuntarily, like he's struck with a live wire, lighting his whole body up. Oh, fuck, he's hard, and so is Odo. His grip on Odo's hip tightens and Odo gasps as he grinds up against him again, dips down to rake sharp teeth against his neck. There's only three layers of fabric between them and--

"Quark," Odo manages, "Quark, stop."

The word stop hits him like a freighter at warp 9 and he freezes exactly in place, concern a dark yawning pit in his stomach. Odo must sense it, for he continues.

"You didn't do anything wrong. I'm fine. I'm wonderful," he adds with a breathless, incredulous laugh before he kisses Quark again, lightly. Quark relaxes. Odo's okay. He doesn't need to panic and consider moving to the Gamma Quadrant for a century or two. "I'm just--very tired. Lingering effects of the medication, I imagine."

Quark's lobes are going to turn purple, necrose, and fall off. He's certain of it.

"Okay," is what he says, instead of that.

"I do think my theory needs further testing at a later date, however."

Quark grins and brushes his nose against Odo's. "I'll be happy to help."

"I know," Odo hums, smugly, before closing his eyes and folding Quark comfortably into his arms like a teddy bear.

When he falls asleep, Quark extricates himself and jerks off in his bathroom, teeth digging into the palm of his hand as he silences himself; he whines helplessly as he comes, thinking of that soft face and warm, loving hands.

-

Odo is asleep when Quark wakes up. His hair is mussed, his face relaxed, his eyes flicking back and forth behind closed lids. He's dreaming, still in deep sleep.

Most of Quark's conquests are gone in the morning. It's unusual for Quark to wake up in someone's arms. He decides he likes it. Even if Odo isn't technically a conquest.

Quark wonders what time Odo's alarm normally goes off in his own quarters. Probably soon. "Computer," he whispers. "What time is it?"

"The time is 0700 hours," the computer whispers back.

Not time for Quark to wake up yet. But probably time for Odo to.

"Odo," Quark says softly, rubbing Odo's shoulder a little. "Odo. It's seven."

Odo hums softly, eyes fluttering open. "Hm?"

"It's seven. It's morning."

"Hmm."

"If we're going to be sleeping together on the regular, we oughta set an alarm for you here."

"Mmmmm."

"Computer, lights at forty percent."

The lights dim up, and Odo rubs his eyes blearily. "I should go back to my quarters," he mumbles. "Get a shower. Get dressed. Eat..." He shakes fog from his brain. "...Something," he finishes lamely.

"I've got a shower. Real water. I paid extra for it."

"Mmf. And I have no clean uniform here. I don't intend to use your shower and then walk to my quarters stark naked to get dressed."

Quark leers at him, waggles his brow ridges. "I don't think I'd mind," he purrs out, and Odo hrrmfs.

"I'm sure you wouldn't," he says, "you filthy little lecher."

"Til the day I die," Quark says, smiling lopsidedly, and Odo grumbles in response as he stretches out his shoulders. He stands and Quark nestles back down into bed.

"You're not getting up too?"

"The bar doesn't open til 10. I've got a whole nother hour before I have to get going."

"So you're just going to stay in bed, like the reckless hedonist you are?"

"As a matter of fact, yes, you killjoy."

"Truant."

"Wet blanket."

"Layabout."

"Fascist!"

"Computer, lights at one hundred percent."

Quark shrieks and draws the blankets up over his eyes to shield them. He hears Odo chuckling in that awful smug raspy way he does, hears him padding over and sliding his shoes back on.

Odo presses on the panel by the door and the door slides open. "Computer," he says, "turn out the lights," and the room is plunged into darkness right before Odo leaves.

-

"I'm not going to stop doing business just because we're sleeping together," Quark blurts out by way of greeting as Odo enters the bar past close the next evening.

The ex-changeling tilts his head. "I wouldn't expect you to."

"I mean that I'm going to keep doing business that you might not find perfectly agreeable with your frankly puritanical moral code."

Odo sits down and folds his arms on the bar. "As I said, I wouldn't expect you to."

"You're okay with that?"

"As long as you're okay with me continuing to thwart you, yes."

"Huh."

"Frankly, Quark, at least it's you at the center of things and not someone else."

Quark's eyes widen. Odo's mouth twitches at the corners.

At least it's you, and not someone I don't know. At least it's you, because you'll tell me if you end up over your head, or if there's real danger. At least it's you, because at least if it's you, I can be sure it's nothing worse. At least it's you, because at the end of the day, when all the trappings are stripped away and it comes down to the wire, I trust you.

It all goes unsaid. It's all perfectly clear.

"Oh," is what Quark says.

He hopes Odo knows it means yeah, me too, but with you.

"Can I walk you to your quarters?"

Quark leans over the bar and looks Odo up and down, deliberately salacious. "Only if you stay the night."

"I think I can do that."

They make their way to the turbolift and ride it up; Odo pauses when it stops at Quark's floor. "One moment. You go to your quarters. I'll be there shortly."

"Don't make me wait long," Quark warns, and exits the the turbolift.

True to form, Odo doesn't take long. Quark is getting through his nightly routine, changing into his pajamas and brushing his teeth (sharpening down any that are getting too long) when he hears Odo at the door. "Let him in," he tells the computer, and the door opens.

He finishes up in the bathroom and finds Odo sitting on the bed, a small pile of clothes in his lap. "I purchased sleep clothes," he says, dubiously.

"Without me? They're probably awful."

"They certainly aren't to your... eccentric taste."

Quark decides to let that slide. Odo's got a clean uniform in that pile of clothes as well. "Well, you can go change into 'em. Bathroom's there."

Odo dips his head in acknowledgement and disappears into the bathroom. Quark settles down into the bed, drawing the covers up and waiting patiently for Odo.

Sure enough. The pajamas are hideous.

"Those are horrible," Quark says when Odo emerges from the bathroom. "An assault on my eyes. You paid for those?"

"I didn't purchase them for their looks!"

"Obviously."

"I purchased them because of how they feel."

"Oh?" Quark sticks his hands out and reaches for Odo, who magnanimously steps into his grasping range. He touches the material and hums. The fabric is knit from some kind of incredibly silky natural fiber. "Yeah, that feels good."

"I find I prioritize how things feel now," Odo says slowly, eyes fixing on Quark's with an odd intensity, "in a way I never did--before. Certainly I avoided pain, but..."

Quark's hand curls lightly in Odo's pajama shirt. "But you never sought out pleasure."

"No. Not in this way. Not like I want to now."

Ah. "If you want to have some fun, Odo, all you have to do is--"

Odo surges down and kisses him hungrily, like he's been waiting all day and his self control has finally broken. Quark tugs Odo down over him, knees parting to let Odo between them. Odo's weight is good, comforting, warm, pressing Quark against the pillows and making his toes curl at the sheer possibility of being held down.

Odo could. He's strong. He could hold Quark's wrists and take him. Oh, blessed exchequer.

He pulls back to breathe and Odo's hands are sliding up his pajama shirt, rucking it up around his armpits in his effort to get more contact. "You feel good," Odo says, hoarsely, "like nothing I've felt."

"I am pretty amazing," Quark gasps out.

"I can't tell if the feeling is in my skin or my brain. It's--overwhelming."

"Stop thinking about it and just--"

His words are cut off as Odo kisses him again, and one of those hands is at his ribs and the other is at his ear now and Quark whimpers high and embarrassingly loud into Odo's mouth as soft cartilage is rubbed between finger and thumb, the nerve endings that play along the structure of his ear flaring to life. He can feel blood rushing to the surface of his skin, painting him dark red. This time when he whines and pushes his hips up against Odo's, Odo doesn't pull away--he experimentally presses down against him and Quark can't believe he's so worked up over a little over-the-pants action.

He wants Odo to fuck him, he realizes, a little dazed. He really wants Odo to fuck him. He's never fucked before, but Quark is certain he'll get the hang of it pretty damn fast; he aches for it, but just this is okay for now. He tries to establish a rhythm, slow and grinding, and Odo breaks their kiss, head dropping down to breathe hot and damp against Quark's neck. "Quark--slow down."

Yeah. His lobes are going to fall off. Quark relaxes back against the bed. "You good?" he asks, with patience he forces himself to feel.

"I've never--done. This."

"Yeah, I know. It's not hard." He smirks and wiggles a little. "I mean, it's hard, if you get my drift."

Odo groans, not pleasurably. "I would have to be blind, deaf, and dead to not get your drift, Quark. It's only, I've never... It feels strange," he says. "I don't--I've never..."

"Oh." He blinks. "Not even. On your own?"

Odo shakes his head.

"Uh. What do you do when...?" Quark makes a few vague motions at the general groin area.

He looks awkward and clueless, like a Ferengan giant frog caught in headlights. "Take a high-pitched sonic shower and wait for it to go away?"

For the love of profit. The frinxing idiot has never experienced orgasm before in his life. He must look incredulous, because Odo continues on.

"I know it's supposed to be lovely, I've read books."

"Smut, Odo." He may be about to die of purple lobes, but he can still take the time to mercilessly needle Odo. "You read smut."

"I read popular literature," Odo protests weakly. "I want to experience it. I want to very much. It's just--it feels so much. I start to lose control of my body, and I... stop."

It makes sense.

Every time Odo's lost control of his body after becoming a solid, it's been a bad thing. Shivering from cold. Bad dreams. Hunger. The pain of a broken leg.

The sheer lack of control over his own body he must feel, now, after being able to shapeshift. And now he can't. Empathy doesn't come easy to Quark, but he remembers how scared he was on the mountain, how out of control he felt. How he felt when he thought he was dying, his body betraying him, how he could do nothing about it.

Does Odo feel like that all the time, somewhere in the back of his mind? Of course the thought, the feeling of beginning to lose himself to orgasm would be frightening.

"We don't have to, okay? We can take it s--"

"I want to touch you anyway," Odo interrupts, "I want to make you feel good. Is that--?"

"Thank fuck, yes, I'm so glad you said that, please touch me," Quark babbles, all in a rush, "please touch me, Odo, fff--ah!"

His words are bitten off as Odo touches his ears again. He shifts off of Quark, curls up at his side and strokes his ears firmly from brow ridge out to antihelix and down to the sensitive, tender spot where lobe meets jawbone. He presses his thumbs lightly there and rubs and Quark keens, flexing all the way down to his toes as his fingers grip the blankets tight.

"Good?"

Quark gives a breathy moan in response, nods just a little, and Odo does it again.

And again.

And again.

Both of his hands work in tandem, symmetrically, thumbs working over soft whorls of cartilage and nerves lighting up brighter and brighter with each rhythmic pass. It's hard to come from just this, usually, but pressure is building in the pit of his stomach, his hips working against nothing, his dick everted and its oversensitive surface teased by the inside seam of his pajama pants and--

"Look at me."

His eyes fly open and Odo is looking at him so fondly, so hungrily, fingers dancing in firm little movements and when Odo kisses him next he scrapes his fingernails firm enough to bite a little against raw nerves and Quark is moaning into Odo's mouth as he comes, shaking, muscles tensing so hard he'll be sore the next day.

He pants for breath, trying to recover. He hasn't come just from ear stuff since he was a dumb teenager. He vaguely registers that Odo makes a smug, self-satisfied noise, barely tracks as Odo gathers him up into his arms and holds him.

"Did I do all right?" Odo asks, and Quark gives a hysterical giggle.

"You did great," he squeaks.

"Was that... a normal outcome?"

"Yeah," Quark squeaks. "Wait. No! U-usually I need more than that. Ugh. That was embarrassing." He flushes, shoving his face against Odo's chest.

"Embarrassing for you, maybe." Odo shrugs. "Fun for me. Would you let me do it again sometime?"

He's going to die. "Anytime, Constable. You... you name a time, I'll be there."

-

He is sore the next day, his calves aching as he gets out of bed.

-

Quark's relationship with Odo isn't a secret to literally anybody, as apparently Bashir can't keep his mouth shut and the fact that they were in bed together in the infirmary has spread like wildfire.

Business, however, is not hampered.

"Please," Quark says when a potential business partner questions the safety of a venture. He leans over the table and grins in the way he knows makes his teeth glint in the light. "I'm literally in bed with the Constable. He's under my thumb."

It's not true--the thumb part--but the Andorran he's trying to get a deal on (stolen) absinthe with doesn't need to know that.

-

Odo has several uniforms and his single pair of pajamas at Quark's living quarters now.

It's nice in a way that's difficult to identify.

Love, something in the back two lobes of Quark's brain helpfully supplies, you're in love, you moron.

-

Quark's in the shower when he hears Odo enter his quarters. He has his door system set to allow Odo in unless he specifically indicates otherwise. A good businessman has to have some privacy, especially when he's sleeping with a Constable who consistently attempts to wreck his most lucrative ventures.

He rolls his shoulders out under the warm water, washes smudged liner from his eyes, luxuriates in the steam. Other Ferengi on the station have to deal with a sonic shower, leaving their skin prone to drying and cracking. Ferenginar is rainy, and Ferengi skin is accustomed to levels of humidity that simply aren't present on a retrofitted Cardassian space station. This shower was, as far as Quark is concerned, a quality-of-life investment.

Odo's right outside the bathroom door. Even over the sound of the shower, Quark can hear him going about his nightly routine.

He turns off the water, towels off, and immediately starts rubbing in lotion to stave off dry skin. He goes through motions he goes through every time he showers, mind wandering.

Nothing is stopping him from walking out into the bedroom without any clothing on at all. The thought sends fear and want through his veins in equal measure.

It's not as if he's never been naked in front of anyone before. He's been with a lot of people, been seen by a lot of people. But it's always been a by-product of sex; nudity as a means to an end. Not nudity for the sake of it.

He brushes his teeth, finishes up. Then he slides on his bathrobe, nothing underneath. It's a middle ground between being naked and being clothed, he reasons.

He's a coward.

He pulls his robe shut before opening the bathroom door and entering the bedroom.

Odo is there in the bed waiting for him, reading something on his PADD. Probably something boring and work-related. "More Bajoran smut?" Quark asks, sidling over to the bed.

"Terran, actually," Odo says without looking up.

"What, really?"

"No. It's a security report from earlier today."

"So not erotic at all! Disappointing. Computer, turn out the lights."

The lights go out, deep shadows thrown across the strange topography of Odo's face by the light of his PADD. Quark takes advantage of the sudden light shift and Odo's temporary blindness and drops his robe to the floor before clambering under the covers and hoisting them up to his chin.

Odo extends one arm, making room for Quark to cuddle up into him. "I'd find an erotic security report much more disappointing on several levels."

"Are you trying to tell me that your deputies have never caught people doing the deed where they shouldn't be before?" Quark takes Odo's invitation and curls up in the crook of his arm.

"Of course they have, but they don't write about it in a..." He trails off as he curls his arm around Quark and his hand makes contact with skin instead of fabric. He slides his hand up Quark's spine, continuing to find no fabric, and Quark tries not to shiver. "Are you--?"

He stops. He probably knows how charged the concept is for Ferengi. Odo always has paid attention to the culture, even knows a lot of the Rules off the top of his head. Know your enemy, he'd said once. Quark always thought that was, at least partially, bullshit.

"Am I what?"

"You know what," Odo tries to chastise, but the words are breathed out on a sigh; he sounds charmed.

"Oh, that. I might be," Quark says casually, forcing himself to be cavalier despite the blood rushing in his ears.

There's a clattering as the PADD drops roughly onto the bedside table, a rustling as Odo rolls onto his side to face Quark properly and put both hands on him, under the covers. One hand at Quark's back, up between his shoulderblades. The other alights gently at his ribcage, smoothing up his side with careful fingers, like he's trying to analyze the texture of Quark's skin, commit him to memory.

Maybe he is. Freak.

He pets all the way up from Quark's hipbone to the top of his ribcage and back down again. "As I was saying. They have found people in compromising positions where they shouldn't be. But they use discretion when reporting about it." Odo's hands are so warm and smooth, gliding over his skin over and over. "Quark? Are you all right?"

"Mhm," Quark says, actively becoming liquid, "why?"

"You're making a noise."

"Oh." Sure enough, his kee-tarik is rumbling softly in his chest. "Yeah, I'm good. 'S a Ferengi thing."

"What does it mean?"

"Have you ever met a Vulcan sehlat?"

"It's a purr?"

"Something like that."

"I heard it before, but it was much quieter. I didn't think it was--"

"You mean to tell me I've been purring around you this whole time and I didn't even realize it?"

"Ever since we came back from the mountain." Odo hums, his palm running down lower, over Quark's ass and to the back of his thigh, before sliding right up again. Quark presses back against those hands, searching for more contact. Odo strokes him all over, pets across his chest, up his neck, his tender stomach, his waist. It's as if he's trying to make Quark purr as loud as possible, and he's doing a good job of it. "On the subject of erotic security reports--"

"That's my favorite way to start a sentence!"

"--Did I tell you that one of my deputies once found a couple doing unspeakable things in a supply compartment in Ops?"

Quark wheezes out a little laugh over his purr. "Oh, the latinum I'd have given to see Sisko's face."

"He was less than amused." Odo pushes on Quark's shoulder, maneuvers him onto his back. One of his hands remains at Quark's neck, thumb rubbing just centimeters from that tender spot at the base of his ear; the other moving to drag fingertips along the crease where thigh meets abdomen. "Especially because it was his son and--"

"Ugh, shut up." Quark buries his face in his hands. "I don't need to be thinking about Sisko's son and my nephew right now."

"How did you know it was your nephew?"

"I didn't until you just confirmed it. Ugh. It's true that I didn't want to think about it, though."

"Don't worry," Odo says softly, hand sliding down the front of Quark's thighs, "I plan to make you stop thinking about things shortly."

"You're all talk." Quark lowers his hands and narrows his eyes at Odo. "All you've done is pet me like a--"

"Challenging words from someone who's purring for me like a kitten."

He squawks. "A kitten?! That's rich, coming from you! I'd rather sound like a kitten than someone who sounds like a--" Quark's words break off into a strangled sound as the flat of Odo's hand comes to rest against the sensitive folds and ridges between his legs.

"No, no. Continue, I insist. Rich coming from someone who what?"

"Someone who sounds like a--" Quark's breath hitches in his throat as Odo lightly grinds the heel of his palm against him. "A metal rod caught in an automatic tooth sharpener," he manages.

"You like my voice." Odo's ring finger shallowly dips between his folds, strokes upward and spreads the wetness growing there.

Quark paws for Odo's wrist, tries to guide his hand further. Odo pulls completely away in response, returning to Quark's inner thighs, petting him like a sehlat, or a cat, or any other sweet animal Odo could care to liken him to. He hisses his utmost disrespect and displeasure, baring his teeth, but the effect of the snarl is ruined by his kee-tarik only increasing in volume.

Odo snorts. "Very intimidating," he says, deliberately patronizing.

"I do not like your voice! Especially when you're doing that smug thing you do when--"

The thumb that's a few centimeters below the sensitive place at the base of Quark's ear moves higher and rubs back and forth, right over the spot that makes Quark's eyes cross. And cross they do, right before they close. His hands fly to Odo's sleep clothes and scrabble for purchase before gripping the expensive knit tight. Odo's thumb travels up the outer rim of his ear, his other fingers curling around the back of it, slipping along the crease where cartilage meets bone.

"Hm? You were saying?" Odo teases, and Quark's eyes snap back open. Odo is so fond and so, so self-satisfied and Quark wants to wipe the look off his dumb, freaky face.

"I was saying," Quark says, yanking Odo down toward him, "that you're a smug, self-righteous despot."

Then he pulls him down the rest of the way and kisses him hard. Odo immediately returns the kiss just as spirited; Quark nips at Odo's bottom lip (gently, he doesn't want to make him bleed) and Odo growls low in his throat.

"Take this off," Quark says, tugging at Odo's pajama shirt. The man doesn't need to be told twice and pulls his hands from Quark's body to sit back on his haunches and yank the shirt over his head with no hesitation. Quark can hear his heart pounding; he scrambles to run both hands up Odo's still-clothed legs. "Can I touch you, Odo?"

"Yes," Odo says, voice even rougher than normal, two metal rods in an automatic tooth sharpener. He palms Odo's dick through his pants, and of course he's hard, incredibly so, a damp patch formed where he strains against the fabric. Odo sucks in a breath through his teeth and Quark squeezes him lightly, thumbs that spot that humans like right below the tip. The result is a frantic half-groan and Odo shakes his head, firmly grasps Quark's wrists and pulls his hands away. "I'm sorry," he whispers hoarsely, burying his face against Quark's neck. "I thought I could. I can't. Touch me anywhere else. Please."

"Okay." He moves to Odo's waist. "Are you sure you don't want...?"

"I do want," Odo rasps against his skin, "so badly it frightens me. Let me enjoy it through you instead." He slips a hand down between Quark's thighs, parting them easily for him. "Just for now."

He's disappointed, but too turned on to think too much. "Yeah, I can do that," Quark agrees, shakily, as Odo bites his skin and runs fingertips against his sheath.

"Can I go inside?" he murmurs, voice rough as ever but so sweet, and Quark whines and can't hold back from everting any longer, his dicks wet and hard and sliding from his body, dragging against Odo's knuckles. "Oh," Odo breathes, and experimentally wraps his hand around the base, right before his cocks fork off.

"T-This is good for now," Quark squeaks, clinging to Odo, knees drawing up reflexively to let his heels get purchase on the sheets. "There isn't. Much room inside."

"You're so soft." He feels carefully, exploratory, playing with Quark's flexible, delicate frills before he strokes the slick length of him, firmly, cocks pressed together in his fist. Quark keens, nails digging into Odo's back.

Odo takes his sweet time bringing Quark off, ears and cocks worked in his clever hands as Quark loses his mind. Tension curls in Quark's belly, pulling at his dicks and making him shake unbidden, and then Odo gives him an order, breathes right in his ear; "Show me how I make you feel," he says, and Quark's cries are colored bright by his deafening purr as he spills over Odo's fingers, slow, luxuriant. He keeps touching him, just this side of oversensitive, until Quark squirms and pushes his hand away.

"And you said you didn't like my voice," Odo says, infuriatingly smug as he cleans his hand off on yesterday's uniform about to go in the reclamator, and if Quark hadn't just had all four lobes of his brain systematically melted, he might have smacked him for it, but instead he laughs breathlessly.

"I say a lot of things." Odo's heart is still pounding as he pulls Quark to nestle up into him; Quark can hear the blood rushing in his system. "Are you sure you don't want to try?" he asks, nuzzling Odo's nose with his own. "I'd really love to, y'know. Help you out. It's easier than falling and breaking your leg, that's for sure."

Odo hesitates. "I'm sure," he finally says. "It's the falling I'm afraid of, Quark."

"I'd catch you," he mumbles, nuzzles Odo's awful, wonderful beak of a nose again. "Okay. Not tonight. Just figured I'd offer."

"Thank you." Odo pets over Quark's ear, too light to stimulate nerves, but it's still comforting somehow. Quark's eyes slip shut. "How does it feel?"

He doesn't bother opening his eyes. "How does it feel to come?" Odo nods. Quark lets out a breath. "I dunno how to explain it. Feels like getting electrocuted, but in a good way."

"Electrocuted," Odo murmurs. "Hrmmf."

-

Late night one-on-one tongo games with Jadzia are one of Quark's favorite ways to spend the late hours, especially when Odo isn't available.

She rolls the dice and spins the table. "Acquire."

"Confront!"

Jadzia reveals her cards and her bluff falls apart. Quark crows and collects his winnings. "Best two out of three?" she asks.

"Why? You eager to lose again?"

She bares her teeth and hisses in a very Ferengi gesture of displeasure, but her eyes are sparkling. "Are you too afraid you'll lose your latinum to play?"

"Of course not. You're on. Deal me in."

She starts setting up the table for another round. Quark takes a long pull from his glass, sighing as he sets it down.

"Are you all right?"

"Huh? Yeah. Just tired, I guess." He shrugs. "I didn't sleep well last night."

"You're really missing him, aren't you?"

There it is, one of the reasons Quark loves her; she's smart and perceptive and gentle and her empathy is infinite.

"Probably about as much as you're missing the Major," he says, raising his brow ridges, and Jadzia's pretty lips curve into a smile at the mention of her.

"Probably," she agrees, sipping from her own glass. "They'll be back tomorrow, Quark."

"Not soon enough," he grumbles, and Jadzia murmurs her agreement as she deals out cards.

"I've got a weird question for you," Quark asks, not looking at his cards.

Jadzia raises an eyebrow as she lays tokens across the tongo wheel. "Is it about--"

"It's about sex."

"Of course it is. Quark, Kira and I are exclusive, and I really don't think the Constable would appreciate--"

"If I was trying to seduce you I'd be working a hell of a lot harder than this," Quark says, holding up a hand, palm-out. "Not that I don't think you're a beautiful woh-mon," Audrid taught him that word when he hosted her, it means 'fe-male' but it's 'more respectful,' which Jadzia deserves more than anyone else on this damned station, in Quark's opinion, so he'll use it when nobody else is around and he has nothing to prove, "but I gave up on that long ago."

She smiles and lays a delicate, slim hand over his. "In another time," she says gently, and Quark closes his lips over his teeth, smiles. In another time, things could have been different. "Anyway, what was the question?"

"So, when you--Dax--were in your first host. You'd never made love before, as a human."

"Or as a symbiont. Symbionts don't really--it's very much not the same for us."

"Exactly! So were you nervous the first time you were with someone else as a Trill?"

Jadzia's eyes sparkle again. "Funny," she muses, "you're the second person this week to ask me that exact and strangely specific question."

He drops his face into his hands, groaning into his palms, and Jadzia just cackles.

"Seriously? He came to you?"

"Someone did," she says serenely.

"What... did you tell him?"

"Pretty much what I'm going to tell you: that unfortunately, when I joined with Lela, I got her memories of her first time--so for our first time as a joined Trill, I knew what to expect and wasn't nervous, really."

"Right," Quark mumbles. "Figures."

She takes another pull from her drink. "I was scared to be joined for the first time, though."

"Dax was?"

She nods. "All my life I'd lived in a cave taken care of by Guardians, with my own species. And then I was going to be something completely different--a totally new being. I'd be sharing my life with someone else. Sharing control of my body with another person--I didn't know how that would feel at all. Quark, I was terrified."

"Why did you go through with it?"

She squeezes his hand and smiles her bright, beautiful smile--the smile that won Quark's heart and only gave most of it back. "Because I wanted to." She lets go of his hand and picks up her cards. "Your turn first."

She wins the second hand, but Quark is rescued from having to risk losing the third one, because one of Odo's deputies blusters into the bar and places him under arrest, making some reference to smuggling and claiming that Quark has fourteen cases of highly illegal Romulan ale in the back, which, first off, is extremely rude, but secondly, is inconveniently true.

"Have a nice night in jail!" Jadzia calls as the deputy spirits him off.

He snarls at her, but he doesn't mean it. She was in a good position for that last hand.

-

"Funny," Odo says as he strolls into the holding cell block, "I'm gone to Bajor for two days and you immediately get arrested by someone who isn't even me. You're slipping, Quark."

Quark scrambles to his feet and approaches the forcefield. "This is a farce!" he snaps. "A completely scurrilous accusation! Your deputies should be ashamed. How dare you accuse me of something that sounds completely plausible for me. I tell you it's not the case this time, Odo! I've been arrested on entirely false pretenses!"

"False pretenses," Odo parrots, leaning against the forcefield's arch. "Quite the reverse. The Romulan ale in your storage room is very real."

"What?! Romulan ale?" Quark brings a hand to his throat in carefully curated shock. "I had no idea the bottles were contraband at all, let alone Romulan ale!"

"Really."

"Really! The shipping manifest says it's Aldebaran whiskey, and as you can clearly see, all the bottles were sealed up tight. How could I have known?"

"Then what was it doing in your bar? Answer very carefully."

"Simple. I'm renting out space. I was approached by a third party--the sellers of what I thought was whiskey!--to store it until its buyers could come pick it up and carry it through the wormhole. I would be paid a nominal storage fee for my help, and that would be that." He spreads his hands. "Obviously, I was hoodwinked."

"Obviously," Odo grinds out.

"As you can see, Odo, I'm the victim here! Your deputy wouldn't listen to me at all last night so I had to sleep in this little cage for no reason at all! He should have his pay docked! And honestly it should be given to me for my time and emotional uphea--"

"You won't be getting a single slip of latinum," Odo says, voice dropping a little low, "but if you help me, you might get something you like almost as much."

"Of course I'll help you any way I can, Constable." They're falling right back into their old patterns but there's a new element now, sending sparks through his nerves. "As I always do."

Odo tilts his head owlishly. "To whom are you renting that space?"

"I don't remember." There's only a few inches between them, taken up by the forcefield holding Quark back. "Must have slipped my mind."

"Of course." Odo taps on the panel beside the door and the forcefield fizzles out of existence; one step forward and he's crowding Quark further into the cell. Quark's hands fly up to Odo's chest and shoulders, not pushing or pulling, just giving him something to hold onto, and then Odo's reaching up and rubbing his thumbs into the soft base of Quark's ears, the rest of his curling round the back of his skull so his head doesn't hit the wall when he tips it back and lets out a noise that frankly belongs in Orion Pleasure Dungeon VI. Odo's voice is laden with mock sympathy when he speaks. "Still having trouble remembering?"

"I--remember one thing, come to think of it," Quark hums, looking up at Odo through eyes smudged dark with pigment he didn't get the chance to wash off the night before, "the buyers, they were going to be coming around two days from now. Two Edosians. I don't know their names. Edosians are rare enough that I would know them when I saw them."

The buyers won't be coming around now that the vole is out of the bag, Quark can make sure of that much.

Odo hums. "That's good, but it's not the answer to the question I asked. Who are you renting the space to?"

"I had a long night last night, the names really aren't coming to me, Odo."

It's a lie. Odo knows it. Quark knows he knows it. Odo knows he knows, and so on and so forth.

"That's unfortunate," Odo says, hands dropping to Quark's waist, "I was very much looking forward to tonight."

"What?"

Odo leans against him, pinning him to the wall a little harder. He tips his head down to rasp in Quark's ear. "How I missed you so," he says, a strange sincerity there that doesn't quite fit this game but cuts Quark to the core.

"Odo--?"

"Unfortunately we won't have time tonight to try the thing I read about, since I'll have to be investigating this smuggling matter, trying to find the names of those who fooled you so badly." The sincerity is (mostly) gone; they're back to the game. "Though I will be thinking of you," he says, lining up their hips and pressing. "And you'll be thinking of me, judging by that purr."

Huh. Feels like he really did miss him.

"I think you just knocked something free from my brain, actually," he squeaks. "They were Caitians. They didn't give me their real names but they went by Ioni and Kiman. They probably use the pseudonyms other places. They're not the sharpest teeth in the jaws."

And they're probably halfway across the quadrant by now, if not further, because Quark wasn't able to send them the all clear message--meaning that if they have any sense, they know the jig is up by now. The Edosians, too, unless they arrived early.

Odo makes a satisfied noise and gives Quark's lobes an affectionate squeeze before he steps away. "Thank you for all your help," he says. "You're free to go."

Quark takes a deep breath and straightens his lapels. "About time," he grumbles, then, softer, "'S good to have you back."

-

The bar miraculously didn't fall apart over the morning and afternoon that Quark was kept, unreasonably and illegitimately, in custody. The worst thing that happened was a holosuite went down and Rom had to patch it up with parts from an old freezer unit in the back.

All 14 cases of "Aldebaran whiskey" have been confiscated, of course. No skin off Quark's lobes; he got paid his storage fee in advance, so it doesn't matter to him whether or not the bottles get through the wormhole. It's a shame, though, he thinks. If the deal had gone through, he'd have been able to get some repeat business and made a tidy profit with not a lot of effort.

He wonders how he was found out. He doesn't think any of his staff told station security--nobody knew the bottles contained anything but whiskey. None of them had been opened. It was probably that the Edosians were clumsy and got caught with contraband in their ship and gave up that there was more here on the station.

He can't bring himself to be too put out about the entire situation. Not after Odo crowded into him and whispered against his skin like that.

I missed you so. Had his thoughts dwelled on Quark late at night? Had he had trouble sleeping without him?

Keep it together, Quark! He shakes himself and returns to attending the dabo tables. You're a grown man, not a fawning teenager.

-

He manages to keep his head screwed on pretty tightly until half an hour before close, at which point the Constable enters the bar. Quark notices him instantly, his sleek blonde head above the crowd; Odo's eyes scan methodically until he sees Quark and the corners of his thin mouth curve up into that bizarre, alien smile of his.

Quark feels himself smiling in return, his focus narrowing in on Odo in a way that's out of his control, the raucous sounds of the bar seeming to fade. He can pick out Odo's footsteps as he moves closer to the bar, and when he rests an arm against the bar and Quark leans in, he can pick out Odo's heartbeat amongst the throng.

He's accustomed to it.

"Can I get you anything, Constable?"

"You know what I want," Odo says, too quiet for anybody but Quark to hear above the cries of Dabo! and the noises from the dom-jot tables.

He reaches out, brushes his fingers against Odo's and his kee-tarik bubbles up in his chest unbidden at the contact. "I'll use my imagination," he says, pulling his hand back to grab a few bottles from underneath the bar.

He mixes a drink and pushes it, mottled pinky-orange, across and into Odo's hand.

"What's this?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Considerably less than I can throw you." A playful edge undercuts the harshness of Odo's words.

"Come on. It's on the house."

"How generous."

"You gonna try it or not?" Odo sips from the glass and pauses, eyes widening. Quark grins. "Good, right?"

Odo takes another pull from the glass. "What is it?"

"Tranya. Well, watered down with Risian colada mix--similar flavor profile. Don't need you getting tipsy."

"I haven't had this since--"

"Since Jadzia's brain thing. I know." He shrugs. "You liked it then. Or. You and part of Jadzia did."

"I suppose the taste for it stuck with me."

"Don't drink it too fast," Quark says, "it's strong stuff, even watered down."

"Noted."

"Dabo!" sounds loudly from across the bar right as Quark hears the unmistakable sound of petty male arguing over near the dom-jot tables; two idiot Cardassian kids buzzed out of their brains on kanar are posturing at each other, and Quark knows enough to know when a situation is going to escalate to "unpleasant."

"I'll be right back," Quark says, and pats Odo on the back on his way past to deal with the kids. They're both twice his size, but it only takes a mention that the station's security chief is right there to calm them back down into another amiable game of dom-jot. He turns, and Odo is there at the bar, watching him, eyes glittering from their hollows as he smiles, amused, indulgent. Quark finds himself smiling back at the sight of him, and Odo's eyes trail over to the dabo tables, where another joyous noise signals a continuation of a suspiciously long winning streak. He nods in the direction of the dabo wheels, raises his brow ridges. You'd better investigate that.

He doesn't get back to the bar for a while.

The half-hour before close is always lucrative. Inebriated patrons are more likely to spend more money for rounds of dom-jot and just a few more minutes of holosuite time, more likely to make reckless bets at the dabo wheels. Tonight is no exception, and normally Quark would let customers linger for up to an hour or so after the drinks stopped flowing--but right now Odo is at the bar, half-finished drink in his hand, watching Quark, patient, waiting, and--

How I missed you so.

He instructs his servers to start chasing people out the second closing time hits, returns to the bar--to Odo--leans an elbow against it and reaches out to sip from Odo's drink. "Not bad," he says, "could be worse."

"Next time I'll have it without the Risan colada mix."

The bar goes dormant around them, guests gone and only servers remaining, cleaning up tables and feeding dishware to the reclamator. Quark lays a hand on the bartop, fingers brushing Odo's. "You wanna get out of here?"

-

How did he get here?

He doesn't mean literally. He knows how he got here, literally; Odo kissed him senseless in a turbolift, then pushed him into his quarters and practically tripped him onto the bed, pulled most of his clothes off (and most of his own), and is now making him purr like he's getting paid for it. It's fairly simple. No, Quark means in a more big-picture way; how did all the events of his life lead him to this point where he's fraternizing with an ex-changeling who also happens to be the chief of security on the space station where he lives? The situation in which he finds himself is categorically bizarre.

Then Odo's head dips down to bite at his collarbone and he stops thinking about anything else. "You said you'd missed me, when you were on Bajor," he says, haltingly.

"I did," Odo says. "I missed you curled in my arms as you slept." Odo's hands slide down his sides to hold tight to his hips; he noses against Quark's neck and breathes deeply at his pulse point. "I missed your scent," he sighs; Quark shivers and tips his head back to afford him more room. "I missed your warmth." He sits back and peels Quark's underwear from him. "I missed the feel of you."

"Hhh," Quark says, and pulls Odo back down against him. "Did you think about me?"

"Of course I did. I thought of what kind of mischief you were getting up to here on the station. Turns out my fears were founded."

"I mean did you think about me late at night!"

"Yes, especially when I got the security report about your little storage rental."

"Come on, Odo! Did you get turned on thinking of me?"

"What do you think?"

"I think you did," Quark grumbles, "judging by the way you can't keep your hands off me. You got hard alone in your bed thinking about me."

"I can neither confirm nor deny your incredibly narcissistic assertion," he says, pushing Quark's legs apart. "But there is something I'd like to try."

Odo guides Quark's knee upward, leg bending. "I don't know what it is but I'm sure I'd like to indulge you," Quark says. Odo chuckles and presses a kiss to the inner part of Quark's leg.

"I'd like to be very clear about my intentions," Odo says, "I've been thinking of it for days."

"By all means, be clear, I live for clarity--just do something."

"I want to put my fingers inside you and make you come," he says, "is that something you want?"

Quark stares for a long second. "Yes," he finally squeaks, realizing that Odo is waiting for verbal consent. "Yes! Do you think I'm stupid?" He scrambles to prop himself up on his elbows. "Do you really think I was going to say no to a proposal like that?! Odo, for the love of--oooooooh," he trails off as Odo's fingers move to where his dicks are everted, stroke along the folds of his sheath and gather the slick there. "Ah, yeah, anyway, yes, the answer is yes, please put your fingers inside of me, you business-trampling fascist, and make it q--ah!"

"Be quiet, Quark," Odo says, two fingertips moving down to run warm pads against his hole; not pressing in, just stroking outside. "According to my reading, you're supposed to relax for this."

"You're doing stuff you read in smut?" Quark asks, and then Odo dips to drag his damn tongue across the base of Quark's dick, the tender spot right were it splits off into two. "Oh fuck," Quark gasps, hips twitching. "If you're trying to make me relax, that is not the way to do it."

"Apologies," Odo says, not sounding sorry in the slightest, rubbing lightly across his hole before pressing the tip of his middle finger inside. "Is this all right?"

"I can barely feel it," Quark grumbles, which isn't true but he says it anyway, "come on, Odo, finger me like you mean it."

"Forgive me for wanting to be gentle with you."

"You're not being gentle, you're being inhumane!"

"Fine," Odo growls, and slides in to the last knuckle. Quark sighs, toes flexing with it. "Is that better?"

"It's a good start," Quark hums, grinding down against Odo's hand. "More."

Odo lays his other hand low on Quark's belly, pushes down to hold him in place. "Be still." It's a haughty order. His hand returns for more slick before he slides his middle finger into him again, slowed because of the presence of another, and Quark's eyes cross. Odo's hands aren't small, his digits long and clever; they seat fully into Quark, stretching his rim, knuckles dragging nicely as they twist inside of him. "There should be--a gland," Odo says, haltingly, fingers curling.

"Ye-eeeah, most humanoids have s-something like it--oh fuck," Quark gasps as the pads of Odo's fingers find it and work carelessly across it. "Yeah. There." Odo chuckles as he draws his fingers back only to slide in again and crook them in exactly the right spot, making Quark give a bitten-off shriek. "W-what's so funny?!"

"Your purring," Odo says. "I can feel your purring."

"Oh, great. My asshole purrs too. Hilarious," Quark snaps, only to absolutely break when Odo works a third finger into him. He hadn't gotten a lot of action recently before he and Odo started sleeping together, and it's been longer still since he's been fucked. He'd almost forgotten how good it feels to be stretched and played with like this.

"That isn't what I said. It's just that your purr shakes your whole body when it gets this intense." Odo nuzzles against the crease of Quark's thigh; Quark can feel his breath on his sheath, his cocks. He withdraws his fingers only to push in again, knuckles stretching his sensitive rim. A long, broken noise comes from Quark's throat as Odo slowly curls and uncurls his fingers, over and over, rubbing that spot that's worth more latinum than Quark can imagine. "You're so hot inside," Odo sighs, "soft and smooth. You feel so... pleasant."

"Pleasant," Quark repeats, flatly. "Elbow deep in me and he says I feel pleasant."

Odo's thumb presses lightly at the taut skin between his hole and the bottom of his sheath, and Quark sees stars. "Very pleasant," he repeats. "I could do this for hours."

"Wouldn't you rather fuck me?" The words are tumbling out of Quark's mouth before he can edit them, not that he would have, and Odo raises his head to meet Quark's gaze--his pupils are blown wide, irises down to slivers of blue.

"Yes," he breathes, curves his fingers a little harder, "very much."

"Then do it," he almost cries, he wants Odo's dick inside him so bad, he hasn't even seen it yet, it's probably weird-looking, unnaturally smooth or something, but whatever Odo's got, Quark wants it so badly he's near tears. "come on, Odo, do it, please--"

How did he get here, begging the chief of station security to fuck him? How did he get to this point in his life? He'd do it all again, go through every painful moment of his life exactly the same way, if it meant he'd end up here.

"Like this for now," Odo rasps, "for now, I want to make love to you with my hands." He presses low on Quark's stomach and on the skin between his sheath and hole and his fingertips flex inside him so his sweet spot is being touched from the outside and the inside and Quark thinks he'll never make fun of Odo for reading smut again.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck me, I'm close," he babbles, "Odo, Odo, please--"

And then Odo's mouthing wetly at the base of his dicks again, licking up between them, and that's it. Quark howls, comes in sharp pulses over his stomach, hands fisting in the sheets so hard he'll need to get new ones. Odo doesn't know when to stop, licks and works him til he's done and beyond, til Quark is whimpering and squirming under his touch.

"T-That's it," he squeaks, twisting away from the onslaught. "That's all. I can't do any more. Blessed Exchequer, Odo."

Odo slithers up his body, curls beside him and gathers him up into his arms, kisses him on the ear. Quark nestles close, noses against Odo's neck and breathes deeply just like Odo had done to him. Breathes his scent. Warm, earthy, like clean clothes fresh from the reclamator.

"Very pleasant," Odo says again, smugly, and Quark kicks him halfheartedly. He can hear his own purr resonating in Odo's chest.

"I wanna return the favor," Quark mumbles, kisses at Odo's neck. "Can I?"

"Not tonight, I think, Quark," Odo says. "Perhaps next time."

-

Odo lets Quark touch him, more and more. Quark gets to see what Odo's working with down there, so to speak, and it's roughly human, though definitely smooth and odd-looking--though most genitals are odd-looking in comparison to the extremely normal and elegantly frilled Ferengi hemipene, in Quark's opinion. It's still lovely, and Quark is allowed to touch it--tenderly, carefully--but only for seconds at a time, before Odo tells him to stop, catches his breath, tells him next time.

He's still so frightened to lose control over his body.

Quark is willing to wait, until it starts interfering with Odo's job.

-

Quark is minding his business in the bar, getting ready for the lunch rush, when Jadzia and Doctor Bashir come in.

"Good afternoon, Lieutenant, Doctor," Quark greets, smiling brightly, "off duty so soon? Sit, let's get you both something to drink!"

"Oh, thank you," Julian says, sitting at a barstool. Jadzia sits in the one next to him.

"We're actually here to talk to you," Jadzia says.

"It's about Odo," Julian continues.

"Yes? And what about him?"

"Is he eating and sleeping enough?" Julian asks. "Since he's sleeping in your quarters."

"He sleeps really well." Quark tilts his head. "Is something wrong?"

Jadzia shrugs. "That's what we're trying to find out."

"Over the past few days, he's shown irritability--"

Quark snorts.

"Increased irritability," Julian corrects, "he's been tense, complaining of muscle stiffness, and has had difficulty concentrating."

"Have you run any tests on him?"

Julian shakes his head. "He says he's fine and refuses any treatment."

Oh.

Quark's been doing nothing but teasing and edging him for days. Of course he's...

"I think I know what the issue is," Quark says slowly. "Don't you worry. You'll have a much happier Constable soon."

-

"Odo," Quark says the second the bedroom doors open and close behind him, "you have a brain now."

"Thank you, I hadn't noticed," Odo grumbles, not looking up from his PADD, "Quark, I'm working." He's sitting on their (Quark's) sofa, an undrunk cup of tea on the coffee table.

"No, you aren't. You're stewing. This is an intervention. You've got a brain and that brain needs serotonin and dopamine and all the other chemicals that it's supposed to bathe in regularly. You're grumpy--worse than usual!--and it's affecting your work!"

"Hrrmf." Odo crosses his arms.

"Not to mention that your posture is terrible because you're so tense. And your--"

"You're right," he says, "I have been feeling tense for the last few days."

"I think it's just gonna get worse if you ignore it," Quark says. "You're experiencing classic--"

"I think I'm sexually frustrated and need to orgasm," Odo says, invoking a calm he probably does not feel, "what do you think?"

Quark's mouth goes dry. "Um. Yeah, that's probably it," he says. "Do you. Um, do you want to try that?"

The ex-changeling pauses. "It's difficult to say," he finally says. "Yes, I do. But--" A note of anxiety creeps into his voice. "I don't know if I can."

"Of course you can," Quark says, softening his voice. He reaches out and takes Odo's PADD from him before settling carefully into his lap, straddling him.

"While I have... encountered evidence some mornings that the physical mechanics work exceptionally well," Odo says delicately, resting his hands on Quark's thighs, "I'm not sure I can allow myself to, when conscious and aware of myself."

Quark grins. "Were they about me?"

"Were what about you?"

"Your dirty dreams! What else?"

"I don't remember," Odo says loftily, in that tone that indicates he's lying through his teeth, "perhaps they were."

Quark nuzzles his nose against Odo's. "If the mechanics work, let me worry about everything else. Now, how do you wanna do this?"

Odo fixed Quark with A Look as his hands move to Quark's waist. "I think I'd like to get dinner first, you lewd little toad." His words are undercut with the hint of a smile.

"Of course!" Quark throws his hands up. "He wants to be wined and dined."

"I'm not a cheap date," he says, archly, "unlike some people."

Quark puts on his best Deeply Affronted face. "We're dating?"

"You're right. That sounds terrible. We're..."

"Romantically entangled," Quark leers, "and about to become a lot more so."

"I can hardly see what this act will do to change our situation. We've already made love in so many different ways."

"It's not going to change anything! It's just going to make you feel incredible." His purr colors his voice just the slightest amount. "Honestly, I'm honored to be there for your first... y'know."

"My first orgasm, Quark?" His voice is an amused, teasing growl. "My first time coming, as you put it?"

Quark nods quickly. He can feel his heart rate climbing. Is it warm in here? It feels warm in here.

"How you plan to coax one from me if you can't even say the word is beyond me."

"I can say orgasm, Odo! Forgive me for trying a little tact!"

"That's a first."

"You're being very rude to the gorgeous man who's going to make your brain melt this evening."

"Strong words. It can't be that nice."

Quark shrugs his shoulders. "You're right. It's better. So, what's the plan? We go for the horniest dinner in history and then jump on each other like a couple of crazed voles?"

Odo hrrmfs and stands, forcing Quark to scramble to his feet or be bounced off the floor. "You'll be doing enough jumping for the both of us, I think."

He actually extends his arm for Quark to loop his hand underneath and hold. How embarrassing. The only thing more embarrassing is that Quark does it.

-

So they go for the horniest dinner in history at Quark's bar, sitting at Odo's usual table on the second floor. It's nice to be at the bar as a patron, and his staff gives excellent service. Odo watches the crowd below, periodically comments.

"She's a refugee from Eminiar III," he says, pointing out one of the women beating her companion at dom-jot. He's done with his food, and one of Quark's servers appears out of nowhere to spirit off the dishes.

"She's a regular," Quark says. "Her wife helped her escape. They got married last year."

"Oh?"

"I'm a bartender. People tell me things."

"I have to admit you have the temperament for the job."

"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me. Other than that I'm pleasant, I guess--"

"I said that specific act was pleasant, not that you are."

"Deny it all you want. You like me."

"Hrrmf," Odo says, but lays his hand over Quark's, thumb stroking over his inner wrist. "If that helps you sleep at night to believe, then go ahead."

There's a long pause, filled with happy noises from downstairs. Maybe that's why Odo likes this table; not because he can observe everyone like a hawk, but so that he can ear all the joyous sounds from below so clearly.

"We could take a holosuite." Quark nudges his fingers into the sleeve of Odo's uniform. "Go somewhere really nice. We could make love under the stars. On the beach. On Risa. Eeaiou. Earth. Anywhere you want."

"Our bedroom will do just fine, Quark."

Our bedroom. Quark's heart skips a beat. "Okay. If that's what you want."

"What I want is you."

Quark lets out a shaky breath. "You can't just say something like that to me in public, Odo."

"Then let's get out of public," Odo says, like it's the simplest thing in the universe, and Quark almost trips over his own feet in his hurry to stand.

-

Odo kisses him before the door is even closed; he's hungry and eager and Quark is drunk on it already. Tonight's about Odo. Finally.

"You can still say stop anytime, okay?" Quark says, yanking Odo's uniform tunic off and tossing it carelessly aside before shoving him toward the bed. The backs of Odo's knees hit the bed and he sits with a hmph!

"I know that," he says. "I don't plan to."

"Okay," Quark says, kneeling down between Odo's legs and moving clever fingers to the closure of his pants. He gets them open and taps Odo's hip. "Lift." Odo obeys, and Quark shimmies the pants off and down Odo's legs, bringing his underwear with it. Odo is naked before him, strange smooth cock hard and flushed pink. He wants it in his mouth. "I wanna blow you so bad," Quark blurts out, "please say I can blow you, Odo."

Odo nods, and Quark takes the tip of Odo's cock into his mouth. Odo gasps, hitches, struggles not to move his hips. Quark works his tongue across heated skin, revels in the taste of him. He grips Odo's thighs, can feel one of Odo's hands moving to tentatively touch his neck, the base of his skull.

"I--it feels strange," Odo says, helplessly, and Quark realizes he really wants to be able to talk Odo through this, and can't if he's got a dick in his mouth. He pulls back, looks up at Odo from under raised brow ridges.

"Strange but good, right?"

Odo nods. Quark can see him swallow.

"New plan," Quark says. "Can I ride you?"

"Please," Odo replies, nodding. "Please, yes."

Quark guides Odo to lean back against the headboard; he sits back on his haunches and scrambles out of his own jacket and shirt. Odo reaches for him, undoes the closure of his trousers with quick hands. Quark is naked, the bedroom lights at fifty percent or so, leaving him fully visible. All over. He shivers and crawls into Odo's lap.

"Are you cold?" Odo murmurs, and Quark shakes his head. Odo's hands flatten against Quark's back, slide up and rest one between his shoulderblades and the other at the base of his spine.

Odo's cock is pressed to the slit of his sheath, his own dicks not yet everted. He drags his hips up, grinds the outside of his sheath against Odo's dick. It's wet, it's getting Odo wet. There isn't much room in his sheath, barely enough for a few fingers, and not deeply at that; still, he imagines taking Odo inside there, just a little. It's a silly fantasy, but it's nice. Odo groans, fingers curling and nails digging into Quark's skin. He rubs his sheath up against Odo's cock again; it feels good, and it feels a lot better when he everts and their dicks are slick and pressed together between their stomachs.

"Quark," Odo manages, "I--oh--"

"We could just keep doing this," Quark says, struggling to keep his voice even, "or I could sit down on your cock and ride you. What do you want?"

"Slow down," Odo gasps, and Quark stops moving his hips. "I--I want to be inside of you. I want my first to be inside of you," he clarifies, and Quark's brain goes blank for a second.

"Yeah," he says, "me too."

He raises up on his knees, gathers slick from his sheath and reaches back to slide fingers, first one the the other, into himself. Odo watches his face like he's trying to find something there, hands cupping his ass like it's a treasure (it is). Quark doesn't take his time, hurries through this because he lost the last of his patience a long time ago and Odo wants to come in his ass so it's not like he's going to make him wait.

"Don't move," Quark orders as he pulls his fingers out, spreads wetness across Odo's cock with his other hand and aligns his hips, "for the love of latinum, don't move."

"All right," Odo agrees, and Quark inches downward. Odo's breath stops for a few seconds as Quark's body takes him. Quark doesn't stop until he's sitting in Odo's lap again, and he lets out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. It feels good, better than fingers, better than he remembered; he's filled and wonderfully stretched, but it feels good, like working muscles long-unused. His hands move to Odo's face, cradling his jaw and tipping it to meet his eyes.

"You okay?" he asks, shakily, and Odo nods.

"Yes," he says, eyes glazed with it.

Quark rolls his hips, experimentally, and Odo breathes sharply. Quark does it again, and again, and Odo is making sweet, little ah-ah-ah noises with every exhale. "You can move now," Quark says, and Odo's heels dig into the mattress to offer him the leverage to buck upward and drive into him. "Oh fuck," Quark gasps as Odo's dick puts blunt, unyielding pressure on his sweet spot; he grinds down against him as Odo thrusts upward, and he knows this is supposed to be about Odo but this is so good and then Odo's pressing even closer and Quark's dicks are trapped between their stomachs even harder, near frictionless with all the slick he's producing--by the time he realizes he's going to come, he can't stop it. He slows down, tries to savor the feeling as he tightens around Odo's cock; he cries out and comes in hot bursts into the heated space between their bodies. He stills, catching his breath.

Odo is shaking under him, and still hard inside of him. Quark takes a deep breath and moves, slowly, draws almost totally off him and then slides back down. "Y-you don't have to," Odo says, "if you're too--sensitive--"

He is sensitive, and it's a lot, but Quark isn't a quitter. "Shut up," he says, repeating the long, fluid motion, so different from the short little thrusts and rocking motions that had gotten him off. He fucks himself properly on Odo's cock, and Odo is struggling, eyes closed, brow furrowed, breath coming in hot puffs against Quark's neck. "Let go, Odo," he says, nuzzling their noses together.

"I--I don't know how."

"Your body does. Trust it."

Odo's fighting orgasm even as his body cries for it, even as he jerks harder into Quark's body. "I can't," he half-sobs, "I can't trust it. I don't know what's happening."

"Then trust me," Quark says, and Odo's eyes fly open; he rests his forehead down against Odo's, holds his gaze. "Because you do trust me, don't you, Odo?"

Odo keens, toes curling and body drawn tight as an instrument's strings.

"I've got you, Odo, just ride it out." Odo's movements grow halting, stuttering. He's fighting so hard for control, and for what? He remembers something Odo had said weeks ago, it's the falling I'm afraid of, and he shakes his head, finds one of Odo's hands with his own and holds it tight between their chests. "I'm not gonna let you fall. But you know that already, don't you?" He moves a little faster, sending shocks of pleasure up his spine, making Odo cry out. "You know it because you trust me like I trust you."

"Yes--Quark--"

"Say it," Quark whispers against Odo's ear, and Odo breaks.

"I trust you," he sobs, his breathing going erratic and gasping as every muscle in his body seems to tense tightly; he grips Quark's hand so hard it hurts, draws his knees up like he's trying to shield himself as he comes, agonizingly, heat spilling into Quark as he stares unfocused into Quark's eyes. It feels like it lasts forever, his whole body twitching with it even as he relaxes and slumps back against the headboard.

"Odo? Odo, you okay?"

Odo's unresponsive for a few terrifying seconds and then his mouth curves into a smile and he giggles, uncontrolled, buries his face against Quark's neck.

"That's not an answer, Odo!"

"I'm wonderful," he says, "that was divine, why do humanoids ever do anything other than that?"

"We have refractory periods." Quark kisses Odo once, quickly. "Shower time."

"Wait, I--" Odo's body jolts slightly. "Is--is it still happening?!"

"Aftershocks. It's normal, especially if you come really, really hard."

"It feels good." Odo sounds dazed and happy and Quark feels the satisfaction of a job well done and he's so in love that it aches.

-

Once Odo can walk, they move to the shower and spend a luxurious amount of time there before tumbling into bed.

Odo's mood and general job performance is greatly improved the next day. Jadzia slides Quark a sideways look and a discreet thumbs-up.

-

Now that Odo's learned that sometimes losing control of your body is good, he's insatiable. More so than before, even.

Quark is bent into pretzel shapes he never before imagined as they fuck all over the damn place, in the holosuites, in their quarters--even, once, bent over the counter in Quark's bar after hours.

Quark is deliriously happy, and deeply in love, and learns that sucking Odo off is a great way to make him stop asking questions about business deals; unfortunately, Odo learns the reverse about getting Quark to spill information about the aforementioned business deals.

So. It's a give and take. Just like it always was. But considerably more fun now.

"I hope you never do anything to land you in real trouble," Odo says, leaning against the arch of the holding cell Quark found himself in once again. He puts the forcefield down; turns out Quark is innocent this time... mostly. "I'd hate to see you in a Federation penal colony."

"Even though you'd testify against me at my trial?"

"Especially because I'd testify against you at your trial."

As it happens, Quark has turned down riskier, more severely-punished-should-he-be-caught opportunities lately. He's got something to lose now that's more valuable to him than the latinum that could be gained.

He's pretty sure that breaks at least twelve of the Rules, but... they're more like suggestions, really.

"They wouldn't have you at my trial, anyway. You present a conflict of interest. Because we're sleeping together," he clarifies, unnecessarily, leering up at him. "Speaking of sleeping together..."

Odo hrmmfs and turns on his heel.

-

He makes Odo pay a few slips for the baby changeling. A pittance, really, and just because he feels like being a bother.

He knows better than to stick his nose in Odo's business about it and leaves him largely alone. His bedmate spends long hours with the thing, carries them with him like a teddy bear. Like a child, Quark's thoughts helpfully suggest. He tells Quark about the baby at night, curled up with him and talking animatedly about them, how small and helpless they are, but how excited Odo is to be teaching them.

He's not expecting it, but Odo comes down into the bar one afternoon and--shows the baby changeling around, teaches them the words 'dabo' and 'dom-jot' and 'drink' and 'food,' and then he brings them up to the counter.

"Can I help you two?" Quark asks, smiling lopsidedly and charmed at Odo's reverence toward the little vat he's holding.

Odo holds the baby out to him. "Here," he says, "be careful."

"You--You want me to hold them?"

Odo nods. "Introduce yourself," he says.

"I think they already know me," he chuckles, and Odo shakes his head.

"They were sick then. They can probably hardly remember." He holds the beaker out a little further.

Quark takes the beaker in his hands, cupping the bottom of it and holding it up to the light. It looks... goopy, like Odo looked when he slept in his bucket, but smaller. Thinner. "Hi," he says to it, feeling kind of silly, but also strangely honored. "I'm Quark. Nice to meet you."

The baby doesn't react whatsoever, but Odo is radiant.

-

Sometimes babies just die.

No apparent cause. No illness, no injury. No rhyme, no reason. Like they forget how to breathe because they aren't used to being people yet. They just die.

It's said that babies that die are held at the Blessed Exchequer's side, his personal aides, brought to him and treasured because they were more divinely important to him than the profit they could have earned. It's a cold comfort to a grieving mother.

There isn't any comfort to be found. It's cruel, and it's unfair, but sometimes babies just die.

Quark supposes baby changelings are no different.

"They merged with you, right?" Quark says, holding Odo tightly around the shoulders. "They didn't die. They just became part of you. They're with you right now."

That doesn't seem to make it better. Quark knew it wouldn't. There isn't any comfort to be found. Odo's shoulders heave. He's a changeling again, and he can't cry, but his body remembers how to. Remembers the motions.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I'm so sorry, Odo."

"Me too," Odo says.

-

Not much about their relationship changes now that the ex-changeling is an ex-ex-changeling. The body Quark cuddles with at night is more... variable, sometimes a blanket of goo, sometimes a Terran cheetah lounging over him, sometimes a Ferengan python curled around his body, sometimes a simple rat curled in the crook of his neck, sometimes his usual human form. No matter the shape, it's always Odo. Quark likes the different bodies he assumes. He's always an excellent bedmate.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Quark says, standing nervously in the holosuite that's displaying a wide, flat prairie, and Odo is smiling brightly and breathing in the sunny air with lungs he no longer needs.

"I'm not going to drop you," Odo assures him, and transforms into an Altairian shoebill; he's easily three times Quark's height and when he spreads his wings the span is ludicrous. So that's why Odo wanted the biggest holosuite, Quark thinks a little dazedly, and then Odo flaps those enormous wings, scoops Quark up in his talons, and takes off.

Ferengi descended from prey animals and Quark will blame that fact for the rush of absolute terror he feels as the ground falls away from him. Odo gives an ear-piercing birdy screech and Quark screeches to match.

The flight lasts way too long, in Quark's opinion, and he frantically smooths his clothes down and tries hard to stop trembling. Odo tilts his huge bird head in confusion before transforming back down into humanoid shape.

"Didn't you have fun?" he asks, bewildered.

Quark wheezes. Then he passes out.

-

Odo doesn't have nerve endings anymore.

"Oh," Quark says when Odo tells him this, apologetically, to explain his lack of reaction when Quark touched him.

"It isn't as if it doesn't feel nice," Odo says, "it's just not..."

"It's not erotic," Quark mumbles. "Great. And after all the trouble we went to."

"I still enjoy this," Odo says. "Let me make you purr."

"When you put it like that," Quark says, and kisses him.

Odo has new appendages now. Specifically, he has whatever appendages he wants. Tendrils, tentacles, whatever--bits of him split off and pet Quark all over, slide into him, rub his ears. It's weird, but it's hot. Quark thinks Odo could do almost anything to him and he'd think it was hot, though, so he's got an unfair advantage. Those bits of Odo are certainly active now, swiftly divesting Quark of his clothes and turning to liquid against his bare skin.

Again, weird, but judging by the way Quark's dicks evert as Odo maneuvers him onto his back on the bed, it's still hot.

"There we are," Odo hums, sounding satisfied, as Quark's kee-tarik starts up.

"Still smug as ever, I see," Quark grumbles. Odo spreads out over the top of him, turns a little goopy and lets Quark's dicks inside him. It feels too good to think too long about how weird it is, and then Odo ripples around him and yeah, okay, that's definitely weird--and then parts of Odo are playing with his sheath, dipping inside the little that it allows, other parts of him sliding lower to press slick and easy into his hole, and it's just getting weirder and weirder but Quark is an expert in weird at this point. Two humanoid hands are rubbing his ears, thumbs at his favorite spot right at his jaw; he moans, loud, and feels Odo shiver.

"I--I want to link with you," he says, like the idea is surprising to him, and Quark blinks.

"You want to what?"

"I don't know if I can. But--I want to try. I want to link with you, Quark."

"Um," Quark says, because weird body stuff is one thing but weird mind-melding stuff is another, "Ferengi aren't good telepaths, Odo, I'm not sure you can, and--what does it mean, anyway? Linking?"

"Sharing thoughts. Feelings. Memories. It's--intimate. I won't try unless you say it's all right," he says, "but I--I want to."

Quark can feel Odo's strange, goopy body thrumming with need, and he realizes that he's being asked to lose control. He's being asked to give up control and do something he's never done, something he has no concept of, something he can't possibly relate to before doing it.

He's terrified.

He won't be able to hide anything from Odo, will he? He quickly runs some numbers, does some fast math. Has he done anything particularly illegal recently? He comes down on the side of 'no, probably not,' but it's still--

He'd see Odo, too, right? The workings of his mind? What it feels like to be a changeling?

Odo wants to share that with him.

He shivers.

"Why did you go through with it?"

"Because I wanted to."

Is this how scared Odo felt?

"You know what," Quark says, "it's not the dumbest thing I've ever done for sex. Let's do it."

Odo shudders and nods and there's a rushing noise in Quark's ears and then he's something else entirely, not Quark and Odo, but Quark-and-Odo, a totally new thing--

A being that's loved itself for a long time, since the station was called Terok Nor, it thinks; hated and hunted and evaded and schemed and foiled and loved, loved, loved.

He curls his pliable form around his solid body. He curls his own fingers into himself, liquid tendrils slipping between his digits. He feels everything. He feels--what's the opposite of 'alone?' Together, part of him helpfully suggests. We're together. Coupled. Partnered.

Wow, another part of him thinks. He feels his voice saying it out loud.

Which of his bodies is saying it?

Does it matter?

He laughs, the feeling reverberating first through his ascending ribcage and then his soft, liquid form.

Don't get lost, Quark, part of him admonishes gently, and he feels himself pulled apart, back into two separate beings--almost. The Quark part says Shut up.

Odo's body retains humanoid form, for the most part; when they move together, it's joyous. "Oh," Odo breathes through Quark's mouth and Quark realizes that Odo might not have nerve endings of his own but he's co-opting Quark's now and Quark knows Odo's body remembers how to come, it has to. He encourages Odo to press inside him again, begs for it silently, cants his hips and doesn't try to hide his longing. Odo obeys and fills him, like he did as a solid, strokes him all over with warm and buzzing hands that don't look like hands, and it's genuinely difficult for Quark to tell where one body ends and the other begins because he feels it all. Odo feels Quark's pleasure, and Quark feels Odo feeling it, and--and it's too much.

He wants to hold back, wants to draw this out, but then he feels his own purr how Odo feels it, the low vibration through his whole body, and it makes Odo so satisfied to hear, so content;

Is that really how you see me?

Yes, of course it is, why else would I be doing this?

and it's over; they're coming, the both of them, sharing the same sensations and the same bodies and for several glorious seconds they're inseparable, floating, broken in together.

Wow.

They come down off their high slowly, catching Quark's breath. It feels good, intimate, just to be linked. They gather Odo back into fully humanoid form, except for his dissolved hands still in contact with Quark, maintaining their link.

Let go of me, Quark.

No, Quark grumbles petulantly, why should I? This is nice.

You have profits to earn. Can't do that if we're entangled. Odo is carefully picking through their minds, splitting them back up again. Quark whines low in his throat. Who's going to protect the bar from Rom's mismanagement?

"I guess you're right," he says out loud as their link is broken, Odo's hands fully solid again.

"So," Odo says, pulling Quark's pliant body into his arms, "how was that?"

"You know exactly how it was. You were there. Tell me: as good as when you were stuck as a solid?"

Odo chuckles. Quark's ear is pressed to his chest. There's no heartbeat, but there's his usual goopy sounds that should have been there all along.

I do love you, Quark feels more than hears from Odo. He wonders if it's a residual connection. Post-link lingering, or something.

"I think it'll do," Odo says.

-

"I swear I'm innocent," Quark says, bringing his wrists together. "I had nothing to do with that obscene, raucous mob on the promenade. I certainly had no idea they were Risian exotic dancers. I had no idea and I definitely am not getting paid for their presence by anybody--"

"So you had no idea that today was Lieutenant Dax's bachelorette party?"

"Well, of course I knew! That's why I bought her a tasteful gift of fuzzy handcuffs. I had nothing to do with the dancers."

"Would you care to say that while linked, Quark?" It's an empty threat. He's never linked with Quark for information. That's something sacred, something far beyond the scope of their game.

Quark squawks theatrically. "After all we've been through, you--Besides, anything you learned from me while linked wouldn't be admissible in court! It would be hearsay! I can't believe you don't trust me at my word!"

Odo crosses his arms, body language grumpy, but the corners of his mouth twitching with the effort it takes not to smile, just a little. "Not nearly as far as I can throw you."

"Besides. Is it even illegal to invite a few dancers to your best friend's bachelorette party? Especially the night before she's about to be married to someone as... special as Major Kira?"

"It's illegal to create a disturbance that stretches all the way to Ops," Odo says, on a lofty sigh, "but I suppose it would be difficult to prosecute."

"I'm glad you agree."

Odo tilts his head. There's still noises from outside. "It seems the party is still going on," he says.

"Mm! It'll be going til at least four this morning."

Odo extends his arm. "I'll have to supervise it, of course. In case you have any more disruptive surprises."

"You won't be disappointed." Quark grins and loops his arm through Odo's. "You can be my plus-one."

"Good," Odo says, folding his other hand over the top of Quark's. "I wouldn't want to be over here while you're over there."

-

Odo learns later that Quark genuinely isn't (entirely) responsible for the dancers. Or, at least, they weren't his idea.

They were Sisko's.