Chapter Text
"You coming ?" Quark asked him, just having taken a seat on the couch.
Odo hesitated. True, he had been the one to approach Quark and ask him this favor. Ask him to practice things that would come up in relationships with solids, things like..
"I can't snuggle on a couch on my own!" Quark said, impatience and playfulness equally present. He patted on his lap.
"Put your head here."
He had asked Quark for this, he had known who he had asked, what he had asked for- and yet still Odo found he hadn't quite been prepared for the scope.
Odo didn't move.
"Isn't that too sexual, my head on a humanoid genital area ?"
"Intimacy is part of relationships."
Odo had nothing to reply to that. But Quark could see his lingering discomfort.
A slight panic registered in Quark's mind. Not enough to make him pace or babble or even freeze. But one that send his thoughts reeling no less.
Yes, laying in a lap didn't have to be sexual - he hadn't even thought about Oo-mox, at least not right away, more of caresses over the face - but it fully well could be, in that Odo had a point, even for a Ferengi, whose 'genital area' as Odo had said wasn't between their legs- not that others hadn't put their genitals between his legs...but that were only distracting thoughts now.
And he needed to focus.
On the now. On Odo. On how by all the missing money of the Vault he was supposed to do this.
Who was he to teach anyone about relationships, really ?
When Odo had come to him, he had at first thought it was a joke. Then he had suspected it was a very malicious joke.
After that, maybe not in the exact order, pride, smugness, curiosity. Often all together.
The famously cold Constable, the driest prude there was had come to him, to ask his advice.
Even if he had been honest with himself in that very moment about his actual lack of knowledge when it came to relationships, not one night stands, relationships, his pride wouldn't have allowed him to decline.
He also really wanted to see how far Odo was willing to go, what...what he was like when he wasn't quoting regulations.
Now, if Odo already complained about a pose being too sexual...that meant he needed something...unsexy ?
Work. What about work ?
Yes, numbers were sexy too, sometimes, but not as directly sexy as a lap.
He could catch up on his running expenses and Odo could read novels. There were at least some in his library that were right up his alley, or he could download his own.
"Wait here." Quark told him and then returned, handing one PADD to Odo. Odo took it, a quizzical look on his face.
"Now we sit on the couch and read. Kind of together." He added quickly, to have a reason why this still counted as relationship training. They were doing something together, just not each other, that counted, right ?
Odo sat down at one end of the couch, PADD still closed.
"So we just sit here ? Without any contact? I mean- you are the expert.." He quickly added, looking a bit guilty about having spoken up. It made Quark feel the beginning of guilt and some more of the main course.
"I- I didn't want to freak you out," Quark made up on the spot, "after what you said about laps."
Odo nodded. "Thank you." He hesitated. "But since I'm here to learn, you can do...maybe a little bit ?"
Quark inwardly groaned, asking himself what 'a little bit' in this context looked like.
What was a little bit of 'not unsexy'...well, a little bit sexy, but this wasn't about sex, it was about relationships.
...but hadn't he just told Odo relationships and sex were connected ?!
Feeling Odo's eyes on him, he acted on instinct and turned his back to him. Next came the fact that he still needed to sit down on the couch too.
By some bribed miracle, he ended up leaning against Odo's side, his feet outstretched on the couch, own PADD in hand, as if this position had been his plan all along.
He was so good at bullshitting, he should give himself a raise.
Which reminded him, right, the expenses, that's why the PADD was here...
...he was in the middle of calculating how much more he could pay himself and when Rom would approximately start to notice, when he remembered his surroundings.
Behind him, his ears couldn't detect much tensed goo around Odo's mouth. Which meant he probably wasn't pressing his lips together in anger.
A discreet peek over the shoulder showed him Odo reading.
He was still in business, still uncaught.
Also, the more he leaned on him, Quark found that Odo was much more comfortable than his stiff posture would suggest. Instead of feeling like squished against hardened mud, it was like... like...a tree...a nicely rained on, soggy tree.
"I have read this book before," Odo spoke up, "but it has been a while. I hadn't expected you to have it."
Quark turned over his shoulder officially.
"I take this as a compliment and you can't stop me." Quark told him. He saw Odo shake his head and return to the text.
This was...nice...Quark found. And in the end easier than he had thought.
Eventually their agreed on time ended.
They got up from the couch. With a reminder that the outside world still existed, it was suddenly weirder than it already was for Odo to stand in Quark's quarters.
"Uhmm..thanks." Odo said.
"How...how did you like it ?"
"It was...strange. But that means I'm not used to it yet."
"R-right !" Quark replied, using what was handed to him.
Not knowing what to do with his hands, with himself, he gave Odo a short hug.
Odo looked at him. "I thought we were done for today ?"
Quark's mind raced on. "This..is something we should do..hug...as a welcome..next time we meet !"
"So for every start we will hug now ?"
"Yes !"
Odo shrugged.
"All right, you're the expert."
At Odo's words, Quark felt smugness in being able to pull this off and anxiety when he wouldn't.