Chapter Text
"Humans never take the time to savor their food."
"I wouldn't say never, Mr. Garak. I for one am enjoying this lunch."
"Mr. Aziraphale, how much experience do you have with humans?"
"Mr. Garak! Of course I am quite human myself."
Aziraphale picked up the wide-bottomed blue cup this station's replicators were programmed to provide raktajino in. At least in the privacy of his own head, he did have to admit that it was better in a traditional cup. Still, he was looking forward to the arrival of the ship that would take them back to Earth. He missed London. He missed his own mugs. It was the little things an angel craved when he went off-planet. Also, he would swear on his old sword that this station's replicators just didn't make raktajino as well as the Klingon cafe in Soho.
Across the table Garak widened his eyes slightly. There was an unmistakable curl to the corner of his mouth. "Pardon me, Mr. Aziraphale. I suppose it's my Cardassian nature, to suspect things based on mere threads of evidence."
Aziraphale smiled. "Perhaps it's in your nature as a tailor."
"A tailor? Oh, yes, threads, haha." Garak shook his head. "Certainly you aren't going to insist that your companion is human, however."
"I can't imagine where you'd get that idea," Aziraphale said, hoping Crowley hadn't done anything foolish that morning.
"One semi-reptilian humanoid to another, Mr. Aziraphale."
Aziraphale took a leisurely sip of his raktajino before setting his cup back on the table. "What a curious notion. Was it the shoes?"
"It wasn't not the shoes," Garak said. Cardassians, in Aziraphale's extremely limited experience (Garak), did not shrug. But he did tilt his head and make the suggestion of a dismissive gesture with one hand.
"They're not real, of course. Crowley simply enjoys the aesthetic."
"He does have his own unique grasp of aesthetic, doesn't he?"
"Do you disapprove?"
"The opposite!" Garak smiled again, this time with the hint of teeth. "He came into my shop this morning. Just after I opened. He purchased a dress I had up in the window."
"Oh, the red one? He couldn't stop talking about it yesterday evening. We passed your shopfront on our way through the Promenade." And what a charming name for a main street. Aziraphale thought that Deep Space 9 itself was perhaps rather, well. He did enjoy being able to say that he and Crowley had strolled along the Promenade.
"I trust you'll find that it suits him. I did make the necessary adjustments for fit, of course."
"Crowley usually prefers - replicated clothing," Aziraphale said, absolutely certain from the way Garak's eyes moved that he had caught the slight pause as Aziraphale edited himself out of saying miracled. "But we've been picking up souvenirs to take home, you see."
"I'm quite flattered to have one of my creations chosen."
"Garak! I'm sorry I'm … late."
Aziraphale and Garak both turned to see a human man in a Starfleet sciences uniform rapidly coming to a halt a couple of feet from their table. He was skinny and angled, and the smile on his face wavered somewhat when he met eyes with Aziraphale.
"Have I taken your seat?" Aziraphale asked. "I'm terribly sorry-"
"Don't be, Mr. Aziraphale," Garak said, immediately. He glanced sideways at the human and picked up his fork. "If Dr. Bashir isn't late to lunch, he nearly swallows it whole." He pointed his fork at Aziraphale. "Just as I said: humans don't savor their food."
The man, presumably one Dr. Bashir, folded his hands together behind his back. For all his angles, the look on his face reminded Aziraphale of nothing so much as his own expression when he finally looked up from a book to find Crowley all done up in finery, asleep on the couch, and the clock reading a time well past some reservation they'd had.
"My meeting ran over," Bashir said.
Aziraphale could have told him not to say that, but he knew better than to intrude. Taking another sip of his raktajino conveniently allowed him not to comment.
"Meetings tend to do that. Funny, how it always seems to be so unexpected," Garak replied. "Nothing to worry about, Doctor. Mr. Aziraphale was looking for a seat and I was pleased to offer him one."
There was not enough raktajino in his mug to continue drinking it through the rest of this conversation. He said, over his half-full plate, "I am nearly finished."
"Please don't rush on my account," Bashir said. "I am the one who was late."
"Hmm," Garak said. He took a bite of his food.
Aziraphale glanced down the walkway of the Promenade, but still didn't see any hint of Crowley's approach. Who knew how long that holosuite program could run. Their ship back to Earth didn't depart for two days. Aziraphale had gently suggested that the Ferengi proprietor of the bar would suspect something if Crowley stayed in the holosuite that long, and also that Aziraphale himself would be miffed, but they hadn't made any plans beyond trying the Klingon restaurant that evening.
"Then you simply must join us," he said, deliberately annoying the sharp expression that flitted over Garak's face. Bashir started to protest and Aziraphale moved his plate over. "Don't be silly, there's plenty of room. Besides, it's good to hear a familiar accent."
"I…" Bashir glanced at Garak, who did not make eye contact with him, and reluctantly unclasped his hands from behind his back. "Of course, Mr… Azirafell?"
"Aziraphale." Although that did send him back. At some point he would have to shift his name again, but this era had made it pleasantly possible to use his own for a while.
"Dr. Julian Bashir. I'm the Chief Medical Officer on this station."
"Oh! It must have been a very important meeting."
Garak directed another sharp expression his way, although he continued to eat instead of commenting.
"I'll be right back," Bashir said.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Garak leaned forward slightly. "You didn't have to put yourself to that trouble, my friend."
"It was no trouble." Aziraphale picked his fork back up and smiled innocently. "In my experience, making a small concession goes a long way toward smoothing out disagreements with one's partner."
"I can't imagine where you'd get that idea," Garak said, parroting his own earlier words back to him. "Dr. Bashir is an acquaintance, that's all."
He looked a little smug for someone who was supposed to be objecting to an untruth, though. And naturally the hint of smugness disappeared the instant Bashir returned to the table with a tray of food in one hand and a chair pilfered from a nearby table in the other.
"My mistake," Aziraphale murmured. He turned to their new companion before there could be any questions about what his apology was for. "Forgive my prying, but you are from England?"
"Yes. But we moved around a lot."
"We go where life takes us, sometimes," Aziraphale said. Bashir gave him a small smile and began eating, food that Aziraphale recognized as Bajoran, although he didn't think he'd had that particular dish yet. He said, "My partner and I have lived many places - he wants to get a flat in Mayfair when we return to Earth, in fact."
Bashir's mouth was full, so he didn't respond, but his eyebrows did shoot up. Aziraphale considered it significant that Garak saw this and put his own fork down to ask, "Where do you live now?"
"Above an old family archive in Soho. There's more than enough space for the both of us but Crowley says my collection is stretching the bounds of physics," he said, with only a small sigh. It was true but unfair.
"An archivist! You didn't mention that. What is it you archive, Mr. Aziraphale?"
Bashir swallowed his food and took a sip of his water. "You had half a meal together and didn't ask what he does?"
"We were discussing the merits of the restaurants on the Promenade," Garak said.
Before that conversation could get off its feet, Aziraphale cleared his throat. "I have an archive of books. Paper books. The archive itself is centuries old at this point." He smiled at the surprise on both their faces. "They still do make paper books on Earth, you know. Not many, but for certain debut authors and sometimes when a celebrated writer has produced a seminal work."
Garak looked thoughtful. "I can't recall the last time I read a paper book."
"I don't know if I've ever read a paper book," Bashir said.
"Yes, we know your Federation-centric education has been lacking," Garak said. He cast his eyes up at the offense on Bashir's face and sighed, clarifying, "Your cultural education, my dear Doctor. I make no comment on the quality of your medical training."
Aziraphale smiled again. "How interesting, Mr. Garak. I've called Crowley my dear for, oh, feels like millenia. Is that a Cardassian tradition too?"
Garak smiled back. "It must be a quirk of the universal translator."
"Undoubtedly."
Bashir looked back and forth between them, eyes wide, shoulders tense. He held himself like a man watching someone defuse a bomb. With one hand tied behind their back. While blindfolded.
Which is exactly when Crowley swanned up to the table, for some reason wearing a 20th-century style tuxedo, and sunglasses that definitely belonged in the latter half of the 1900s. Bashir looked terribly startled, and Garak almost threateningly thoughtful. If Crowley noticed either of their reactions he didn't show it. He just dragged a chair up to Aziraphale's side, dropped down into it, and pressed a kiss to Aziraphale's cheek.
"Hello, dearest," Aziraphale said. He didn't look at Garak, but he did hear the tiniest catch of irritated breath from across the table. "Did you have fun in the holosuite? What on Earth are you wearing a tuxedo for?"
"For the game, obviously," Crowley said, grinning. His face was a little flushed, his currently short hair a tad more mussed than normal. He picked up Aziraphale's mug and took a sip of raktajino.
"It's replicated," Aziraphale warned him.
"Angel, nobody but you can taste the difference. It is literally the same down to the molecular level. Hi again, Garak."
"Good afternoon, Mr. Crowley," Garak replied.
He did not move to introduce Bashir, who Crowley was sizing up from behind his glasses, so Aziraphale did instead. "Crowley, this is Dr. Bashir. He's the chief medical officer here."
"Pleased to meet you," Bashir said. "May I… inquire as to what program you were running in the holosuite? Out of curiosity, of course. I'm pretty familiar with Quark's library."
Crowley glanced sideways at Aziraphale and winked behind his sunglasses. Aziraphale was forced to admit to himself that the effect, with his sleek glasses and the crisp tuxedo, was attractively roguish. Crowley said, his voice drawling, "Spy stuff. Averting the end of the world. You know, same old."
Bashir opened and shut his mouth, and at his side, Garak quietly ate another bite of food, one of the corners of his mouth quirked slightly. Bashir finally asked, "Quark let you play my holosuite program?"
"Yours?" Crowley shrugged. "Guess so. I added some customizations-"
"You edited my holosuite program?"
"No no no no," Crowley said. He held up both hands and made a cutting motion, sweeping them back and forth in front of himself. "Paid the Ferengi for a copy, probably more than it was worth, mind you, but he's the only supplier around and I didn't bring any with me. Then I made some edits. Can't have a spy game-"
"It's not a game," Bashir muttered. "It's a role playing adventure fantasy."
"-game," Crowley repeated, smoothly, "without a car. And car chases."
Aziraphale said, "Oh Crowley you didn't," and Bashir said, "You added car chases to my program? It's set in the 1960s, they didn't have autonomous vehicles back then. Do you even know how to drive a car?"
"Absolutely, of course I do," Crowley said, as Aziraphale said, "Driving is stretching the term."
Crowley glared at him.
"In this car chase," Garak said, calling Crowley's attention to him. "Are you the one chasing, or being chased?"
"Oh, love a good chase, me," Crowley said. His grin stretched his face from ear to ear. "But it's more fun to outwit and escape than it is to do the chasing, yeah? Too much like work."
"And what is it you do, Mr. Crowley? It didn't come up while I was taking your measurements this morning. By the way, I intend to have the clothing delivered to your quarters by nightfall," Garak said. At the mention of his having recorded Crowley's measurements, something flickered over the doctor's face, too quickly to be read well. Unless you were Aziraphale, who went back to eating his lunch and smiling to himself.
Crowley opened his mouth, paused, and decided to say, "I write holosuite programs."
Which wasn't untrue. It just didn't explain the…
"There's a lot of being chased down in private vehicles in the holosuite business, is there? Quark has never mentioned that," Garak said.
Bashir added, as if the topic were entirely serious, "He does live on a space station. There isn't anywhere to drive to. I think Constable Odo would object to a … scooter chase on the Promenade."
His expression pained, Garak replied, "Please do not have Chief O'Brien replicate scooters so that you can have a chase on the Promenade."
"Do you even know what a scooter is?" Bashir asked. His eyes were narrow, like he was annoyed at the mere implication that he would get involved in a race on the Promenade of any sort, but amusement threaded his words and when he took his next bite he was smiling.
"I can imagine well enough."
"Garak," Crowley said, "when I was shopping, I thought you said you were single."
Bashir choked on his food. Several people at the surrounding tables turned to see what was going on, and the doctor tried to wave them off while pressing a fist to his mouth and struggling to clear his throat. Garak's eyes narrowed, and Crowley froze with Aziraphale's raktajino halfway to his mouth. He looked over and whispered, "What did I say?"
"Mr. Garak and Dr. Bashir are just acquaintances," Aziraphale explained.
Crowley made a clicking sound against his teeth. "Rrrright," he said. He drank what was left of Aziraphale's raktajino and rushed on before Garak could say whatever he was clearly trying to pick the perfect wording for. "Anyway. Added a car chase sequence when I realized the game needed one, but didn't have time to play it."
Bashir finally stopped coughing. He took a long drink of water, put his glass down, and turned to Garak, demanding, "Acquaintances?"
"We're hardly colleagues," Garak reasoned.
"You can't think of a single word that describes us better than acquaintances."
"I can think of several, but they translate terribly."
"Do they!"
Crowley looked at Aziraphale and raised an eyebrow. He accepted the bite of food Aziraphale held out to him at the end of his fork. The plate was nearly empty now.
Aziraphale asked, "Did you want to run the rest of the game together?"
Crowley stretched his arm out along the back of Aziraphale's chair. "If you're done with lunch…"
"You can't appreciate the subtleties of the Cardassian language, Doctor," Garak said.
"I'm sure the Cardassian language is the only thing going unappreciated here," Bashir replied.
Aziraphale said, "I'm not wearing a tuxedo."
There was a very smug look on Crowley's face now, like he had planned this moment. Which he probably had, minus the bickering at the other side of the table. Aziraphale might have tried to steer that conversation elsewhere, or at least excused himself from being so close to it, except that it was giving him a tiny rush of fond nostalgia. He didn't really know anything about either of these men, of course, but it did seem unlikely that Mr. Garak was a simple Cardassian tailor residing on a Bajoran space station because he wanted to, and it did seem unusual for a Starfleet doctor to be in his … acquaintance.
Crowley reached out and tapped Aziraphale's chest, just under where a tie would be fitted across his neck. "It's the 1960s, angel," he said. "Thought maybe… that tartan ascot?"
"I don't think I brought that with me."
"Check your suitcase again."
"My mistake." He paused briefly and added, "Perhaps you should offer to show Dr. Bashir the edits you made to his program."
That stopped Bashir in the middle of saying "...universal translator works perfectly when you want to criticize the books I pick out." He registered the sound of his name, blinked, and stared at them for a split second while the rest of the sentence filtered through. "You want to show me your car?"
"Crowley absolutely adores showing off the Bentley," Aziraphale answered before Crowley could. "He always uses the same code for his cars, you see."
"Can't mess with a classic," Crowley said, reflexively. Then his nose wrinkled as he realized what he'd just tacitly agreed to.
"And of course you're invited as well, Mr. Garak," Aziraphale said.
Garak's smile was sharp. "Of course I am."
Aziraphale neatly finished what was on his plate and excused the both of them under the pretense of returning to their quarters, so he could dress for the game. They agreed to meet in an hour, although Garak insisted that Bashir would never need that long for his food. Bashir wore an expression of near glee when he insisted that he had no meetings to take up the rest of his afternoon.
As soon as Aziraphale had returned his tray and mug, he slid an arm through Crowley's. Crowley tugged him up against his side as they meandered down the Promenade.
Since it was midday on the station they had a considerable crowd to walk through. Some Bajoran festival was coming up, judging from the decorations. Aziraphale made a mental note to stop by the temple and ask one of the priests about it. While they'd briefly been on Bajor itself he had collected a few recently-produced copies of various prophecies, but he hadn't had the time to learn all that much about the Bajoran calendar.
"We weren't ever that bad, were we?" Crowley asked, once they were safely out of earshot.
"We had more time than they do. I'm sure we were much worse."
"You were, maybe," Crowley teased, and kissed his temple.
***
The bar was bustling. A ship packed with people traveling for the upcoming festival had just arrived and the line for drinks was three customers deep. He had walk in through the second-floor entrance and employ some non-regulation use of elbows to make it over to the internal panel for the holosuites. Rom had never been so grateful to be working as a technician for the station and not, any longer, for his brother.
Unfortunately because he did work for the station, he couldn't turn around and leave the bar. He had to wade through the crowd to find Quark and wave a data PADD in front of the other Ferengi's face. It was the only way to get him to stop barrelling around barking at everyone still unlucky enough to be working for him.
"I'm telling you, Brother, the holosuites have improved efficiency by ten percent," Rom repeated for the third time. "I checked over all my repairs and nothing's been touched, I can't explain it!"
Quark smiled. "Rom, Rom, Rom. You're such a technical genius you can't even see it. Don't ever tell me you need me to order new parts again. Ferengi ingenuity, that's what this is, and nothing more."
"But it doesn't make any sense-"
"It doesn't need to make sense to make profit."
"Brother, it's drawing too much power! Chief O'Brien is going to want to know what happened, and I can't explain it."
"Do I look like I care what Chief O'Brien has to say?" Quark pressed a hand to his chest and scoffed. Behind him, a dabo girl flinched reflexively. "Rule of Acquisition number 52: If someone sees fit to give you a gift, take it and run before they change their mind."
"But-"
"Not another word," Quark warned him. Then he turned on his heel and disappeared into the crowd, somehow reappearing behind the bar as if he'd been transported there.
Rom sighed and looked at the stairs leading up to the holosuites. Several of the suites were already in use, and he was sure Quark had people lined up for the others.There went four more people now.
Dr. Bashir, who was weird but okay, and Garak, who was weird and terrifying and always scrupulously polite to Rom, so that he felt compelled to be polite in return. Ahead of them were two humans: a white-haired man in a pale, old-fashioned outfit, and a redhead with spiky hair and one of the fancy suits Dr. Bashir sometimes wore to the holosuites. All four of them were talking about something, but the bar was too loud for even Rom to hear the words.
He looked at the time displayed on the data PADD Quark had ignored, the one he'd been using to run diagnostics on holosuites. His shift didn't end for hours, and Chief O'Brien was busy, anyway, trying to keep the station running for all the festival … festivities.
Rom clutched the data PADD to his chest. He would go by the replimat. Get a snail juice, make himself feel better.
It was nothing. It could wait.
Probably.
***
"This isn't a 1960s car," Bashir said, skeptically.
"Of course not, the cars in the 60s were terrible," Crowley said. He crouched by one of the Bentley's front wheels rubbed his sleeve against a tiny smudge on the hood. He could feel Aziraphale standing behind him, smiling, in the exact outfit he'd been partial to during the actual 1960s. Which unlike the cars was not terrible.
All Crowley had to do was figure out how to dissuade the angel from this whole… Thinking that somehow another couple's silly argument was their problem to fix, thing.
Bashir made a tiny sound in the back of his throat and walked around the end of the car, hands clasped behind his back. He was still wearing his Starfleet uniform. A good sign, it meant he understood he hadn't actually been invited to play the game. At least not as long as Crowley could talk faster than Aziraphale could, anyway. He said, reluctantly, "I suppose it does have panache."
"Panache," Crowley said, pushing his sunglasses up his nose. He glanced up to see Aziraphale smiling at him from across the hood and Garak at his side, frowning. "This is an original - replica of an original - 1933 Bentley, and the best he can come up with is panache."
"It is a compliment, Crowley," Aziraphale said.
"Mmm."
Bashir rounded the end of the car and bent forward to squint at the interior. "I didn't think cars from the 1930s had stereo systems."
"Well, I think it's a magnificent automobile," Garak said, in the tones of one who was still deeply skeptical but determined to outdo the compliment that had already been laid out. He met Crowley's eyes across the roof of the car and Crowley grinned, secure in the knowledge that the lenses of his glasses were opaque. Garak smiled back and said, "I do have one question, though."
"Shoot," Crowley said.
"Why are there…" Garak made a small circling gesture with his hand, struggling to settle on the word he wanted. "Pictures," he said, "of broken glass stuck to the window?"
Crowley opened his mouth.
"They're bullet holes," Bashir corrected. "Bullet hole stickers, anyway."
"Yesss," Crowley said. He scratched his throat. "It's … a joke."
"Crowley has been using the same code for the Bentley since the first time he used a holodeck," Aziraphale added.
"Almost the same code," Crowley said. "Aziraphale put a bike rack on it, once."
"It was a very nice bike rack."
"Tartan straps." He folded his arms on the hood of the car and stretched his legs out. The setting he'd picked for the car chase was a bright summer afternoon in London. Old, familiar stomping grounds. Back when there'd been a lot more cars on the streets. He'd also upped the temperature some, and the simulated sun beating down on the back of his neck was almost good enough to make him want to sprawl over the Bentley's hood.
Aziraphale hummed. His eyes were bright and blue in the light, and the sun sparkled off his buttons. He said, "We should take Dr. Bashir and Mr. Garak around the block."
Crowley slumped against the side of the car. "I'm sure they want to get back to their lives."
"It would be … interesting to take one drive," Bashir said, slowly.
"Course it would," he muttered.
Inside the car, Garak said, "Admittedly my knowledge of ancient Earth vehicles is a little sparse, but on Cardassia our cars did not have inertial dampeners."
"Neither does this one," Crowley promised.
"Are there not restraints of some sort?"
"It took a while for humans to invent seat belts, Garak," Bashir said, dryly. He was sitting behind Crowley and in the rearview mirror his smile took up most of his face. He laid his arm out along the middle of the backseat, so his hand was just behind Garak's shoulder. He added, "Besides, it's just the holosuite. We'll be fine."
Crowley looked over at Aziraphale and turned the key in the ignition. Aziraphale started to speak.
Crowley slammed the pedal to the floor.
Automatically, Aziraphale put his hand up against the roof of the car. In the backseat Garak latched onto the door as best he could, and Bashir grabbed Garak's shirt as if that would be helpful at all. Crowley swung the Bentley onto the main road, choked with just enough traffic to make swerving and jumping through the lanes exciting, and took one hand off the wheel to flick the stereo on.
Tonight, I'm gonna have myself a real good time…
"I take it from the speed of the cars around us that this is the pace at which you play the game, not how humans ordinarily drove," Garak said.
"No, generally this speed would have gotten you ticketed if not arrested," Bashir said.
"If they can catch you," Crowley said.
He made a turn so abrupt that in the backset Bashir got slammed up against Garak's side. The two of them sputtered and flailed, arms tangling together, and Crowley winked at Aziraphale.
I'm a shooting star, leaping through the sky-
Aziraphale smiled at him. Warm sunlight cascaded through the windshield, across his face and the ascot tucked neatly around his throat. "I think it might be a good time to find a spot to let our guests off, my dear."
"If you think so." Crowley checked the rearview mirror, more out of habit than anything else, and groaned. "Actually, angel, now's not the best time."
I'm burnin' through the sky, yeah!
"Why not?"
Garak leaned forward slightly. "I believe he's referring to the fact that we are being followed," he said. He had one hand planted firmly on the seat and it clenched as the car bounced. Next to him Bashir had his hand wrapped around Garak's upper arm, and had twisted around to look out the back window. They were indeed being followed, by three separate, speeding cars, each one larger and more intimidating than the last. The one in front had a guy hanging out the window trying to get a decent shot at them.
"Crowley," Aziraphale said. "Did you set the chase to start when you started driving?"
"May've done." Crowley flicked the car into another lane as the gun flared.
Aziraphale just gave him a look. It was not quite the sun-dappled smile from a moment ago, but there was definitely fondness in the exasperation. The car sang, I wanna make a supersonic man out of you!
Bashir said, "I mean," stopped, and cleared his throat. "If we're already in the middle of the chase, we might as well…"
"Of course you would say that," Garak said, fondness threaded through the exasperation. Crowley could tell. Thousands of years made him an expert in that kind of thing.
"If you'd like to leap from a moving vehicle through the holosuite door and back into Quark's, be my guest, but I for one am staying right here," Bashir said. His hand had shifted from Garak's arm to his shoulder, somehow.
Crowley looked at Aziraphale. "It'll only take a minute."
"I suppose we may as well," Aziraphale said.
Which was Crowley's cue to really start driving.
Don't stop me now!
***
Rom was fiddling with one of the replicators at the Replimat - his snail juice had tasted not quite right, and the lunch crowd had died off, anyway - when someone grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked. He reflexively latched onto his toolkit as whoever it was dragged him across the floor.
"What - Oh, it's you," he said. He managed to get to his feet, although it involved twisting around awkwardly as he did because Quark wouldn't let go of his shirt. As soon as he was standing, his brother started pushing him along the Promenade instead of pulling him. "Quark! What's wrong? Did something at the bar break?"
"No, because you're going to fix it," Quark ground out.
Rom tucked his toolkit underneath his arm. "It's the holosuite, isn't it?"
"No, it's the lights on dabo table number three, they're looking a little dim - Of course it's the holosuite!" Quark let go of him then, but only to whack his arm.
"Why didn't you just call me over the comm system? I would have come!"
Quark looked back and forth. People had started going back to work, at least those who weren't visiting just for the festival, but that still left a crowd. Quark drew close to Rom's side and lowered his voice. "Because," he said, "I didn't want to go shouting for everybody to hear that all but one of my holosuites went out at once."
"All but one of-" Rom yelped. He clamped his own hand over his mouth before Quark could hit him again.
Quark scowled. "Dumped a group of sailing Bajorans from the stern of a ship right onto the floor. We're lucky nobody got hurt. I had to talk Morn out of going to see Dr. Bashir for his elbow, oh, he kept going on and on about it, like we'd think he was riding a wild targ instead of visiting a holographic Klingon petting zoo."
"He wouldn't have found Dr. Bashir anyway, he's in one of the holosuites," Rom said. When Quark turned to stare at him, he shrugged. "I saw him going in earlier, with Garak and two humans. I think they were tourists."
"Great." Quark shook his head. "So the people who are in my one functioning holosuite are two strangers, the Chief Medical Officer, and Garak."
"Gosh," Rom said. "I hope they're not stuck there, like last time."
Quark growled.
He shouldn't have. For one thing, it was rude. For another, anyone being trapped inside the holosuite was the last thing he needed to worry about.