Posted by Lieutenant Commander Faye Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Introducing Rollin, Lounge Host Extraordinaire

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Charlie Bailey (Doctor) in Introducing Rollin, Lounge Host Extraordinaire

Posted by Civilian Rollin (Lounge Host) in Introducing Rollin, Lounge Host Extraordinaire
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Rollin did not laugh.

He could have—a lesser man might’ve, just to smooth the moment, to dispel her panic with a flick of charm or a wave of words.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he held still—kind, composed, and utterly present. His expression softened at the edges, not with pity, but with understanding. And perhaps a flicker of guilt that he’d asked for poetry from someone who dealt in survival.

“Oh, sweetheart…”

The words came low and warm, the way you might speak to a startled animal—no sudden movements, no sharp edges.

“I didn’t mean to confuse you.”

“What people intend and what actually happens are often two different things,” she all but muttered.

He reached forward—not to take the ring back, not to press it further—but simply to nudge it. Gently. Turning it so the opaline inlays caught the light again. Small galaxies, contained in silver.

“It’s not a grand gesture. Not that kind.” A wry smile played at the corner of his mouth. “No vows. No expectations.”

He glanced up at her now, gaze steady. Kind.

“It’s a token. A placeholder, if you will. For trust. For understanding. For… friendship. Just something small and solid to remind you that not everyone wants a piece of you.” A pause. “Some of us just want to share the quiet.”

That made some amount of sense. And yet, the puzzle pieces still would not fall into place.

He tapped the bartop gently beside the ring.

“You don’t have to take it. You don’t have to keep it. You don’t even have to understand it—not all at once. But it’s yours to consider.”

A breath. Not deep, not performative. Just… centered.

“And if I’ve misstepped, Faye—if I asked for a moment you weren’t ready to give—then that’s on me. No harm. No offense taken.”

Then, quieter still, with a smile that held no sparkle but all the light in the world:

“You don’t owe me clarity. You don’t owe me anything.”

He leaned back, just slightly, letting the moment breathe.

-Rollin
Just Rollin. That’s quite enough, Darling.

She closed her eyes, channelling her yoga practices to steady her breathing and heart rate. The deeper the interaction, the more Faye placed weight on it. She could do casual talk with people, but she was too open a book most of the time. It was hard for her to delineate that line between small talk and too personal. Gestures, like the ring, held meaning and try as she might many times she misunderstood. Words were the worst for that. Tone of voice especially, despite her liberal use of sarcasm herself.

A few moments later, Faye opened her eyes, their stormy seas calm again. She eyed the ring and reached out, plucking it with exceeding tenderness most would assume the outwardly cold and calculating woman could not possess. But Faye was more than contradictions. She existed in a liminal space others did not see. It was often beautiful and when she paused to observe that space, she was often awed.

She placed the ring in the palm of her hands- hands that had experienced gentle caresses as much as hard labour and digging in dirt. She lifted her hand, bringing the ring eye level. Then she looked at Rollin, mystified still but no longer worried. “See, if our positions were reversed, I would not give you something special to me for anything less than a vow, than something I would uphold with every fibre of my being.” She lowered her hand to the bar top, keeping her hand open, the ring visible. “I’ve lost everything multiple times over. Things and people that were very important to me. Your words, your promise, is a vow in my mind. Those are okay. I understand vows, though I make few of them for fear I can’t live up to them.”

Faye plucked the ring out of her hand and held it between thumb and index finger. “We’ve been open and honest so far. I believe the words of your promise, even if you just tried to backtrack a bit to make me more at ease.” She blew out a breath. “What does this ring mean to you, and why does it symbolize a promise to me right now?”

~Faye Calloway, CIO

He watched the ring glint between her fingers, a small galaxy held gently by hands that knew both loss and labor. And then—quietly, as though the story might vanish if he said it too loud:

“He was Bajoran. Toryn Jo’rel. Captain Toryn of the Apollo. But to me… just Jo.”

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, small and sad and sweet—like music you only realize was a love song after it ends.

The way he said his name… Faye understood that feeling.

“Starfleet and I had already gone our separate ways. The oath no longer bound me. I’d taken up residence behind the bar on the Apollo, pouring synthehol and questionable advice. And Jo—well, he was every bit the starched-collar paragon the Academy dreamed of. Strong. Steady. Incurably noble.”

He glanced down, fingertips brushing the bar top once.

“I was in love with him. Deeply. Honestly. The kind of love that doesn’t ask for anything except permission to be.”

A breath. Shallow. Honest.

“He couldn’t love me back. Not that way. He never pretended otherwise. But he gave me this—” Rollin nodded to the ring in her hand, “—he said it was a reminder. That even if he couldn’t give me the thing I most wanted, I would always have a friend in him. One who saw me. Truly.”

Now his eyes lifted back to hers, and there was no veil between them.

“That’s what this means. That someone saw me—shimmer and shadow both—and didn’t look away. And that I was never just a bartender or a Deltan or a disappointment.”

He nodded once, gently.

“And now, I want you to have it. For the same reason. Not as a burden. Not even as a gift. But as a tether. A little bit of weight in your pocket on the days you feel like you might float away.”

A beat. Then a smile.

“Jo only ever let me call him by that name. He was a fortress to everyone else. But he gave me this ring, and he let me call him Jo. I like to think that meant something.”

Faye smiled softly, knowing what it was like to be let in in ways others were not allowed.

And softer, at the edges of mischief:

“The tragic unrequited love angle is very on brand for me.”

-Rollin
Just Rollin. That’s quite enough, Darling.

She smirked. “I once confused romantic love for the kind of deep love between chosen family that no error or personality flaw can ruin. It was a first for me- not falling in love, but that kind of love.” Her fingers closed over the ring. “He’s my best friend, my chosen brother. I miss getting to see him all the time outside of subspace calls, but ultimately, letting him in was the beginning of pulling all the pieces of who Faye Calloway had been over the years and letting them fall together where they might. It was messy.”

A breath of space that was filled with a massive amount of endured pain.

“But when I did, I found the romantic love was hiding in plain sight, waiting patiently for me to be ready.” She grinned. “We did everything backwards. Hell, I was in my thirties and hadn’t even been on a real date before. We professed love first over subspace having spent only a week together in person, had a date a month later, got engaged that same week, and six months later we got married and I transferred here to be with him.” There’s was something of an epic love story, but she kew all too well that if Daggum had called her any earlier than he had, they most likely would not have had their happy outcome.

Hand closed around the ring, Faye pressed her fist to her chest, her eyes shifting as a storm rolled through them. Not of rage or something similarly intense, but of disappointment, sorrow.

“The first vow I ever made was to my father. My mother had already been missing for a couple years when the Dominion attacked our colony. As we fled to the runabouts and were about to board, he told me he was going to buy us time.” Her ring-clutched fist tightened. “It took me a moment to realize what he meant, and then I tried to argue with him, that we could both get away.” She shook her head. “He made me promise to move-on, to let Tracken and our lives as Maquis go, so that I could stay free. If no one knew, I couldn’t be held responsible.” She swallowed the pause. “I was fifteen and I didn’t know better. So I promised him and watched him walk to his death, taking down as many Cardassians and Jem’Hadar that he could. We escaped.” It was not the end of that story and she had to forcefully punctuate the end of the sentence to keep going. It was not a story for this moment.

Calloway huffed out a breath. “I understand now why he made me make that promise. It was borne out of desperation and love. He wanted to keep me safe when he knew he wouldn’t be there to do so himself. ” Her brows arched and her mouth formed a rueful smile. “It was a terrible vow to force a child to make- to deny who you are and live a lie- but he did the best he could with the circumstances he was given. Thank you therapy for that nugget of wisdom.” Her demeanour shifted, lightened.

“The next vow I made was when I put on my uniform. It’s the one vow I kept making even when there were times when reason said not to.” She smirked. “I’m very loyal to my causes. Just ask my husband.”

“Thank you for explaining the ring to me. It means I can accept it with the care with which it was given. And I’ll keep it for now with my own promise to give it back if I think you need it more. Fair?” Eyes hopeful, she was curious what he would make of her long-winded lead-up to her tiny and quiet vow.

~Faye Calloway, CIO

There was reverence in the way he listened—unblinking, unhurried, fully present. As if every word she offered deserved its own cathedral.

Not just the story of her father, though that alone would have hollowed out lesser men. Not just the unorthodox love story with her husband, though it sang with the kind of conviction poets spent lifetimes trying to capture. It was the whole of her—the quiet defiance, the loyalty so fierce it burned at the edges, the heart stitched together not despite the wreckage, but because of it.

When she finished, when her vow—small and shining and terribly, wonderfully human—settled between them, Rollin reached out.

Not to reclaim the ring.

To brush his fingers gently against hers, just once, as though affirming the transfer of something sacred.

“Fair,” he said, his voice as soft as dusk. “More than fair.”

The touch, though brief, settled something in Faye and she wasn’t even sure she knew what that was. Perhaps a nervousness that she had given away too much, or even that the effortless and beautiful reciprocity was cease. She breathed more easily.

A smile followed—but not his usual dazzling brand. This one was quieter. Wiser. The kind of smile you gave someone when you recognized a fellow keeper of impossible promises.

“And should that day come—should you ever find I need reminding—I’ll accept it back. Gratefully. But until then…” His gaze flicked toward her hand, now cradling the ring. “It looks better with you than it ever did with me.”

He sat back just enough to let the moment breathe, then added—light, but sincere:

“Besides,” he said quietly, with something like affection threading through the words, “I think Jo would’ve liked you. Stern exterior, soul of a poet, integrity stitched into every breath…”

A beat, then the faintest smile—no mischief this time, just warmth.

“He respected people who knew who they were. Even more so when they carried it with grace.”

-Rollin
Just Rollin. That’s quite enough, Darling.

Faye laughed so openly that it almost even startled her. “Your’re hilarious, though I’m sure you don’t yet realize why.” She shook her head and leaned in. “Grace is not a commonly associated word with me. I’m messy Rollin’. You’re just catching me on a much more steady day. Trust me, you’ll see it sooner rather than later.”

“Grace comes in many forms, Faye Calloway,” he said, the words smooth but carrying weight. “You might try giving yourself some—you wear it better than you think.”

Charlie stifled a yawn as she trudged through the door to the lounge. She had briefly considered just returning to her quarters but she was keen to start getting to know her new ship mates.

She plonked herself down at an empty stool. “Room for one more?” She asked hopefully.

• Lt (jg) Bailey (Doctor)

Everything shifted in that moment. It wasn’t that Faye was suddenly different, but the doctor was an unknown variable that she didn’t know how fit into this moment. That was fine. It was a lounge… The Temple she corrected herself. People came and went and she knew that. Calloway momentarily chastised herself for being so caught up in her conversation with Rollin that she lost track of what was happening around her. Ahh well, wouldn’t be the first time (a fact that would surprise most crew members when they first learned what her role was on the ship).

Stormy grey-green eyes took in the new comer and both hands came to rest against her glass. The ring was no longer there and it would have taken a great deal of intense focus to have seen the moment she had tucked it safely away. “It’s a big bar, Doctor Charlie Bailey” Faye said. Yes, she knew who the woman was. “And Rollin here will make it seem like the coziest space you’ve ever been. You’ve been warned,” she said, a smirk playing on her lips.

~Faye Calloway, CIO

Rollin’s gaze slid to the newcomer with the easy grace of someone who had made a career out of greeting strangers as if they’d been expected all along.

“Always room for one more, Doctor Bailey,” he said, the title wrapped in velvet rather than formality. “You’ve walked in on a quiet conversation, but I promise the drinks are much louder.”

He reached behind the bar—not rushed, not mechanical, but with the deliberation of a man composing a scene. Two crystal tumblers already sat before him, their contents catching the light in a slow swirl of gold and amethyst.

“Faye and I were indulging in a Stardust Accord,” he explained, sliding a glance toward his companion that was equal parts fondness and conspiracy. “It’s a gentle sort of magic—good for coaxing the day to loosen its grip without stealing your balance.”

Then, with the barest lift of a brow:

“Or, if today’s been the sort that requires less poetry and more fortitude, I can summon something stronger.”

He let the choice hang there, open and unpressured, before adding with a small, knowing smile:

“Either way, Doctor, welcome to The Temple. You’re in good company.”

-Rollin
Just Rollin. That’s quite enough, Darling.