Posted by Civilian Rollin (Lounge Host) in The Temple - 2000 Hours - Karaoke Night

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Faye Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in The Temple - 2000 Hours - Karaoke Night

Posted by Civilian Rollin (Lounge Host) in The Temple - 2000 Hours - Karaoke Night
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻
The place was alive.

Strings of warm lights traced the arched ceiling, their glow pooling on tables and catching in the rim of every glass. Laughter rolled between bursts of applause, the low thrum of conversation blending with the occasional clink of ice. It was standing room only near the small stage, where the lounge’s pride and joy sat under amber lights—a polished black baby grand piano, its curved side reflecting the glow like molten gold.

At the bench was Caden “Cadence” Mirrow, a Denobulan with impossibly nimble fingers and a smile like a sunrise. Rumor had it he could play anything—Terran jazz standards, Andorian war ballads, even that maddening Tellarite drinking song that went on for twenty-three verses if no one stopped it in time. No sheet music. No hesitation. Just tell him your key… and hope you could keep up.

Tonight, someone had.

The final chords of an absolutely blistering rendition of Don’t Stop Me Now—complete with three modulations and an unplanned encore verse—rang out, the singer’s voice still echoing against the walls as the crowd erupted. Glasses raised. Feet stomped. Cadence added a triumphant flourish worthy of a Broadway finale, and the applause doubled.

From the side of the stage, Rollin stepped into the light.

The white and gold of his robes shimmered with every movement, catching the glow as if the Temple itself were holding its breath for him. He accepted the mic from the breathless performer with a bow so deep and smooth it could have been choreographed.

“My darlings,” he began, letting the room quiet one heartbeat at a time, “after that… I think we could all use a moment to catch our breath.”

A ripple of laughter rolled through the crowd as he rested one hand lightly on the piano lid, glancing at Cadence with a conspiratorial gleam.

“So…” His voice dipped, velvet-smooth. “I think it’s time we let our pulses slow. And perhaps…”—Cadence was already easing into a smoky minor progression—“…slip into something just a little… dangerous.”

Cadence’s grin widened as he shifted seamlessly into the sultry opening bars of Fever. Rollin turned back to the crowd, eyes glinting with mischief.

“For the lovers… or the soon-to-be lovers. And if you leave here tonight without being one or the other…” He let the pause hang just long enough for a ripple of laughter. “Well, I’ll simply have to try harder next week.”

The lights softened. The baby grand’s low notes curled like smoke through the air. The Temple’s mood slid from bright revelry into something warm, slow, and deliciously uncertain.

The room leaned in. Rollin’s voice drifted out—smooth, unhurried, and wrapped in silk.

🎶 Never know how much I love you
Never know how much I care
When you put your arms around me
I get a fever that’s so hard to bear

You give me fever… 🎶

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

Rollin let the opening bars wrap around him, swaying as if the music itself had taken him by the hand. His robes shimmered in the amber glow, every step deliberate, unhurried—inevitable.

🎶When you kiss me, fever when you hold me tight
Fever! In the mornin’, a-fever all through the night

Sun lights up the daytime
Moon lights up the night
I light up when you call my name
And you know I’m gonna treat you right
You give me fever 🎶

He leaned into the microphone as if it were a secret shared with the room, his free hand pressed over his heart, each beat echoing in the velvet drawl of his voice.

🎶When you kiss me, fever when you hold me tight
Fever! In the mornin’, a-fever all through the night

Everybody’s got the fever
That is something you all know
Fever isn’t such a new thing
Fever started long ago

Romeo loved Juliet
Juliet, she felt the same
When he put his arms around her
He said, “Julie, baby, you’re my flame“
Thou giveth fever🎶

The crowd was rapt. With each line, his gaze drifted like a slow caress across the tables—never lingering too long, never giving away who his flame truly was. He slipped down from the stage, the crowd parting as if the fever itself demanded it.

🎶 When we kisseth, fever with thy flaming youth
Fever! I’m a fire, fever, yeah, I burn forsooth

Captain Smith and Pocahontas
Had a very mad affair
When her daddy tried to kill him
She said, “Daddy, oh, don’t you dare”
He gives me fever🎶

A ripple followed him—shoulders leaning aside, glasses lifting to avoid a spill—as though the music carried its own gravity. Rollin turned once, letting the train of his robes flare behind him, and the room laughed softly at the sheer flourish of it.

🎶 With his kisses, fever when he holds me tight
Fever! I’m his missus, daddy, won’t you treat him right?

Now you’ve listened to my story
Here’s the point that I have made
Chicks were born to give you fever
Be it Fahrenheit or Centigrade
They give you fever 🎶

When the song rose into its final, sultry stretch, he paused, no more than an arm’s length from the front row. The lights caught the faint sheen at his temple, the curve of his lips as he drew out the last bit long and low—

🎶When you kiss them, fever if you live and learn
Fever! ‘Til you sizzle
What a lovely way to burn 🎶

And then he turned, no more than an arm’s length away, and let the last lyric fall not to the room, but to one. His gaze locked, his voice dropping to a low, molten ember. For that breathless instant, the Temple held only two souls: Rollin, and the one he had chosen.

🎶What a lovely way to burn
What a lovely way to burn
What a lovely way to burn🎶

The song ended in silence so thick it seemed no one dared breathe. And then—like a spark catching dry tinder—the applause roared to life.

Rollin’s smile returned, dazzling and wicked, but he didn’t break the gaze. Whoever he’d chosen in that final instant… they knew.

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

OOC: Would anyone like to be the “one” that Roling sang to? It’s open to anyone. -Harley

Gazing back at him was one other than Faye Calloway, the ship’s recalcitrant spook and oddity, though her shipmates would be forgiven if they didn’t immediately recognize her in this moment. Her hair was up in a sleek high pony tail, and the dark eye makeup made her pale and stormy eyes pop. A dark red graced her lips and was the only pop of colour she wore. A fitted leather sleeveless bodice hugged her athletic frame and her outfit was complete with black satin cargo pants and black patent leather high heeled sandals. She looked just as dangerous as she often did, but this was different.

“Burn indeed,” Faye all but purred, her eyes alight as her lips curved gracefully into a smile. She was all too aware of everyone watching them, but it was easier to focus on Rollin and not her social anxiety. She should have known he’d find was to push her. Her knew just atad too much about her, and yet, that was such a relief!

~Faye Calloway, CIO

The applause still thundered, but Rollin moved through it as if it were nothing more than a hushed overture. With a flourish just shy of extravagant, he took her hand—gloved in strength, bare in trust—and bent low enough to let the candlelight kiss his cheek. His lips brushed her knuckles, reverent, a gesture as old as any court but carried out with such sincerity it silenced a corner of the room.

Eyes alight, her lips curled upwards as his lips touched her hand.

He didn’t let her hand go. Instead, with a dancer’s ease, he drew her closer, the train of his robe sweeping between them like a curtain pulled closed. To the crowd, it was the picture of dangerous intimacy: the ship’s flamboyant Deltan and its storm-eyed specter locked in something secret and smoldering.

But when Rollin dipped his head, his voice was velvet, not heat—gentle, coaxing, for her ear alone.

“So,” he breathed, a smile curling against the words, “do you want the next song? No pressure. But something tells me there’s a diva inside of you who is trying very, very hard to get out.”

The whisper lingered like the last note of his song, tender and playful in equal measure. To the Temple, it looked like seduction. To Faye, it could be something rarer: permission.

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

On the edge of her hearing, Faye could hear the whispers and something inside her laughed. Ahh, people were so predictable. And yet her mind was more focused on Rollin and his rather intriguing proposition. Those not immediately beside them might assume something rather provocative was happening, and there was, but it wasn’t what they thought. Instead of an indiscretion, he was coaxing her, offering her a safe space to try something.

She had sung in public, but that had been with her mother at a long-overdue wake on the holodeck, surrounded by people who had chosen to honour the long dead.

The tension in his arm slackened as she shifted her weight. Her eyes no longer told him exactly what she was feeling. Instead, she held back even as she began to rise, her hand still in his. Turning in place on the balls of her feet, she whispered back into his ear. “Only if you sing with me.” There. Yes, she’d step out of her comfort zone, but his presence would be a blanket of calm that she needed.

Years ago, Faye Calloway would never have dared to not only respond positively, but up the ante. But she was not the Faye of before. The woman before them now had faced not just terrible moments that would break most people, but she had stared down her darkest demons and shooed them away, bit by painful bit.

That didn’t mean that as she came to stand at her full height she was fully herself in this moment. No. If anything, her unintentional years in Intelligence had allowed her to understand the need and skill of crafting a character. Thus, she could tap into a tiny piece of her and let it do all the talking that normally happened far out of public view. This piece was perhaps not the diva Rollin had suggested, but a sister, a cousin. Equally alluring, but also rather impish. There was a game to be played (if the whispers and cast glances were any indication) and Faye decided that she’d play along.

She leaned in again and whispered the name of a song. A deep smirk lit up her face. Was he ready to play the game too? She assumed so, but people often surprised and confused her, so anything was possible.

~Faye Calloway, CIO