One More Song, Part 2

Posted on Tue Jul 22nd, 2025 @ 6:44pm by Lieutenant JG Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil & Ensign Wrenleigh Reed
Edited on on Thu Sep 4th, 2025 @ 8:50pm

3,009 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: The Menagerie II
Location: The Portside Glow Bar, Deck 10
Timeline: Evening (MD006, 2105 Hours)

He shifted, his hand sliding from beneath his chin to cradle his glass again. His thumb traced the rim absently.

"Truth is," he said, his eyes holding hers steady, "you're only the second person I've spoken to outside of a duty shift since I came aboard." He took a short breath and dropped his eyes to the glass. He continued, "This morning," he went on, "I met an Akadian in the pool. We talked--well, he mostly floated, and I mostly listened. Aside from him... it's just been you."

Wren nodded in understanding, "Ah, you've met Osirin. I personally haven't had much to do with him, unfortunately, but I've heard he's an interesting character." She moved her hand out from her chin and took up her glass of wine, draining the last of it before placing it back on the counter. It was hopefully going to be the only one she had tonight, but who knew if life had other plans. "I'm hoping that I'm making a good first impression though for being the second person you've spoken to outside of shift?"

JB lifted two fingers in an easy, almost offhand signal to the bartender--a gesture that somehow carried both a slight old-world courtesy and the decisiveness of a man who'd moved through the darker corridors of power at one time.

"Another of the same for my friend," he said softly. His eyes drifted back to her, warmth once more blooming at the edges. He turned fully toward her now, closing off the rest of the room simply by shifting his broad shoulders. It was as though the two of them had slipped into a smaller, slower orbit where no one else existed.

"I don't think you have to worry about first impressions," he murmured. "And I don't remember feeling this... at ease, talking to anyone, since I left Earth over a month ago."

Did she let the walls down that had been carefully constructed but were still fragile, or did she keep them up and let the professional side stay in place for a while longer? Her blue-grey eyes widened slightly at the realisation it had just become the two of them in the room with one simple movement from him, and she cocked her head slightly to the left as she rested it on her hands again and smiled. "You're very welcome for that. I've been told I do the opposite for most people when I'm in work mode, so this is a welcome compliment, thank you."

JB's eyes stayed on her face. Slow. Careful. Like he was trying to memorize a coastal rock formation before the tide swallowed it. The freckles scattered across her cheeks like a constellation. Her hair caught the glow from the bar's honeyed lights. Her eyes--restless, wide, waiting.

It felt good to look at her. And it hurt, too. That old hurt, the one Jacqueline left behind, started moving under his ribs again. Wanting someone meant losing a part of yourself. He knew that better than most.

For a moment, it showed on his face. Quick. Like a man flinching at a touch he didn't expect.

He turned back to his drink. Drew a slow circle on the rim with his thumb, as if he could quiet the ache with such a simple act.

When he looked at her again, there was a small smile. Warm enough to pass, but a little thin at the edges.

"So," he said, his voice ringing-out like a bass note, "where's home when you're not out here?"

The change in his demeanour was brief enough but Wren still noticed. "I don't really call anywhere home, so to speak. I've moved around too often my entire life to park in one spot for too long," Wren answered, "But then my brothers and I went in together for an apartment in San Fransisco near Starfleet HQ so we didn't have to be on campus full time, and I'm pretty sure we've still got it unless they've gone and sold it without telling me."

"So, I guess the answer to your question would be San Fran is home to me. Otherwise it would be probably wherever my parents are currently located in Europe." She added with a shrug and another smile. If he kept looking at her like he was, which she could have totally been misreading the signals, there would be no topic off limits. "What about you, JB? Mind if I call you that? Where is home for you?"

"JB's fine," he said, low. The way he said it sounded like a door creaking open just a little.

His eyes dipped to the his glass again. A pause long enough for her to feel the drift of his thoughts. He thought of his childhood home in the hills above Bainet in Haiti. Mango trees heavy in the heat. The salt crackling on his skin after an afternoon swim at the beach. He thought of the blue dusk settling over the hills, of kids playing soccer in the dust until the stars came out.

"Bainet," he said at last. "Little town on the south coast of Haiti. Not much to look at, maybe. But you know how it is--once a place gets under your skin, that's it."

He finished the remainder of his negroni, the campari leaving a bitter taste on his tongue. Motioning to the bartender for another, he tilted his head slightly to look at Wren. "I've been in San Francisco for a long time. I haven't left the Starfleet residential complex since finishing at the Academy. Even that didn't feel like home." He shrugged in a resigned motion. "Now I figure home's more a feeling than a place. A smell. A laugh. Someone who says your name the way nobody else does."

JB looked at her then, fully. Steady. The whole ocean in his eyes.

"These days," he added, voice dropping, "I guess I carry home with me. Best as I can."

"Wren Wren." Wren replied in a quieter tone, sadness fluttering across her features briefly. "My gigi, my grandmother, used to call me that and she said it in such a way no one else could. It was sweet and full of affection." She thanked the bartender for her new glass of wine and took a sip of it, placing it back down and centring it on the coaster.

"Haiti is in the Caribbean, correct?" She queried. "I've never been there but I've heard it's gorgeous with the sun and the surf. It's been an age since I've been to a beach and felt the warmth of the sun on bare skin. Maybe once we're able to get some shoreleave, it'll be somewhere warm." A moments pause as she shifted herself to rest her head on her palm as she leaned against the counter.

"I get what you mean by home being more a feeling than a place though, I hope that this ship can become a sort of home away from home for both of us." She gave him another smile as she took in his features like he was doing with her.

JB watched the way she set her wine glass back on the coaster. Slow and precise. Like a dancer placing her hand on the rail before the first plié. There was something careful in it, something almost shy. It made him want to look longer.

There was a small stir in the corner.

The jazz quintet stepped onto the stage like they were stepping into a room in their own homes--no rush, no need to impress anyone. The bass player's fingers curled around the neck of his instrument, testing it carefully and feeling it's balance. The drummer spun his brushes once, and nodded to himself with professional satisfaction.

They began, slow and low.

The singer stepped up onto the stage. Black dress, blonde hair pinned-up except for one long curl that insisted on its freedom. She kept tucking it behind her ear, as though it might completely give her away.

She leaned into the microphone as though it might steady her.

"In the hush of midnight rain, when your name drifts through my door..."

Her voice was like velvet, and edged with sand. It carried something private, something spoken while half-asleep.

"I keep a candle burning low, for footsteps I'm not sure of anymore..."

JB felt it move through him the way salt water moves along a cut.

Wren had turned her attention to the singer and listened with quiet appreciation at the notes being played, the tones being sung, the slow and steady beat. She wasn't musically talented herself but wouldn't disparage others who were. In fact, having a talent for music was an admirable trait in her opinion.

"This evening keeps getting better," Wren admitted to JB while still watching the performance. "I like this style of music, it's really lovely."

He watched Wren's face in profile. The soft slope of her nose, the small concentration at her brow when she listened closely. He noticed the way her fingers rested on her new glass, as if she might lift it again but didn't wish to break the moment.

"It's a good choice," he said finally. "Makes you feel like we're the last two people awake in a city that doesn't sleep."

He turned back to the stage. The trumpet player stepped forward, filling the room with a line that rose and fell the final surge of a power conduit before it died. The music brought him back to the memory of warm Haitian nights. Of street lamps flickering, distant laughter from a courtyard, the sound of the crashing waves during a beach party. He didn't bring it into words, but it pressed up behind his ribs.

With the song finished, the bar's guests applauded. The singer excused herself and the band, indicating they would return shortly.

"To answer your question from before," JB began, leaning a little closer to Wren, "Haiti is in the Caribbean. Beautiful beaches, exquisite cuisine, and the purest of hearts." He felt himself being pulled toward her, like an errant shuttlepod trapped in a gravity well. And he liked it. "I've spent the past month on Barisa Prime swimming in warm ocean water and lounging by the beach. Perhaps, we could take a walk on Orange Crescent Beach together...?"

Turning her attention back to JB fully at his question, Wren gave it a moments thought as a slight furrow appeared between her brows, "That sounds lovely, I'd like that." A genuine smile played on her lips to confirm it.

JB could feel something building inside him. Something like a summer storm you could smell before it broke--that coppery, electric, ozone-infused scent in the air.

Forty-eight hours. One full duty shift. And he'd barely found the athletic facilities this morning. And here he was, feeling himself pulled to her like the tide pulls a piece of driftwood.

He knew the story he was writing in his head: a woman's soft laugh at a small table, the salt of a beach breeze, fingers brushing in the dark. He knew how fast it could all turn. Jacqueline had taught him that. The ache still remained in him like a dog waiting at the back door.

Maybe Wren didn't feel it this sharply. Maybe to her it was a gentle drift, a warmth closing at the edges. Nothing deeper. And maybe he had been alone too long--so long that even a kind glance became a lifeline.

His eyes drifted to her mouth, those lips curved into a genuine smile. His pulse kicked in stronger now.

The silence stretched. He realized it had gone on too long, but he didn't feel it as a wound--more as a suspended breath.

Managing a small smile, he cleared his throat.

"Sorry," he said, his voice catching on the fringe of tenderness. "Got lost there for a second."

He looked down, then back up at her, sheepish and open all at once. It was the same way a boy looks when he knows he's been caught staring at the stars for too long.

She found herself getting lost in the comfortable silence that had settled in between them. There was also something else there as well, but she couldn't put her finger on exactly what it was. Maybe it was a spark that could ignite into a flame that wouldn't fizzle out like it had done so many times before.

It was endearing and kind of adorable that JB had gone all sheepish after realising he'd been staring. "That's okay," Wren said gently with a laugh. "If I may be so bold, can I confess something to you?"

Jean-Baptiste's eyebrows rose as surprise flickered across his face.

"Of course," he said, leaning in a fraction. The air between them felt charged. He felt his own pulse right down to his fingertips.

She took a long sip of the wine and placed the glass back down on the same spot on the coaster again before she took a breath in and out to steady the chaotic rhythm her heart had started beating. It could've been because of him, it could've been because of the wine she's just drunk too fast.

"I, um. I'm really enjoying this." It wasn't exactly what she wanted to say, the alternative would've caused her entire face to turn pink from embarrassment not just her cheeks. "It's rare to meet someone like yourself who is genuine and is easy to spend time with. I'd really like to go to the beach with you and maybe spend some time after that with you too."

Her words had come out slightly fast, but thankfully they were still legible, and the wine hadn't gone to her head yet.

His hand stilled on the bar top while the rest of the room seemed to hush itself. Music, glasses, idle laughter... all dropped away like the sound of distant surf.

He took her in then, fully; the little flush climbing her neck, the way her fingers hovered by the coaster as though they needed an anchor, her eyes bright and unguarded in that moment.

A warmth started near the center of his chest and spread outward, slowly and with certainty. Like an oil lantern eats away at darkness.

"You... don't know what that means to me," he said, his voice low. "Been a long time since I felt someone meet me halfway," he added, softer still. "I don't want to rush it. But I want it all the same."

"Halfway meaning you're feeling the same?" She posed her reply as more of a statement rather than a question and lifted her left brow to match it. It made her feel like there were butterflies running through her veins and it wasn't something she was familiar with.

"I'm going to be really honest here and say I don't know how to navigate something like this." Wren gestured between herself and JB. "But I would like to know if there's any chance after this that you'd be willing to walk with me back to my quarters?"

"Yes," he said, soft but completely certain. "I'd like that very much." He let out a small breath that felt like it had been held inside far too long. "I don't have a map for this either," he added, almost shy. "But I'd rather learn the terrain with you than keep standing on the edge."

At the far end of the room, the band began to make it's return to the stage.

"One more song and then we go?" Wren asked as she turned her head toward the band and took her wine and finishing it. Her night had taken an interesting turn and she had to mentally remind herself not to fall head first like she'd done all those years ago and gotten hurt, even though she didn't believe Jb was that kind of guy; there was something different about him.

He followed her gaze to the stage. The musicians were settling in again, each making some small adjustment of an instrument or of wardrobe seemingly a little ceremonial.

"One more," he echoed, as if they were sealing a pact.

With a tilt of her wrist, he watched her finish her wine, the last drop slipping away. There was a sweetness in that small gesture, a kind of tender courage he recognized.

On stage, the singer leaned into the microphone and a pregnant silence settled over the room. The first notes drifted out in a honey-warm vibrato, wrapping around the tables with the coziness of a blanket on a chill morning.

"Des yeux qui font baisser les miens
Un rire qui se perd sur sa bouche
Voilà le portrait sans retouche
De l'homme auquel j'appartiens

Jean-Baptiste shifted imperceptibly closer. Not enough to touch, but enough that she could feel the warmth of him at her side. His silent orbit was now tightening. Inside, he was still spinning. He'd stepped into this bar to wander the Astrea, maybe chase down a quiet drink and let the day settle. He hadn't planned on Wren. No one could have.

Quand il me prend dans ses bras
Qu'il me parle tout bas
Je vous la vie en rose
Il me dit des mots d'amour
Des mots de tous les jours
Et ça me fait quelque chose

In that moment, as the old standard unfurled like a gentle tide, he let himself imagine it--just for a heartbeat--that there might be a place where he could stop hiding, and someone who might choose to stay. And for that breath, the whole world tilted into a rose glow.


OFF

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Ensign Wrenleigh Reed
Diplomatic Officer
USS Astrea


Lieutenant J.G. Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil
Assistant Chief Security Officer
USS Astrea

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