... But I Don't Even Drink Wine.

The sewing machine whirred, and Kealey hummed as she worked on her first project for her, Modern Artistic Applications of Fashion class. According to the professor in this one, everything was going to be Avant Garde. She’d said that none of it should be ‘off the rack’. Shockingly, considering the amount of work she’d done for the X-Men. Kealey was struggling a bit. Sure, some of the uniforms looked a little outlandish, but when it came down to it they were practical.

This was a whole new realm of whimsical, and Kealey planned to make every outfit something she could wear…at least to a costume party. The project was due in a week, and the professor had handed each student three enviro-bags filled to the brim with scraps. The assignment was to make a clothing item.

Kealey, of course, had chosen a dress. It was going to be patchwork, and pieced together, and she’d separated out the cool colors from the warm colors. The bodice was going to start out cool, since she had more of those scraps. As the eye moved down the dress, a person would see it change until the skirt, which would be warm colors. She hoped it worked…and she knew that piecing everything together was taking a long time.

A knock came at the door, and Kealey stood. The room was far tidier than usual, with Kealey having organized everything before she started her first real project of the year. She didn’t feel embarrassed letting someone see inside.

To the door she went, blinking her eyes a few times to get rid of the multicolored ghosts that tried to stay when she left the machine. She grasped the handle and pulled.

It was Shin…and he had a bottle of wine?

Kealey smiled for a moment at how gallant the scene kind of appeared, with him in his coat and bringing wine…

Then Kealey took a good look at his face, and a good read on his emotions. The smile slid off her face. Something bad had happened.

”Come on in…what happened?” she said, heading back into the room. Shin had brought wine...and from what Kealey could tell, he needed some.

While she waited and listened to his explanation, Kealey went to her closet and grabbed two of the plastic cups she kept there.

"Go ahead and open that up while you tell me." she said, gesturing at the bottle.

Something was more than wrong, it was seriously, majorly, wrong. Shin was never down like this, she wanted to ask what had happened, but figured that he needed to get things out in his own time in his own way. He seemed a little confused to remember that there was a wine bottle in his hand.

He said he didn’t drink wine.

”You do tonight.” Kealey said with a frown as he slumped into her chair and shook his head. She was never very bossy, so hopefully he wouldn’t take it the wrong way. These feelings were concerning, and he seemed so tense... Alcohol wasn’t a good way to deal with problems…but sometimes a person just needed a drink, even if they weren’t a wine drinker. Shin also pointed out their lack of corkscrew.

”Strangely enough I have one…” she said, picking up the bottle from her night stand and walking back to her work space. There was a Swiss Army knife there that had been part of the stalker kit Shin had made her. She’d been using it to cut thread a few days ago when her scissors had been swallowed by the chaos of her room and had noticed the corkscrew. Convenient.

It didn’t take much to get the cork out of the bottle once everything was in hand, and while Shin explained that he’d gotten some bad news from a friend, Kealey poured two plastic cups of the wine. It was red, and the bottle said it was sweet.

Two cups in hand, Kealey made her way back to Shin and dropped down next to the chair on the floor, holding up the glass for him to take. ”Tell me whatever you want or need. I can tell you’re upset.”

The smile wasn’t a sincere one, but Kealey smiled back anyway at the effort it had probably took to manage even that. This was super serious…

Shin started talking and Kealey sipped at the wine in her glass. It was sweet and it actually tasted pretty good. Apparently Shin’s friend had lost his wife in some way or another, and it didn’t look like she’d left him on her own.

That really was terrible, and for a moment, all Kealey could do was feel sorry for this friend of Shin’s. There was something about the name though that sounded familiar, though, and she frowned, trying to place the memory. She’d met someone named Tarin before…but where? She stopped worrying about it for the moment and turned her attention back to Shin’s story.

The origin of the wine was revealed, and Kealey watched Shin as he watched the cup in his hands. He and this ‘Lenna’ person had done the right thing. They’d left Tarin, so she assumed it hadn’t been too much of a fight.

Shin stopped talking, and Kealey looked at him, worrying her bottom lip as she tried to figure out what to say.

”I can…that’s simply awful. I’m guessing that the police are involved? Is there an official investigation, or anything like that? Does he know of anyone who would want to take her? I’m guessing they were happy enough that she wouldn’t want to leave…even without her important stuff?”

They were questions that probably had obvious answers, but Kealey didn’t know anything beyond what Shin had told her. Background would help…it would also get Shin talking beyond the bare bones of the story. Talking helped.

A few more puzzle pieces slipped into place, and Kealey nodded her head to show that she was listening. This Tarin…and his wife Lee…man those names were familiar…had been in Romania with Shin. That was a topic they’d never spent any time discussing, but if Kealey concentrated really hard on the night at the bar she could remember Shin saying they’d been in a concentration camp of sorts…

”So they were part of that whole concentration camp thing?” Kealey asked, wondering why they’d been involved…she hadn’t met either of them as X-Men…the situation was slightly confusing.

The couple had been happy, there were no indications that anyone specific had taken Shin’s friend’s wife…Kealey gasped slightly at the last revelation and shook her head. The woman had apparently been pregnant too.

Shin was overwhelmed, and Kealey could feel it building up inside of her too. She took a deep breath, and another drink of the wine. It wouldn’t do any good for both of them to be going to pieces over this.

He apologized, and Kealey didn’t feel quite so overwhelmed anymore. Here was Shin, reeling from so much bad news, and he was worried about how he was making her feel.

”Don’t apologize.” Kealey said, with a sincere little smile, ”This is so much to take in, you’re right.” she moved a little closer and reached out a hand to pat Shin’s knee, leaving it to rest there.

”And you’re already doing everything you can. You helped your friend take the first step in the right direction. Drinking wasn’t going to help him find her. I’m guessing you talked through some things with him too, right? And trust me Shin…just being there probably meant more than you could possibly know. Feeling like you’re alone in situations like that is impossible. Now he’s got you…and whoever that other person was, to help.”

Kealey paused for a moment to let her words sink in.

”Plus, there’s stuff we can do to help now. The X-Men have lots of resources and access that normal people don’t. Maybe you can also put the word out at the police station too…there’s lots that can be done.”

Kealey smiled again, just a little. ”For right now though, I think you need to process everything. What else?”

Oh man. Kealey realized too late that bringing up Romania had been a huge mistake. Huge. Apparently Lee had died…now Kealey was confused, hadn’t Shin just said that..

”She got better.”

”Oh…that’s good…” Kealey muttered into her glass as she drank and listened to Shin talk. And he’d gone blind…and Ghost had…ghost had what?

This was…Kealey gulped down the mouthful of wine she’d taken with her last drink at the panic that suddenly started to well up inside of Shin.

He brought his eyes to hers and Kealey’s widened at what was in them. Apparently there was a reason they’d never really spoken about what had happened in Romania.

One day, they would. Having all that inside was bad. She just nodded her head for the moment though and looked at her cup. Another drink. Yeah…two more.

Overwhelmed. So overwhelmed.

Kealey could tell he was working through the things she’d said. He didn’t feel better, but the situation didn’t feel as desperate. This was an improvement. He didn’t know what else, but he felt like he’d taken a load off. There was a bit of relief now that he’d said it, and Kealey nodded.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths were definitely good after the breathtaking panic of a few moments ago. He wanted his mind off of it. Kealey smiled and nodded. That, she could do.

Up she stood, moving to tip a little more wine into her glass, ”First, we’re going to drink this. Not because it makes us feel better, but because we already opened it and it would be a shame to waste perfectly good wine. So, unless you want to watch me be lush…refill at will.”

To the door she went, the lock clicked. Not that students often wandered into her room, but especially if they were drinking, Kealey didn’t want to take the risk.

”Now, for starters, I’m going to tell you about the crazy class I’m taking and how my teacher thinks we need to be ’wearing art’ “

She paused and gestured to the sewing machine, ”That pile of scraps is going to be my artistic interpretation of the four seasons…as a dress.”

They were still there. All the emotions that had been under the surface when Shin had shown up at her door. They were better, more under control, but they were still there. They were working on it though, and Shin had agreed to helping her work through the bottle of wine they’d started drinking.

That would help. Maybe he’d want to talk more once some of the tension was gone. Wine was good for releasing tension. It was also good for making a person feel warm from their belly right down to their toes.

Shin started talking about art, and Kealey had to laugh when he brought up the urinals. She nodded her head and sipped at her wine some more, ”You won’t catch me wearing anything like that…” she said, then looked at Shin with a broad grin, ”And yeah…I’d agree. That hoodie is a work of art…but that might only be when it’s on you.”

He was curious about what she was making, and not only was Kealey’s ego stroked by that fact, but the other, darker emotions were overshadowed for the time being. She picked up the pinned bodice from the sewing machine and held it out for him to look at. The top was all yellows and light oranges, fading into darker oranges towards the waistline. She hadn’t started on the skirt yet, but it would be blues and purples. ”I’ve really only just started…the colors are going warm to cool, and they’ll blend together…like the seasons.” she shrugged. ”I hope that’s what she wanted…”

Shin pointed out that he didn’t ask her about school enough, and Kealey shrugged her shoulders, ”It hasn’t been anything all that interesting. We’re just getting into projects now that we’ve settled into the class routines. I’m still a little surprised they let me come back…and didn’t even hold me liable for what happened in the library.” had it been so long? That had been the day Shin had admitted his feelings.

Look where they were now. Kealey smiled some more and took another drink, ”I like my classes though, and I’m so comfortable there. It’s hard to make things like this though…” she said, setting down the unfinished garment and running a hand over the materials, ”I’m always thinking about uniforms and practicality these days.”

Oh man. Was he offering to let her wear the hoodie? Kealey tried not to be too excited by that idea. It was just a hoodie…but it was Shin’s hoodie. Her favorite hoodie of Shin’s. This was a definite improvement over the tone of a few minutes previous. Shin was calming down, actually letting some of those heavy emotions go. Kealey was pleased, she was helping.

She showed him her project and he liked it. That was good, Shin had good taste. If he liked it, then chances were she was doing a good job. She also liked the words he used when he described the colors. She repeated them, committing them to memory so she could apply them to the rest of the dress, or at least the description. ”I’m glad you think it’ll be okay.” it was good having the opinion of someone you trusted explicitly.

Next was some talk about the library and Kealey shrugged her shoulders and frowned a little. ”I guess not. I didn’t do much to stop it though. That was all you.” she said with a little smile, remembering how he’d torn through a wall to help her.

”All the superficial stuff is fixed. I’m sure they’ll be waiting on new copies of books for ages though. There were a lot in there that either got water or fire damaged.”

She could feel Shin sharing her feelings on all the practicality, and wasn’t particularly surprised when he pointed out that making pretty things might be a nice break from the practical. Kealey nodded her head. ”I agree…” she ran her hand over the material again, ”I’m making them all to fit me…but I don’t know where I’ll ever wear things like this.”

She looked up just in time to see Shin make colorful shards appear and disappear and she grinned as she took another drink. At this rate the wine would be quickly gone...but it tasted good, and felt good, so Kealey just shrugged to herself and.

”Do it again? You so rarely show off for me.”