Zombie? Messing with... emotions? Uncertainty welled inside him. What kind of logic would he be left with, after she'd done her thing? What would he say? And would he like it...

More drinks came. Shin finished off his appletini while he was thinking, and fished for another one.

"Okay." He decided, chugging the drink too fast. He shook his head, and cleared the sudden rush of BAC. "Do it. Let's see what I really... think." His face felt hot as he said it. Think, not feel.

He was ready. Show me what you've got.

Indecision flitted over the rest of Shin’s emotions and Kealey frowned a little bit at her drink. This was why she didn’t tell more people about what she could really do, it made them uncomfortable. Tonight was fine, tonight wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but the blond couldn’t help but wonder if Shin would wonder every time they were around each other. She shrugged it off and sipped the chocolate liquor again, there was nothing that could be done about it.

Blue eyes widened as Shin finished one drink and launched right into the next, in fact, he drained it. That…was pretty quick for a martini of any kind, even if there were apples in it. The indecision was gone though as the liquor made its way through his system and Kealey winced a bit internally. That was going to hit pretty hard and fast. If Kealey had to bet, she’d have said he didn’t drink much, and two martinis in that amount of time would be enough for at least a buzz…at least in her experience.

Shin spoke, though, and Kealey nodded her head. If he wanted her to talk him out of it, he was looking at the wrong person. He was worried and nervous and still guilty under everything else, but she did what she had promised.

To anyone watching it would have looked like there was a whole lot of well….nothing…going on. Kealey’s powers didn’t work that way. She stared at Shin, working to block out all the feelings of all the other people in the bar. It wasn’t too hard, since Shin was so close and his emotions on this point were so strong. As she stared, Kealey picked out the emotions that she figured would hinder his decision making process the most…the guilt most of all. Self-doubt was there too, as well as anger. Once she’d identified those things, Kealey did…what it was she did.

Again, to anyone watching, it wouldn’t have looked like anything was happening, but it was. Kealey focused on those key emotions. Down they went, not completely away because once they were gone, Kealey had no power over them. It was a huge difference though, shin really had been tearing himself up. She still stared, hoping it wasn’t disconcerting, it helped her concentration.

”There.” she said quietly, floating in the middle of his emotions and hers as she sometimes did when she really worked changing someone. ”I’ll hold it as long as you want, then I’ll take them away completely. It won’t last…but it’ll help for a while.”

Aurum's eyes widened. Shin had really set into his drink. It must've been hard deciding whether or not he wanted to let Kealey play with his emotions. Aurum wondered, would he have acted the same...? This sort of thing. Wasn't it a bit extreme? They'd already been reaching headway with Shin before. Now, they were enlisting the help of Kealey's powers?

Her powers... he wondered if she could use them to tell a truth from a lie? Maybe, they'd had so much success dealing with Shin's emotions up until now thanks to that insight... maybe not. Either way... it was intriguing. He took a sip of his drink as he pondered things. Kealey was a triple threat, for sure... if he ever passed the test, if he ever became a lawyer... a silly thought struck him. Kealey could really be useful.

He shook the thought as Shin reached a definitive 'yes'. It sounded like he'd decided exactly what they were going to do.

Aurum sat back and watched. It was sure to be a show.

A buzz. Yes. Maybe drinking two appletinis in the time Shin had been at the bar had been a bad idea. The fact that his head was spinning a bit was probably due to Kealey's power. Probably. There was a chance. A vague chance. A sliver of possibility.

Yes.

A snowball's chance in Hell.

Quite.

But he could handle a little drunkenness. He could handle a little straight up Truth. Bring it on. And so, Kealey did her thing, and Shin did his. Both their things seemed to be staring at each other.

Shin stared. Kealey stared.

And then, when staring ended, he stood.

"I have to go to the bathroom. Hold onto those thoughts..." Shin muttered. He turned, and took a staggered step or two away from the empath. His hand dropped to his pocket, and pulled out a cellphone. A finger fumbled over the greenish cover. Shin glanced up. He looked left, then right. His eyes searched out the bathroom sign. He found it. Then, Shin sauntered off.


Aurum blinked. ". . . . . uh." Guess he had to go?

If Aurum felt anything about what was going on, Kealey didn’t have a clue. She’d managed to shut out the rest of the bar and was completely focused on Shin’s emotions and keeping them stable. Fluctuations sometimes came with her territory, especially when she was holding emotions at a stable point, instead of completely eliminating them. As common as they were, though, the last thing Shin needed in his slightly fragile emotional state was emotional bunny hills.

It helped significantly that Shin was staring right back at her and staying pretty still, the fewer distractions, the better. Until he wasn’t anymore. Kealey had been concentrating so hard before Shin moved, that she actually started a bit when he moved from the chair. He was a little groggy…or drunk as he did so, and Kealey blinked her eyes rapidly, trying to clear the fog that was seeping in a little. This was why she’d avoided bars in the past. The full extent of her emotional senses was unknown to Kealey, but there were certain physical emotions she felt too…drunkenness was one of them. She subconsciously pushed her drink away, there’d be no more of that until they were done with this little experiment…but where was Shin going? Kealey didn’t have to wait long for an answer, and her eyes widened slightly as the Asian spoke and started moving away.

Hold those thoughts? As Shin walked away, she really tried, but there were so many people, she really had to hold hard to the little emotional strings she’d attached. Aurum spoke, and Kealey barely heard him, she was still staring in the direction Shin had gone, trying not to consciously think about where he was actually going…or anything else he was feeling, ”As if it’s that easy…” she said, looking out of the corner of her eye at her table companion.

”I didn’t mean to snap at you earlier. When you were talking about people leaving.” She said, the mental strain of what she was doing making her voice more deadpan than Kealey felt, ”Is it as hard for you to picture Shin in a concentration camp as it is for me?” The talking actually helped, instead of focusing on everything going on in the bar at once, she could focus on splitting her attention between to specific things. Her conversation, and Shin’s emotions that she was still holding firmly in her grasp, ”I hope it was a good idea to let him go off on his own like this. Pure logic can be a dangerous thing.”

". . ."

Oh dear. They were about to get real revelation, and then... whew. That's some bladder control, Shin. How could one even respond to that sort of thing? Uh.

Uncomfortable silence was one option, but... Aurum hadn't missed the green of the cellphone when Shin had fumbled with it. He had a hunch Shin wasn't going off to relieve himself. Although maybe after he was done, he'd feel a bit of relief.

Aurum let out a sigh. Poor kid. He took another drink of alcoholic escape.

Kealey said something. Aurum looked back to her. He set his drink down, and listened.

>>”I didn’t mean to snap at you earlier. When you were talking about people leaving.”

She said. It sounded like doing what she was doing was making it hard to multitask. Aurum nodded quietly. After a moment, he spoke. "Yeah, it's fine." She didn't have to explain why she had snapped if she didn't want to, but... "I probably shouldn't ask. I've had my own share of relationships that went bad..." He shook his head. In the end, maybe he'd asked her anyways. In a roundabout way.

She kept talking.

>> ”Is it as hard for you to picture Shin in a concentration camp as it is for me?”

Aurum nodded his head again. "Gotta be rough."

>>”I hope it was a good idea to let him go off on his own like this. Pure logic can be a dangerous thing.”

"Yeah," Aurum replied behind the rim of his glass. "And listen, sorry about earlier. I know you were giving me mean looks, and..." He smiled weakly. "I was only trying to be the 'bad cop' so Shin would react. And 'bad cops' don't work without 'good'." She was the 'good'. Though right now... his eyes inadvertently back towards the direction of the restrooms. Right now, if he was right... Shin was getting the roughest of the rough treatment in the world.

A thumb brushed over the buttons. Beep. Boop. Bip... Shin stared down at the screen with knitted eyebrows... it wasn't nice to be suspicious. And it wasn't nice to judge. The Send Button depressed. Depressed. Even if he was doing exactly what he was doing. Even if it was morally reprehensible.

And it was. But he had the liquor and the pure logic to blame for that. He'd been tricking himself. He could see it now. He'd been running from the underlying problem, but now. Now, it was clear. He couldn't date her. Not while they were working on the same team... and he'd been reckless. Too reckless. In letting her join in the first place. In letting anyone he cared about risk their life like that... in the future, he wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

The call connected. Shin brought the phone to his ear. Any empaths listening in on his heart right now might feel a sense of emptiness. Not guilt, not pain, but dread... because after this was over, he wouldn't be able to look at himself for a while.

If the liquor even permitted he remember tonight.

"Hey, Kasumi... it's Shin." Silence. He'd gotten the machine. Okay. Moving on. "I think we should break up." No reasons were given. No excuses were made. It wasn't her. It was him, and... he was a jerk. So, how did jerks end break up phone calls? Shin stared at the wall of the bathroom emotionlessly. "Okay. Bye."

Click. The phone hung up. Shin folded, and clenched it in his hand with a sigh. It was for the best.

~*~

Five minutes later, he walked back to the table. Shin slid back into his spot as if nothing had happened. His eyes evaded Kealey's. He looked to Aurum. "So. When's the next round getting here?"

I could use a drink.

Two things; that was all she had to concentrate on. Kealey clung to them like a mini life-line, Aurum’s voice, and the emotions coming from…the place she wasn’t going to think about Shin being. Nothing much had changed there, but Aurum was giving her plenty to think about. Kealey sighed at the unspoken question in his comment about the way she’d snapped. Blue eyes swung from the direction of the bathroom to meet Aurum’s for a second before darting away.

”Well. There’s not much to tell. I came home, and he was gone.” It really was that simple, at least as far as Kealey was concerned. ”Most of his clothes and luggage were gone too…so it wasn’t any kind of dangerous or bad situation…” she stopped and shrugged, then took a deep swig of the drink she’d been planning on nursing. This was what thinking and talking about Jacen got her….drunk.

”And there was no reason. Here’s the thing though.” She paused as a stark shot of dread moved through her, and looked back to Aurum again, ”I haven’t had many bad break ups…any in fact. He was the first.”

Kealey wasn’t thinking about Shin now outside of holding the emotions she’d so carefully manipulated in place. What he was doing was his business and his business alone. Aurum was talking again though, apologizing for what he called the ‘good cop’ , ‘bad cop’ routine. Kealey nodded her head, ”It wasn’t necessarily all me getting angry either…Shin was pretty upset while you were talking…and especially when emotions are strong they have a tendency to rub off.”

Shin emerged, and true to her word Kealey pushed the emotions away completely as he slid back into his seat. As she’d told Shin, they wouldn’t stay gone for long, but the little time he did have could be used to advantage. Once the emotions were gone the blond sighed and relaxed a bit, sipping again as Shin asked for another drink. Kealey made eye contact with the waiter…yeah, they were going to need more. The guy saw, and immediately went to the bar. Apparently the more they drank, the faster the service.

”Are you okay?” she asked, ”I don’t think either of us were fooled by the bathroom ruse, as clever as it was.”

>>"Well. There’s not much to tell. I came home, and he was gone." "Most of his clothes and luggage were gone too…so it wasn’t any kind of dangerous or bad situation…"

Harsh. Left, without warning or reason. And he was her first.

Aurum took another drink, and just listened. His heart went out to her. It didn't sound like it was her fault. And she deserved better than some guy who'd just up and abandon her. He could understand how talk of 'leaving' might get her riled up.

Aurum opened his mouth, and apologized. She apologized right back.

"Yeah," Aurum replied into his drink with a sigh. "I hope Shin forgives me, and I hope his mood improves after he gets back from dumping her... that's probably what he's doing in there, with that cellphone." Aurum shook his head, and took a drink. "We'll have to cheer him up after this. Wouldn't want to have a mopier Shin."

Mopier. Geez. Aurum let a sigh escape him as he sat there. He looked up as Shin returned. The kid slid back into his seat with hardly a word. Just a question. 'Where's the booze?'

Aurum shook his head and arched a wry eyebrow. "On the way."

>>"On the way."

w00t. Most important question, answered. Shin supposed he was getting used to this whole 'drinking' thing. It was better than thinking.

Speaking of thinking...

>>”Are you okay?”

Kealey asked him.

>>”I don’t think either of us were fooled by the bathroom ruse, as clever as it was.”

Shin blinked the innocent blink, and glanced towards the bar. "Oh, that? That was just... nothing. Don't worry about it. So, what did you two talk about while I was away?"

Aurum was worried about Shin being able to forgive him and Kealey shook her head at the regret he was feeling. ”Sometimes people need to hear the things that they don’t want to hear in order to make a decision about things they don’t want to decide.” Wow, that statement had gotten convoluted quickly, and Kealey shook her head to shake it off.

Aurum pointed out that Shin had taken a cellphone with him to the bathroom and that made Kealey feel much better about the whole situation. Until she realized that Aurum was saying that Shin was probably breaking up with his girlfriend. That was awful, but if it was what Shin had decided needed to happen, then it was for the best. Logic was rarely long, even if it was hard to deal with when emotions started to color things.

Shin returned, and artfully dodged the questions she posed about whether or not he was alright. He also dodged the question about his phone call, apparently preferring to stick to his drink and the conversation she and Aurum had had while he was gone. Aurum had said that Shin would need cheering up, and their topic of conversation wasn’t exactly light and cheery…but it was something other than what Shin was dealing with. She smiled.

”Aurum was being nosy and prying into my past relationships.” Kealey pointed out, ”Jacen didn’t do a very good job of things.”

The drinks arrived, that was a good thing. Kealey hoped the conversation was going to stay well away from her and Jacen…it wasn’t exactly something she wanted to talk about. The point of this trip had been to make Shin feel better. Kealey went to finish her last drink, only to find it already empty and running away on the tray the waiter carried. When had that happened?

She took the one and sipped. Three, surely three wouldn’t be enough to do much damage.

Nothing. Right... If he didn't want to talk about it, then okay. He'd probably done what needed doing, no matter how convoluted that was. Sigh.

Okay. Touchy-feely time was over, then. Now came the cheering up. As for what they'd been talking about before, when Shin was gone... uh...

>>”Aurum was being nosy and prying into my past relationships.” ”Jacen didn’t do a very good job of things.”

Right... "What? Hey. Me, nosy?" He pointed to his chest. "Hardly."

Shin looked from Kealey to Aurum, and back again. "Who is Jacen?"

It was amazing how sometimes it didn’t take a whole lot of words to rock somebody’s world. In this case, it was three. Kealey had been talking about Jacen leaving her like it was another lifetime. Like it had happened to someone else. Hell, she’d been acting like it was all a big bloody joke. Until Shin asked who Jacen was.

Somehow, for some reason, that drove the entire thing home. The smile disappeared quickly as Kealey’s face fell and the light-hearted laughter from a few moments before died in her throat. A throat that suddenly felt very dry. Kealey took a drink and looked from Shin to Aurum. She’d explained some of it to Aurum, just a few moments ago…this felt different though. Kealey hadn’t talked to anyone about this since it had happened. She’d just…existed. The silence was probably stretching, and Kealey took a deep breath.

”Jacen was…is…the first person who ever knew the real me.” she said finally, ”Probably still is.” The first words were hard to say, but Kealey knew that harder ones were on their way. Another sip would help, she took it.

”We met in a coffee shop. I was sitting there swimming in emotions, picking them out one at a time and trying to keep myself calm. It’s something I do to practice. Suddenly it was quiet. It was him.”

She told the story, how Jacen was a cop and how he’d taken it upon himself to teach her what it meant to be her own person. What it meant to sort out the difference between what she felt and what others felt. How he’d almost broken her heart, then saved her life and asked for a second chance in the very same breath. A chance she’d gladly given. Kealey left out some details, those were hers alone and even if she’d come a long way in the past few months, they were subjects she couldn’t imagine chatting about in a bar.

”Then one day he was gone. At first…I thought that maybe it was like another time he’d had to leave suddenly…but he’d left me a note then. No word this time. He’s gone.…” The blond stopped and shook her head.

”You can’t possibly understand what it was like. I knew with Jacen that what I wanted was what I wanted. This…. she said, gesturing at herself with a voice full of disgust and more than a little self-loathing, ”This isn’t me. I’m just a mirror of what everyone is feeling.” Her eyes were welling up and her voice was sticking in her throat a little, so Kealey stopped, taking another drink and swallowing it with the lump in her throat.

She chuckled, just a little bitterly, ”Aren’t you glad you asked? ”

Touchy-feely time had been over, hadn't it? But then, Shin had pulled them right back into the mix. It was stunning how one little question from the guy elicited such a massive response. It wasn't a positive 'stunning'.

Aurum's grip on his new drink tightened. Dammit, Shin... Leave the poor woman alone. He fell silent as Kealey spoke. First relationships were always the toughest. After that... you understood that not every relationship could end well. Not until 'that one'. Aurum still hadn't found 'that one'. Kealey sounded like she was saying Jacen was hers.

But he'd left her. For whatever reason, he was gone. Aurum took a gruff swig.

She really needed more reliable people in her life.