gotgreenmagic

"No, it is not." Shego twisted away from him, freeing her hands from her hair because they'd started glowing and she had no immediate plans to set her head on fire. "It is not okay. I am not okay. This entire freaking situation is so completely and totally not okay that I just - I -"

She yelled incoherently and hurled a ball of green energy at nothing in particular, barely having the awareness to aim away from Mozenrath. This was what she'd been afraid of, letting the lid off her frustration and then not being able to get it back on, but acknowledging that didn't make it any easier to handle.

A ball of green fire shot past Mozenrath, narrowly missing the door and striking a nearby tree. Debris and smoke and ash burst forward with the impact and sent his cape and headdress fluttering in the hot, musky breeze it created. Oddly he didn't flinch -- not in fear anyway; there was an uncomfortable twitch when some ash got in his eye. He held up a hand and the air around him appeared to give him a wide berth.

He didn't have the impressive aspects of his power anymore, but at least he had little things to maintain his personal space and comfort. At least it helped him look calm.

After all, if there was one thing he was accustomed to, it was throwing firey tantrums.

"Does that feel a little better?" he asked.

"No," she said quietly. She sat down, lacing her fingers together over the back of her neck. "Actually, it feels a little bit worse."

"I can't make your decisions for you," he said, stepping toward her purposefully, "but I'd honestly rather you be angry because someone hurt you than afraid to react at all."

She glanced up at him. "I don't - that's not it. I'm not mad at anybody. I'm sure as heck not scared. I just..."

She groped around for the right words. "I just miss feeling like there's a point, y'know? I miss feeling like my existence serves any purpose other than as a box-ticking exercise for some blond jerk from the future."

"Shego, that's stupid," he snapped. "Your master plan is to play dead until Kirk throws you out of here so you can what? See how you can be of use to someone else?"

"No," she snapped back. "I don't have a master plan. I don't have anything anymore, that's kind of the point."

"You've got you, and that's what's supposed to be important. So when you shut up because you think that's what this place wants, you've got even less than that."

"I never thought I'd hear an after-school special out of you, sunshine," she said, mostly to herself. "Look, I'm not shutting up because I think it's what this place wants. I don't care what this place wants. Shutting up just feels easier for me right now. And it's not like anyone really wanted the original version," she added, very quietly.

"Yeah, well nobody else gets that crap for free, just so you know." Which was all that needed to be said as far as him and uplifting speeches. And like a cat cleaning itself to cover up a mistake he was looking around at other things, now. Until that last part, anyway. He glanced down. "And I like the original."

Shego gave him a guarded look, then half-smiled and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "I...thanks. Thank you."

"You're welcome." He said it shortly, more like he knew it was customary that one phrase followed the other in polite conversation. "Just don't let it get around. We've both got reputations to maintain, right?"

"Yeah, sure. God forbid that two grouchy sarcastic jerks would ever see anything in each other," she said dryly, then blinked and checked herself. "I mean - hell - you know what I mean."

"Oh stop," he drawled. "I hardly meant it like that. And if that were the case it still wouldn't be any of their business."

Shego made a non-committal noise. For someone who'd knocked out his Warden's lights on her behalf, or maybe his own behalf for reasons of brief but psychotic jealousy, Mozenrath really seemed not to have mind his mind up on the issue of how much like that they were ever likely to get. Not that she was ever going to lead the way there. It just - would have been nice to feel needed.

She dismissed that entire internal monologue as a symptom of sleep deprivation and picked herself up off the floor, dusting herself down.

"I - didn't exactly mean to show up here and offload on you," she offered, the closest she'd ever get to an admission of embarrassment.

He didn't attempt to correct her on the matter. Whatever he'd decided in regards to her, it was caught up in his determination not to give his Warden leverage over him. "Well, you might not have meant for that to happen, but I did, and one of us was going to get our way, don't you think?"

She smiled wryly. "I guess. Why'd you want to know so much anyway? I didn't think guys did the whole feelings shtick." There was sort of a compliment hiding in there.

"You know perfectly well why I wanted to know so much," he objected, crossing his arms as he did so, looking particularly unhappy at her suggestion.

She just stared at him for a moment. "D'you know something, I'm not so sure that I do."

Damnit. She was always doing this. Mozenrath sighed. He figured he brought her here because no one else would be here and he'd already embarrassed himself enough. "You weren't acting like yourself, Shego."

"That doesn't explain why you wanted to know why I wasn't acting like myself," she said flatly.

"Because I didn't think you had amnesia on top of everything else."

"Yeah. Okay." She rubbed lightly at one temple, then swept a hand through her hair and looked up, staring at the stars.

"You know, Mozenrath - if you ever - I mean, if - maybe - "

She pulled a face and glared into the dark. "Never mind. Thanks for letting me in here."

It wasn't difficult for him to pick up on the shift. They'd practically been doing the same thing the whole night. "No -- what is it?"

"Nothing. It was stupid. I've already turned the 'uncomfortable' factor of this conversation up to 11 as it is."

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