gotgreenmagic

"There wasn't anyone else." He shrugged. "There's a city in the Land of the Black Sand but it's been abandoned since before I ever arrived there, and I'm fairly certain Destane never saw people living there either."

Huh. "So it was just you, the eel and the zombies for how long?"

"Oh, not just them. As I said, I collect magic. Creatures included. But I did travel. Various markets to explore. Secrets to study. That sort of thing. It's not like I was shut up there all the time."

"That explains the extensive social skills," she said lightly, her tone and expression making it very clear that she knew the same remark could be levelled at her. "What about your parents?"

She realised that that was sailing passed a horizon clearly labelled 'Overly Personal Questions' and cleared her throat.

"Uh. I retract that."

He was silently grateful she retracted thee question. He didn't remember much about his parents -- his father disappeared, and he himself had been sent away to apprentice with Destane when he was young enough not to be able to sort out just what was going on. Not the easiest thing to explain, really. "Probably for the better. But for referential purposes, I didn't have any family before I came here."

"Ah. Okay." She shrugged. "Mine's intact and obnoxiously huge. You wanna get a coffee or something?"

"Certainly." He smiled a little, surprised at himself. "You know I've never tried it?"

"Never? I kinda thought you'd be wired 24/7 by now." Shego paused, realising she'd have to qualify that. "Coffee's a source of caffeine. Keeps you awake. Can you make you jittery if you drink too much."

He shook his head. "Never felt tempted to." At the bit about keeping him awake, he chuckled a little. "Being disciplined also helps with that." As if he'd never fallen asleep on top of a book before.

"Yeah, I bet." She shoved open the door to the dining room and - well, apart from the fact it might've been a little bit dustier than usual (maybe her imagination) it didn't look like the site of a recent massacre. "I had the discipline not to burn down every building I set foot in and that's pretty much all I ever needed."

"And what about your old employer? Ever in much need of coffee, himself?" Mozenrath had heard enough about what had happened that the appearance of dust in the dining hall wasn't exactly comforting to him, but he chose not to show it.

"Drakken? No, not so much. The fewer chemical stimulants he had access to, the better. I didn't even like him drinking diet soda. The tiny handful of times he ever came up with a half-decent idea, it was totally accidental and I don't think staying up late would've helped to that end."

He laughed a little but chose not to point out how she sounded as though she were fussing over a hyperactive child and not a superscientist. "Well there must have been something you liked about him, if you stuck around that long."

"I dunno. I worked for him when I started out, and it was like watching a train wreck so I stayed. By the time I died I think it was more a combination of inertia, morbid curiosity and a lack of better options, more than anything I liked," she said, going through the motions of making drinks for them.

Mozenrath leaned on the counter, watching her. "So what you're saying is that if he showed up here tomorrow, I'd still have a fighting chance?" He raised an eyebrow.

"A chance at what, sunshine? If you were both looking for a hired hand on the 'world domination' front I'd have to think about it, but - it's not like he and I had a whole lot beyond the employer-employee thing going on."

He was going to have to come up with a nickname for her that was utterly sticky sweet, something bordering on revolting. Just to get her back. "Just wondering," he remarked with a smile. "That's all."

"Uh-huh." She held out a cup of black coffee to him, no milk or sugar yet. "Try it."

Mozenrath took the cup and held it up to his nose first. He immediately liked the bitter, earthy smell to it, and that was enough to tell him right away that it wouldn't be a sweet drink. He took a sip, immediately moving it around in his mouth a little to dispel some of the heat -- he barely missed scorching the tip of his tongue and the roof of his mouth, and then he had a moment to savor the taste.

He'd guessed right on the bitter, but hadn't realized, still, how bitter it would be. It wasn't disgusting, though. Nodding, he swallowed, and set the cup down for a moment to let it cool a little more.

"Not bad."

Shego nodded and stirred a spoonful of sugar into her cup, then lifted it to her lips, just breathing in the scent for a moment. "Glad you approve."

He noted her adding sugar to hers, but he didn't move to do the same, figuring it was good enough by itself. He traced a finger along the rim of the mug, thoughtfully. "So -- say we do this," he offered, after a few moments' silence. "I mean, say that we decided to do 'other things', like you said. Is there anything in particular you had in mind?" He hopped she had more experience than he did when it came to these things.

"I don't know," she said flatly. "I could count the number of dates I've had on both hands if I had both arms amputated, if you see what I mean. I know how it's supposed to go and everything, but interdimensional space jail sort of makes it difficult to have a private life."

"Yeah." Mozenrath rubbed the back of his neck. "I was thinking something similar." So what did that leave them? Walks in the CES, perhaps, provided it switched to something a little more habitable. But what else? "They don't really provide us a lot in the way of recreation -- that counts, anyway."

"No kidding. We could just..." She shrugged. "We're not kids. It's not like we've got anything to prove here. We could just doing what we normally do and if the opportunity comes up for something better, then...y'know. It's not even like a date and two people hanging out look that much different from a distance anyway."

"Is it weird that we're even worrying this much about it?" he asked, refusing really to put too much thought into it, or to attribute what he was doing here to the sort of thing he mocked in other people.

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