Archive of Our Own ^beta

They left the ceremony early, while the crowd and the press were distracted by a montage of all the hastily-recorded videos celebrities had sent in to lend their support to the victims of the alien attacks, promising financial aid and benefit performances that would probably be quietly canceled once the world's attention drifted away. No one followed them, not the press or the government or the other villains; Drakken's deliberately erratic driving made sure of that. And for anyone who decided they just had to try their luck anyway, Shego had no qualms about firing off a few warning shots. (This included having no qualms about firing on the Go Jet when it tried to approach them. The jet itself could take whatever she threw at it, and her brothers couldn't take a more subtle hint.) It was barely even evil -- they had every right to protect their privacy -- but it was still a relief to let loose after all the public accolades and the forced smiling for the cameras. And covering their retreat gave Shego something simple to focus on that wasn't the long list of impossible things that had happened to her so far today, and also wasn't Drakken. She'd spent the past few hours, ever since they'd been reunited on the spaceship, being just... intensely aware of his presence by her side. Knowing he was there, and somehow knowing it with her whole body, her whole being, in a way she never had before. Or like it had just never mattered as much before. She could take a closer look at that feeling -- and at him, for that matter -- or she could continue blasting the rubble racing away below them into even smaller rubble every time a flash of movement caught her eye. The choice was obvious, really. 

There wasn't any real conversation on the way back to the lair. There had hardly been any at the ceremony, either, not after he'd mumbled a confused and confusing apology and done whatever it was he did to shake off the vines encircling both of them. He'd squeezed her hand briefly as soon as they'd made their exit from the stage, a gesture she'd interpreted as are we cool? and had replied to with a yeah, we're cool return squeeze before she let go and tried to slip away from the crowd. Even their eventual exit had been planned silently, with just a few pointed looks passing between them and her hand closing on the back of his shirt and pulling him along when he didn't react fast enough. First there had been no opportunity to speak where they wouldn't be overheard, and hardly a moment when someone else wasn't attempting to demand their attention, and then there had just been... so much to say, and she didn't have any idea how to say it, or even what all of it was. And he hadn't said anything, even though she knew that something was definitely going on in that head of his, and so the silence had continued to stretch between them and she had continued to tell herself that there was no good that would come from breaking it now. At the very least, anything they had to say to each other could wait until they got home.

And now they were home, and the situation wasn't any better. The plants had done the worst of their damage to the lab, breaking through every wall and crowding or crushing most of the equipment there, but even the part of the lair where they lived had been thoroughly invaded, making the lair look it was further along in the post-apocalyptic timeline than the rest of the city and nature had already started reclaiming it. Shego sighed long and deeply as she assessed the damage, and a quick glance at Drakken saw him looking around with the same weariness that she felt in her bones. He stepped forward into the living room in a daze and the vines all moved aside to let him pass, although they twisted to follow him like they were watching him intently. He didn't even seem to notice them as he sat down on the couch, though, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, fiddling absently with the medal that still hung around his neck. Shego leaned on the doorframe for a while and watched him, waiting to see what his next move was, or if he'd just entirely run out of processing power for the night and it was time for both of them to give up. This wasn't the first time they'd retreated in utter exhaustion and been greeted by a lair that was barely habitable. And it wouldn't be the first time she'd turned right around and headed for a hotel instead while he insisted on staying behind out of some kind of stubborn pride. And god, if there was ever a day where she deserved to go somewhere nice...

She flicked the light switch a couple times, listening for the pop of exploding bulbs or the sudden darkness of the entire wiring system collapsing, relieved and a little surprised when most of the lights stayed on. "We've got four walls and a roof and the power's still on," she said. "Could be worse." She stood up straight again and headed deeper into the lair, shaking her hair out and recoiling at just how much dirt and debris fell from it. "Ugh. Gonna go see if we've still got enough water pressure to shower, and then I am sleeping for a week. "

She wanted luxury, she wanted pampering, and she wanted every possible comfort, the way she always did. But more than anything else, she wanted to be home.

It seemed to take Drakken a moment before he really registered that she was talking to him, and another moment before he looked up and responded. "Hmm? Oh, right."

Shego had been imitating her usual confident and brisk stride as she walked away, doing her best to look like she wasn't waiting for him to respond, but now she paused and turned back to him, brow furrowed. He was probably just tired, right? They both were, and he was always more obstinate than she was about admitting to it. And they had more problems than just needing sleep, sure but that was still the most pressing one and the one that was going to make all the other problems worse if they didn't address it. Whatever else was going on, they could deal with it in the morning -- or whenever they finally woke up -- when they were fresh and rested and had some better idea of what shape the future was going to take. Shego rested her hand on the arm of the couch, avoiding the vines draped over it, and leaned over Drakken. "Hey," she said quietly, that soft and serious voice meant to catch and capture his attention.

He turned towards her, focusing as if he was almost surprised to see her, and she held her eyes with his. She wanted to emphasize her point by cupping his chin and tilting his head up, giving herself a full and unobstructed view of that face she knew better than her own, the features she had memorized over the years, the face she could still see falling upwards and away from her when she closed her eyes. Her hand fidgeted on the couch arm as she resisted the temptation to be that aggressive, and when it brushed against a vine that draped itself over her wrist in response she didn't pull away. "You too, all right? Get cleaned up and try to get some sleep. Actual sleep, not puttering around until you conk out at the kitchen table or something, you got me?" When he nodded, actually seeming to grasp how serious she was, she nodded back approvingly and straightened back up, shaking the vine loose gently. "Okay," she said in a more normal tone. "I'll see you in the morning."

She resumed her retreat further into the lair, back towards her own apartment, but before she turned the corner that would have taken the living room out of her sight she couldn't help looking back. Drakken slumped into the couch again, his shoulders slowly rising and falling with his breath,making no move to rise and go to bed. It was difficult, far more difficult than it should have been, to just leave him there to sort himself out, but if he couldn't handle it himself then what could she possibly do for him?

Her rooms were always further than his from the lab, on the basis that he should be the first one to suffer the consequences of something going really wrong with one of his experiments, and the plants hadn't brought much of their destruction this far. The few vines that climbed her walls seemed to all have come in under doors and through open vents rather than bursting through the walls, their presence less an invasion and more an exploration. She still showed no mercy in forcing them to retreat, but the speed at which they did after just one warning plasma burst took the wind out of her sails. She'd intimidated a plant. Good for her. It didn't do anything to calm the sense of unease that she still couldn't shake. Neither did the shower, which she stood under until the water ran cold before she felt like she was actually clean. She shook her head as she threw on a fresh set of pajamas and climbed into bed, willing herself to ignore it. Just like whatever was going on with Drakken, there was nothing she could do about it tonight.

*

Morning was still a long way off when Shego rolled over with a groan and threw off the covers. She glared at the clock accusingly, as if it was showing such a terrible time on purpose, and slammed it facedown on the nightstand. So much for scolding Drakken about getting some sleep when she apparently couldn't even take her own advice. Her head ached like the roar of the warship was still echoing inside it, and her stomach was knotted with the kind of anxiety she hadn't felt since before she'd left Go Tower, the feeling that something was deeply wrong and she didn't know how to fix it. She called up a plasma burst for some light -- and, if she was being honest with herself, some comfort -- and it showed her nothing out of the ordinary. So whatever was putting her on edge was either outside her room or inside her head, and neither case was going to be improved by her lying here trying and failing to sleep.

She kept the faintest glow of plasma up as she shuffled down the hall, the light throwing odd shadows on the overgrown walls. Nothing seemed to have changed from her initial cursory look around before she'd retreated to her room, and the vines were back to acting like ordinary plants, without any of their previous too-intelligent writhing and shifting. It was just a variation on a theme, just one more half-destroyed but mostly livable lair, and there had been enough of those over the years that this one would have to try a lot harder before it actually fazed her. The lair was fine; she was the one who wasn't. Still too keyed up, still too shot full of nerves and adrenaline that didn't believe the fight was over and she was safe. And even with as cool and fearless as she always prided herself on being, even she was allowed to have reached her limit. She needed to unwind, to grab a mug of tea and curl up in front of the television or something until she'd relaxed enough for the tiredness to take over and let her get some actual sleep. So, basically, exactly what she'd scolded Drakken not to do. Whatever; she'd never been fazed by hypocrisy before.

The kitchen light was low and feeble, which should have been eerie but was instead comfortable. Shego was used to skulking around in the darkness, and it felt better to pretend she was less awake than she was, just puttering to the kitchen in the middle of the night. She didn't even bother with the kettle, just touched a fingertip to the surface of the water in her mug and let off a little burst of heat. A party trick, Hego had called it once, but he had always been the first one to take advantage of it when the coffee had gotten cold on late-night missions. It was a habit she'd gotten into, being prepared, and she even kept a mug and a box of tea in the cupboard in her bathroom just so she didn't have to make the exact trek she was making now. The walk felt like part of what she needed, though, the illusion of a little bit of fresh air. Maybe more of a reminder that the world was still here than she could admit to needing.

As on edge as she was, she should have been quicker to notice the flickering lights in the living room, the indistinct sounds that barely made it any distance down the hall before being swallowed up in the ambient noise. They resolved quickly into crackling voices and canned laughter, the sound of someone else already watching the late-night cable reruns she'd been intending to bury herself in. She could just see the screen over the back of the couch as she crept into the room, showing some nebulous scene of black-and-white slapstick, but that occupied far less of her attention than the silhouetted head that blocked a good chunk of it, the familiar arm flung over the back of the couch. Drakken didn't seem to register her presence as she rounded the couch, his eyes on the television but his mind clearly elsewhere, but just the sight of him was enough to unravel some of those tensions knots Shego's stomach had been tied in. That probably wasn't anything she needed to unpack. She drummed her fingernails on the mug, letting them clink just loudly enough to announce her presence. "Cable's still working?"

His answering yelp said that the clinking hadn't actually been loud enough to announce her presence, and when he turned around to glare at her she was only mostly unrepentant. His glare softened almost immediately, turning into a relief that looked a lot like the feeling she'd had just a moment ago, and he had clear difficulty in mustering up his usual petulance. "Don't sneak up on me like that," he grumbled weakly.

"Don't be so easy to sneak up on, then," she returned, leaning on the back of the couch and examining her nails innocently to cover for the once-over she was giving him. He was right where she had left him when she'd gone to bed, but the pajamas, as well as the freshly-washed look of his hair, suggested that he had actually left the couch at some point. And the mug in his free hand suggested that his return to it had been under similar circumstances to hers. "Come on, scoot over."

He groaned in irritation, the way he did whenever she requested literally anything from him, but he also immediately swung his legs down to make room for her on the couch, and looked like he was not so much giving in to her request as he was making his own invitation. He definitely gave her the same subtle look up and down that she'd given him when she came around the couch to sit next to him, and while he clearly noticed her current attire -- the lavender camisole top, capri pants, and bare feet were well outside the range of what he was used to seeing her in -- he knew better than to comment. She settled in on the other side of the couch, folding her legs up underneath herself and curling around her mug, and when she didn't immediately attempt to engage him in conversation he turned his lack of attention back to the television. His arm was still draped over the back of the couch, meaning that it was partly behind her head, and she could feel it there, just a short stretch away from actually touching her, that same awareness of his presence that she'd felt all evening and only now realized she'd been feeling the lack of.

She didn't ask what they were watching. It didn't matter.

"Couldn't sleep?"

Drakken's voice was startling soft, and when she raised her head he was still pretending to focus on the television. "Yeah," she said eventually, leaning back into the couch in a slump as if she was admitting to some weakness.

A grunt and a nod. "Me neither." Drakken's body leaned towards hers slightly as he settled into the couch, folding his other hand around the mug contemplatively. There was still a touch of tension to him, still a delicate sort of wariness as he glanced sidelong at her.

Shego gave a little squirm that she couldn't entirely explain her reasoning for, and she covered it with a sharply raised eyebrow. "Did you try?"

A burst of familiar, sputtering indignation was her reward as Drakken turned to glare at her. "What kind of question is that?"

A tiny little smirk, barely concealed, because needling him would always be her favorite pastime. "One that comes from someone who knows you," she retorted. "And someone who knows you think overwork and sleep deprivation are things that happen to other people until they suddenly smack you in the head and knock you out." That earlier comment about him passing out at the kitchen table had not been a random or idle example, and it was always annoying to have to worry about whether he was pushing himself too hard.

He growled in impotent fury the way he always did when she backed him into a corner, and she smiled the way she always did when he made that little sound. "Yes, obviously I tried, " he said with withering contempt. "I tried to sleep for hours, and then I decided that anything was better than lying in bed and reliving my near-demise at the hands of bloodthirsty marauders!"

"Okay, fine, " Shego said, rolling her eyes and concealing the way she immediately folded in around her stomach, which was plagued again with the knots that she'd thought were going away. Having the reality of the situation dropped on her again was exactly what she'd been trying to avoid by getting out of her own head, and on top of that it just took all the fun out of messing with him. She sipped her tea and joined him in staring dully and without focus at the television screen. "The press doesn't like it when you call them bloodthirsty marauders, though. Just a tip from someone who's dealt with them before."

It was enough to bring on a confused pause. "The-- oh, very funny, Shego!" Drakken glowered at her as he crossed his arms, somehow managing not to spill anything in the process.

"I am, yeah. Glad you finally noticed." She gave him a sideways smirk, cool and sarcastic, feigning some semblance of her usual unconcern. He continued to glower at her, not totally covering up the faintly haunted look behind his eyes, or the way he tucked his knees up like he wanted to curl up in a ball. She nibbled at the inside of her cheek. Worry wasn't a good look on him, ever, and now it was starting to feel contagious, as well. She stretched out a sigh to inform him of just how ridiculous he was being. "Okay, so there was an army of giant alien robots that almost took over the world," she conceded, as if this was a fact that barely merited mentioning. "And now there's not one because you saved the entire world. So you can either lie awake stressing out about a nightmare that's already over and a problem that you already solved, or you can bask in finally having the right to be as smug as you've always wanted to be about your genius." There was possibly a compliment in there somewhere, sort of. Accidentally.

"You saved it, too," Drakken said, somehow making it sullen, as if it was an accusation. "Or you saved me, anyway." That was a little softer. A gruff sound. "And anyway, you're not sleeping, either."

Shego took too long to respond to that, destroying any chance she might have had of making it seem like she was unfazed by it. She had saved him, sure, and she would have torn through the entire fleet bare-handed to get him back if she'd had to, but he didn't have to go and notice it like that. It should have been allowed to just hang in the air between them, unspoken and unacknowledged until she felt like admitting to it, which might be tomorrow or it might be never, depending on how deftly she could continue dodging the inevitable conclusion that had been looming just over the horizon in her head for longer than she cared to think about. "I spent most of the day gearing up for some serious physical violence, and then I hardly had to do any before you took care of it. It's gonna take a while before all that adrenaline settles."

Drakken seemed to chew over that answer for a little while. "And how is that any different from what you're accusing me of?" he finally asked.

It... kind of wasn't, but that didn't mean Shego couldn't get offended at the comparison. "Because I'm not brooding over it," she said with far too dramatic a roll of her eyes. "I'm not lying awake and overthinking things; I'm just dealing with the physical symptoms of everything that's happened today."

In another of those moments of rare and surprising wisdom, Drakken regarded her for a long moment and then carefully closed his mouth. He took a too-quick swig of his tea, trying so hard to look nonchalant that it was no surprise at all when he choked on it. He hacked and wheezed, spitting tea and making Shego's heart lurch, but before she could intervene a cluster of vines, knotted together like a fist, rose up and thumped him soundly on the back several times. The jolt sent a little more tea flying, and he took a few deep gasps before his breathing started to settle down to normal. When it did, his shoulders sagging with the relief of it, the vines uncoiled and gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder, which he returned before they slunk away and disappeared to wherever it was that they went.

Shego took a couple deep and silent breaths herself, trying to pretend she hadn't just had a horrible vision of him surviving an alien invasion just to choke to death on tea in his living room. "Speaking of dealing with physical symptoms," she said, flicking at one of the vines and stopping just short of touching it, mostly because it shied out of her reach.

Drakken sighed, nearly going cross-eyed as he looked up at the plants surrounding him, but it wasn't an irritated sigh. "This is going to take some getting used to."

So he had resigned himself to his floral fate. Not too surprising, really, given the adulation it had brought him so far, but Shego had expected him to fight it a little longer to preserve whatever dignity he thought he had. She took advantage of this change of subject and unfolded herself, rising up onto her knees and leaning over his shoulder to examine the back of his neck. A little grey-green tendril still poked out of the collar of his shirt, and she brushed a tentative fingertip against it. He made a small startled noise, his shoulder blades bunching in, and the vine curled upward. Once again she had the feeling that it was watching her, and she kept her hand extended and waved her fingers like she might with an unfamiliar animal that was still deciding if it wanted to be friendly. "So how does this whole 'psychic, symbiotic' whatever-it-is work?"

He stayed hunched in, not actually moving out of her reach but making it clear that he didn't appreciate her prodding, and the vine slunk a little lower below his collar. "I don't know why you're even asking me, since you're apparently more interested in your own hands-on research," he grumbled.

Shego couldn't suppress a snort. "Oh, like you have any room to talk," she said. "I remember what it was like when we first started working together. You couldn't keep your hands off me."

Drakken made an ugly noise, sounding like he might choke again. "That's not-- I didn't--" His voice went low, as if there was someone else in the room who might hear them. "I kissed your hand once. "

Yes, and more than half a decade later she was still embarrassed for him about it, but it obviously wasn't what she'd meant and she didn't know how she felt about it being the first place his mind had gone. She raised up a faint plasma flare, even her smallest one still nearly blinding in the dimly lit room, hoping it would both make her point and wash out the color she could feel rising in her face. Her phrasing had been deliberate, obviously, because she was never going to pass up a chance to mess with him, but maybe she had hit a little too close to home for herself on this one, too. A little too close to those thoughts she'd already decided she wasn’t going to look any closer at yet. "The first couple months, I couldn't even light up this much without you breathing down my neck and trying to figure out how the whole glow thing worked. I practically had to shake you off sometimes. How many times did you get burned?"

A flinch that felt less like remembered pain than like remembered embarrassment. "Not enough times to keep me from coming back."

Way too close to home. Shego snuffed the light immediately, putting her hand behind her back like she'd been caught doing something illicit. Funny how a sentence that was completely literal could still be way too accurate a metaphor. "I... yeah. That's..." She trailed off, looking away from him. "That's you, all right," she said softly. And, god help her, wasn't she grateful that he didn't seem to know when to walk away. That neither of them did.

He mistook the softness in her voice for weary impatience, his hackles rising again. "Well, what else was I supposed to do?" he demanded peevishly. "We were going to be working together. I had to know what I was working with. " He harrumphed quietly -- really, there was no other word for it -- and folded his arms.

"Yeah, and I deserve the same courtesy," Shego returned, undaunted. "I need to know what I'm working with if you expect me to do my job properly."

He opened his mouth and didn't answer for a moment, as if this was something he hadn't considered. "That's different," he finally said. "I'm the scientist, and you're--"

"I'm what ?" she cut him off. "Just the sidekick?" His stricken silence was answer enough, and she took a breath. "We both know I haven't been just the sidekick for a long time," she said quietly, and then immediately regretted it. There were too many ways that could be interpreted, and too many of them were tied into that storm on the horizon.

His mouth opened and closed a few times before he could manage words, and they weren't the words she had been expecting. "You were never just the sidekick."

The sudden twisting of her heart must have been what people meant when they talked about 'the good kind of pain.' She made a desperate attempt at one of her usual sarcastic scoffs. "You're right; the 'roommate' part is probably more relevant here," she said. "Forget about what I'm working with; I have the right to know what I'm living with. Especially if it's going to be prodding at me. I have the right to prod right back."

His face immediately clouded over, and she almost flinched. He'd tried to reach out to her with something tender and she'd slapped it away, and he knew she'd done it on purpose. It was self-defense, she tried to tell herself, deflecting an assault that threatened to break through all her defenses at once, and she tried not to feel like she'd just made the worst mistake of her life. "Fine," Drakken grumbled, turning his back to her, and she couldn't really blame him for trying to shut her out. "If you're going to be invasive no matter what I say..." He grunted and fumbled with something out of her sight, and then the realization slowly dawned that he was unbuttoning his shirt. In an ungainly scramble he shrugged it off his arms and flung it to the floor next to the couch as if it had offended him. "There," he snapped at her over his bare shoulder. "Happy now?"

Shego was silent, mouth slightly agape, as she tried to formulate a response, and then tried to formulate a different response after the first one was yeah, kind of, actually. Even after all this time she still got a sense of personal and professional satisfaction whenever she managed to provoke Drakken into a new level of annoyance, and 'angry stripping' was definitely new. And aside from the satisfaction of antagonizing him and also getting him to indulge her curiosity, she was equally appreciative, if not more so, of the chance to get a good look at him with his shirt off. And that feeling was definitely not new, no matter how much she might try to tell herself otherwise. She cleared her throat awkwardly, trying to cover for how long it was taking her to respond. "So what am I actually looking at, here, Doc? Not a lot I can see in this light."

Drakken heaved a sigh, which did some very interesting things to the muscles across his shoulders, and even from behind him she could tell he was rolling his eyes. "Well, you heard her!" There was a pause in which Shego tried to parse this response, which didn't seem to be directed at her, and then his beleaguered demeanor turned more thoughtful. "Or, okay, maybe you didn't hear her. I'm still working out just how this all works." He raised his voice. "Can we get some more light in here?"

A soft, rustling hiss rose from behind the couch, drowning out the low murmur of the television as the vines that had been lying inert rose to their summons. Shego closed her eyes and took a deep breath, bracing herself for whatever weirdness was about to happen -- she was curious, sure, and impressed in spite of herself, but the whole thing still creeped her out a little -- and then turned to watch one of the floor lamps from Drakken's office come clunking awkwardly down the hall, borne up by a carpet of greenery that wrapped up its stand and carried it along. The two of them looked on in silence as the mass of plants deposited the lamp on the floor behind the couch, then seemed to study it for a moment before picking it up again and moving it slightly to the right. Apparently satisfied, they retreated, leaving one single vine to wrap around the pull chain and turn the lamp on with a quiet click before slithering away.

The silence continued for a long moment before Drakken shook his head. "I'm not sure what I was expecting."

"Cozy," Shego observed, only a little bit sarcastic as she rose up onto her knees again in the little pool of light and returned her attention to his back. She had seen it before, of course -- there had been beach days, and shared hotel rooms on business trips, and just the general stumbling into each other that came from having lived together and shared the same space for as long as they had -- but she had rarely paid quite so much attention to it as she was now. It was a nice back. Drakken wasn't one of the bodybuilder types she usually gravitated towards when she was looking for a little fun, but he was better looking than most people would probably guess under the lab coat. His shoulders were broad, the bones standing out and casting clean, soft shadows across his blue skin, muscles shifting as he grew restless under her scrutiny, and his spine was an elegant ridge that drew the eye downward towards the hollow at the small of his back. All of which were features she could easily and gladly have dedicated all her attention to, but at the moment they were eclipsed by the ones that hadn't been there the last time she'd taken a good, long look at him.

Two more raised lines flanked the crest of his spine now, running parallel to it from the base of his ribcage to somewhere up under his hair. They were low and shallow rises, like some small tunnel under his skin stretching it upwards, and they might have gone unnoticed under most light except for the skin itself, which had turned slightly coarser and duller than the skin around it and had taken on a distinct greenish hue. Not green like her skin was green, Shego noted, raising a hand up near him for comparison, but a deep and subtle color not unlike the color that was currently climbing up their walls. The foliage that had previously been poking over his collar was nowhere to be seen, having apparently retreated or vanished or whatever it was that it did, and there was nothing immediately obvious to indicate just how that worked. She studied him for a long time, watching him with quiet fascination, her hands hovering just above his skin and not actually touching him as her fingers traced the lines of his back, both old and new. "Huh," she said quietly after a stretch of silence. "That's... interesting."

A sharp stiffening of his shoulders. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that it's interesting," Shego returned, rolling her eyes so hard he could probably hear it. "Give me some time to figure out what I'm looking at before you expect an essay." This brief flash of annoyance at him being Drakken was enough to shake her out of the delicate hesitation that had taken hold of her, the feeling that breathing wrong would be enough to bring something crumbling down on them, and with new boldness she leaned forward and gently touched a fingertip to one of the ridges. Drakken immediately tensed up and she pulled back, genuinely holding her breath for a moment, but when his shoulders relaxed again it was with a slow exhale that felt like... a concession. An apology. An invitation to continue. She reached out again, and after a brief flinch as if the touch had been a surprise he immediately settled into it. His breath went out slowly and quietly, like a sigh, and Shego had the same feeling that she'd had when she'd come down the hall and seen him on the couch. Like something was clicking into place, another tumbler falling on some lock somewhere in her chest. She breathed out a little too deeply and delicately herself. This was normal. Completely normal.

The affected skin was still skin, which was almost a surprise when Shego had been prepared for something much stranger, like a patch of leaves and tree bark growing out of him. It was a little thicker and more leathery than the surrounding skin, maybe -- her other hand came to rest just under his shoulder blade for comparison and he sucked in another startled breath before seeming to relax into it -- but still pliant, shifting and giving under a little pressure from her touch and moving freely over the structure that had grown up underneath it, which itself felt like a curve of cartilage. There was a faint coolness to it, though, compared to the near and noticeable warmth of the rest of him, not clammy but still reminding her of nothing so much as the coolness that radiated up from damp garden soil. And... she felt ridiculous for it, but she leaned in closely, trying not to be noticed, and breathed in. No, she hadn't been imagining it. Underneath the way he normally smelled -- and realizing that she knew how he normally smelled was a revelation of its own -- there was a new, earthy undertone, cool and deep and making her think of tree roots and turned earth. Definitely not a scent she was used to associating with people, but it was still pleasant, and it made her want to close her eyes and breathe deeply.

Drakken huffed, harsh and sharp and impatient. "Well?"

Shego suppressed a yelp as she sat back, immediately ready to deny any accusations that she was being weird, but Drakken just continued to glare at her out of the corner of his eye, head turned as far as he could to look at her without actually taking his back away from her. Whatever defensiveness she'd been ready to launch at him died on her lips, not only because he apparently hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary from her but because he still had his back to her. He was still being all touchy and grumpy, a familiar look on him, but he was also still trusting her. And she was cruel and callous and sarcastic, sure, but she wasn't so cruel and callous and sarcastic that she couldn't recognize what a big deal that was, Especially when she could see the corner of his eye he was glaring at her with, and she could see that almost childlike uncertainty that hung at the edge of his expression. "Will you just chill for a minute, Doc?" she said, matching his impatient little huff with one that didn't totally mock it, not really. "I'm not gonna hurt you." She paused, giving that hesitant eye another look. Underneath all the bluster and the new heroism and whatever it was that was bringing out an uncomfortable softness in her, this was still Drew. Somewhere inside he was still that awkward, nerdy kid who'd been pushed aside one time too many by people who didn't get him and didn't care and thought he was crazy. She had heard the stories too many times -- listening with varying degrees of patience, sympathy, and willingness -- to forget that, and it was clear enough that even now he couldn't forget it. Some of that softness went into her voice without her willing it, not that she tried all that hard to stop it. "And I'm not gonna freak out, either, okay? Just because the world sees you differently now doesn't mean I will." That, she realized slowly, was what he really needed to hear, that she specifically was okay with it. And she... really, really, needed him to know she was.

A touch of cautious hope rose in his eyes. "You... don't think it's weird?"

She scoffed, and was relieved to be able to break out of this emotional whatever-it-was enough to do so. "Oh, it's weird, all right," she assured him, and if there was a little bit of vicious glee in her voice that was just her nature and he should understand that by now. She leaned forward again, returning a hand to his back. "But I wouldn't have lasted ten minutes working for you if I wasn't okay with weird."

The sound he made in response to that was sort of like a laugh. The movement of his back suggested that he was fiddling with his hands nervously, and he coughed. "Do you--" he started, and she had never heard him cut himself off quite so quickly. A tentative shoot reached out from the ridge to the left of his spine, up near his neck. There was no obvious aperture for it to have emerged from, and no violence as it broke the skin; it was just suddenly there, reaching towards her with that same watching feeling that she'd gotten from some of the other plants. "That's... okay, then," he ventured uncertainly. "I guess."

"Oh, stop being so dramatic about it." Shego raised her hand up again and offered it to the vine as she had before, but now that Drakken wasn't shying away from her it had a chance to respond. It swayed and shifted for a while and then came forward to touch her fingertips, curious and experimental. With her palm up she let it continue to trace over her hand, like a dog sniffing an unfamiliar person. She tried not to think that maybe it had been shy before, and had only come out now after her reassurances to Drakken that she wasn't going to reject him or his new plant pals. That was a level of awareness and thought that she was not entirely comfortable ascribing to it, although there was clearly some kind of independent awareness going on there with the way it was tapping at her so curiously. "Am I supposed to talk to it or something? Can it even hear me?"

" I can hear you."

The response nearly made Shego jump before she realized that it was just Drakken, answering with his actual human voice like a normal person. "As happy as I am that you haven't gone deaf in the last thirty seconds, not what I asked."

"It's a plant, " Drakken said like he was explaining something obvious. And from the frustrated gestures he was making, maybe as far as he was concerned he was. "A surprisingly intelligent plant, yes, but it can't actually hear. It's just... picking up on what I'm experiencing and filtering it into something it can understand and respond to. It knows you're talking to it because I know you're talking to it, but it doesn't really hear it the same way a person would. The same way I know it's curling around your wrist right now--" which it was; Shego had gone completely still as she felt it holding on like it had already warmed up to her "--but I can't actually feel it, and I didn't tell it to. It's not like I'm holding you. Your hand. Holding your hand." He coughed, and seemed about to rub the back of his neck before he remembered that space was occupied already. "Not that I would know how to compare it to holding you, since I've never-- I mean. Anyway."

Shego clamped down on the little voice in the back of her head that suggested that she could always show him what that felt like, if he wanted. In the interests of science. Anyway. The vine that had wrapped itself around her wrist felt comfortable where it was, warm and solid with its strange, sinuous grace, and when it tried to slide away from her, looking almost sheepish, she felt a momentary pang that made her want to tell it to stay, that it was fine and welcome where it was. It still sidled away, Drakken's awkwardness apparently stronger than her assurance, but the little spray of white flowers that bloomed from it as it retreated felt hopeful. Which was insane, but that just meant it fit right in with the rest of her life now. "So you don't totally control it," she said, putting some of the pieces of his explanation together. "It knows what you're thinking and what you want, but it's going to decide for itself if it's going to go along with it." She felt like she was leaning forward again, straining to hear him either confirming or denying that. The answer... was going to matter.

"A situation I'm very familiar with," he responded with his usual frustrated growl, and she couldn’t help but grin despite the creeping uncertainty hovering in the back of her throat. Even with his back to her she could feel him trying to glare at her. "But unlike some assistants, Flora Prime is actually working with me."

The not at all veiled accusation being levied against her was the least important part of that sentence. "Whoa, whoa, time out. Flora Prime? You named it?"

A mulish grumble, color rising around his neck and ears again. "To differentiate it from the rest of the plant collective. The others only seem to be capable of reacting to... pheromones or something from Prime and aren’t actually taking any kind of independent action," he said in his I don't have to explain my genius to the likes of you voice. "It's an important distinction to make."

God, he was such a nerd . And she never would have imagined when she started working for him that someday she'd be smiling when she said that to herself. "Whatever you say, Doc."

He grunted, mollified enough for now. " As I was saying, Flora Prime is working with me. It... has its own thing going on, and its own ideas on how to react sometimes, but I don't think it's actually capable of arguing with me." A wistful sigh that made Shego roll her eyes. "It's literally rooted too deeply in my nervous system to disregard everything that's coming from it. Whatever it decides to do on its own, as far as I can tell it can't actually do anything that I would tell it not to do."

It was an answer. And she still didn't know if it was the answer she wanted. "So... it's making its own decisions, but based on your intentions?" she said. She had drawn her hands back when the vine had drawn away, and her fingers curled into soft fists looking for something to hold onto.

Once again there was that curious look at her over his shoulder. "I guess?"

Right. Okay. Still not making this any easier. Probably nothing was going to, at this point. She bit her lip and bit the bullet. "And when it grabbed me at the awards ceremony..."

Drakken's entire body tensed, those fluid and expressive lines of his back going stiff and still. "I didn't tell it to do that."

"Yeah, that much was obvious," she muttered, heat rising in her face that she was grateful he couldn't see. He had been just as tense then as he was now, a tension that she'd been able to feel as well as see when they were pressed so close together. "But it was still you, or some part of you, anyway. That's how this works, right?" She was entirely confident in her words, so why were they coming out in a stumble?

He was silent for too long, his torso going like a bellows with breaths that were a little too deep, a little too quick. Finally he answered, and his voice was low and weary. "What do you want me to say?"

Shego sat back as if he had pushed her, sinking from her knees to her backside again and feeling the soft impact of the cushions like a shock. "I don't--" she started, that rising heat turning into a familiar burn of anger and frustration. What did he think he was playing at, acting like this was something she'd done when he-- when his stupid plants had started this whole thing! "I just want..." I want you to tell me I'm not crazy. I want you to tell me that this feeling that's been chasing me down isn't just me. I want you to tell me I'm not imagining the way you've been looking at me lately when you think I don't notice. "I want to know why you're being so weird all of a sudden!" she burst out, voice high and strangled with helpless, confused frustration.

Drakken raised his head like this had come out of nowhere. "How am I the one being weird here?"

"Aside from the very obvious?" Shego returned, still way too agitated. She aimed a sharp flick at the plant but deliberately failed to connect. It ducked away from her anyway -- like scientist, like symbiote, apparently -- but still seemed so very interested in studying her. "We almost had some kind of moment before you left me hanging, and that's bad enough, but once we're up on stage in front of the whole world, then it's time for your... plausible deniability plant-based flirting? And now you want to act like it didn't happen!"

"Because you're clearly trying to avoid it," he growled. "And when did I leave you hanging?"

"I went to space for you!" The flash of plasma that went up was brief and almost involuntary, and Drakken didn't even flinch. "I stole a rocket and infiltrated an alien spaceship to get you back, and when I finally found you, you couldn't even--" Her voice cracked as she curled her arms around her stomach. She drew in a breath that was too heavy and hitched, like she'd been running for her life. "You had your arms out like-- And I was ready for it! I was gonna give in and do a whole emotional thing and just... let it happen, because I had you back again and that was all that mattered, and you--" Another crack, and it took a heavy breath to settle it. "You backed off, and you just... left me out there."

" I backed off?" For the first time since this conversation had started Drakken turned around to face her. Just enough, his body twisting so he could glower at her directly without straining over his shoulder. " You were the one who froze up! It was-- I was going to hug you, and I wanted to, and then you-- I stopped because you stopped!"

"No, I stopped because you stopped," Shego returned. She matched his glower with hers, unfolding herself from the clenched posture she'd adopted, resenting the idea that he might see her looking small and understand just how small she actually felt. "You got that look you get, when you suddenly realize you don't know what you're doing and all the panic starts to set in, and-- and then I didn't know what I was doing, and there were too many feelings, and I wanted to hug you so bad but I didn't know--"

Drakken moved faster than she would have imagined him capable of. From the awkward half-turn he'd already made he spun around to face her completely, grabbing her by the shoulder and pulling her into his arms. Her breath came out in a strangled cry, caught off guard less by him than by the strength of her own emotions finally given release, and all she could do was bury her face in his chest and hold onto him as tightly as she could.

The sight of him down the hall, that touch of her fingers against his skin as she prodded at him, they’d been keys to everything she had locked deep in her chest for the past several hours, all the feelings she had buried because she didn't have time for them, everything that had to be locked away so it couldn't interfere with getting him back. The full, solid warmth of his body against hers was the key in the final lock, the final certainty that it was all over and he was here and safe and she could stop fighting. All the tension she hadn't realized she was still holding let go so sharply that she might have collapsed if Drakken hadn't been holding her up, and her entire body trembled as the fear she'd been forcing herself not to feel finally laid into her with its full force. She didn't make a sound other than her newly ragged breathing, just clung to him, shaking so hard it felt like she might shake herself apart. Her fingers dug into his back, and there was a soft rustle of movement past her hands as more vines emerged alongside his spine and coiled tenderly around her like his arms alone weren't enough to hold her. Holding her together, while she held him too tightly for anyone to take him away from her again. Under her own rough breath she heard his catch, and felt the shudder that ran through his chest. He sniffled quietly, helplessly, and for once in her life she just let him cry without saying a word.

They were both quiet for a long time, making no sound save for the sniffs and hiccups of overwhelming emotions, but those gradually subsided to manageable levels. Eventually Shego drew a deep breath that stayed mostly steady, and she let it out in a long, slow sigh. "I was scared," she said quietly. "I didn't care about the whole invading end of the world thing; I was just afraid that you were-- that I was going to lose you. Because I can't. " Her head was still pressed into Drakken's chest, and she raised it to look up at him. "I can't lose you."

It was so raw that she regretted it immediately, especially when his breath came in sharply again. His damp eyes held hers with a terrible, painful sort of tenderness, and one of the arms around her came forward to push her hair back and stroke her cheek. "I can't lose you, " he echoed softly. "I know how lost I'd be without you. And even if I could survive without you, I don't want to. Ever." He had to look away from her then, his face turning towards the dark ceiling with a shaky inhale like he was still pulling himself together. "I didn't think you'd just... write me off and leave me up there," he said. "I knew--" The hitch in his voice made her wince at all the reasons she'd given him to doubt her over the years, but he continued with more certainty. "I knew you would at least try to save me. But I was afraid you'd get there too late, or you'd just get captured, too, or you'd try and you'd fail and you'd realize that there was nothing you could do, or..."

Shego cut him off with a scoff, rolling her eyes as dramatically as she could without leaning her head out of his touch. "Jeez, thanks for all the faith in me, Doctor D," she said, clinging to some fragment of her usual sarcasm before the seriousness set in again. "I wasn't coming back without you."

The widening of his eyes, the slow and silent opening of his mouth, told her that the implications of this statement had not slipped by unnoticed. "Oh, Shego, " he started, his voice low and aching as he pulled her close again.

"Don't," she warned as she felt him drawing a breath to keep talking, her voice muffled against his skin. "Just don't say anything." She'd made her decision, and she would make it again if she ever had to, and she didn't need his opinion on it. For once in his life he listened to her, staying silent and resting his cheek on the top of her head, his breath ruffling her hair. She closed her eyes and nestled against him, the two of them back in each other's arms and breathing slowly together again.

The first embrace had been desperate, deferred panic, a mutual cry of please don't leave me met with I promise I won't. A helpless and hopeless need. Now it was a choice, deliberate and comfortable, I'm here and so are you and I wouldn't have it any other way. Drakken's hand had slipped under Shego's hair to rest flush against her back, fingers spread across her shoulder blades where the narrow straps of her top left them uncovered, thumb caressing the nape of her neck and drawing a little shudder out of her. His other hand wandered down to the small of her back and pulled her even closer, navigating the clumsy tangle of their legs until she was practically in his lap. Closer, but in a looser hold, like he'd been reassured that he didn't have to hold onto her like she might slip away. Even the plants had fallen away, giving them a little room to breathe and making it feel like they had a little bit of privacy. Likewise she relaxed her too-solid grasp on him, fingertips trailing lazily down his back as she sank into his chest. His bare chest, she was keenly aware, warm and soft and solid, rising and falling with his breath, his heartbeat audible in the quiet, the scent of him rich and familiar. She closed her eyes and breathed in, and knew she had already stayed too long. The storm wasn't coming, the horizon wasn't getting any closer; they were already here, and she had slowed long enough for them to catch her. God dammit.

When she had dared to think about the subject at all, in a roundabout way that meant she could pretend she wasn't thinking about it, Shego had thought that the thing she was running away from was her heart. But what had finally caught up with her was the realization that her heart had been there all along, and she had just been refusing to listen to it. That when she'd so desperately wanted to be home tonight, 'home' hadn't been a place. God dammit indeed.

She lifted her head again and drew herself back with great reluctance, not pulling out of Drakken's arms yet but shifting her body away from where it rested against his, moving slowly and carefully to keep the feelings she was trying to rein in from bolting out ahead of her. They almost did anyway when she finally dared to look up at his face, which was soft and warm and yearning, and which glowed like his whole stupid heart was shining out of his eyes when he looked at her. Just like she knew her own whole stupid heart was doing. She wasn't crazy. It wasn't just her. She hadn't been imagining it. And the ecstasy of joyful terror that came with finally knowing that was perfect and painful and demanded attention. "I--" It was a squawk, hoarse and harsh as a crow, and she tried again, finally taking her hands from him and lacing her fingers together restlessly. "I should go," she said, jerking an awkward thumb back towards her room. "Try to get some sleep while I still can."

The tenderness went out of his eyes, replaced immediately by a sort of startled confusion, and he drew his arms away from her as if she had threatened him. "Oh." He coughed, stammered, tried to find his footing now that the rug had been so thoroughly pulled out from under him. "That's. Um. I-- you don't have to."

God, she really wished she didn't have to. She disentangled herself clumsily, her own reluctance robbing her of her usual grace as she clambered off the couch. She smiled at him, a weak and crooked look that was trying to be a smirk but couldn't muster up the bravado. "We both know where this is going if I stay."

Drakken opened his mouth and almost immediately closed it again, blinking rapidly. He didn't look directly at her as he cleared his throat, a flush of color rising in his face. "I... thought we were both going in that direction? On purpose?"

"Oh, we are," Shego assured him. Her eyes wandered back down to his bare chest and she exhaled slowly, willing herself not to be stupid about this. "We definitely are." She looked back up at his face and tried to smile again, hopeful and sincere and ideally setting his confusion at ease. "Just... not tonight, all right?"

He'd half raised a hand as if to reach for her, wide-eyed and looking lost, and a twist of leaves and flowers snaked out to follow his grasp. Probably neither gesture had been conscious on his part, but now he consciously drew them both back. "Is it because of..." He trailed off and subtly jerked his head in the direction of the creeping vines, and Shego almost laughed when she realized he was trying not to say anything out loud and hurt their feelings. When that didn't net him an answer -- because it wasn't about that, but it also wasn't not about that -- his voice and his shoulders went lower. "Did I... do something?"

She rolled her eyes with a sigh. "Jeez, Doc, how are you so arrogant and so insecure at the same time? Yes, you did something, all right? You saved the world. We survived an alien invasion, and now we're heroes and we're famous and every single part of my life has been turned upside down and I don't know how long it's been since I slept, and now..." She hadn't realized how much her voice was rising until it caught in her throat and she had to take a few deep breaths to bring it back to normal. "And I cannot handle one more life-altering thing tonight," she finally managed. "Not even if it might be the best thing that's happened to me in a long time." Some small internal voice was running around in a panic that she'd said that out loud, but that was yet another thing that she would deal with in the morning.

Drakken was even more wide-eyed than before, although he looked considerably less lost now, and she could see him silently mouthing her last words to himself. "'Kay," he finally said, like it was the closest thing to an actual response he could give.

Stunning him into silence wasn't new, but it was never not a pleasure, and despite everything else a thin smile curled across her lips."The world isn't ending anymore, Doc. We can take a little time to get this right."

*

Drakken woke up in his own bed, in his own room, in a world that had been forever changed by his actions, and he didn't remember how he'd gotten there. Clearly he had stumbled back here from the couch, possibly with the help of the plants, once all the rest of the day's emotions had drained from him and left only the exhaustion he'd been trying not to succumb to for so long. From the way he was sprawled out, face down in his pillow without the usual blankets he would be curled under, he had probably literally fallen into bed, asleep before he even hit the mattress. He shivered as the cold air hit his bare skin, wrapping himself more tightly around the pillow to stave off the sudden hollow feeling in his chest and his arms.

A familiar rustling in the darkness, and when Drakken cracked one eye open the dim light around him was tinged with green. A broad and leafy canopy had spread over the entire bed, and now it descended like it intended to wrap him up in a blanket against the chill. That was enough to make him scramble up suddenly, and in response the leaves and vines retreated back towards the ceiling. He stared up at them, still blinking away sleep, and wondered if he would ever get used to this.

He gave in to consciousness then, taking the grand step of putting his feet on the floor and leaning his elbows on his knees. He didn't know how long he had been sleeping -- the clock next to his bed had never worked well even before part of the wall beside it had been collapsed and replaced with greenery, and he had no idea when he'd actually gotten to bed, either the first or the second time -- but the weight of his limbs and the taste of the inside of his mouth suggested that it had been a very long time. Yesterday's pain and exhaustion had turned to a dull ache and general stiffness, and as he rolled his neck to try to get a few of the knots out his eyes wandered over the room. The greenery was pervasive now, every wall lined with at least a few vines and flowers, and more of them curled around the light fixtures and circling his bed. One of those, separate from the canopy that had curled protectively over him, had doubled itself over into a hook at about head height, and from it hung the shirt he had been wearing the night before. The shirt he had last seen on the floor of the living room, peeled off in irritation at Shego's goading and left where it had fallen when the conversation had veered from baring his back to both of them baring something far more personal. He could still feel the ache of the relief that had come from holding her, finally letting himself believe that they were both home and alive and safe, and he could still feel the way she had stayed in his arms after the fear had gone.

We both know where this is going if I stay.

He shivered again, snatching his shirt back and hastily pulling it on. No wonder he had woken up feeling like something was missing. He should be accustomed to it by now, as often as he'd woken from dreams of holding someone to face an empty bed -- and as often, lately, as that 'someone' had been not an abstract concept but clearly her -- but it hadn't entirely been a dream this time. No surprise that it was harder to let go now that there was more to hold onto. Now that he knew it wasn't just him holding on. There was so much he didn't know about the way his world had changed, but knowing that was more than enough.

Somewhere in this brave new world there was caffeine, and that was the thought that finally shook him loose from the dazed, weary reverie that he found himself in. Drakken shuffled blearily to the kitchen, his senses gradually coming online in the way of mornings, and now there were new senses alongside them as Flora Prime took in the world in its own way and relayed information he barely understood about the temperature and air quality and other environmental factors he couldn't put a name to. His half-conscious brain filed them away next to all the sensory input he did know how to interpret, as if it assumed he would get around to figuring them out eventually. Which he probably would; he was starting to realize just how much this symbiosis went both ways.

The smell that hit him about halfway down the hall propelled him on faster, the siren call of freshly brewed coffee luring him closer but also telling him he wasn't the only person who was awake. He hesitated just before the last turn into the kitchen, his hand resting on the wall and the greenery that had been tracking his movements rustling in confusion at his pause. This was the last chance he was going to get to collect himself before he saw her again, and although he had never much cared what kind of impression he gave off in the mornings no other morning had ever been this morning, with all its suspense and promise. He tugged at his rumpled pajamas -- should he have changed first? -- and ran a hand through his equally rumpled hair. Flora Prime hovered around his face, and he gave it a questioning and hopeful look, as if it might have some insight into the issue. The flower circled him like it was looking at him from all angles, and then ducked back under his collar without offering any insight. You're no help, he told it silently, and felt it curl against his skin before retreating. He breathed out one last time and stepped towards the kitchen.

The sight before him was everything that he could have hoped to see. The kitchen that he had barely glanced at last night during his sleepless wandering was still mostly intact, a few cupboards and bits of the walls fallen victim to the overgrowth but the lights on and the appliances humming, the coffee maker in particular growling out its familiar song. And beside it, perched on the counter, Shego raised her head and gave him a smile softer and more sincere than any he could ever remember seeing from her before, and his entire heart rose up into his throat. She looked much as she had when they had parted ways the night before, down to the steaming mug she was curled around and the bare feet tucked up under her. Her pale purple pajamas were rumpled, the top sliding off one equally pale green shoulder, and her dark hair was a wild and tangled mess around her soft, unmade-up face. She looked well and truly disheveled, the way she never allowed anyone to see her, and Drakken's stomach did several flips. Disheveled was a good look on her.

The softness vanished from her face as soon as she knew he had seen it, but it left its ghost under the wry raise of her eyebrow and she seemed unconcerned about concealing it any further. "Look who's finally awake," she observed, her voice husky enough to suggest that she hadn't been awake for very long herself. She took a long pull on her coffee. "I was starting to wonder if I should go back there and make sure you were still alive."

He twitched a little at that, not quite a shudder but not in the mood to appreciate her sarcasm, either. It was too close to not being sarcasm at all, too close to all those terrors and comforts and almost-confessions from the previous night. He only realized belatedly that that might have been intentional, when she lifted her eyes to him again and he could see the weariness still in them, that silent caution that spoke to their previous tenderness. I was worried about you. "As far as I can tell," he grumbled, his own voice creaking as he responded to her unspoken concern with a barely sincere reassurance. He pressed a hand to his back with a groan, this little exchange just reminding him of how much of a near-death experience the previous day had been, and all the marks that he still had to show for it. Sleep had done its best, and he no longer felt like he might keel over at any moment, but he was still nowhere near recovered from his exploits. He started across the kitchen towards Shego with some caution, not sure how they were supposed to proceed from here and not entirely sure if she knew, either. She watched his approach like she was sizing him up, speculative and thoughtful and interested in what he was going to do next. What he wanted to do next was to keep on getting closer, to see how close she would let him get before she stopped him. He wondered if she would stop him at all, and the tilt of her head made him think she was wondering the same thing.

He blinked first, unsurprisingly, and changed course just enough to angle away from her and towards the coffee maker, which should have been his first destination anyway. Caffeine was the first step to enlightenment, or to just being conscious enough that you might recognize enlightenment if it happened. There had been a cupboard above the machine once, where they kept all the various mugs that had accumulated over the years, but there had also been an unbroken wall there once, too. Now the cupboard was on the floor, leaning haphazardly against the kitchen table, and a lone mug sat on the counter next to the machine.

It was the short grey one he liked to use in the mornings, a little chipped but still functional, and nothing he couldn't repair later if he felt like it. There was no doubt that Shego must have fished it out of the wreckage for him, making sure he would have some shred of normalcy and routine when he woke up. His heart squeezed at the unexpected kindness of the gesture, but when he looked up at Shego -- still so very near to him, with only the coffee maker between them, and a good head and a half taller than him where she sat on the counter -- she made no particular acknowledgement. Drakken silently poured himself a cup and immediately drank almost half of it, not caring about the taste or the temperature, just needing that little jolt to bring him back to life. "How long was I asleep?"

Shego just shrugged, the motion calling her attention to the strap sliding down her shoulder. She pulled it back up, looking briefly self-conscious. "How should I know? I don't even know what time we got home last night, let alone what time it is now."

A narrowing of his eyes as he refilled his mug, feeling a little less charitable towards the person who had rescued it for him. "If you don't know, then why are you so quick to accuse me of becoming Rip Van Winkle?"

She rolled her eyes. "Because I woke up ages ago and I already felt like I'd been asleep for a century, and you're just getting up now." She leaned in a little closer to him. "Besides, just look at you. You look like a long night and a bad morning."

The fact that it was almost certainly true didn't lessen the sting of it, especially when she was looking so... like she did. Drakken grumbled and took one last top-up before stepping away from the coffee maker for the moment. "I know, it must be so terrible to have to look at me."

"I didn't say that." The words were a quick mutter, Shego not looking directly at him as she said it, and the faintest touch of color rose in her face before she coughed loudly and forced it away. "It doesn't matter, anyway."

Drakken was suddenly of the opinion that it very much did, and he blinked away a rising blush of his own. She had been clear enough last night, in touches and glances and unsubtle implications, but the reminder that she was actually attracted to him, not just emotionally but physically, was still enough to startle him. He took another drink, too quickly, and leaned against the countertop that adjoined hers at a right angle, where it was easy enough to see her but also easy to look away without it seeming too deliberate. He didn't hop up onto it as she had, partly because it always annoyed him when she did it (which was probably why she did) and partly because he was far too stiff and tired still to do it gracefully. "So what have you been doing with yourself while you've been waiting for me to make an appearance, then?"

"Sitting," Shego said, vague but not evasive. "Drinking coffee. Thinking, sometimes. Enjoying the quiet." She took a little sip of her coffee and continued staring into it, and that did feel evasive. "We're gonna need a new phone, by the way."

Drakken automatically turned to look at the place on the wall where the phone should have hung, surprised that it would have been caught in the destruction given that it was in one of the more intact corners of the kitchen. The hole in the wall where the outlet should have been was charred and smoking, with a few frayed wires poking out of it, and below it on the floor was a lump of half-melted plastic that had been the phone at some point. A different kind of destruction, then. "Shego!"

"It wouldn't stop ringing!" she protested immediately, almost before he'd actually gotten her name out. "I don't know how anyone even got this number, but they weren't going to let up. And not just the press, either. I'm talking government representatives, really shady-sounding science companies, one of my brothers using a really bad fake voice..."

Drakken growled and didn't offer his own speculation as to how their home number might have gotten out to the public. The botanist who had been lurking backstage at the ceremony had seemed legitimate, especially given the circumstances and how little time they'd been given to think about anything at all. "We might have missed something important, " he complained.

"The world can wait a day," Shego said dismissively. "And if something is happening outside that really can't wait, then the UN or whoever will just, I don't know, send Kimmie to break into the lair and drag us back to the front lines, now that she probably thinks we're allies or something."

"You don't know that," Drakken groused. Sure, she was probably right that someone would still be able to reach out to them if something literally earth-shattering happened, but that was far too narrow a definition of 'important.' "Somebody might--"

She made a short, harsh sound, imitating a buzzer. " It can wait, " she repeated more firmly, leaning forward just enough to jab a finger at him, one leg dangling from the edge of the countertop. "You save the world, you get a day off. And I'm taking my day off from the world." She settled back again, slouching lazily and tucking her foot back up under her leg.

The coolness and unaffected authority in her voice made him bristle. "Is that how it worked when you were saving the world once a week?" he grumbled.

A biting bark of a laugh. "Listen, no matter what my brothers might think, we were never saving the world. Just our little corner of it." She swirled her coffee, looking suddenly contemplative. "But no," she said eventually. "We got to celebrate, sometimes, but we didn't really take time off. 'Evil never takes a vacation, so why should we?'" Drakken had met her oldest brother only briefly, but he could imagine the accuracy of the impression from the bitterness in her voice. "Things might have gone differently if we had."

The distance in her face made Drakken shift uncomfortably, the little itching feeling on the back of his neck not entirely due to the vines curling around it. He forced an awkward laugh, trying to draw her back. "Well, you've been proving them wrong about evil taking vacations, anyway."

It was probably the worst possible thing he could have said, given the way their conversations about her frequent absences tended to go, but Shego only eyed him for a silent moment before pressing her lips together and making a quiet sound that wasn't not dry amusement. "Guess so."

There was tension in the silence that fell between them, and Drakken stared awkwardly into his coffee until he realized he wasn't the only one doing so. Flora Prime peeked over his shoulder, the leafy vine end sprouting a flower like a face and lowering until it almost dipped into the mug. It was like it had picked up on his mood, all restless and nervous, and was poking at him to try to figure out what he was doing. He raised a hand to brush it aside like he was nudging away a curious cat. "Leave it alone. It's coffee; you won't like it."

"Maybe it would," Shego said thoughtfully. "Aren't coffee grounds supposed to be good fertilizer?"

"Coffee grounds, " he repeated. "Not coffee. And only for plants that thrive in acidic soil, and since Flora Prime is getting most of its sustenance from a human host and the human body is slightly alkaline..." He stopped as he caught Shego's raised eyebrows, and the slight curve to her lips. "What?"

"Nothing," Shego said, even if the tiny smile that still hadn't gone away said otherwise. "I just... wasn't expecting an answer, is all. Usually when I ask questions about one of your plans you just get annoyed because I thought of something you didn't."

Well, he was annoyed now, because even if that wasn't the case here she was still undercutting him by saying something that was, unfortunately, more true than he wanted to admit to. "I've thought about a lot this time," he muttered. "Do you have any idea how deep I've been in plant research for months to pull this off?"

She leaned forward and twirled the vine coming up from under his collar around her fingers. "I'm gonna take a guess and say 'neck deep.'"

Was it suddenly warmer in the kitchen, or was it just him? He had tried to explain to her how Flora Prime's senses interacted with his own, how he couldn't actually feel what it was feeling but he was still aware of it, but at the moment 'aware' seemed a woefully inadequate description. "You might like to forget it sometimes, but I am an actual genius," he mumbled, feeling the vines lean into the touch of her hand just as he would have were she a little bit closer.

"I know." She said it with the faintest, softest smile, and Drakken nearly took a step back in surprise. He had been expecting her usual sarcasm, the condescension that came out whenever he tried to remind her of just who was the evil genius here, but this was just... sincere. Fond, even, with the gentleness of that look in her eye. "And now the rest of the world knows it, too."

He opened his mouth and then closed it again, unsure of how to respond to the note of pride in her voice. "That's... well, it's about time they finally recognize me," he finally managed. "And if you..." He didn't finish that sentence. He didn't know how to put it into words, that feeling that her approval mattered far more than anyone else's ever could, even that of the entire world. "It's good to know," he finished lamely.

There seemed to be some touch of what he really meant to say in his voice, at least if the touch of color in Shego's face was anything to go by. She turned her head away from him, tucking her hair behind her ear in a gesture that might be meant to hide that blush but which only served to highlight the curve of her neck and the rise of her shoulder. Drakken had never considered himself prudish, and the flashes of skin that her tank top revealed could hardly be called inappropriate, but given her usual work clothes that covered everything but her face, any little glimpse of the rest of her felt like an intimacy that he shouldn't be allowed.

She had to know. That was the thought that had haunted him every time he looked at her and couldn't look away, every time something she said or did made his heart jump into his throat and cut off his voice. He had tried to lie to himself for so long, burying his growing feelings for her ever deeper and drowning them out with work until they had grown too strong to bury and too loud to silence, but she was coldly brilliant and cruelly insightful and she knew how to read him better than anyone else ever had. He had been so afraid, and so certain, that she was going to work it out before he'd even finished sifting through his thoughts and grappling with them to come to terms with what his heart was trying to tell him. It had never even occurred to him that she might be avoiding the answer because she was fighting with questions of her own.

Drakken shifted his weight against the counter, at a loss for what to say or do next. Everything had seemed so clear last night, when they were so close to each other and sheer exhaustion and emotion had let some of the things they couldn't actually say out loud start to leak out around the edges. He could understand, sort of, why Shego had pulled away when she had, but he still would have liked to have spent more time there. Things had made more sense there, or at least he had been overwhelmed enough to think that they did. Now they were going to have to actually say some of those things, and make them clear and understood if they wanted anything to come of them, and he felt nothing like equipped to do so. He cleared his throat loudly, feeling like an idiot even as he did so. "So, you're the expert at taking time off," he said, shrinking from the immediately suspicious look she shot his way. Maybe it had sounded a little like he was being her nagging boss again. "I mean, we already established that you take vacations, and actually use all the time off you're entitled to..." Unlike me went unspoken, even if and more than you're entitled to, as well was also in there somewhere. "So, um... what are you going to do? I can't imagine you're just going to sit here and drink coffee all day."

"I might," she said. "Not 'in the kitchen' here, probably, but I am absolutely not leaving the lair today. I'm going to hang out on the couch and watch the stupidest daytime TV I can find on whatever channels aren't running news coverage about the post-invasion cleanup, and I'm thinking about ordering Thai food for lunch if that place we like on Third Street didn't get crushed by an alien robot or something. Maybe I'll have a nap after lunch; I'm keeping my plans loose for now. All I know for sure is that I'm not going to devote a single second of today to thinking about anything outside of what's left of these four walls." Another sip of her coffee, and a thoughtful look into the distance. "God, I might not even get out of my pajamas all day. I haven't done that in years." She raised an eyebrow at him. "Does that sound like enough of a plan for you?"

It sounded like the exact opposite of what they should be doing today, which was getting out in front of the wave of public approval they'd garnered and letting it carry them as far as it was going to go before it petered out. But on a day when he was still recovering from so much, and he didn't know what was going to happen next or where it was going to take him, and with her looking at him like that... it also sounded like exactly what he wanted. Exactly what he needed. It sounded like rest and recuperation and finally, truly coming home. And it sounded like an invitation, possibly. Drakken turned his mug in his hands, forcing himself not to make any more obvious signs of his uncertainty, but apparently some of his subconscious wasn't listening because a vine brushed against the back of his neck the way his hands would have if he'd allowed them to. "And is there... you know. Room on that couch for two people?"

The sideways look she gave him was so casual that it had to be a facade, even coming from her. "Could be," she said evenly. "There was room last night."

The blood rushing in his ears must be audible outside his head by now. "Right. Last night." Leaves burst out of the vines that crossed the walls, making a shield ready to defend him from whatever was making him so nervous. "That was..." God, he couldn't say it had been nice, not when she'd been ghostly pale even by the weak light of the TV screen and he'd been too haunted to sleep, when he hadn't been able to hold back the tears and she hadn't even had the heart to mock him for it. But when last night hadn't been two desperately frightened people trying to convince themselves they were safe again it had been her hands on his back and her head buried in his chest, the tangle of her hair and the too-warm heat of her skin and I can't lose you. Even if he was still haunted by everything the past few days had done to them, he didn't want her to think that that had any less of a hold on him. "It was comfortable," he finally said. A cautious moment of silence, looking up at her and hoping for a response, but she continued to watch him with half an eye and listen with half an ear while the rest of her stared off into the distance. The remnants of this latest cup of coffee sloshed as he turned the mug back and forth in his hands. "It felt right, " he said, so quiet that it was almost to himself.

Her voice was just as quiet. "Yeah." She rubbed restlessly at her arm, squeezing her bicep almost like she was trying to hug herself. "It still feels right," she added after a moment of uncomfortable silence.

Drakken's stomach did several complicated flips at this quiet declaration. "Yeah," he said contemplatively. "You needed time, though," he added, like an idiot, like the kid who reminded the teacher that they hadn't assigned homework yet.

The sound she made was as derisive as his classmates' responses would have been, although far less angry. "I didn't say I needed a lot of time," she said, rolling her eyes. "Just a few solid hours of sleep to keep myself from going completely insane." A shift of her body again, like she didn't want to look directly at him. "And to see if you'd actually follow through."

He stared blankly at her. "Follow through," he repeated like she was speaking in a language he was only passably familiar with.

Another scoff, weaker this time. "What, like you're the only one who's allowed to wonder if there was still going to be room for two people on the couch?"

He gaped, still taking too long to understand, but then again how could he be expected to understand when what she said made so little sense? Last night he had held onto her like she was the only true thing in the world, and she had looked up at him from the circle of his arms and given him an idea of what heaven must look like, and now she was suggesting that he might be the one to shy away from the chance at something more? His coffee cup hit the countertop too loudly as he set it down and straightened his back. "Shego," he said, softly but so firmly that she had no choice but to turn back towards him. His feet dragged him towards her without his input, a kind of terrified confidence settling over him in the hour it seemed to take him to walk just a few paces across the kitchen tile. "I have never wanted anything as much as I want to spend the rest of my life making room on the couch for you." He didn't stop moving until he had to crane his neck to look up at her, her knees almost connecting with his chest, and he pressed his palms flat to the countertop on either side of her, holding her in place with the sincerity of his intentions even if he didn't actually dare touch her yet.

Her eyes had widened as he advanced on her, luminous in her pale face, but now they focused on him in that way that always made him nervous. She bent her head down towards his, her hair falling over her shoulder again, so close he could hear the whisper of its movement. He could hear her breathing, too, soft and uneven as she cupped his face in her hands and tipped it up even further, close enough for him to study every nuance of her expression. Fascination, anticipation... hesitation. She had been so clear about what she wanted last night, but now it looked like she might not be as prepared for the reality of the situation as she had assumed she would be. A feeling that he recognized all too well, with his suddenly dry mouth and pounding heart. A desperate attempt at clearing his throat, at trying to recover from something that seemed to be falling apart even before it had had a chance to come together. "But obviously there's more to it than that, and the couch is just a metaphor..."

Her face softened as he babbled desperately, the slow curve of a smile touching her lips. "Synecdoche," she said, and she kissed him. He didn't even have time to be annoyed by her pedantry before he quite fervently stopped caring.

The first touch of her lips against his carried caution with it, like a diver testing the depth of the water, and then caution left the room entirely. She was hungry and fierce and joyful, as exultant in this new passion as she had ever been in violence, and where she led he followed in an intoxicated rush. He kissed her wildly, eagerly, clumsy and fumbling as a teenager until he remembered how. He had forgotten what it was like, the fire of wanting someone like this, of being wanted like this. ( Had anyone ever wanted him like this, as wild and forceful as the storm? Surely he would have remembered.) He kissed her the way he was finally beginning to admit to himself he had wanted to kiss her for a very long time, and the blood singing in his ears and burning under her touch demanded to know why he had ever waited, and how he intended to make up for all that time that he'd wasted.

Shego's hands caressed his face and curled around his head to tangle in his hair, her touch no less forceful than her kiss, no less eager to devour him. He had been reminded of her unexpected strength last night when they had held each other too tightly to let go, and now it was keeping the two of them entangled once again, the sentiment this time more possessive than protective. Drakken sank into all of it, wanting her and wanting to belong to her in equal measure. He reached out to pull her closer, catching her by the waist, and one hand slipped into the little gap between her top and pants and came to rest on the bare skin of her side. (Putting it there was unintentional. Leaving it there, and sliding it further up her back in response to the soft sound she made against his mouth, was the most intentional thing he had ever done in his life.)

He loved her. Plain and simple and wholehearted he loved her, a feeling certainly intertwined with desire but not defined by it, newer and older and more familiar even if it had taken longer to recognize, only recently coming to light like an optical illusion finally snapping into focus. Too soon to say it and be believed, here in this welcome moment of madness after only one oblique late-night conversation, but not too soon to feel it after so many years of companionship, of a closeness between them that they could barely express to each other, let alone explain to anyone else. If he were to try now he could clearly picture her shying away, sinking back into her usual petty meanness and sarcasm, locking that secret heart away again forever. Patience, he reminded himself with the part of his mind that was still capable of thinking, and until the right moment he would keep his mouth shut. So to speak.

He had grabbed her eagerly and she was bent nearly double to reach down to him, and when gravity took over and sent her sliding off the countertop she landed squarely in his arms. He stumbled backwards and barely managed to keep his feet and prevent them both from toppling to the floor, a movement that didn't even seem to register with Shego. She landed with her usual near-infuriating grace, not breaking her stride or her hold on him, the only change being that she was now pulling him down into the kiss rather than up. One slim, pajama-clad leg wrapped around his, and his entire world contracted until there was nothing in it but the places where their bodies touched, the heat of her skin and the sound of her breath and the taste of her tongue.

And the distressingly familiar popping sound that cut through everything else like a gunshot.

Drakken's eyes went wide, his vision blurred around the edges by a fringe of yellow, and he pushed Shego away with a shout of mingled fury and despair. " Seriously? " He tore at the petals that had sprouted around his head, ignoring the sharp but brief pain that felt like he was tearing his hair out. Which was what he wanted to do right now. "Try that again and you're all getting pruned! "

The leaves all over the walls rustled and rattled in chorus, like they were either angry about this pronouncement or afraid of it. Or like they were razzing him, because if everything else in the universe was going to mock him then why shouldn't his own creations? Once again he had been so close to triumph and joy and everything he could possibly want, and once again some nasty little twist of fate had smacked him down at the last minute. And this time that nasty little twist wasn't content to crush his ambitions or his genius; it had made it personal. He'd actually felt desirable for the first time in a long time, sexy and exciting and worth pursuing, and now he was back to being an idiot in stripey pajamas and floral decor that made him look like a kid in an elementary school play. He made incoherent angry noises for a little while longer, continuing to fight with the petals, but it was all really just to put off the inevitable moment when he was going to have to look at Shego again and see the disdain in her eyes, the regret for everything she'd already let happen.

When he finally dared, there was no sneer, no disgust, not even a look of pity. There was barely a look at all, Shego's focus darting away from him again. Her face was flushed, her top rucked up to expose a wedge of skin on her side where his hand had wandered, and she had pulled her hair over her shoulder in a nervous gesture he'd only seen from her a few times before. She didn't look any less desirable and sexy and exciting for her dishabille, of course. She didn't look like an idiot in pajamas. She just looked like the world was coming back to her after she'd been away from it for a bit. Her attention snapped back, though, when she realized that he was looking at her, brought fully back to herself by her almost instinctual need to constantly be cooler and more composed than he was. Her hair went back into place, and she absently smoothed her top back down -- a pity -- although the high, bright color remained in her cheeks, and her self-assured smile stumbled just a little bit as she stepped towards him again. "So, Doc," she said, drawing the words out as she reached forward to flick at what was left of the flower. "Is that a mutant symbiotic plant sprouting out of your neck, or are you just happy to see me?"

His usual growl of frustration came out more like a groan, his face burning with an angry and embarrassed blush that was far less pleasant than the inviting heat she had kindled in him only moments ago. "And still you mock me at every turn," he complained helplessly.

A little chuckle. "Oh, Drakken," she said with surprising tenderness, reaching up to caress his face. "Nothing is ever going to change that."

The touch was almost enough to derail his train of thought, but he held fast to his feelings of offense and indignation. "It's not funny," he tried to snap at her, but it came out more like a whine.

"Hate to break it to you, but yes it is." To give her just the barest bit of credit, whether or not she deserved it, Shego did put a discreet hand over her mouth, covering her smile and almost suppressing the little burst of laughter that shook her shoulders before she composed herself. A long, slow exhale as she dragged her hand down her face, closing her eyes. "God, our lives are just... We can't even finally start something that should have started ages ago without getting interrupted by some insane science experiment." She shook her head. "Even our problems refuse to be normal."

"There's no need to talk about Flora Prime like that," Drakken protested, cupping his hands around the flower that had peeked over his shoulder like he could keep it from hearing this slander. That just brought out another little squeak of laughter, and he glowered at her weakly. He had expected her mockery to sting, as it always did, but there was a sort of music to her laughter now, soft and tired and tender, still clearly laughing at him but also letting him in on the joke. And she had said 'we' and 'our problems' so easily, like this latest embarrassment hadn't so much as made her blink. Her feelings for him -- god, her feelings for him, a phrase he'd never even hoped to hear -- remained steadfast. As she seemed to suggest they had been for some time now. He fumbled and tried to marshal his thoughts out of the complete soup she'd made of them so far today. "But... 'something that should have started ages ago.' You meant... you and me, and..."

"Doy." She rolled her eyes and folded her arms, raising an eyebrow at him, but he could still see the undercurrent of caution to her wicked mirth. "That's what we're both not saying, right?"

He closed his mouth again and his shoulders sagged, somewhere between relief and resignation. "After all this time," he said, and that was the best he could manage.

Her look turned wry and almost as defeated as his as she rested her face in her hand "Should have been obvious in something more than hindsight," she agreed, a confession so soft he almost missed it.

"Yeah..." Drakken dragged his hand through his hair awkwardly. He couldn't even lay all the blame on her and her refusal to admit she had any emotions gentler than fury and malicious glee. He'd willfully ignored so many signs, so many warnings, so many of his own feelings because they were irrelevant at best and painfully impossible at worst. It had taken the near end of the world to make them both finally look each other in the eye and see what they'd both been turning away from, and who knew if they ever would have gotten there without the apocalyptic peril.

As much as it always annoyed him to admit it, she had been exactly right. Even their problems refused to be normal.

His hand landed at the back of his neck in a sheepish gesture, and Flora Prime immediately began investigating it, brushing against it and trying to twist around his fingers, and he gently but impatiently pushed this other, even more abnormal problem away. "Would have been nice if it had been obvious before..." He trailed off and tilted his head towards their botanical eavesdroppers.

Again there was that hint of weary laughter, but she just shook her head and waved dismissively. "Eh, I'll get used to it."

He furrowed his brow at the unexpected casualness of this response after everything had felt like such a big deal just a moment ago. "Really?"

"Come on; it's not the weirdest thing I've had to get used to since I moved in with you." A pause and a thoughtful tilt to her head. "Well, no, okay; it might be the weirdest thing," she conceded. "Not the point, though. I already said last night that it doesn't bother me and I haven't suddenly changed my mind now."

"Not quite the same context, though," he protested, because if there was ever a time to be clear about what they both meant it was now. Last night he'd just been asking if his sidekick, his partner, his friend, could put up with this little quirk. Now he was asking if the woman he loved would still embrace him even if it meant embracing all of this, too.

"That's what you think." A sigh that sounded like it was trying to be patient, but with a smile that said she had fully given in on looping around and finding this whole thing funny. "Look, I'm not saying I'm, you know, into the whole plant thing, all right? So you just leave that train of thought parked right at the station."

"That hadn't even crossed my mind," he lied a little too quickly.

If she didn't believe him she at least had the courtesy not to call attention to it. Instead she took a few steps towards him, closing the gap he'd left when he'd pushed her away in his embarrassment and stopping just within arm's reach. "What I am saying," she said, snapping her fingers and briefly bathing the kitchen in light, green on green where it splashed on the overgrowth on the walls, "is the same thing I've been saying. A little bit of weirdness was never going to be a dealbreaker." Her smile, flirtatious and fearless, turned more serious for a moment, the softness in her voice going from playful to sincere. "I like you, Doc. All the rest is just details."

The heat of the plasma burst felt less like a weapon this time and more like the heat that had radiated from her when they'd been tangled together. "I like you, too," he said automatically, and it had the weight of years behind it, their entire history of going from partners to pleasantly acrimonious friends to whatever they might hope to become now, all the time they'd spent being central to each other's lives without ever thinking to state something so obvious. "You're my best friend." His eyes widened as he realized how that could be interpreted. "Not that-- I mean, obviously you're not just my best friend anymore, because I-- I mean, this is definitely something else now, right? But you're also still my best friend, no matter what else you are on top of that." He was rambling now, frantically trying to backpedal away from the literal or physical burn that was going to come down on him for being an idiot.

A little shake to her shoulders, a tiny and inelegant snort as that honest and open look she'd been giving him dissolved into a wicked little snicker that she didn't even try to hide this time. "God, you are such a dork," she said, shaking her head, and for the second time that morning she stopped his yammering with a kiss, light and brief this time but still exhilarating. She could call him anything she wanted if she was going to keep doing that.

He pressed his forehead against hers as they parted, closing his eyes and breathing slowly, and through the periphery of his new senses he knew she was making no effort to shrug off the creeper vines twining around her, sprouting giant leaves that swirled around both of them in a sheltering canopy. "This is going to be complicated."

"Right, 'cause that's so different from everything else we've ever done," Shego said, apparently unable to contain her sarcasm even now. 

His growl of frustration was a token protest, practically a reflex in response to that familiar tone of voice even if he didn't think he actually minded it all that much at the moment. Any desire he might have had to argue wasn't going to be able to compete with all the other desires she sparked in him. "I just like to have a plan."

He could see the temptation flit briefly across her face, that mutual desire to get the last word in, discarded in favor of a better way to spend their time. "Yeah, you do," she agreed without irony, letting her mockery go. "So how about we chill out and slow it down and start with the plan we already have."

Drakken's brow furrowed. "We have a plan?"

A roll of her eyes, also familiar enough to be comfortable rather than annoying. "Post-world-saving day off?" she reminded him. "Couch, TV, takeout?"

"Oh. You mean your plan." He'd never been the one to say that before. Interesting.

"Hey, I've spent the last half-dozen years going along with your plans," Shego returned. "And you finally got a win, so now it's my turn." A dazzling, tender smile, the kind he'd never seen before last night and hoped to see a lot more of in the future. "Come on," she said again. "We've got a starting point. And from there..." She reached over his shoulder to brush her fingers against Flora Prime, letting it rest its flower in her hand. "We'll see what blooms."