Skye knew Emily thought at least slightly highly of her; after all, she was still hanging around Skye despite how much of a dork she claimed the moody lightshow was. Emily had been great company, anyway.

"Neither do I," she said with the flash of a grin. "What's your point?" She picked up her items, following the now-humming Emily to the hoodies and jackets. "I think leather would look good on you," she commented idly, her orange hair turning purple again. "I mean...you pull it off well," she said with a nervous smile as her hair turned back to its original orange.

Awkwardly, she turned and rummaged through some tee shirts, not really seeing anything of note, but it was helping to distract from the current awkwardness.

It was weird going from not really having any close friends to quickly developing a close relationship with one. Emily wasn't sure if it was just pure co-incidence that she'd gotten attached to Skye and decided to break out of her anti-social rut a little bit recently, or if it was something about Skye that made it easier to do. Maybe it was a combination of factors, but she definitely wasn't used to the dynamic, or surges of positive emotions centred around her.

The whole ordeal was so strange. She chuckled a little. "Yeah well you were going for a full on style-change, I was more just looking to try something new" She added nervously, she definitely wasn't trying to fit in with Skye, more just using the other girl's makeover as an excuse to try something new.

Okay, now Emily was getting confused, and embarrassed. She was really glad when Skye awkwardly distracting herself from the mutually assured awkwardness because she moved over to a rack of jackets on the other side and was thankfully able to hide her face and hummed awkwardly instead of stammering a response outloud.

Dammit, she needed to compose herself. She pulled a jacket off one of the racks and pulled it on, moving to a mirror a little further away from Skye and concentrating on one of the angsty teenagers doing their christmas shopping. Yup, focus on that.

"Yeah, maybe diving head-first into a full-blown change like I did isn't the best idea. The jacket really is you, though. I think so, anyway," she said, still not making eye contact. She began to wander a little bit more, looking at other jackets, throwing a few more beanies onto her pile, and then just for fun, she put a shiny stuffed unicorn with a rainbow mane and tail on top of the pile.

She came back to Emily trying on a jacket and gave a smile. "Totally works for you. I approve," she said sincerely. "So, whatcha feeling next?" she asked before waddling her armload of stuff to the counter to check out. She took a breath at the price, but paid for her pile of stuff and stood off to the side, waiting for her friend.

Friend. That sounded really nice, actually.

Emily spent a good minute flailing internally with her own emotions, and Skye's emotions. Sometimes she wandered what was coming from her, and what was coming from somebody else. If she was being honest with herself there was something about interacting with Skye that threw her off, honest compliments and especially honest compliments that caused her to embarrass herself definitely clawed away much of Emily's facade and dragged some warm fuzzy feelings out of her.

She spent almost the entire time Skye was wandering about staring absentmindedly at the mirror, keeping track of her friend's emotions as Skye distracted herself and only realised that she'd been absolutely lost in contemplation when Skye walked over and complimented her, again.

She went with what was supposed to be one simple nod and came out more like 5, feigning needing to inspect it for another minute or two while Skye wandered off to pay.

A minute later she took a breath and walked over to the counter buying the jacket, which she did actually like, and dumped it into a large paper bag not remotely neatly walking back over to her friend she smiled very sheepishly.

"Sorry." She started to move outside of the store before adding. "For keeping you waiting, I mean, obviously."

Skye was having a really good day, her smile was genuine and more permanent, even lasting through the times where Emily embarrassed her. Which was surprisingly often. Sure, she'd already spent too much money, but it would be okay. This was important after all. Therapeutic stuff.

Her jacket, jeans, choker, wristbands, beanie, and unicorn did fit into one bag, but it was huge. She held it awkwardly on her arm as she stood to the side, waiting for Emily to finish.

"Oh, you're fine," she replied with a bright smile. "So, shall we wander and see which way the wind blows us?" she asked brightly, leading the way and letting her eyes scour the mall. Food court, nah. Another clothing store, nah. Jewelry, hell no. "Videogames, nice..." she inadvertently said out loud as she made her way over there. This particular store brought back memories. It wasn't long ago where she ended up flashbanging this very store...

In fact, when she walked in, she got looks from the cashier. She flashed a nervous smile as her hair turned purple. "It's fine. My emotions are under control, I p-promise," she murmured politely and quietly. The teen behind the counter quirked a brow, but didn't say anything further. But he did keep his eye on her.

"Hmmm....pretty much the same selection as last time, not that I got much of a look," she said with a light-hearted yet somewhat guilty giggle.

Emily was very grateful that Skye moved past or just didn't notice her little awkwardness meltdown. Maybe the latter. "Alright." She followed Skye, amused at the little dismissive notions the other girl made, none of the places they neared where Emily's style anyway. She had clothes, they'd recently eaten and jewellery wasn't really her thi-

Video games? Hell yes. Emily hadn't bought a new game in ages, she was kind of sick of focusing so hard on school. She'd been doing fine, very well in fact. That probably came from her very limited distractions in the way of other people.

She mentally braced herself as they walked into the store, picking up on the basics of the situation quite quickly. "Someone doesn't trust you." She murmured, feeling a little awkwardness bleeding over again.

"Maybe next time we have an outing lets avoid places that might connotate embarrassment, please?" Emily murmured in Skye's ear sheepishly. It wasn't just Skye, she felt a few of the shop's staff give off the same vibe.

Skye picked up on the awkwardness, but she figured it better to just let it slide. Even though she was the one who could explode, and not Emily.

"Yeah...last time I was in here was maybe a few days before we met. My powers ended up...well I ended up accidentally causing an incident. Let's leave it at that," she explained, shooting the cashier another apologetic glance. "Not that I blame them but...I'm good. Promise," she said the last part loud enough for the cashier to hear, and he gave a huff but turned back to his phone.

"Besides, this is the best game store in the area," she said with a shrug. And then it hit her and she felt a twinge of guilt. "Oh...sorry about that..." she murmured, eyes looking toward the selection of games. "Got it, got it, sucked, not my style...Hey, there's a new multiplayer RPG out. Whatcha think?" she said, showing Emily the case with various anthropomorphic animals in various fantasy costumes on the cover. Not that it really mattered what Emily said on the subject; Skye was getting it anyway. The real question was, would this be something they'd play together, or would Skye be soloing it?

"What do you like to play? I realize I never really asked. So much has pretty been about me. So maybe it should be about you for awhile, hm?" She gave another smile as her hair turned something between blue and purple, showing her guilt. Huh, Emily was bringing out a lot of uncommon colors for Skye.

As she'd thought about it, Emily had actually sort of put two and two together as to why the mall was bothering her so much. It wasn't really Skye's fault. Not that she would have blamed the girl for her emotions anyway, but it was largely the combination of anxiety and awkwardness from almost everyone else in the area that was driving her mad.

It was so close to Christmas, and they were in a mall. Of course there were a lot of people running around in a panic, doing a shop as they got off work for the weekend and whatnot.

Emily shook her head quickly. "No no, it's okay. It's just..." Emily glanced around and squeezed her eyes for a second, suddenly picking up on some more tension and confusion around her. Yeah, the vibe in a mall in the holidays was pretty painful, she'd forgotten. "It's a lot is all."

Awkwardness and blushing be damned she supposed, nothing else for it. She moved a little closer to Skye so that they could talk low and she could concentrate most of her attention on the other girl, just drown out all of the other stuff around her. She smiled sheepishly. "I've not played it. I'd be willing to try." She admitted.

Oh no. "Uhm, no it's okay. I play sort of whatever." she tried to quickly shake out of her own funk and gently touched Skye's arm. "I'm the one that avoids me. Please don't feel bad." Ugh. God she sounded so lame.

"Okay. If we need to leave, let me know, or give my hand a squeeze...anything, and we can high-tail it outta here, okay?" she said with a soft look in her eyes. God, she could be so...motherly sometimes. Skye gave a nod and moved a little closer to the other girl.

"I've read reviews and heard it was really good," she said. "Figured it'd be worth a shot," she said with a shrug. "I'm a little more picky than that," she said with a teasing wink, followed by another giggle.

"Oh, okay," she said, looking over at her. She really felt like Emily needed a hug, but she didn't know how she'd take to that, so she just gave another small smile. "You don't have to if you don't wanna," she comforted, brushing a strand of indigo hair out of her face. "If you ever want to though, you know where to find me," she reassured, looking back to the wall of games.

"So, anything else over here strike your fancy?" she asked after a somewhat awkward moment of silence. Skye was starting to realize that she wasn't the only one who'd put up walls. But while deep down Skye was willing to break hers down, to an extent, maybe not everyone was like that. But she wasn't going to force anything; she was just going to be there.

Emily didn't really get too close to people that often, physically speaking. The closer she was, the more emotions she picked up and as a general rule that extended to touch so she avoided it, had almost developed a little complex about it you could say. "I'm okay." She replied quietly, feeling very grateful for the understanding and affection.

"I generally used to play competitive stuff but..." she glanced around, she was close enough to almost whisper. "I sort of suck at games." She admitted out loud, a little moment of vulnerability. "Which I will definitely deny if you tell anyone ever that I've admitted that."

"I would like to." Emily had already thought that if they could find a quiet enough place, she'd very much enjoy playing some games with Skye. She actually enjoyed the girl's personality and presence very much.

Emily wished she had a scarf or something to hide behind, but that'd be pretty obvious too. Dammit...

"Thank you, Skye." She began perusing the games also. She'd been playing a monster hunter game online with her dad and had really liked it actually, she wouldn't mind playing something cooperative, or even single player and sharing with Skye.

"I wouldn't mind playing through an RPG, if it's with you."

"Good. But you better let me know the instant that changes, okay?" she said, her voice firmly concerned. "Well, if you wanna get back into competitive stuff, we should be on the same team. I'll carry you," she teased lightly, "Your secret's safe with me, promise. Besides, you know way too much **** about me for me to be blabbing your secrets!" she said quietly, laughing heartily.

She smiled, her mohawk turning back orange. "Anytime, really."

"I wouldn't mind playing through an RPG, if it's with you."

Skye felt herself blushing again, though it didn't override the orange in her hair, the lights flickering rapidly as she tucked the game under her arm and made her way to the counter, to the now-worried looking cashier.

"It's okay," she told the young man. "Orange is a happy color. Nothing bad happens with happy colors," she reassured. "I was in a dark place last time I came in. Trying to feel better, but I'm okay now." She paid for the game and put that in the bag with her clothes. "Well," she said, turning to look at Emily once they'd finished. "If there's nowhere you'd wanna go, I think I've spent about enough money," she said with a nervous giggle.

The purple haired Brit felt another surge of affection and concern from Skye and responded with feeling warm and fuzzy also. "Okay, I will." It was probably a lie. Maybe. Emily would probably just ignore the headache until it got to a painful level, rather than inconvenience her friend.

"It was mostly fighting games." she admitted sheepishly. She'd only ever played with her dad when she was younger, and he was somehow even worse at games than she was. "I played with my dad a lot when I was younger, we've been playing monster hunter together, he sucks more than I do so it does take us quite some time to get anywhere whatsoever." She admitted, her mouth moving rapidly before she could double check the words coming out of it.

Emily picked up another couple of games that she'd wanted to play for a while, silly cute-sy RPG's as well as a couple of edgier more serious games and resolved that she'd try and play most of them with Skye, doing her best to concentrate on Skye's emotions as she had been but finding a few flashes of the staff at the store really pissing her off.

She stared the young man down the whole time he served Skye and then when she paid for the 3 she was carrying stared him down further. "Problem?" an edge crept into her voice.

Getting the other's without incident she followed Skye out, feeling the other girl's joy wash over her and risked creeping into her aura a little further, almost shoulder to shoulder, slowly smiling again.

"Actually... I have an idea." she thought for a moment before continuing. "It's kind of the start of the holidays, a lot of people will be out, or have gone home to see their parents so the bedrooms will be quiet at the mansion." She glanced around a little before seeing a little convenience store.

"I could buy some popcorn and other snacks and we could hang out in my room and play some games." She added brightly.

"You damn well better~"

"I was never good at fighting games. I'm more into fantasy, RPGs and more cartoony racing games," she said. "I normally played by myself. I tried to teach my uncle how to, but his power is that he can't feel, so that didn't work out. If he'd started younger he coulda adapted muscle memory for it, but I guess he was too old," she said with a snort. "Then I'd play with....well, dates," she said shrugging that emotional bit off as quickly as it came.

Skye missed the interaction between her friend and the clerk because she was lost in her own thoughts, but if she knew she would have appreciated the sentiment nonetheless. When they were reunited at the door, Skye looked at her and smiled. "That...that sounds like a good idea," she said as her mind wandered. Part of her expected this to go wrong somehow, but the other part of her was looking forward to this. She'd enjoyed spending time with Emily, and it was really helping her out of her slump. She could only hope she was doing the same for her friend in return.

Emily had played some racing games, mostly the very casual kind involving popular mascots, she didn't really see the appeal in those serious ones involving real cars. In fact she didn't really see the point in games that imitated realism. The real world sucked, why would she want to escape into it? The one exception she made to this was a certain simulation franchise, but she didn't count that as the real world either. Normal people didn't have green diamonds floating above them.

"That sounds better than most of my dates." She admitted. They'd all been lame. Except for one involving Star Wars, but that'd all been such a mistake she didn't dwell on it.

"Well maybe you should start playing with different people? There are quite a few people around the mansion that are into games. I played at a little event there recently that was sort of fun." Sort of as in she spent most of the time losing, then briefly won, then lost spectacularly.

Emily quickly nipped into a store and bought some microwave popcorn (Butter popcorn, obviously) and a few other snacks along with some cola before leading the two of them to the mall exit, dreading the ride back to the mansion a little as she always did. "This was a lot less lame than it could have been." She admitted before quickly adding. "It's probably because this mall doesn't suck and I've got a great sense of style."

Skye had used the word 'date' pretty loosely for the most part, but her mind tried to omit that word when Emily said it. She didn't want to remotely go there. Nope. Not at all.

"Huh. I might actually have to look into that. See if I'm really as good as I think I am," she said, then confidently added, "Though I'm pretty sure I am." She jokingly puffed her chest out with pride. When Emily darted into the store, Skye leaned against the wall alone with her thoughts. She was having fun, more fun than she'd had in months. And she was actually happy, and feeling...positive feelings. Feelings she thought had left her a long time ago.

Before she could dwell too long and drift back into a (literal) blue state, Emily was back and they were heading back to the mansion. "Yeah, it was a lot of fun," she said with a soft smile. "Face it," she quipped, it was enjoyable because you spent the entire time with me," she finished with a coy smile, puffing her chest out again.