xp_logs | Nathan and Haroun, Wednesday morning

Nathan and Haroun run into each other at breakfast, and Nathan finds out about all of the shouting he missed out on while he was in New York with Manuel the previous evening. He gives a slightly over-contemplative Haroun his opinion and some advice, and is tickled to hear that kissing and making up was done.

Haroun poked at his eggs listlessly. While Certain Things were resolved last night, enthusiastically and at length, he still couldn't let the feeling go that he'd precipitated the whole thing. Maybe he was being selfish, maybe he was being overbearing. Maybe she had a point in her near-incoherent screaming and ranting and carrying-on. Maybe he was driving her insane by trying to keep things too neat and tidy. Heady thoughts for the breakfast table, and Haroun's meal was suffering for it.

"What did the eggs ever do to you?" Nathan asked, sitting down across from him. "To deserve the slow death, I mean," he said, coffee in one hand and English muffin in the other.

Haroun blinked and looked up at Nathan. "Hey. Just a rough night last night." he said, the fatigue plain in his voice. "How was yours?"

"Not too bad. Have a solo session in a while," Nathan said briskly. "Then I'm meeting with a couple of students about their independent study projects, and then I suppose I'll go take another crack at the nursery. You?"

"Got training with Shiro this afternoon, and some project work for the team." he said, fighting a yawn. "Look. I want your honest opinion on something, OK? Just between us." he said, looking over to Nathan after checking for eavesdroppers. "Am I really that big of a controlling neat-freak?"

Nathan raised an eyebrow. "You're asking two different questions there," he pointed out. "Are you a control freak, and are you obsessive about neatness. The latter does not necessarily mean the former - it's a preference, nothing more, although people can take it to excess. I'd say you are obsessive about neatness." Nathan shrugged. "As for being a control freak, no more so than the rest of us. Possibly a little more, because of the discipline you had to develop to be, you know, walking around and doing what you're doing now instead of lying helpless in a bed somewhere."

"That's what I thought." he said, looking infinitely relieved. "Had a bit of a set-to last night. Allah help me, I actually cleaned up after Alison and then had the utter and complete gall to ask her to pick up her own things once in a while." he said. "And I've got a perfectly seasoned tea kettle that she _insists_ on trying to ruin despite having been given instructions as to its proper care and feeding."

"The little things of living together," Nathan murmured, then raised an eyebrow at the look he got from Haroun. "What? They're more troublesome than most of the major issues, you realize. That's just the way it is. Would you like to take a guess at how long it took Aliya to break me of obsessively tidying our quarters? I was so used to living in barracks and having to keep everything perfectly in order."

"I was never one for barracks living, but I always had to be able to get dressed and find a weapon as quickly as possible when I was doing the vigilante thing." he mused. "To not know where your kit was was to invite death to come knocking."

"Same basic issue, at the heart of it. Did you tell Alison that?"

"I tried. She wasn't having any of it." he said with a heavy sigh and a shrug. "I know she can keep her space tidy - her office is immaculate and the music room's just as neat. So why's our space different? Does it _really_ take that much more effort to drop her soiled things into a laundry bag rather than leave them on the floor?"

"What did she say about why she's not neat?" Nathan asked, eminently reasonable.

"She tells me that I'm blowing things way out of proportion - that she meant to get around to picking her books up off the floor - I almost put Kant through a wall! - and her clothes as well. That it sitting there for a day or so is not going to kill anyone." he fumed.

"So what's the obvious solution here?" Nathan asked patiently, after taking another bite of his English muffin. "You become a little more comfortable with clutter, and she becomes a little neater. Meet in the middle. Compromise is a necessary art."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." he said with another sigh. "The way she was carrying on, I thought for a brief moment I was the reincarnation of Pol Pot or something. Putting little Cambodians to death just to suit my whims."

Nathan laughed a little. "Haroun, be honest. The fact that she can be... dramatic at times is one of the reasons you were attracted to her in the first place. Because you're exactly the same way."

Haroun rolled his eyes, and dumped tabasco on his eggs with cheerful abandon. "I am _not_ a drama queen! Not like she is!"

"Of course you aren't," Nathan said cheerfully. "You're calm and moderate in your approach to... well, everything. Always. It's one of your most noticeable character traits." He smiled widely at Haroun and lifted his coffee.

"Well, excuse me for wanting to make use of the time I have left and actually, you know, _live_ a little. Would you prefer I melted my brain out my ears and spent all my available time in Medlab? I did that for a few years, and it sucked. A lot."

"There's absolutely nothing wrong with enthusiasm," Nathan said steadily. "Not at all what I'm saying. Just that you and Alison do share a tendency towards... well, a lot of it." He shrugged. "You both wear your hearts on your sleeve to some extent. It's not actually a bad thing, it can just lead to... friction, sometimes. And loud friction, when it does."

"Be thankful you missed it. I'm lucky I can see today. She gets a little, err, bright when she gets pissed-off." he said ruefully. "At least you had the Spanish kid with you, so we're all spared his whining about his precious little feelings."

"Semi-productive evening," Nathan said after a moment, sipping at his coffee. "Did the two of you sort things out in the end?"

Haroun grinned. "Let me just say that I've _earned_ my exhaustion."

Nathan rolled his eyes. "Time-honored method, huh?" he said with a chuckle. "Well, glad to hear it. I prefer to see the two of you happy. Funny little hang-up of mine."

"Don't roll your eyes at me, mister. I know where babies come from." he laughed. "Well, you know, despite the occasionally photonically-excited screaming match we do get along fabulously well."

"Yeah. I know," Nathan said, the smile turning warm. "And it's a good thing. The bumps in the road are pretty minor things in the end."

Haroun just grinned back, and set to eating his eggs with a vengeance.