LOG: Haroun and Alison - Ze Schmoop!

[x-jetstream.livejournal.com]

Pure fluff, folks. Takes place last Wednesday afternoon. He's awake - sort of - before the new hardware's installed. Alison is there, of course, drooling all over him. Literally. 100% fluff, diabetics need not apply.



She'd stopped trying to fight the catnaps the previous day. Obviously, if Haroun were to wake up, he'd manage to find a way to wake her up as well, when you got down to it. And sleeping was good and she'd been crashing hard anyway from the sheer inability to sleep in her own bed (without him there) and general stress with the wind up of 1) the operation to remove the hardware and 2) the spore finally being removed from his system.

Which resulted in an Alison that catnapped whenever she could, trusting that she'd wake up should Haroun even so much as wrinkle his nose. Or something.

This time, her trust was misplaced. Haroun swam back into consciousness, nursing a Grand Mal headache and suffering from terminally dry mouth. He worked his mouth as best he could to try to get some moisture going, and finally got enough going to allow him speech. But he had a second problem, one he really didn't want to solve. He was soon to be inundated by Lake Drool, as he put it. Alison had crashed on the chair next to his bed, resting her head on the bed next to him and soaking the sheets with drool. Despite himself, Haroun grinned and weakly poked her in the forehead with a finger.

The light touch resulted in wide open blue eyes, staring ahead at first until she twisted her head to look at him. Ignoring anything else (she still had some dignity to preserve) Alison rubbed the sleep from her eyes and smiled a bit at Haroun, fingers trailing to her forehead to touch the spot he'd poked out of pure reflex. "Hey there. Sleeping beauty awakens…" She reached out then, lightly touching his cheek with a ridiculously pleased small smile at being able to do so.

"Hey. That's my line." he said laboriously. "Thirsty." he said, miming drinking a glass of water. "Not drinking Lake Drool." he added, pointing to the Wet Spot. He then tried to pull himself more upright, but his ravaged body just wasn't fit for the task, and he couldn't manage to get it on his own. Snarling, he kept at it, trying to force himself into what normal people would call a sitting position.

"Water, gotcha. But none of that." She rested a hand lightly on his shoulder, not pushing - it was a mostly neutral tone she used for the last sentence, without confrontation but unyielding nonetheless. "You're not up to moving like that yet and pulling stitches now would be bad in a really serious way - but when you are, trust me, it'll be all about the getting back in shape, okay?"

Haroun tried to fight that off, but got the sum total of nowhere fast. "Want to sit up." he said with as much of a growl as his parched throat could manage. He hated feeling helpless, and right now he was about as helpless as they came. He needed to impose some kind of order, some sort of dominion over himself and his surroundings.

"You should not." The word 'cannot' was nowhere in sight or hearing. "If you do, you will pop stitches and cause much more damage to your injuries which means they won't be able to install the new 'ware on schedule. If that happens, you'll only extend the whole process longer and then some. I know you hate not being able to move and not having that control - but sitting right now will make things worse, and for longer." So, instead, she lifted one hand up, holding a yellow star apparently made of some sort of rubber. "But. Compromise."

"Not exactly." She took his hand, then put the stress ball on it, gently. "Hang on to that, okay?" With that, she picked up the sports water bottle she'd set up by his bed earlier, tugging the straw free a bit more before offering it to him carefully. "Drink some. It'll help."

Haroun clenched down on the stress ball like it needed to die horribly, and sucked on the sports bottle with as much fervor as he could muster. Which wasn't much, but the trickle of water in his mouth felt absolutely delicious.

Smiling a bit at the way the star was being clenched, Alison noted that he was showing a reasonable amount of strength there for his condition at the same time. A mental note for the charts was made and she kept the bottle where it was patiently, letting him work out things as needed until he'd had enough water, her free hand drifting down to cover his (and the star) lightly.

Haroun finally finished with the water bottle and clenched and released the star rhythmically. "Thanks." he said, sounding better already for having the water. "Sorry for waking you." he said apologetically. "But the floodwaters were getting a little high."

"I was not drooling that much," she muttered, though she was still grinning and the light in her eyes pretty much said he could have called her an old hag and have gotten away with it. Leaning down, she kissed his knuckles lightly, before resuming the light stroking. "I'm glad you woke me up. I wouldn't have wanted to miss you being all talkative and stuff."

"This whole coma thing? Sucks. I think I'll leave it to Nate, he seems to enjoy this kind of thing." he said with a smirk. "I am just completely in the dark here. I know a lot of time has passed, and I have no idea what's going on out there. I hate being out of touch."

"Ooh… missions have come and gone, some people have had snit fits and some have not. If you want, I'll work out a sitrep for you for a few days from now?" She wanted his first actual clear and lucid moment to herself. All to herself. It was selfish, certainly, but Alison felt rather unapologetic about it. Bringing the chair a bit closer and keeping the water bottle near at hand, she lifted her other hand, pressing a fingertip to his cheek lightly. "Betcha you didn't notice yet, didja?"

Haroun blinked, and then pawed at his face. "Oh, thank God." he said with real relief. "I look horrible with hair. Figure I'll grow the proper beard out when I'm old and rickety and held together with chewing gum and baling wire." he said with a grin. "So - you prefer the hair or you like it gone?"

"It was all curly," Alison cooed sweetly, laughing softly at the expression that earned her. "Mmm. I'm used to this look more, I think," she nodded firmly, slowly inching a bit closer, being excruciatingly careful not to jar him as she settled nearer to him.

"Now you know why I cut it all off." he said ruefully. "My secret shame - my hair is utterly curly and without shame. Hence why it is BANISHED!" he mock-roared. "And I didn't ask what you were used to, I asked what you liked."

"It's oddly entrancing when it's all curly, you know?" Alison admitted this easily, leaning on the bed while pressing a fingertip to his cheek lightly. Small touches, here and there, a reassurance of his presence and the fact that he was there, aware and rational and alive. "But I like it better like this. It's just more you somehow."

"Gee, thanks so much." he said around a jaw-cracking yawn. "You know, I used to have a small thing called stamina. Think they cut it out of me when they took the machines?" he asked.

"Idiot," she replied fondly, curling up a bit more comfortably on the chair next to the bed, while still half-draped on the bed itself more than anything else. "You'll get it back. You won't let anything like what happened slow you down for long at all. Not worried about that one bit, me," she added, confidently.

"Of course not. You just get to be my cheerleader. Got the short skirt and the pom poms already, I'll bet." he said with as much of a leer as he could muster. "Just gonna take time."

"Well, we can keep the skimpy gear in reserve as a reward for good progress, mmm?" Grinning a bit, she tapped his nose lightly. "I was planning on sticking around in my own gym gear for as much of your physio and exercise regimen as possible, really. The pom poms getting stuck in the weights would be kind of embarrassing."

He couldn't help but grin at that. "Sounds like a plan." he said, and then yawned. "You don't have too..." he said, and then trailed off.

"You know, if I'd said that to you any of those times you followed my own progress while getting back to top shape, you'd have growled at me. A lot." She mock growled just a bit, for the cute, lowering her voice a bit unconsciously at his obvious signs of fatigue. "I'm not going anywhere, Haroun. Not going anywhere."

"You have your own life to lead. You've done the right thing, saw me through the worst of it. Taking a day or so and reconnecting with your son or the Big Blue Room or any of the thousand other things you've put on hold won't kill me." he said, fighting off another wave of fatigue. "Tired. Going to sleep soon."

He spoke sense. Laughing quietly, Alison nodded - though she had no intention of keeping herself from checking on him, not in the least. And coming down to see him would be about leading her own life, really. "I love you." She murmured the words softly, leaning down to brush her lips against his for a brief moment. "Rest."

~Love you too.~ he said in Arabic before surrendering to sleep.