xp_logs | Nathan and Haroun, Tuesday afternoon (Reply)

Nathan tries a new form of therapy with Haroun, involving a Danger Room-created climbing wall. It has a surprising - and rather promising - result.

Haroun stared at the climbing wall then at Nathan. "All right." he said with a grin. Haroun was feeling a little cocky - he'd had three days of near-perfect mobility days in a row. "Show me how this harness stuff works, and I'll see if I can take the wall with you." he grinned.

Nathan raised an eyebrow. "Harnesses and ropes and little wee climbing walls," he muttered, showing Haroun how to get into his. "I miss mountains."

Haroun grinned nervously at Nate. "I'm still offline. No _way_ I'm doing mountains, you maniac. Not without a way to just bugger this climbing thing and _fly_ there." He finally got the harness on and cinched in tight. "I've never actually done this before. Never really had a need to."

"It was the other reward I generally asked for, at Mistra. If I pulled off a mission with particular style. 'Can I go climb K2?'" Nathan slung the coiled rope over his shoulder and eyed the climbing wall. "We're going to try this top-ropped, obviously. Stay down here until I'm ready."

With that, he stepped forward and started up the wall. He could have anchored the rope telekinetically, but if he was going to have to stay down on the floor belaying Haroun, he wanted to at least burn off a little energy before he did it.

Haroun watched Nate scramble up the wall like somebody'd cast Spider Climb on him. For a second, he got wistful for his ability to fly, but he pushed it to the back of his head. Not today, not now. Today was about trying to go up the wall, stretch himself a little. "Any time you're ready." he said confidently.

Nathan fastened the rope in the loop the Danger Room had so kindly provided at the top of the climbing wall, then lowered it. He leapt off the wall, falling thirty feet and ignoring the shock of pain in his back as it protested even the telekinesis-softened landing. "Environment change," he said aloud, gritting his teeth a little. "Increase overhang by... five degrees." The Danger Room promptly obeyed.

Haroun blinked as the wall got even more ominous looking. "Newbie here, remember?" he said, looking at the wall. "Not real interested in going splat. OK, so how do we do this?"

"I belay," Nathan said, getting into his own harness and setting up the belay device once the rope was securely attached to Haroun. "Which means, I feed you either tension or slack, depending on what you need. I can take in slack, catch a fall, hold you steady, and lower you down once you get to the top, but I can't pull you up the cliff face. Upward motion is all yours."

That fit in nicely with how Haroun wanted to work - have the safety net and the help there, but all the progress (or lack thereof) was his. "All right." he said, beginning his ascent up the wall.

Moira was going to be unbearably smug, Nathan thought dourly, feeding Haroun some rope. Her and her bright ideas. "Small moves," he advised, seeing Haroun already stretching a little farther than he should. "This isn't a race."

He nodded and went for the easier hold. Despite everything he'd been through Haroun was still in excellent shape - although down significantly from his ironman physique before his injury. He'd made it up about ten feet off the ground already, the 'ware and the meat in concert for once. But the handholds weren't coming as neatly as they were closer to the ground.

Nathan fed out more rope, then held it taut as Haroun stopped, presumably to assess the route. "Dull," he pronounced. "Give me snow, ice, and air so thin you can't breathe it."

Haroun smirked. "Air-filtration. You'd have to go up higher than any mountain before I start choking on the air." he said, then pulled himself up to the next set of holds. He was beginning to see what Nathan saw in this - it was very him vs nature. He went for the next handhold, but he wasn't seeing any footholds. Without thinking about it, Haroun smashed himself a hold into the 'rock' to give himself something to stand on.

Nathan made an aggravated noise. "Environment change. Eliminate alteration," he said, and the Danger Room filled in the hole.

Haroun lost his foothold and dangled from two fingertips on each hand and a toe-hold. Growling, he flailed about a bit - enough to find a new toehold to continue the uphill climb. He had no finesse and no knowledge of his to climb, but he was toughing it out on sheer physical ability.

"If you tried that on a real wall, your climbing partners would beat the crap out of you," Nathan told him. "You don't damage the face."

"What are you talking about?" he said. "Never mind. Busy." he said, resuming his slow uphill climb. He didn't seem to have a really good grip on the whole side-to-side thing, and his straight-up options were approaching the Sadly Limited stage of things.

"Do you have an aversion to going sideways?" Nathan asked, noticing this. "You don't get to climb in a straight line. Need to go around the rough spots."

Haroun wanted desperately to flip Nate the bird, but all his hands were A) busy and B) getting sore. Climbing was, he decided, murder on grip strength. He looked to his left and then to his right, and decided to go left. A bad call, as it turned out, but he didn't know that right then. He skittered across the rock-face slowly, taking things one hold at a time.

He was going to get stuck, Nathan realized with a flicker of black amusement. He watched in silence. The reaction, when Haroun realized it, would be interesting. And possibly informative.

Haroun resumed his upwards motion, getting to about halfway up the rock face when, as predicted, he got Stuck. There was a handhold over his head, just tantalizingly out of reach. His footholds were good, his right handhold was good, but there was the one on the left - if he could get there, he could continue up the wall. But how?

"Back off if you have to," Nathan said, entirely serious but also smirking a bit at suggesting that to Haroun. "There's no shame in a partial retreat."

Retreat? Retreat meant surrender, and he did _not_ surrender! He pondered his options for a few more moments, then did something monumentally, heroically dumb. He jumped. He came _so close_ to the handhold - his fingers brushed against it, but he couldn't support himself on his off hand and down he went.

Nathan sighed and locked off the belay device, catching Haroun before he fell too far. "Well, that was dumb," he asked as Haroun swung at the end of the rope, hitting the wall in a mild-to-moderate impact. "Back okay?"

Haroun was too busy wondering if he needed to go change his pants before he answered. He had just discovered that unpowered freefall with no chance of self-correction quite frankly terrified him. All of a sudden he felt incredibly dizzy and flushed, an ocean of sweat erupting from his every pore. "I'll live." he said, even though the back had gone from fine during the climb to OMGOW! during the fall.

"Bullshit. Do you want down?"

"Fuck that. Put me back on the wall." he said, gritting his teeth. He started this, he was going to finish it. One way or the other.

"Put you back on? Just reach out and grab it, Haroun." One eyebrow raised, Nathan kept the rope tight to allow him to do it.

Haroun did just that, reaching out and reattaching himself to the wall. He got maybe two or three holds up before the pain got to be so bad he couldn't keep his grip. "Let me down before I fall." he told Nate, his limbs visibly trembling from the strain.

"You're sure?" Nathan asked, holding him steady. He was fairly sure Haroun was sure, but backing off immediately in rehab wasn't always the answer, obviously. "Just stay put for a minute or two, take a break."

"I'm sure." he said, and then lost his grip entirely.

Nathan didn't catch him with the rope, this time. He stopped him telekinetically, slowing his momentum rather than bringing it to an abrupt halt. "Well," he said wryly as Haroun hung there in the air. "Look at that. I caught you. Again."

Haroun sagged against the telekinetic catch, trying not to cry out from the sheer agony he was in right now. Standing was not an option. Sitting up was not an option. Rolling _over_ wasn't even an option. Haroun felt overheated and nauseous, and his back was sending out pulses of pain throughout his entire body.

Nathan lowered him gently to the ground, coming over to check on him. "There's no reason a fall that mild should have hurt you that much," he said, crouching down beside him and telepathically pinging Moira. Haroun was sweating profusely and Nathan frowned, laying a hand against his face for a moment - and then drawing it back sharply. Hot to the touch. "I think your power tried to kick on."

As if summoned by Nate's words, the smell of something _burning_ started to waft up from Haroun. From his lower half, specifically. Haroun only groaned and tried to kick himself back to the land of the Fully-Functional.

"Moira's coming," Nathan said, undoing Haroun's harness. "Just lie there and moan until she does."

The smell of something burning got stronger, and a spot appeared on his leg, maybe halfway down between knee and ankle. A hotspot, of a sort - one hot enough to start the material of Haroun's pants to smouldering. Haroun pulled himself together in a heroic effort long enough to give Nate the finger before sagging back to the ground, out cold.