LOG: Haroun and Lorna - A Side Order of Flirting

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Who: Haroun al-Rashid, Lorna Dane
Where: Kitchen
When: Monday evening
What Happens: Food and banter



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Haroun ibn Sallah al-Rashid was hungry. This was a bad thing, when the only things that were immediately available to hand were earmarked as Someone Else's Food. The pizza box was calling to him, but one glance at it had drawn a deep sigh from him - it had sausage on it. Truly unfortunate that he was actually trying to Do The Right Thing and eat better. And he'd just run out of pita sandwich fixings as of lunchtime. So he closed the fridge with a sigh and opened the nearest set of cabinets to see what there was that he could scrounge.

Lorna entered the kitchen at a dead run and headed for the far counter.  Only after she'd checked the crock pot and its stew contents did she turn and realize that she wasn't alone in the kitchen.  She turned slightly pink under her tan.  "Hello, Haroun.  Looking for anything in particular?" She was pleased that she didn't sound like she'd just sprinted through the mansion.  X-workouts were paying off apparently.

Haroun blinked at Lorna, and then leaned against the counter casually, checking her out. "Well, I was kinda hungry, and I appear to be fresh out of stuff that good Muslims like me can eat." he said with a self-mocking grin. "Will you be my savior in my hour of distress?"

"Savior, huh?  Well, flattery will get you everywhere." Lorna grinned, "Give me a quick refresher on the verboten foods for Muslims and I'll improvise you something."  Already she was compiling a mental list based on what should be in the food stores--something that was slightly easier with half the food devouring population gone.

"I've noticed that. A smile and a kind word will get you far around here." he said with a smile. "We'll keep it simple. No alcohol from grape or grain, and no pigs. The rest I can more-or-less handwave as being a very poor servant of Allah." he said with a smile. "Unfortunately, that rules out a lot of the stuff here. I'm trying to eat better - I don't want to have to be constantly recalculating weight ratios after each meal."

"Yeah, it's amazing how far simple politeness will get you," Lorna chewed meditatively on her lower lip, running through options, "So I can get away with chicken cacciatore?  That shouldn't take too long and I can make up some angel hair pasta to go with it.  I think it is all within specs."

"I trust your good taste and judgement." he said with a smile. "Can I help? I'm not anywhere near your caliber, but I managed to keep my meat going for a few years all by myself..." he said with a depreciating shrug.

Lorna feigned a swoon, "Someone offering to help?  I must be dreaming!"  She crossed to the fridge and pulled out some tomatoes, mushrooms, onion, green pepper and various other bits.  "Would you mind cutting the pepper?"

"Not in the slightest." he said with a smile, moving to the sink to wash up before handling anything food related. "I keep this up, I just might give that surfer of yours a run for his money." he said, grinning. "So how have you been doing while I was ducking irate clerics and getting kicked out of my own country?" he asked conversationally as he washed.

"In the cooking department, you're way ahead of that surfer of mine.  Alex burns water."  She laughed and rolled her eyes, "Oh the usual, ducking the bimonthly invasions and going through physical therapy for my burns.  Same old, same old."  She chopped the onion and mushrooms quickly then tossed them in a sauce pan with a bit of oil, turning the heat way up.

"Sounds fairly unpleasant." he said, moving over to the peppers to start chopping. "You OK?" he asked with some concern. "I heard you've had it rough while I was away. Real rough."

"It was," she responded frankly, "Almost too rough.  But I'm on the mend.  I've got full mobility and hey, even gained some weight so yeah, things are looking up.  All I need now is my roommate back from Valhalla or whatever and I'll be peachy."

"I'm sorry to hear that. If you can score some fireproof material from the Doctors Three, I'll take you flying sometime. I told you I would, never did follow through. Bad Arab." he said, finishing up the chopping and moving it to a plate for easy adding and/or cooking. "Anything else you need?"

"I'll definitely take you up on that.  I'll bribe Hank with something." She handed him the tomatoes, "Chop those?" She went back to prepping the chicken. "So how was it that you ended up thrown out of your country, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I pissed off the wrong people at the wrong time. Made a definite nusiance of myself insisting on small silly things like equal rights for mutants and women and white people and all sorts of other undesirables." he said as he took the tomatoes and rinsed them off prior to chopping them up. "Was asked politely to, err, not ever come back on pain of death."

"Equal rights for everyone? No wonder they threw you out.  That's crazy talk!" Lorna shook her head, grateful that most of the time she didn't have to worry about not being considered equal. "Still, their loss and our gain.  I, for one, am glad to see you back."

"They had me right up until the white people. That was just too much." Haroun said with a smile. "And it is good to be back. I miss my home, of course, but there's good work to be done here. Charming all the women, making Sam carve divots in the ground with his head - you know, the finer pleasures in life."

"Ah, yes, it's the little things that make it all worthwhile." She continued to fix dinner, putting on a pot of water for the pasta.  "Or so I keep telling myself."

"Well, the big things all build off of the little things. So if you attend to the little things, the big things will take care of themselves." he said with a shrug. "So - what's next?"

"In life or with the chicken?" Lorna raised an eyebrow at him.

"Well, I'm kinda hungry so I was thinking chicken. But hey, if you want to keep talking about life, we can do that too. As long as there's food involved, I'm up for it." he said with a shrug and a smile.

"The chicken needs to cook a bit but if you want to grab the angel hair pasta from the third shelf in that cupboard," she gestured with her fork, "then that can go in when the water boils.  Did you want a salad?"

"If you're offering, I'm accepting." he said with a grin. "Salad sounds fine - and whatever we don't eat we can leave for someone else to graze upon." he said, moving to rescue the aforementioned pasta from the shelf.

"In that case, grab the iceberg out of the crisper while you're going by, would you?  And another tomato.  The avocado too if someone hasn't made off with it." She grinned and shook her head, "Listen to me, ordering you around like you're my cooking class."

"I live to serve, O Great Mistress of the Kitchen." he said, making deep flowery bows as he gathered the ingredients that she had indicated. "Your humble servant awaits."

"Watch it with the flattery.  You're already getting dinner, you know." But she laughed anyway.  "Do you need instructions on what to do with those ingredients or will the direction 'make a salad' be enough?"

"I am, believe it or not, a reasonably competent half-human. I can make a salad without the Goddess of Satiating Hungers watching my every move." he grinned, then began doing just that. "You want any of this, or should I keep this as a salad for one?"

She gave it some thought, as she always had to when it involved her eating, "No thanks, I don't think I need it today.  And I wasn't casting aspersions on your cooking ability, I'm just far too used to the answer to that question being no."

"Like I said - I live to serve. And I'll make some extra anyway - if you get hungry later, I'll label it for you." he offered as he finished up the salad. "What do we have, dressings-wise?"

It wasn't worth the effort to argue.  "You name it; we have it.  It's all in the fridge." She took her attention off the chicken for a moment to check on the pasta. "This should all be ready fairly soon."

"Excellent. Hey, I'm feeling somewhat classic. Oil and vinegar. Should go well with the chicken and the pasta." he said as he dug through the fridge's selection of dressings, grabbed the appropriate bottles, and spooned a goodly chunk of salad into a bowl to be doused with the oil and vinegar. "Rest of it is yours." he said, referring to the larger bowl that he had done the construction in. "And the chicken smells delicious."

"That's the idea." Lorna covered the pan with a lid, checking the heat to make sure it was low then went to drain the pasta.  "Did you want something to drink?"

"I've been sticking to water lately. Cool, refreshing, and just what the body needs." he said, snagging two bottles (his _last_ two bottles, he noted glumly) out of the fridge. "Here." he said, passing the second bottle over to Lorna. "Thanks for the food. I appreciate it. One of these days, if your refined palate can tolerate it, I'll have to return the favor."

She accepted the water with a little bow, making a mental note to pick up more.  She had a fairly good mental inventory and knew they'd just run out. "My pleasure.  And actually, I did want to see if you knew any neat recipes for me to add to my collection.  Best part about being here is getting all the world cuisine from the people who know it best." 

"I rarely use recipes per se - all the stuff I know how to make is more along the line of pinch of that, a toss of this, mix, eat. That sort of thing. But if you wanted to take notes while I made something, you'd be welcome to." Haroun said. "I may beg another favor from you for my Arabic class. You enjoy cooking in bulk, yes? Especially if you had a devoted assistant?"

"All the best recipes are like that, it's not a problem watching you make it." She nodded, "I can do bulk.  What did you have in mind?"

"Well, if I'm going to be teaching the language, we can do a few classes on the food. And education usually works better if you can remember how a word _tastes_, from what I've seen." he said with a blindingly white smile. "So I'll need some classroom-friendly finger food stuff that I can label in English and Arabic. Shouldn't be too hard."

Lorna laughed, "I love it.  Do you want to give me a list or shall I just make stuff and let you wing it?  And when do you need it?"

"Oh, this won't be for a while yet. As we get closer I'll touch base with you to discuss food. We'll just do the absolute basics and move it up from there." he said, digging into his salad with gusto.

"Sounds like a plan."  Lorna spent a few fussy moments arranging pasta and chicken on a plate then took it over to Haroun, "Just let me know a bit in advance so I can shop for it."

"But of course." he said, diverting his attentions from the remains of his salad to the chicken. "I'll even go with
you - I do know a thing or two about what to get."

"Always a good thing. Usually I take the Madrox twins but I can always use another hand." She sat down at the table opposite him and rested her head on her hand, watching him eat.

"You sure you don't want any of this? You've done an excellent job, this tastes fantastic." Haroun said with a smile. "More than enough for two."

"Stew." Lorna waved her hand toward the crockpot by way of an explanation. "I'm good, really.  I'm actually not crazy about cacciatore, it just turns out really pretty so I like making it."

Haroun looked over at the pot, and then nodded. "Fair enough. I'd hate to see such a ravishing creature as yourself waste away to nothing. It would be a sin." he said playfully, twining pasta around his fork.

"Been there, tried that.  Very much no fun." She shook her head, "I'm being good.  Really."

"Glad to see you've come out the other side intact." he said quietly. "Wish I could have been here for you."

She smiled ruefully, "I wasn't very rational.  You probably would have just been yelled at or cried on.  Not a pretty sight.  I was a mess at the beginning of the year." She shrugged, "Still the past is the past for a reason."

Haroun nodded. "Just wanted you to know - if things get bad, and you do need that shoulder - or a pair of hands to take you flying, or whatever - just let me know." To break his own serious mood, he grinned suddenly. "And your little surfer boy is perfectly safe, so no worries on that score, OK? I'm artificial."

"Aw and here I was just going to suggest we run away to Paris and live in a garret.  You could have been Pierre and I Sophie." Lorna sighed melodramatically, "I'm crushed."

"I understand Paris is very nice this time of year, if you can handle the Parisian attitude." he said with a smirk. "Keep that dream firmly in mind - we can scandalize your parents with it." he grinned. "It's just ... never mind. Now is not the time to be making plastic jokes."

"You had to mention the parents.  Now I'm blushing." Though she was doing nothing of the sort, she covered her face with her hands.

"It's very cute with your fair skin." he said with a grin. "And while this has been absolutely entrancing, I really do need to wrap this up soon." Haroun said apologetically. "Will you ever manage to forgive me?"

"Maybe.  But it will be years and years.  I don't know that I can recover from the abandonment." She stood and retrieved his empty dishes. 

Haroun stood as well, to help with the cleanup. "I'm in for some quality grovelling time, it would appear. An onerous burden, but one I bear willingly for the vain hope for another mouthfull of your ambrosia." he said with another of his amused grins.

"I may let up on you just a bit.  It's good to have something to laugh about." She dumped most of the dishes into the sink and quickly set about packaging up the leftovers. "But it's only this once.  Next time you'll have to work for it."

"Yes ma'am!" he said, clicking his heels together and saluting. "Jetstream, reporting for duty!" He spoiled his attempt to be serious with another grin. "All right. I'll catch up with you later. And your surfer really doesn't have anything to worry about." he said, before departing the kitchen.

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