xp_logs | Haroun and Alison - Comfort In A Time of Need

Alison's had it rough during her time in Belgium. She goes to Haroun for some help in keeping the nightmares away. He does the best he can.

She had hoped a long hot shower would help. Something to banish the nightmares and help her regain her balance before going back to bed to try and find sleep once more. It hadn't worked in the least and she'd finally given up, pulling on a pair of cotton leggings to go with the tank top, before wandering out into the hallway. It wasn't a huge surprise, really, to realize whose door she had finally ended up in front of, even as she knocked lightly, the sound barely echoing at all in the common room of the shared suite.

Haroun answered the door, wearing nothing but a pair of Xavier sweats and a confused look. "Ali?" he asked, then yawned a jaw breaking yawn. "It's three in the morning. What's up?" he said, coming more alive as his brain kicked into gear. "Come in, please." he said, shifting to allow her passage.

"Can't sleep," she murmured, drifting inside, only to divert at the last instant to lean against him, leaving him just enough room to close the door. She took a shuddering breath, closing her eyes while trying to block out the memories of the previous days.

Haroun wrapped an arm around Alison, and then smiled tenderly at her. "Here." he said, leading her over to his bed and tucking her into it gently. He himself sat next to the bed, to put him on her level. "So talk to me. What's bothering you?"

She shifted towards the edge of the bed to be a bit closer, curling up tightly on her side with one arm tucked underneath her cheek. "Nightmares." It was stating the obvious of course, but that had been what had kept her awake. The report on the mission was in the database or would be soon. Everything was detailed in it, she knew. Everything, even what she and Nathan had done to break Foley's conditioning.

"I got that impression." Haroun said, stroking his fingertip down the side of her cheek gently. "I haven't seen the report yet, so I don't know what happened. Do you think it would help if you told me? Talking about these things usually helps."

Alison closed her eyes at the touch, holding her breath for a brief moment while resisting the urge to shift right off the edge of the bed and into his lap. Barely. "Mission went fine. Foley literally ran into me while trying to escape, brought him back to the safe house." She'd earned a few bruises in the process, but those hardly seemed of consequence. At all. "They-" Alison paused, biting her lower lip hard. "Eleven of them. There were eleven kids in there."

Haroun closed his eyes for a second, to offer a prayer to the merciful Allah for their immortal souls. "They were killing kids?" Haroun asked softly. "No wonder you can't sleep. Come here, you." he said, folding Alison into a gentle hug. "Did you get the monsters who were doing this?"

"Think Nathan did." She knew she was clinging to him and didn't care in the least, wanting nothing more than to be held just then. "Didn't look." She hadn't wanted to, really, even though she knew the issue would have to be addressed eventually. "Just got Foley and then the children were out there when I got him back." Alison shivered, the whispered words sounding harsh to her in the quiet of the room.

Haroun kept the hug going - she was clinging, and clearly needed the contact. "Shhhh." he told her, rocking her slightly back and forth. "I know that that must have been horrific for you." he told her. "I'm here for you."

"You don't understand." She was shivering steadily now, voice still low and unsteady - but no tears were coming. "We had to break his conditioning. There was no time to wait, they'd already started to reset to implant the imperatives in his mind and-" Her voice failed for a moment and she took a deep breath, forcing herself to go on.

"He was flashing back to something that had happened in Columbia. A kid he accidentally killed on a mission." It was getting harder to talk with each passing moment, her voice strangling over a word now and then. "Used the children for it. Confronted him to the bodies. Nathan not letting it go and-" Alison stopped, holding on tightly, dimly realizing she was crying now, tears trailing down her face.

Haroun clutched Alison tighter to him, letting her ride out her tears for as long as she felt the need to. "Shhhh." he said, in as comforting a manner as he could manage. "I've seen the corpses of children. Usually with their throats slit by their own parents." He said, in a bizarre attempt to be comforting.

The words drew a choked sound from Alison, anything else she may have told him to explain things further lost as she shook her head, still holding on for all she was worth. She was not in the least comforted by what he'd said but at least somewhat reassured by the way he was holding her.

Haroun kept on doing what he was doing - physically. Verbally, he tried a different tack. "So I know what you feel - I've had the nightmares, the dead faces staring back at you. I can sympathize. I will stay with you, here, tonight. You are not alone - never alone, if you do not want to be."

"Stay. Don't want to be alone." There was a great deal of fervor in her voice - she didn't want to have those nightmares again, didn't even want to think about how the youngest had been Miles' age. And if he wasn't going to do something like get in the bed with her to hold her properly, Alison had no compunction about sliding over the edge of the bed to curl up in his lap.

Haroun, finally able to take a hint with the best of them, pick up Alison easily (lifting the from the legs worked wonders when the legs were artificial and far stronger than ordinary legs) and redeposited her in the bed - and he himself climbed in after her, to provide a human shield against the nightmares plaguing her brain. "I'm right here." he whispered into her ear.

She hadn't told him everything. Hadn't told him how they'd de-conditioned Foley, her own part in that. She felt a bit numb once again, but there was a safety in being held like this, warmth seeping through her slowly. "I helped Nathan. Used the light. To push things, until the conditioning broke." She didn't know if he knew exactly how that worked for her, but it was in her file.

Haroun didn't make a noise - he just kept his hug cinched in nice and tight. "Shhhh." he repeated. "You did the right thing." he stated firmly. "You helped." His imagination was going in wild directions, most of them concerning putting Alison flat on her back and then getting creative from there. So far, in the argument between Hormones and Brain, Brain was winning. For now.

There was a faintly muffled sound of assent, Alison hiding her face against him, taking a deep breath before letting it out slowly. Nestling against Haroun and just holding on throughout the night was a perfectly wonderful idea, something which she was perfectly inclined to indulge in for as long as possible, even.

Haroun concentrated for a bit to bring up some of the heat of his power to his skin, to warm her better under his thin covers. Deciding to be brave, he leaned down and kissed her earlobe briefly, then moved away to gauge what her reaction would be.

The heat was divine really, Alison practically melting against him, exhaustion catching up quickly as she went limp. The light kiss drew a faint sigh from her and she shifted closer (or tried to anyway), before looking up at him, looking fragile and lost.

Haroun looked down at Alison. Oh, the things he'd love to do to her. Ahh, what the hell. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. And she was right here, and those baggy sweats just hinted at the charms beneath. As she looked up at him, the last vestiges of a form of control broke entirely. He leaned down to claim a kiss from her, passionate yet not too rough. He didn't know how she usually liked them, although he had yet to hear a word of complaint. "Celebrate life." he whispered to her.

The kiss brought a flush to her cheeks, the far too pleasant heat having already driven away most if not all of the physical tension away. Alison traced his lower lip with a fingertip lightly, feeling a bit dazed and dizzy. It was easy to just lift her head just so, lips warm on his as she kissed him softly in return - and between one moment and the next slipped into the oblivion of sleep, exhaustion catching her unawares as she slipped into a light sleep.

Haroun revelled in the kiss, and was just about to deliver another when he realized that she had fallen asleep on him. On one hand, this was a consummation devoutly to be wished. On the other hand, he still wanted to do wonderfully perverted things to her. But on the gripping hand, he was first and foremost a _decent human being_, and decent human beings didn't molest people in their sleep.

Despite what their nasty little hormones told them to do.