Haroun and Alison - The Date On Boiler Beach.

[x-jetstream.livejournal.com]

Haroun and Alison have a date. Sort of. On Boiler Beach. At two in the morning. On a Monday. Relationship fluff.



She'd done the slow trip from the kitchen herself, food and drink neatly stashed in a picnic basket. The weight a shade too much but Alison didn't care at all, not with the promise of just curling up in a warm environment and not being bothered while spending Very Important Time with Haroun. She'd mastered her lasers over the weekend although not to perfection (to the woe of two crystals and some expensive equipment) and she wasn't afraid to use them if need be.

A final look around the Boiler Beach and she settled back down on the blanket slowly, patiently waiting for two am to roll by while sternly informing her body that falling asleep now would get it in big trouble. And then some.

Haroun walked into Boiler Beach, still yawning and trying to wake up from his nap. He was wearing naught by a pair of gi pants and a pair of dark sunglasses. "Good morning!" he called over to Alison, spotting her easily. "How are you feeling on this lovely morning?" he asked her, sitting himself down in the sand next to her. "Is that breakfast I smell?"

"Mmmm. Much better now that you're here," she stated firmly, smiling at him while reaching out to touch his cheek in a feather light caress. "Nice sunglasses. And this is indeed breakfast. Or at least a snack - I thought it was the least I could do if I was making you stay awake at ungodly hours." There was, however, a noted lack of sheepishness in her voice at this. She was concentrating on enjoying the moment, after all. "The fruit salad, by the way, is labeled for a reason. My portion has Lorna's secret ingredient in it, while yours doesn't."

"Secret ingredient?" he asked, so far making no move towards the food. He decided that he'd rather just look at Alison. Synthsilk hugged her curves like it was grown there, and he never got tired of just looking at her. "And the shades are new. Part of my Young Rich Arab disguise. I grew up with them, it's not hard to look and act like them."

"Kirsch. In the fruit salad. Just a bit, but still." It wasn't hard to notice he was looking, and Alison didn't even try to keep herself from posing just a bit at that. Apparently she could do shameless just fine if it didn't involve Haroun being naked in a bathtub for her benefit. "I should bring out the rockstar shades at one point. Probably when we go to the real beach." She wasn't quite saying there might be shades and nothing else, but the hint was there somewhere.

"Kirsch?" he asked. "Let me guess, something not quite in-keeping with Muslim dietary restrictions. Gotcha." he said with a smile. He was absurdly pleased that she'd bothered to remember and plan accordingly. Made for much shorter prayer sessions to Allah. He saw her pose and mimed taking a picture of her. "Rockstar shades, eh?" he said with a low rumbling chuckle. "I look forward to seeing ... them." he added with the ghost of an appreciative leer.

"S'just 40% volume alcohol." Which was why it did scarily wonderful things to a fruit salad in small quantities at least. The appreciation was doing wonderful things for her mood and her ego. Oh so much. She shifted just a bit, not at all one of her usual full body stretches - the pain was in the background for the most part, the heat of the sunlamps a soothing thing to her physically, just as Haroun was proving to be the best thing possible for her mental state. "I am very, very glad we are doing this."

"No complaints on my end." he said with a grin, streeeetching himself out on the sand to bask like a lizard. "This is nice. Not exactly the real thing, but close enough. So how are you doing medically?" he asked her. "Still progressing along the same curve, or have your adventures with Maddy slowed things?"

"This is very nice," she approved softly, enjoying the stretching with a small smile, not quite agreeing with him on the real thing considering he was there and that made it pretty much perfect in her opinion. "That slowed things down a bit in that I doubled on my sleeping for a few days after that." She sighed, shaking her head a bit. "You saw what I was like when you got back. Training stayed on track though." She hadn't budged on that and Madelyn had made sure she could handle it anyway. "I keep killing the crystals we're using for lasers focus testing though."

"Better a few killed crystals than problems down the road. At least you're projecting under your own will now. Take it for progress." He said pleasantly. "As for me, I'm trying to find ways to shake things up offensively. Hand-to-hand is fine, but that's dangerous in a world where there are folks out there who can lift a city bus and not bat an eyelash."

Or the Blackbird at that, although Alison didn't bring that up. Instead she satisfied herself with contemplating him for a moment - he could outfly anyone in the mansion, but apparently that wasn't enough. Not when he suddenly found himself out of his depth when faced with some of the firepower others could bring, and not just the mansion inhabitants too. Why did things like these always come up when she'd just taken a kick in the teeth? The pattern was starting to get disconcerting. "Not everyone can bring the same kind of firepower to the field. That's just how it is..."

"Yeah, I know. Figure I'll bring some of my own firepower, give me some offensive punch. I won't always have the room for a grab-and-drop, and I don't have a damage sponge to soak up hits like Samuel does..." And oh, how the frustration shone through in his eyes on that thought. He may have also ground his teeth slightly. "But all in good time. Right now, I'm sitting on a fake beach with a wonderfully beautiful and clever woman who happens to think I'm a fairly nifty fellow. Life does not get much sweeter than this."

She would, she decided, talk to him t matter of firepower sometime in the morning. There was firepower and then there was being an X-Man and while there was a medium to be found, she wanted to be damn sure it was one she could live with, if she was going to be a team leader. "Well, it could if I could convince to get just a little bit closer so I could show my appreciation of your niftiness properly..." She sent a mental apology to Madelyn for that one, but the impact on her morale - and Haroun's - would be priceless and well worth it, in her estimate.

Haroun obligingly scooted over to press himself as close to Alison as he possibly could. If that's what she wanted, that's what she would get. He couldn't help feeling a little guilty about the involuntary wince of pain that would cross her features, but she never complained and mentally he saluted her fortitude. "Better?" he purred.

Closing her eyes for a moment, filtering through the pain to try and focus only on touch, Alison slowly nodded. "Yes." She'd had more in mind but that took a backseat for the moment, as she simple leaned against him and enjoyed the moment to the fullest, smiling to herself. Finally she looked up and winked at him. "We're supposed to behave." Her lips quirked at that, amusement dancing in her eyes at the thought.

"I know." he said softly. "I'm bad at behaving." he admitted with a grin. "It's your body, I leave the limit-setting up to you." He took a moment to inspect her from head to toe. Synthsilk was a wonderful substance, with how it clung to every curve, every muscle. "So this time, I'll leave the pawing to you." He lay flat, hands tucked behind his head, presenting himself for her inspection - or whatever else she wanted to do with it.

"I do not paw," he was sternly informed, Alison feeling rather grateful for the fact that her bronzed skin nicely hid any suspicious blushing she was most certainly not doing. How did he provoke that still bewildered her. It didn't keep her from sidling over, the manner of which she was getting distressingly good at when it came to covering maximum distance with as little pain involved as possible, and she settled against him, hand flat on his chest while propping herself on her elbow to gaze down at him, the towel blunting the ache in her elbow slowly. "I explore." And with that she let her hand trail just a bit, mapping the lines of his body idly. Noting what was felt and what wasn't.

Haroun let his eyes close, to concentrate on the parts of him that she was pawing - err, exploring - to great effect. He could always tell when she crossed the line between man and machine - he'd be feeling her fingertips slide across his skin, and then nothing.  "Of course you don't." he said with a grin. "Someone like you would never do anything so undignified as pawing."

It was a subtle shift in body language and expression, but she was learning to tell the difference with greater accuracy with each passing day - what he felt and what he didn't. And she already knew the boundaries between flesh and cyberware by heart. "Mmm. Tease me and I may pinch you though, mister." She leaned down, feeling every single particle of sand against her elbow for a moment, then forgot that neatly as she kissed him teasingly, pulling back moments after her lips had brushed his.

"If you didn't want me to tease you why did you invite me down here?"  he said with a teasing grin. The kiss he enjoyed as much as he could - not wanting it to end, but accepting that it had to. "You're going to have to play the tease until you get better - me teasing you usually leaves you in considerable pain."

Madelyn was going to slay her when they walked in the medlab tonight. She just knew it. But he was just being to tempting and there was really no way Alison could resist the invitation now, was there? What with being notoriously weak willed and all. The following kiss lingered just a bit longer, Alison very much ignoring the fact that building tolerance to touch to be able to kiss her boyfriend a bit longer was several shades of way out there. "Mm. Evil." She smiled at him serenely, then pinched him lightly. "I do not paw." She was going to pay for this when she got better. Yep.

"Of course you don't." he said, repeating himself. "Someone of your refined elegance and taste would never, ever paw someone." he grinned. He noted the pinch, but he let her get away with it. "Of course, if you don't paw then you'll be missing your chance to get your hands on some prime Grade-A 50% organic Moorish beefcake." he smirked.

Alison laughed lowly at that, draping herself against him just that much more. "Doofus. I've got a heck of lot more than just my hands on you right now." And moving like that had hurt but it was still reflex and instinct, along with the pure need to touch that was driving her along. And she could handle it, still. The hand which had been resting on his chest quiescently for a moment went wandering again and this time she didn't pull back from the kiss, though it was just as light as the others before it had been.

Haroun kissed her back, clenching his hands into fists to keep them from going a-roaming over her like hers were on him. He wanted to - Allah, how he wanted to. But he couldn't. Instead, he brought up his Heat Trick. Since she was half-laying on him anyway, she might appreciate some warmth.

The heat from the sunlamps had already been near divine, but this just soaked right through her, taking the edge of the perpetual tension caused by the pain. She paused briefly to pull up and smile a bit at him, letting him see exactly how much it helped in the way her expression was that much lightened from the strain, and in the way the kiss that followed was just at touch firmer. In the moment that followed, neither of them heard the door open for a brief instant.

Haroun not only did not hear the door open, but he would not have cared even if he had. She was pushing, he knew that, but damn, it felt good. He took a fraction of a second to put his libido on a choke-chain and remind it Who Was Boss.

The door was closed again without any sign at all that anyone had ever wandered by when Alison finally had to stop and pull back one last time, sighing softly. She's pushed too hard and was feeling it physically, but the heat was still there and utterly glorious, and she was smiling just a bit as she leaned her forehead against his shoulder.

Haroun just lay back and enjoyed the attention he was getting from Alison. She had apparently missed him terribly, which while somewhat off-putting was enjoyable in the making-up department. "Just rest for a while." he told Alison as she rested her head against his shoulder. "This isn't too bad. Not great, but not bad."

She snickered at that, amused more than anything else at his estimate of the situation, which was far more polite than how she'd thought of the whole mess on more than one occasion. "I'm going to fall asleep on you if I do that." Which really, wasn't entirely unappealing at all really - evidenced by her doing just that, lips still twitching a bit in amusement at his pronouncement of 'not great but not bad'.