Log [Alison, Haroun]

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

(Mid-afternoon. Set before Pete's post and Scott's email.)

In which Haroun is pranked and Does Not Take It Well and Alison isn't as sympathetic as she could have been. The sparring sessions between Haroun and Nathan are also brought up (with much more success) and there is generally a lot of being polite going about. Ow.



Haroun was Not A Happy Camper. At all. Someone, someone who was not long for this world, in fact, had placed a bucket of green slime over his door. Said green slime was now coating his head and upper body.

And since he didn't feel like stomping all the way back to his room, thus making matters infinitely worse, he decided to see if Alison had a towel on her. She usually did if she had her training bag nearby.

The knock on her door was almost enough to knock the doorframe out of true.

It was a good thing, Alison decided as she looked up from her music history class notes at the door with a mildly startled expression, that loud sounds didn't bother her. "Come in?" The end of the sentence was left unsaid, although a fair bit of the 'person who seeks to knock my door right out of the frame' thought still came through clearly enough.

Haroun clumsily tried to open the door - his hands, thrown up to protect his vulnerable head, got coated in slime, and the stuff was slippery. He'd fumbled the doorknob fairly badly, to the point where he was serious contemplating just kicking the door down. "A little help here?" he asked as his hands slid around the doorknob for the fifth time.

What the hell was going on? Blinking as she recognized who it was, Alison pushed back her chair and proceeded to make her way to the door, frowning a bit at the sharpness she thought she'd detected in Haroun's voice. After the sparring stunt with Nathan, he had better not get snappy at her, she decided. Opening the door revealed a very green looking Haroun standing in the doorway, a glob of slime choosing that particular moment to slide down the side of his cheek and gloop to the floor. "Mrfl!" Alison clapped a hand to her mouth, staring at him with wide eyes.

Great. Just great. It was bad that he was coated in slippery green slime. Worse was how it coated his hands and made opening doors a real chore. But now Alison was laughing at him? How absolutely wonderful.

"Do you have a towel?" he gritted out through clenched teeth. "I need to get cleaned up before I go and kill someone."

The first strangled sound she managed could have passed for a yes, if one felt charitable. Her second attempt was far more passable, though it still involved much fascinated staring at the smile oozing down slowly. A moment later the need for actual fetching of said towel worked it's way through and Alison stepped back so he could walk inside and went to her bag, opening it in one smooth motion. And not snickering. Not one bit. "Blanket. Here." She handed it to him with a modicum of self-control on herself finally, though looking at him again nearly broke it on the spot.

Haroun hadn't budged from his spot in her doorway. He accepted the towel and began to sponge the green goop off of his face and head. "GAH!" he said, spitting some that had inadvertently worked its way into his mouth out. "Stuff tastes horrible." he said. "And don't start laughing, please. At least wait until I'm out of earshot before you cut that laugh loose and post about it."

She knew the signs - could easily see that he Wasn't Happy about this. So she tried to keep a straight face and swallow the wild giggles doing their best to escape. The fact that she'd been upset enough about the sparring session hoopla, combined with the stiffness she was still feeling from the training exercise had all combined to lead to a fair lack of sleep, which didn't help her self-control however. And the final straw was the goop of slime which slowly slid down his forehead to land on his nose, posing in a classic wart on the witch's nose way, defying all laws of gravity in the process. Her attempts at apologizing were likely entirely lost in the strangled laugh that followed, Alison hiding her face in a helpless attempt at minimizing the damage.

All right, that was it. Time to beat a hasty retreat and then set about trying to find whoever did this. He wiped the goop off his nose and the remainder off of his head. The ears and whatnot could wait for a shower. "Thanks for the towel." he said, waving the now-green fabric at her. "I'll wash this and get it back to you."

He spun on his heel and beat a hasty retreat - or he would have, if the puddle of slime he was standing in didn't have other ideas. His pivoting heel didn't stop at the point Haroun wanted it to stop at, and even the gyroscopically-stabilized cyberware didn't cut in fast enough to save him from a rather alarming wobble.

Gah, he was taking everything badly. Sighing, Alison started to follow him as soon as he turned around, only to half-step to a halt at the way he weaved to the side. Reaching out to snag an arm - or something - to help him out, Alison tried to brace herself just in case he did go down. This, she winced, even as her hand closed on slime-smeared fabric, would not be fun.

Haroun didn't go down, but he was leaning rather heavily against the wall. "Crap." he said, staring down at the rather large puddle of goo under his feet. "OK, let's recalibrate for poor footing and see if that helps." he muttered to himself as he put an experimental foot out to see if he could keep that stable. He could, and with great exaggeration and very careful foot placement, he managed to get clear of the puddle.

"You probably think this is funny." he said, looking back to Alison. "I'm not laughing."

Her hand now resting in empty air, Alison casually let it drop, palm pressing to the side of her jeans absently to remove the slime she'd collected in her attempt to help. "I know you're not laughing." She tried to remain patient, to keep the edge out of her voice. Truly she did. "But it is funny and it's not about laughing at you." And maybe if he didn't always take everything so seriously there wouldn't have been yet another drive someone through the floor sparring attempt with Nathan.

"I don't see the humor." he said flatly. "Humiliation of the unexpectant and unprepared isn't funny. Ever." he added. "All you accomplish is humiliating the victim and providing passers-by with a cheap laugh at the vic's expense. So you'll have to forgive me if I'm not really too keen on the entire concept."

"Oh for-" She didn't roll her eyes at him though the temptation was dear, if only because someone doing that to her when she was being unreasonable would set her off like a bomb. "There's a difference between wanting to humiliate someone and another with simply creating a situation where you can laugh with someone. People manage it all the time!" The thought that Scott would have laughed at the 'Betty Blackbird' prank she'd pulled crossed her mind, though she didn't say it out loud. "You weren't ambushed in the middle of the dining hall and had everyone pointing their fingers at you and laughing, right? I mean, could you just try to lighten up a little bit about these things?"

Haroun stiffened even more, if that were physically possible. "No, I don't think so." he said, and then walked, back ramrod-straight, down the hall and towards his own quarters. His grip on the towel was white-knuckled, and if he had a tail he'd be lashing it back and forth. ~She's never been on the receiving end. Good-looking, rich, well-liked ... she has no idea.~ he thought to himself as a mantra.

Left standing alone in her office, Alison took a deep breath, closing her eyes to try and keep her calm. She gave him room on this. Had been on the receiving end of the 'I have no sense of humor' Haroun on that particular matter once. Had noted that he'd never ever again referred to her career being ruined after that one time too, which had led her to deduce he had figured out how much that affected her even if she never showed it to anyone, as much as possible. Had been very grateful for it too. She knew the hormone implants affected his moods to an extent and made a note to check on his last filtering. And then squared her shoulders before determinedly heading off after him.

Slipping in the slime on the floor in her doorway was not amusing in the least, at that particular moment, nor did it help her mood as she carefully made her way down the hallway after picking herself up, knowing exactly where he had headed.

Haroun, unfortunately, completely missed the Alison near-pratfall. He was headed back for his room as if on a laser-lock for it. Luckily for him, he didn't run into too many people on the way back, but each incredulous look, each quirked eyebrow and amused twitch of lips just served to drive the fires hotter. At this rate he was going to have to go sit in the damned Chair for an hour or so.

He was getting really tired of the Chair.

So instead he opened up the door to his room and began shedding clothing. Shirt, pants, socks, boots, all of it went into a designated dirty clothes hamper and naked as the day he was born he walked into his bathroom with every intention of taking a scaldingly-hot shower and washing away all of the slime and the anxiety away.

The last thing he did before stepping into the shower was press PLAY on the CD player he kept in his bathroom. Harsh, punishing music came slamming out of the little boom box's speakers. Harsh music for harsh moods, he thought with a bleak grin.

Alison made it to his room the moment the music started, drawing a hissed mutter from her as she closed the door with a light kick. She hated that particular band with a passion, she decided. And looked down, noting the slime on her shoe. Lovely. Prying them off so as to not track any more of the stuff than Haroun already had, she crossed the room to sit on one of the (hard) chairs, the discomfort on top of the already present aches from training only adding to her general levels of aggravation. And waited, trying not to tap her foot impatiently.

Haroun took his sweet old time in the shower. A full twenty minutes. Then the music stopped, and silence reigned until the door opened to the bathroom. Steam curled around the figure of Haroun in the doorway, making him resemble a figure out of myth and legend for a brief moment.

"Alison?" he asked, clearly surprised to see her. "What are you doing here?" he asked her sharply - more sharply than he intended, judging by his expression. Unconcerned for propriety, he walked over to his dresser, still stark naked, and selected clothes to change into. Shirt. Underwear. Jeans. Socks. Each went on quickly, business-like, no hint of teasing or showmanship.

"You have slime on your shoe." he pointed out to her once he'd finished dressing.

It was joy to see her, apparently. God he was being frustrating. She'd have given nothing more than to spend a night with him, even if it was just to be held or talk about team stuff - something she'd wanted most of the week with things always interfering, from her own stupidity to the whole thing about Columbia to Haroun getting into one of those sparring sessions with Nathan and she'd been too irked to even consider talking to him then. She'd somehow managed to let more time slip away since, never mind staying irked about how complicated everything seemed to get when it didn't need to be and now he was wandering about like that in front of her as though it shouldn't affect her at all.

"Yes. There is slime on my shoe. It's why I left it at the door, so as to not track slime all over your room." She bit back on the part where he and slime apparently didn't get along. Somehow. "There was this conversation we were having, you see. Walking out doesn't mean it's over." She ignored the chill settling over at the use of that sentence, though suddenly she very much wished she'd worded things otherwise.

"What else is there to discuss? I've taken your thoughts under advisement. The answer is still no. I am not, as you say, going to "lighten up" on these matters. I detest them. I know you and others think they are hilarious. I do not share such sentiments. " he said, trying to keep his movements small and his voice level.

"Have you ever been the butt of the joke, Alison? Have you ever been the one teased, the one being tortured day-in and day-out by those you can do nothing to stop?" he asked her. "Do you know what it's like to feel that shame?"

He was kidding, right? She stared at him, wondering if he realized what he'd asked her. "Just a little bit." The poor little rich girl taunts had always cut deeply, but she'd learned to pretend it didn't matter and there was no use in bringing that up. And if he didn't realize that coming out as a mutant had made her the world's target when it came to being the butt of a joke, she wasn't going to try and get into a 'who had it worse' contest with him.  Besides, she had a fair notion what he meant. She wasn't going to throw up her own experiences into the mix, not when faced with that. She still hadn't nerved herself up to watching the videos in his files.

"There is a difference between cruelty and teasing a friend. They aren't the same." Sighing she slumped back in the chair, the entire week adn the recent lack of sleep catching up with her at once. This was, in short, ridiculous. It was probably best to just get off that topic and on to the other she'd been waffling about, which involved sparring and Nathan and the lack thereof for the next while.

Haroun had his Skeptical Face on, but he wisely held his tongue. For a time. "A friend wouldn't do this sort of thing to another friend." He said, with finality. "You know this." He sat himself in one of his chair and stretched his back ever-so-slightly, rewarding himself with a chorus of popping noises coming from his back. "You didn't follow me up here just for that." he said after a few long moments. "What else do you want, Ali?"

She didn't, as a matter of fact - she'd pranked enough people herself since her arrival at the mansion to know otherwise, as far as she was concerned. But it was going in circles, for the both of them. Alison frowned a bit at his question, wondering when she'd become that transparent and then gave that up as well, shaking her head at her thoughts. "No more full contact sparring with Nathan." She rose to her feet, deciding to lean on the desk instead; the chair was that uncomfortable to her at that moment. "Touch to point only, until he's back on full team status, at least." It wasn't what she wanted but she didn't think she'd get that now, so she was settling for asking that. Perhaps requiring was a better word, considering her tone of voice.

"Yes sir." he said calmly, acknowledging her order. "No full-contact sparring with Nathan. Touch to point only. And if he refuses to abide by that rule?" he asked. "Just so I can be sure I have my orders absolutely clear." He looked at her, having made the mental switch from Haroun to Jetstream. "And speaking of Nathan - Command's been running him pretty hard. Mind if I ask why?"

Be it because he would be too tired from the exercises she was running him through, or because she'd have to tell him that as well, or maybe because he would simply not mind, Nathan would not be refusing to abide by that rule. Haroun made the switch so smoothly Alison sometimes wondered about her own issues with that still. She didn't have the experience he did, she reminded herself, and put it out of her mind for now. "He won't. As for why, there's a very clear goal to this but we haven't been discussing it that much. Nathan's expanding range of late means we've had to be careful so he wouldn't pick up a stray thought from us, especially considering how tired he's been and how that wears on a 'path's shielding." She wasn't saying that she wouldn’t tell him, exactly. Just why she hadn't been deliberately explaining it, mostly. "The more people know the whys, the more chances of him catching on and the entire exercise being ruined as a result." That, Alison would not risk. Not at this point.

"Understood." he said, holding himself up with proper posture. People kept telling him that it looked still, uncomfortable, but to him it was the most natural thing in the world. "I know about operational security." he added with the ghost of a grin. "Is there anything else, Commander?" he asked her, knowing that his tone and his question would likely melt her into a puddle of nervous goo but right now he was feeling too petty to care about it much.

Instead of turning into nervous goo, Alison simply went blank instead - switching back just wasn't happening it seemed and besides, the personal hadn't been any easier a place to be. At least this was... calmer. Even if being called commander was all sorts of weird. And even if also utterly impersonal, the distancing clear in every move or lack thereof. Alison decided she hated it, just now. A lot.  "No." Formality was a refuge, of sorts. "Thank you." And that probably meant she should just go now.

Impressive. She didn't turn into goo. Guess his efforts to give her an X-Men spine seemed to be paying off. "You're welcome." he said, and then relaxed just a bit. "Can I get you something to drink?" he asked her out of the blue. "I'm a bit thirsty myself, and some mint tea would be lovely."

She blinked and stared at him for a moment, silence filling the room after his question. "Tea." She was still leaning against the desk, not having yet put action to her thought of leaving the room. But whether it was a peace offering or merely away to change the subject to something more neutral, Alison wasn't really willing to question it. "Mint tea is good," she answered quietly.

"Yes, it is. Would you like some?" he asked her again as he stood up to busy himself with the preparation details. "Won't take but just a moment." he pattered as he gathered the things he'd need. "Assuming that no one has prepped me any surprises."

A slightly deeper breath, the tension between her shoulders unwinding a notch, and then another. "Yes, please." There was an amiable calm in the room and Alison didn't want to move, the very silly notion that it might disturb the sudden shift of mood crossing her mind. "Green looks good on you anyway," she added, the thought slipping from her before she could think to perhaps wait a while longer before saying that.

Haroun froze for just a step and gritted his teeth. Then he continued on with his preparations for the Making of Tea. "Do you want it straight up, or would you like anything in it?" he asked pleasantly, if a bit sharply.

She sighed softly, muting the reaction so he wouldn’t hear it over his preparations. What she wanted with it wasn't going to happen and she'd very much talked herself out of that too. "Straight up, please." Keep it simple, she told herself, inhaling a bit deeper by pure reflex, remembering the smell of the sweet tea too well, watching as he worked to prepare it.

Haroun got the tea made with a minimum of hassle and fuss. Pouring two cups, he handed one to Alison and kept the other for himself. "So, outside of laughing at, I'm sorry, with me, how has your day been going?" he asked pleasantly, externally the very soul of civility. "Well, I trust?"

She cradled the cup carefully, inhaling the scent which was now oh so familiar, focusing on the heat warming her hands. He was being... painfully polite. "Training to do, papers to grade, scenarios to work out. That sort of thing." Taking a small, careful sip of the hot tea, she paused a moment before going on. The polite reply would have been to ask him about his, but she already knew how his day was going. And even hinting at green slime wasn't something she wanted to do. She took refuge in another sip of tea, closing her eyes this time, focusing solely on the taste.

Haroun tossed his tea back like a shot taken to steady the nerves. Just sitting and talking and doing inconsequential things helped him to steady himself, for his nerves to stop twitching and accept stillness as an acceptable alternative. "I just finished grading a quiz I gave my advanced Arabic students." he said politely. "I think I need to rethink my stance on grading curves."

Looking up at that, still cradling the cup close, Alison tilted her head to the side and allowed the mundane of the conversation to lead where it would. The heat was a focus, something oddly comforting and of which she didn't want to let go of, causing her to go through the tea much more slowly than she normally would have. Even this was better than being left alone with her thoughts. "Going to give them a bit more breathing room?" The tea was soothing and the reflection of that found its way in her voice, as well.

"I don't want to, but I'm going to have to. Otherwise I'd have to fail all of the little rotters." he groused. "I know Arabic isn't their first language, and that it's very different from English. But I've been over this material time and time again. And they're still Not Getting It."

Familiar ground, all of a sudden. Oh so familiar, almost safe really. "Maybe going back to basics for a while will help get it through to them? I know that I tend to hit a plateau with the music students, every time, where they just seem to forget everything and go right back to being beginners. Sort of processing time on all the new data, before they're good to move on to something else. Drives them nuts every time."

"I suppose it's too much to ask that maybe they're just dumb, and it's not my teaching style that's doing it?" he sighed heavily. "Nobody has any discipline. They fidget, they talk amongst themselves, they even pass notes until I intercepted a few and read them - in Arabic." He said with a small laugh. "But nothing I do seems to work."

"Ask them what they'd like to do or concentrate on?" she suggested after a moment's reflection. "If you get their interest, the rest might follow." It worked for Alison, but she had an advantage. Her students were either very much into learning music for music's own sake, or had quirks she could play on, to challenge them into pushing their studies. Languages, however, she wasn't sure about.

"I'm in charge of the class, not them. Their job is to sit down, shut up, and maybe learn a thing or two. I'm not up there to enjoy listening to myself talk. I speak Arabic just fine." he said with a glower. He was getting riled up again, and this just Would Not Do. So to give himself time to recover he poured himself another glass of tea, slammed it, then poured another to sip more properly.

It was, Alison decided, very much time for a tactical retreat. The need to hide out and not see or be reminded in any way about Columbia was still very high, and both of them were apparently hanging on to civility by their fingernails. And she certainly hadn't helped things from the moment he'd stepped into her office. She was, however, keeping the tea. And wistfully wishing she dare to steal the rest of it from him to take to her office as well. "I'm sure you'll find a way to keep their attention," she offered, pushing away from the desk to stand up, taking a step towards the door. "I should probably go back to working out next week's lessons for music history." It was an easy out to take, as true as it was, she knew.

Haroun nodded. "I've got things I could be doing as well." he confessed. Surprisingly, he really didn't want to - just spending time with her was far more preferable than another endless round of What To Teach The Arabic Students So That Maybe They'll Learn It. "Stop by later? I should have that towel cleaned by then." he added, as a way to keep things open.

That was, she decided tentatively, a good sign. "Yes." A pause and she looked down at her tea, mentally going over her schedule. "Training when I'm done with the history stuff. But I'll come by after." She offered him a small smile, making a show of keeping the tea cup with her. "I'll have to bring this back too, anyway."

Haroun hrmmed at that. Every time she came by after a training session, she was too exhausted to do much of anything. Still - a conciliatory gesture wouldn't go astray here. "We can trade. My tea cup for your towel." he said with a grin on his face.

"What if I like the teacup better?" It was impossible to resist when he smiled at her like that. And she didn't want to linger on how unsympathetic she'd been or how snippy they'd both gotten. Or the fact that she was still feeling restless, things being stirred up to the surface that she'd thought would stay buried forever. She walked the short distance separating her from the door, resting her hand on the handle. "I'll see you later."

Haroun sighed. "They're on sale at Target." he said. "I'll catch up with you later, Alison." he said dismissively, already turning towards his PC.