Haroun and Nathan, Thursday morning

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Still in medlab, Nathan manages to totter down the hall to visit Haroun. Given their respective conditions, the conversation's a bit odd.


His progress down the medlab hall was a little slow, but Nathan was content not to hurry. His vision was playing tricks on him - just depth perception-wise, none of the fading in and out, thankfully - and he didn't want to wind up on the floor. He reached the room where Maddie had said Haroun was, and knocked on the door once, before opening it and going in.

Haroun, on the other hand, was Not Going Anywhere for a while. He had both access ports open in his legs, plugged into laptops that were busy crunching detailed diagnostics. As for Haroun himself, he was conscious and had an IV going to the back of one hand to replace a lot of the vital fluids he'd managed to lose. He looked like hell, his normally dark skin purpled and bruised over most of its surface.

"Well," Nathan said hoarsely, mustering a faint smile as he made his careful way over to the chair by the bed, lowering himself into it. "You look a little the worse for wear."

"Who are you kidding? I'm a very handsome man. Purple is my color, you know? Make Clarice jealous." he said, clearly still a little out of it from the very nice painkillers he'd been slipped. "Earned every bruise, thank you. Who the fuck was that who hit me with that truck?"

Nathan didn't answer for a moment, being rather occupied in placing his elbow on the arm of the chair just so, so that he could rest his aching head in one hand without any embarassing pratfalls. "I think a few people hit you," he murmured. "I know one of them was Morgan. You're lucky you don't resemble a pancake right now."

"No, the skinny little fuck who floats. And apparently made me very, very heavy very fast. I almost died out there three times." he explained.

"Lense? Damn." Nathan grimaced, rubbing at his eyes. "Lense, and Morgan... you had to go pick on the heavy hitters, didn't you?"

"Was that his name? I took him out, but it cost me. Most of this damage was his fault. Not a whole lot of other people got any hits in." Haroun said with pride. "Got Lense, got the two at the chopper, then danced a little with a shapechanger before whatever you did took over."

"Did better than me," Nathan said dimly, his eyes unfocusing as he gazed across at the wall. "Took down a grand total of one. Though we did bring that one back with us..."

"Well, didn't you do some kind of brain-mojo to take them all down?" Haroun asked, then adjusted his pillow so that he could sit up a little bit more. He didn't say anything, but the pain flashed across his features. "I'm due for another internal exam in a few hours - to make sure whatever Lense did to me didn't tear anything inside."

Nathan focused on him again, with some difficulty. "The Trojan Horse," he said briefly. "It hit Morgan, and some of the effects ricocheted to the others. Don't think it did more than crack their conditioning, though..." He trailed off, his expression going bleak and unhappy before he tried to wrench his mind off that particular train of thought. "Think it was timely, in any case. There was you, and Hank and Madelyn were pinned down at the helicopter, apparently... and I'm not sure I would have beaten Morgan otherwise."

"I was going for the chopper so I could drop it on his head. Would have made a very pretty boom." he said with a grin. "Boom!"

Nathan blinked, his head tilting involuntarily. "And... you would have taken out their escape route," he said slowly. "Haroun? Not really good tactical thinking, there."

"Sure it was. Put them down, keep them down. If we ganked their ride, then knock them all out, we could have then immobilized them and left 'em for the authorities - a nice little gift-wrapped package. And hey, if some of 'em got a little frostbite, it would serve them well." he said with a somewhat loopy grin.

Nathan regarded him for a very long moment. "You're a little high, aren't you?"

"Just a little." he said with a laugh. "Stupid painkillers. But I couldn't sleep without killing the pain, and I'm still flushing the speed out. My kidneys are freaking right now, for obvious reasons." he grinned.

"It's a damned good thing you didn't get yourself killed," Nathan muttered, his head tilting of its own accord again. Or maybe that was just the room. "Otherwise I'd have had to kill you. And that would have been messy."

Haroun blinked. "Why?"

"Why would it have been messy?" Then Nathan realized what Haroun probably meant, and smiled a bit wanly. "Because I've had enough people die on me," he murmured. "Makes me cranky."

Haroun ahhhed. "Well, I'm too ornery to kill." he said with a certain degree of pride. "If I couldn't get the job done, no Mistra wanker is going to do it either!" he added firmly.

Nathan opened his mouth and then closed it again, reminding himself that ye olde brain wasn't working all that well just now. "Did I mention I sprained my brain?" he offered after the silence dragged on for a few moments. "Knew I couldn't make it to three months. Made a crater too. Although, that's half Tim's fault..."

Haroun laughed. It hurt - a lot! - but the pain was an old friend, and he needed to laugh. "Knew you couldn't do it." he said. "Has Moira flown back to come and kick your ass for you?"

"Oh, there's been lots of ass-kicking. Be glad you look so pitiful," Nathan joked feebly. "You've missed out on your share."

"My share?" Haroun said, the drugs interfering with his mental processes. "Why do I need to have my ass kicked?"

"Because you got your ass kicked. Hence there has to be follow-up asskicking. Don't you know that rule?" Yeah. Definitely punchy. And he had the gall to accuse Haroun of being out of it.

"The fuck I did!" Haroun said indignantly. "I walked away. They didn't. I won." he said proudly, if a little loopily. "Not my fault this Lense person pulped my insides - and I beat two more goons with pulpy insides."

"Are you walking around? No. Hence you got your ass kicked," Nathan said, reflecting that he sounded more than a little loopy himself. "Besides, the second ass-kicking phase is usually done with love. You ought to lap it up."

Haroun grinned at Nathan. "Is that a challenge, Captain Brain Sprain? Because I wager I'll be up and around before you."

"Bullshit," Nathan said, striving for a haughty tone. Not quite getting it, but trying real hard. "You'll be lying here with... uh, computers attached, and all purple, and I'll be out... doing stuff. You just watch."

"The computers will be done by this evening. I'll be walking in a day or two. Just you wait!" he crowed. "Besides, I have classes to teach."

"I'd offer to take the Arabic, but I can't see straight yet. Maybe tomorrow?" He was supposed to be resting, but damn, he had rather a lot of classes he himself had missed already, between the mission on Tuesday and spending most of yesterday unconscious.

"If I'm not up by then and stealing your woman, then yes, you can take my Arabic class from me for a time." Haroun grinned. "She'd look good in a veil."

"This is me, imagining Moira laughing in your face," Nathan said dryly. He went to push himself up out of the chair - and sagged back into it almost immediately. He spotted the kleenex box on the bedside table and reached out to take a couple. "Hate this part," he muttered, leaning forward a bit and trying to ignore the increasing pressure behind his eyes as his nose started to bleed. Again.

Haroun grinned. "Well, the only way you have to keep your woman from falling prey to my devilish Moorish charm is to get to her first. Haven't you read _Othello_?" Haroun asked with a grin.

"And thank you, for that mental image of Moira as Desdemona. Really." Kleenex pressed firmly to his nose, Nathan looked up at Haroun. "Are you going to be okay?" he asked after a moment, his voice muffled.

Haroun stopped to think about it. "I think so, assuming that the weight-shifts didn't screw up my meat beyond all repair." he said. "Be back on my feet in no time."

"Oh good," Nathan said a bit faintly. His vision was doing that annoying flickery thing. "Was worried, you know..."

Haroun smiled. "Got to. I have tickets to a fight in a couple of weeks, and I'd just as soon go under my own power." he said by way of an explanation. "Only got the one, as tickets are fairly hard to come by. Assuming it doesn't suck, you want to catch the next one?"

Boxing? "Sure, why not..." He made another effort to get up out of the chair, rather more successfully this time, although he swayed alarmingly once he was back on his feet. "Right now, though, I think I should go lie down."

"You do that, old man. Give that sad wreck of a frame time to heal up." he grinned. "And speaking of sad wrecks for a frame, I think that's Maddy come to give me my hourly checkover."

"Try not to enjoy all the attention too much," Nathan said dryly, tottering towards the door. "Otherwise you might wind up like me, landing myself in medlab every two months on the clock..."

"You know, there are worse fates than being fussed-over by pretty girls..." he said with a grin.

"Uh-huh." Nathan waved a hand at him, then grabbed at the doorframe with it to steady himself. "Get some rest, junior."

Haroun weakly waved, and then eased back in the pillows, letting his eyelids flutter closed.