xp_logs | Log [Alison, Haroun] Waking up next to you...

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The morning after. Featuring much smugness and sappiness, along with a breakfast that would make Lorna howl and kick something (eggs with salsa, she'd so howl), a glowing Alison and the signs of far more ease with certain of the realities of their relationship steadily settling in.

Haroun stretched and woke slowly, still somewhat unused to sharing a bunk - a bed - with someone else. And speaking of that someone else, he rolled onto his side to watch her sleep. Her light snoring was unspeakably precious right now, and unless his eyes were playing tricks on him she was glowing.

Literally.

She was really unimaginably beautiful at times like this. And when he thought back to last night, even with all of the awkward ... amazement. Complete amazement. Judging by her rather enthusiastic reactions, she certainly appreciated his attempts at pleasing her. And while he didn't get much out of it, she still managed to find some of his sensitive spots and play on them. And this wasn't about him. It was about her, and what she wanted, and what she (dare he think it?) needed.

It was a slow rise to awareness really, the comfortable heaviness of her limbs and the warmth at her side all contributing to a deliberate laziness on Alison's part, each second savored to the utmost. The memory of the previous night, lingering in both mind and body, very much contributed to the small smile slowly curving her lips and sleep was given up on in favor of something far better. With a small murmur she moved just enough to snuggle up closer to Haroun, fitting herself against him that much more, eyes flickering open slowly.

Noticing the glow, her lips quirked in amusement but she didn't care or bother to try and dampen it. There was something heavenly about the moment and making it last as long as possible worked fine for her, so she settled for focusing on Haroun's face instead, offering him a sweet smile and another indefinable murmur, everything about her at that moment radiating drowsy contentment. A slow motion, lightly touching his cheek was her way of saying good morning for now, the contact uninterrupted as she let her hand drift to his chest, pressing it there flatly.

Haroun grinned as Alison snuggled up closer to him. "Good morning." he said tenderly. "How do you feel?" he asked with more than a little bit of a 'Look what I did!' grin on his face. "Want some breakfast, or would you prefer a nice slow lazy day in bed?" he asked with a smirk. After all, once could be a fluke. To be truly scientific about the entire thing he'd need more data.

A lot more data.

The look of satisfaction drew a chuckle from her - smugness was something Alison herself was somewhat acquainted with right now, truth be told. "Mmm. Morning." There, that was one whole word. And she hadn't slipped out of the lazy waking up daze she was still maintaining, and quite happily so. She blinked slowly, considering the offer with all due seriousness. There was quite simply no chance of him getting anywhere near out of the bed just now, she decided. He was just fine where he was right now and the same went for her - food could wait. "Food later." She nodded solemnly at this, though the expression lasted barely a few seconds before that small, very content smile took over again. "Lazy is good." Many things, in fact, were good, at that very moment.

"Lazy is good, but I can think of better things to do here rather than just be lazy. I think I missed some spots, last night. An unforgivable error, I know, but I'll try to make my amends anyway." he said with a distinctly rogueish grin on his face. "So assuming that I didn't break anything or horrify you - and I'm pretty sure I didn't - then we could always practice ways to avoid making that particular error again?"

"You missed some?" Oh look, a whole sentence, a corner of her mind supplied proudly. "Mmm. Horrible that. Definitely need to work on that some more. Lots more." As it was, from what she was remembering, very precious little had been missed, the thought of which lead to a distinct silly edge to the smile. Enthusiastic. Very much so. Eager to listen. Boy was he a quick learner too. And the moments in there which had been awkward were amusingly endearing still, in her opinion. She shifted slightly, skin against skin as she slid one arm to place it around his waist, curling up the other to prop her head on it, ignoring anything the bed sheet might choose to do (or no do) entirely. Which in this case involved not really hanging on to her as much as it could have, which was entirely accommodating of it as far as Alison was concerned.

She tilted her head to the side, and strands of hair fell a bit haphazardly though Alison wasn't too worried - the mussed up look she could carry off without any effort at all. "We need a shower. Or maybe a bath. Toothpaste is required at one point in all of this." Oh dear, she was becoming articulate. That meant she was waking up. "Hrrm. But this is nice and cozy." She pouted at him, the very picture of indolence.

Haroun nodded. "No offense, but we stink. Both of us." he said with a rueful grin. Just because he could, he brought the heat up as high as he dared, so she could absorb and revel in it. The sheets were really disinclined to stick to either one of them, which was Just Fine With Him as he was fast becoming fascinated with the little things it hid and the little things that it showed.

That was cheating, really, though she wasted no time in appreciating the heat and then some, nuzzling the hollow at the juncture of throat and shoulder lightly. He'd done interesting things with that the previous night too, she remembered only too well. Alison flushed a bit at that particular memory, the faint color in her cheeks having nothing to do with shyness. "Shower. Soon as I can conceive of the thought of moving away from you long enough to get us there." Sappy, that's what she was being. She grinned, not caring in the least, and tilted her head back, eyes glinting impishly as she shifted her legs just enough to tug the bed sheets a bit lower.

Oh my. Now Haroun was looking at two very fine assets of Alison's indeed, and he did so like what he saw. "Well, if that's the problem..." he said with a gentle-as-he-could-manage flick of his power, which vaulted him out of the bed and to her side of things, where he proceeded to throw back the sheets entirely, spend a moment admiring her as she lay sprawled out on the bed, then picked her up to carry her into the bathroom.

"Best of both worlds." he told her as he restarted the heat. "You don't have to move, and we can both spend a goodly bit of time getting clean." he added. "Cleanliness - right next to Godliness, yes?"

Arms winding firmly around his neck, Alison murmured something which must have been assent, even as she applied her lips to tracing the line of his jaw lightly. Somewhere during the walk towards the bathroom, she also made a token attempt at getting the glow somewhat under control, and though the light didn't go away entirely, it was now nearly invisible due the light filtering in through the curtains from outside. The window in the bathroom, though equally covered, still provided enough natural radiance that they didn't need to turn the lights on.

Willpower alone allowed for a pause in the very entrancing task she'd embarked upon, and she looked towards the counter, spotting yes, the toiletries they'd picked up the previous day. "Hrm. Brushing of teeth." She had Plans for the showering part of things. Very nice and interesting Plans. The cheerful grin she added to the request more than hinted at the Plans too. Or possible the look in her eyes, which had to be easily recognizable by now.

Haroun was quickly learning what that Look meant. So he brushed his teeth, being sure to do a very thorough job of things, and while he was at it he checked his shave. It was good for another few hours, likely. More than enough time to have a little more fun. He then stepped graciously aside to allow her to do the same, all the while examining with great curiosity and appreciation the by-play of muscle and skin in the backs of her legs. Fascinating things, legs. He decided, right there and then, that her legs were her best feature. He had already, at various points, declared her mind, her eyes, her ears, her nose, her mouth, her chest, her waist, her posterior, her thighs, and her calves to be her Best Features, but this time it was definitely the legs in general.

No doubt about it.

Alison, once done, turned around and grinned, waiting patiently as it took him a while of staring at a different part of her legs to realize that she was done and waiting, though she had been returning the study in full. She padded across the short distance, indulging in a brief kiss, body brushing against his teasingly before backing away towards the shower. Sliding the door open she then turned on the water, briefly leaning forward enough to check on the temperature as well before leaning on the frame, looking over her shoulder with a pensive expression. "You know..." She trailed off, somehow managing to keep a serious air about her, even though what she was thinking about was anything but innocent. "There's a few things I can think of which would work muuuch better in here than out there." She nodded wisely at that, a hand sliding inside the shower to check on the temperature again. Perfect. Stepping within and sighing in pleasure at the warm water, she then crooked a finger at him invitingly. "I could tell you all about them..."

"Yes, Mistress." he said with a tug at his imaginary forelock as he stepped into the shower. Oh, this could be very, very amusing indeed. He couldn't wipe the grin off his face for all the power in the world.

~*~

Haroun, clad in a pair of loose-fitting sweats and naught else, gave a poke to the eggs that were quite nicely scrambling for him in the skillet. "Anything you want in these while I'm here?" he asked Alison, who was busy fortifying herself with seemingly endless glasses of orange juice and a banana. "We've got a goodly number of options here. Turkey bacon, mushrooms, peppers, cheeses, salsa, you name it. I'm going for the veggies, I think. Peppers and mushrooms and salsa should make a nice mix."

"Mmm. Cheese too maybe? Your pick of which though." She wasn't entirely convinced about the salsa, but he was cooking so he got to put whatever he wanted in the scrambled eggs, as far as she was concerned. Except for the cheese. She wanted that added in. She tugged at the bathrobe she was mostly only half-wearing and contemplated another glass of orange juice. Curled up on the chair where she'd been ordered to sit and not move from, the words 'not done with you yet' featured in there somewhere, Alison finally decided on another bite of the banana instead and watched Haroun putter about the kitchen. She had the distinct feeling she'd need the energy boost, though maybe she could talk him into a light nap on the couch. At one point or another. "That smells good," she decided, revising her opinion about the salsa. "Really good." She wasn't sounding at all wistful or on the edge of starvation, not one bit. "Will that be ready soon?"

"Just about ready." he said, doling out generous portions of the scrambled eggs with the mushrooms and the peppers onto two plates. Over both he added the salsa, and over one of them he sprinkled a good bit of the cheese that Alison got for herself. Haroun liked cheese, but he wasn't about to go and be mixing things he shouldn't be mixing. With his luck, Mohammed Himself would show up to chastise him.

"Brunch is served." he said with a grin. "Plain fare, but I'm not a fancy man in the kitchen." he confessed as he made sure Alison set to before starting the cleaning-up procedures before he himself ate anything. He was hungry, but not tremendously so. "Pour me a glass of the extra-pulpy OJ, please?" he asked her as he busied himself cleaning up the detritus of his cooking efforts. "OJ just isn't OJ without the pulp. You no-pulp people don't know what you're missing. Heretics, the lot of you." he said with a smile.

The scrambled eggs were good, though Alison freely admitted - to herself at least - that she was also starving and a lot tended to be good when she was this hungry. "It has something to do with smiling and having teeth full of orange bits, for me," she smiled charmingly at him, teeth thus proven to be pulp-free, even as she poured him a glass of juice. The next few moments were passed in silence, Alison showed her approval of the food by demolishing a fair portion of the plate he'd prepared for her. Finally, she slowed down, actually pausing to lean back on the chair and look at him. "Thank you for the breakfast." I am spoiled. Utterly spoiled." A wise nod followed this declaration and she shifted, a touch carefully, to stretch out her legs on one of the free chairs nearby. She didn't even need to check to know she was probably still slipping up on fine control and glowing, now and then.

Haroun looked puzzled by this proclamation. "No, not really." he said. "Isn't this sort of thing normal and to be expected?" he asked. "I mean, I know I'm hardly traditional for a man of my breeding, but still - is this that unusual that you could consider it "spoiling"?" he asked. "Judging by my own family and those of my relatives, this is normal. Since we've got the downtime, anyway." he added, mindful of their responsibilities as CO and XO of X-Men Black.

"And speaking of downtime, who's minding the store while we're off having fun? Gold's week this week, isn't it?" he asked between bites of food and gulps of extra-pulpy orange juice. "And the pulpy bits are the best part!" he mock-complained, showing off his own walrus-face of OJ pulp.

The display of what exactly orange juice with pulp could achieve distracted her, enough that she laughed out loud, waving a hand at him a bit helplessly. Between chuckles, she answered his last question. "Yes, Gold's in this week and I've got us flagged as away but reachable in case of emergency." There'd also been an SMS she'd retrieved earlier, letting her know Miles was doing fine and was suspected of having taught Bella a new song.

A careful flexing of her ankle, pulling the muscles in her lower leg slowly, and she smiled at him, shaking her head just a bit. "And yes. You're spoiling me. I'm just... not taking this for granted, I guess." Tilting her head to the side, she continued firmly. "Or you."

"I appreciate that." he said with a grin. "Not being taken for granted, that is. But seriously - have you been treated so poorly before that my poor efforts come as some great Casanova revelation from Paradise?" he asked with a grin. "But it is good to know that what I do is appreciated." he added. "Very good."

Her expression froze for all of a millisecond, before she relaxed again. "It was a long time ago." And it had been, really, as well as something she'd not really ever spoken about with anyone since she'd arrived at the mansion - or even since it had all happened at all. Hank had doubts, she was sure, from the way she'd reacted to certain things when they had dated for a while, after her career had taken off. And Madelyn had, perhaps, a few hints to it. But that was it. "After I left home and struck out my own." She shrugged a bit, unwilling to talk about that now, of all moments. Now was for Good Things. "It was a long time ago," she repeated. "And even I didn't know what not being spoiled was like, it doesn't mean I shouldn't appreciate you. Besides, you make mean scrambled eggs."

Haroun scowled for a moment - she was keeping secrets from him! Then his brain engaged and his face relaxed into a more happy position. She was allowed to keep secrets from him. He'd never demanded a full accounting of her life previous to him, and she'd never demanded one from him.

But, his treacherous brain reminded him, somebody had hurt her. Fairly badly. And that thought made his already overworked overly-hormonal blood boil. Better think about something else, al-Rashid. Maybe how that robe was barely there at all, and the interplay of show and hide was really quite fetching? Or maybe how she sounded at that one particular moment - the little gasps she made, the unspoken demands for more. And then the spoken demands for more, which never failed to bring a grin to his face.

"This?" he said, motioning to the rapidly-disappearing scrambled eggs on his plate. "Camp fare. Simple and effective." he said, shrugging off the compliment. "Better eat up - you're going to need your energy." he leered.

She watched the interplay of emotions without commenting on them, though the apparent final resolution brought that further relaxation from her - it was All Right and now would still be about the two of them, and that suited her perfectly. Looking down at the plates revealed that at one point, she'd finished up her own breakfast and that the banana was pretty much done for as well. Which meant the orange juice followed that path and a mental note to see how loud she could make Lorna howl in indignation about the salsa sauce was made, wreathed with amusement.

"Going to need my energy..." Another glance at his face and the notion that it had, perhaps, been a bit of time since his last blood filtering percolated nicely through, along with the fact that they'd certainly been ensuring there was need for one since yesterday. A lot. "Oh dear. I'm in trouble aren't I?" She was grinning at that though, unable to stop doing so. It was a nice way to be in trouble, just now. Even if she probably would have to drag him straight right down to the medlab once they got back to the mansion and put up with a fair amount of teasing afterwards, too.

Haroun, in his inexperience and overly-hormonal state, missed the undertones of what she meant. "Door's right there." he said somewhat stiffly. "Feel free to use it any time you'd like. Assuming that you'd like to stay, then, yes, I think you are." he said, lust and its close personal friend excitement zooming back to the forefront. "Anything in particular you'd like to show me this time around? So far, we're doing smashingly well." ~I think~ was the unspoken addendum to that statement.

She pushed herself up from the chair and walked over to him - there was just enough room for her to settle in his lap, straddling him, the table pressing into her lower back slightly. It might not be the wisest thing to do with the slightly raised worries regarding exactly how much blood filtering was needed and how soon, but in other ways, it was the needed thing to do. "I have no intention of using the door unless you're going through it with me," she said gently, kissing the tip of his nose. "It is a very good kind of trouble to be in. And I," she took a small breath, not hiding a single thing from him at that particular moment, "would like nothing better than to keep exploring what kind of trouble we can get up to some more, but I need you to tell me if I'm pushing too hard and if you need a blood filtering, first." How many women had to ask their boyfriends if they were about to blow up, anyway? "And yes," Alison whispered lowly, sensing the confirmation was needed. "We are doing smashingly well."

Haroun tried to clear his head to think about it rationally, but right now rational thought was pretty far down the priority chain. "I'm fine." he said with a wide grin. "The whole point is to be excited, revved up, locked down, cranked up, out on the pointy end and ready to rock and roll. So to speak." he babbled. "When the time comes that I need to not be those things, then I'll head down for a filtering." Or two. "I told you once that I would let you know if I needed to cool down. I don't want to cool down. I don't need to cool down." he said firmly.

"Now that that's settled, let's see here..." he said with a slow grind of his hips upwards. "Bedroom's been played out, and so has the shower. We've got this little kitchenette area here, and using my stunningly good engineering knowledge I'd say that the table there could hold our weights. Whaddya say?" he asked with a leer and a grin.

The slow shift of his hips lifted her up slightly and Alison moved to adjust to the shift of gravity, hands moving to rest on his chest. Some of the signs were subtle and minute, some were not and she really should have thought of this earlier, she thought - but it had been so nice not to have to worry about it, for a while. Regardless of the fact that she figured he was right on the table being able to hold both their weights, which was an intriguing idea damn it, Alison decided on wisdom being the better part of things just now. This was too important to risk ruining it, far too much so.

"You're showing several signs of pushing it and I don't want today to end on anything less than a good note," she said, voice calm and steady. "Today is special. How about you take twenty to meditate and re-assess how you're doing, while I clear out the table and clean up the kitchen?" She smiled and rose to her feet, walking around him to press her lips to his cheek, forcing herself not to linger. "Besides. A filtering doesn't take that long." She didn't continue, since making more promises right at that particular moment would not help with the calming down of Haroun, no matter how much she wanted to say more than a few things which would likely send things way out of control.

"I don't want to have to fly back to Westchester to do the damned filtering." he grumbled. "But since you want it and think it's important, I'll be in the Living Room. Come get me when you're ready." he said with a wink and a leer. "I cleaned up most of the kitchen already, it shouldn't take you long."

Well there was an easy solution to that, hopefully. "We'll just see about installing a filtering system here, for when we come over." It wasn't as though she didn't know how it worked, after all. She started picking up plates, resisting the urge to kiss him silly. There was a lot of resisting of a lot of things going on. "Now. Living room!" she called out laughingly over her shoulder, plates in hand as she walked towards the counter. "Go handsome it up!"

Haroun grinned and walked out into the living room, kneeling in an effortless attempt to get a meditation cycle going. He stayed in it, trying to still his mind and his body, for the full twenty minutes and then some before she came to rouse him out of it. His meditations didn't have much good effect - his body and his excitement kept the truly empty calm state from ever coming close to appearing.

A bit later perhaps, Alison peeked through the doorway. She was dressed in clothing she hadn't worn in over a year: old comfortable and slightly too large jeans and a Moschino t-shirt with something largely illegible written on it. "Hey... how're you doing?" she asked, when he gave sign of having noticed her presence.

Haroun hrmmed. "I'm pretty cranked." he admitted. "I'm not about to go berserk on you, but at the same time I'm not going to lie to you. I couldn't get anywhere near calm right then." he confessed. "Everything's very exciting." he added, with a grin that gave his words multiple meanings.

"I like your shirt." he said after a moment's contemplation.

She smiled at him, the underlying hints in his voice rather easy for her to understand, considering she was working hard at reigning herself in as well. Leaning in the doorframe meant it kept her from doing something unwise and also gave her the chance to just take in the sight of him at her leisure, which she did fully, resisting to urge to stretch at the last second. "Thank you. It was a 'saw it and had to get it' kind of thing," she murmured, glad to have found it again. "And it is very hard for me to keep my hands to myself right now." Said hands went in the pockets of the jeans and she gave him an unrepentant grin. "Mansion and medlab. Let's get the filtering done for both our sakes, mmm?" The implant may have been stabilized, but some things were nonetheless a reality neither of them could ignore.

Haroun stood up and walked over to the doorway - the same one Alison was lounging in. "So stop trying." he said, pressing her hard against the doorway with his own body and kissing her.

Hard.

"We've got some time before we have to leave." he purred into her ear before nibbling on it gently. "I like the way you moan."

Firmly keeping her hands in her pocket for now, lest they do the wandering thing on their own, Alison took a long breath, getting distracted entirely too quickly by what he was doing, mind and body remembering what else he'd done not so long ago only too well. "Called the taxi already," she said, voice steady enough. There wasn't any room for much of anything which didn't mean simply egging him on - never mind what this was doing to her - so she finally freed up one hand enough to press it against his cheek lightly, enough so he'd look at her, offering an apologetic smile for insisting. "Blood filtering."

Haroun didn't like that answer one bit, but he retained enough of himself to nod jerkily and pull back, giving her a little bit of personal space. Then he leaned forward and kissed her again before stepping back and heading for the bedroom to collect his things - and his thoughts.