xp_logs | Nathan and Haroun, Thursday late afternoon (Reply)

Nathan, out practicing with the wheelchair, finds Haroun in the staff lounge. They have a long, rambling discussion about exotic places they've been and come up with some sadistic yet interesting ideas for training exercises.

Haroun smiled as he watched Nathan laboriously wheel his way into the staff lounge. "You're moving better." he commented once the other man had rolled to a complete stop. "It's obvious, at least to me. And it's good exercise." He then took a long sip of his hot tea and smiled in pleasure. "So how the hell are you doing, anyway?"

Nathan finally came to a stop, yanking at the brake on the wheelchair with the arm that hurt less to move. That done, he smiled a bit tiredly at Haroun. "Better," he said. "Wearing out too easily, still, but I shouldn't complain. Given where I was last week at this time."

Haroun nodded. "You're still bouncing back amazingly fast. I spent the better part of four months straight in a wheelchair, when I was being operated on weekly." he said candidly. "Tea?" he said, gesturing to the teapot. "Just made some nice mint tea from home. Found a new supply, which is a good thing as it preserves domestic harmony."

"Sure. Bit of a switch from the Earl Grey I've been drinking with Charles," Nathan said with a chuckle, trying to relax a little in the wheelchair. Haroun's comment about how fast he was bouncing back was probably where he should have said something about 'thanks to Amanda', but really, not a subject he wanted to get into just now. "I'm actually staying awake long enough to do some serious reading, these last couple of days. Well... in the mornings, at least. Before the rehab sessions."

Haroun grinned. "Keep the mind sharp, eh? You keeping an eye on al-Jazeera or CNN as well?" he asked with a grin, pouring another cup of tea to hand to Nathan. "Africa's a fucking mess, but then again, Africa is _always_ a fucking mess. At least they're kind-of keeping the lid on things for the time being."

"The Pack was in the Sudan a couple of months ago," Nathan said a bit soberly. "Helping keep the lid on a couple of things... the British government was paying the tab, I gather."

Haroun winced. "Couldn't pay me enough to work in the Sudan right now. I'm allergic to ethnic strife, especially stuff that's been going on for that long. Before the white man, those assholes were killing each other over tribal affiliations and land use. Then when they got mashed together by force, they got along because everybody hated the British. Then the Brits pulled out, and now they're back to hating each other. It's insane."

"I've never liked working in Africa," Nathan confessed. "Don't know the languages, have a hell of a time fitting in for obvious reasons... give me Eastern Europe or the ex-Soviet republics any day."

Haroun smiled thinly. "Uncle Vinegar was pretty active in Africa, too. Take a look around, you see a lot of old T-series tanks and AKs being wielded by the rebels and the governments alike. Which makes Uncle Sugar drop more aid and arms shipments to stop the domino effect, which causes Uncle Vinegar to step up their efforts, and the game goes on."

"The few times we had trouble in Africa," Nathan reminisced, "'we' being the Pack, of course, it was always the French. Far too many Frenchmen in Africa who don't actually believe that colonial days are over."

Haroun smiled thinly. "Don't have to tell a Moroccan about the French." he said with a feral grin. "I can't complain too hard - my father works for a French firm." he said. "But can you _believe_ what's going on in Egypt these days? Mubarak might _actually_ allow elections? Unbelievable! I wonder who's got him by the short-and-curlies, or if he's just groping for respectability."

"Winds of change and all... or maybe just the wind blowing in from Turkey," Nathan said with a smirk.

Haroun rolled his eyes. "Don't get me started with your precious Turks." he said with a mock-groan. "But Haroun, they're the only real secular Arab democracy in the entire region!" he said, in a surprisingly good impression of Nathan's speech patterns and mannerisms.

"I like Turkey," Nathan said blithely. "Istanbul is more or less my favorite city on earth. But I know the country's hardly paradise. The only reason the Pack isn't based in Istanbul, you know, is that we decided we had to let some of the furor over a certain job we pulled against the PKK die down."

"Against the PKK? Poor choice, Nathan. Although they're playing over the border with Iraq, dreaming of their precious Kurdistan." he said with a sigh. "It'll never happen, not with Hussein in power and Ankhara pulling out all the stops to keep everyone playing together nicely."

"I thought it was a good choice. It was a hostage retrieval - a group of schoolkids from Germany who really had no business being in southeastern Turkey." Nathan shook his head a little. "Iraq... did I ever tell you I was in the Gulf War while I was at Mistra?"

Haroun blinked. "No, you left that part out. I didn't know any SPBs got involved in the Gulf war. Obviously on the Desert Storm side of things, as opposed to the Republican Guard side of things, I trust?" he asked pointedly. "Although apparently now it's cool to be ex-Republican Guard. Although if he's an Iraqi, I will eat your wheelchair." he grumbled.

"Just a short deployment," Nathan explained, then grinned briefly. "The Republican Guard wasn't actually quite as overrated in the Gulf War as they were made out to be. At least, they weren't before my teams got in there."

Haroun grinned. "Sure, take the credit for singlehandedly winning the Gulf war." he said. "From where I was sitting, things got real tense, real fast. There was no way Hussein was going to win, but we were all worried that he was going to piss off the wrong set of mullahs and get Iran involved. And that would be just the last straw for that region, don't you think?"

Nathan shook his head. "Iran... for all the time I've spent there, it still makes me more nervous than just about anyplace on earth ever has. With the possible exception of Rwanda in 1994."

Haroun winced. "Rwanda - the less I think about that cesspool, the happier I am. I'd rather go to Moghadishu than Rwanda." he said. Then he grinned as something struck him. "Too many Christians in Moghadishu, even so. But yeah, Iran is a deeply weird place. You've got the mullahs in charge, and they do love to spit flames and spew bile, then you've got the regular folks who just want to live their lives free from Western imperialists or overzealous clerics." he said. "Iran's got a great club scene, believe it or not. Tehran _rocks_ after dark, if you know where to look."

"So Dom's told me, more than once." Nathan snorted at Haroun. "Although I keep resolving to stop taking Dom to steadfastly Muslim countries."

Haroun grinned. "It's good for them. Keeps 'em from ossifying, and dodging outraged parents keeps her healthy and alert." he smirked. "Still doesn't mean I don't want one of them to catch her someday, but I can admit her whoring and decadent Western ways provide a good counterbalance to the more reactionary stick-in-the-muds."

"GW swore he was going to have 'Don't taunt the Taliban' tattooed on her forehead the last time we barely made it out of Afghanistan." Nathan couldn't help cracking a nostalgic smile. "I miss it sometimes," he admitted.

"That's an important life lesson. Like them or not - and believe me, I don't - the Taliban is overfond of moralizing and treating dissent with large amounts of fine leftover Soviet explosives." he grinned. "I must admit, though, that I've never been to Afghanistan."

"Beautiful country. Then again, I have this strange fondness for Central Asia at the worst of times." Nathan leaned back a little in the wheelchair. "One of these days I'll go back to Kazakhstan and see if I can't find the group of nomads I stayed with that year."

"You're insane." he said cheerfully. "Completely cracked. Sprained your brain one too many times. Afghanistan breeds hatred and opium as their main crops."

"This from the man who says he's never been there," Nathan mocked. "Although if I'm being honest, I always got along much better with the nomadic groups. We got into quite a bit of trouble the one time and some of the Kirghiz took us in. They're a world away from the Pashtun, believe me, for all they share the same country."

"Hey, I've seen what both their exports do to people's lives." he said defensively. "You want to romanticize the nomads, be my guest. You ever see an opium addict waste away and die?"

Nathan gave him a patient look. "I said it was a beautiful country, you know. I didn't say that the majority of the people in it were high-minded citizens of the world."

"Fair enough. That I can give you." he said with a quick apologetic gesture. "One of these days we're going to have to tell the X-Men to bugger off for a while and go make the rounds. Visit the places we haven't been in years. Maybe I'll drag you along for the hajj, and you can show me this Afghanistan you fell in love with." he mused.

"Sounds like a plan," Nathan said with a smile, liking the idea. "You know, I keep thinking that these kids are missing out on a lot. Only getting the Western view of things..."

"I know they are." he said with the assurance that comes from experience. "But the absolute _last_ thing I want to do is a field-trip to a volatile part of the world with our bunch of mutant teenagers. Regular ones are bad enough." he said with a sigh.

"And sadly, they don't seem inclined to sit and listen to one tell stories," Nathan said wryly. "Although I'm being unfair - the group I had in that Eastern Europe/Western Asia class back in the fall learned a few things, I think."

"I could quite cheerfully kick most of my Arabic kids. They couldn't give one tenth of one shit about the cultures, the history, any of it." he grumbled. "Sure, some of 'em got a knack for the language, but without the culture, without the _history_, you miss too much."

"Surely we could find a less-volatile part of the Arab world to take some of them," Nathan said thoughtfully.

"They're Arabs. Of course they've volatile." said Haroun the Moor. "Comes with the turf. Although most are good people."

"Bahrain, maybe?"

"Ten years ago, I would have suggested Lebanon. Now? Forget it." he said. "Bahrain's not a bad idea. Saudi Arabia is another one, for all their Wahabbi nonsense." he said. "Or Yemen. Yemen's where the Middle East goes to play since Lebanon turned into a perpetual warzone. Thanks, Syria and Israel." he said with a sigh.

"Oh, right. Take them to Yemen and get them kidnapped." Nathan paused a beat, then grinned. "Wait..."

Haroun grinned widely. "The idea holds some appeal." he said musingly. "Alas, I think Charles would protest. You'd prefer we send them to Kenya or something?"

"Switch tacks completely," Nathan said idly. "Make it survival training."

"Sort of like The Amazing Mutant Race?" he asked. "Or Survivor: Islam?"

Nathan laughed, then winced as his ribs protested the movement. "Ow. Yes. Something like that. Might be good experience for the trainees, actually..."

"You really want to drop our elderly ex-Marine, the French girl, the American nerd, the banana, the redneck, and the Japanese nationalist in a Yemeni desert and tell them we'll see them in Kenya?" he said incredulously. "My God, it's brilliant!"

"I am occasionally inspired," Nathan said, deadpan. "I can see the look of sadistic glee on Scott's face already."

"We give them a map, a compass, a phrasebook, and a few thousand in some currency or another - if we feel really cruel, we'll make it pesos or something. And then just turn 'em loose." he said with sadistic glee. "I can just about see it now."

"So much fun," Nathan said blithely, sipping at his tea. "And we could hang back at a distance, watching and laughing..."

"Yeah, well, the problem is that they'd probably not fuck it up. Between Ramsey and the language thing, and the _precognition_, and Cain shrugging off anti-tank rounds..." he said as he thought out loud. "We'd probably find them in a national park or something chatting up the freaking lions."

"I'm sure we could get over the disappointment if it turned out to be a positive experience," Nathan said, trying to get into a more comfortable position in the wheelchair. It wasn't really working. "Sadism is fun, but productivity is better."

"Yeah, but we can't really split them up and make them go it on their own." Haroun said with a frown.

"Give it some thought," Nathan suggested, reluctantly setting the tea aside. "I'll do the same. Right now, though, I think I'd better go on a painkiller-hunt. It's getting to be that time."

"Ye pansy." he said, in his best bad Scot brogue.

Nathan made a face at him. "Yeah, yeah. I prefer to think of it as having finally conquered my phobia about drugs, thank you very much." He struggled with the brake on the wheelchair again. "I won't forget what you said about that trip, by the way."

"Good, because I was serious." he said with a firm nod, setting his own tea aside to rise up. "Be good for both of us. Drag the girls along too while we're at it - let them enrich the local enocomies while we take in the sights."

Moira would like to see some of the places he'd told her about, Nathan suspected. "Sounds like a plan," he said, finally getting the brake back into the right position. "Catch you later. And try Sufi poetry with your kids - it was a hit back in the summer."

"If I give them any more poetry, they're going to oust me like the Shah of Iran." he complained. "I _like_ poetry."

"So you go for the elegant Sufi stuff," Nathan teased as he wheeled himself out of the room. "Not the bombastic crap you've been favoring lately."

"What's wrong with bombastic?" he said to Nathan's retreating back. "I LIKE BOMBASTIC!" he said, then grinned and finished off the last of his tea. Time to go back to work.