torchwoodteaboy | [RL WITH SULU][backdated to the 10th]

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[RL WITH SULU][backdated to the 10th]

Ianto stood in his kitchen, in front of a grocery bag on his table. A grocery bag full of food that he had bought in preparation for making it with Sulu. For Sulu. ...what the hell had he been thinking, he wondered, as he stared at the bag in front of him before starting to pull the different ingredients out. He had absolutely no idea how to cook. He could call his sister and ask her about it, but. That would mean he'd have to call his sister and ask her about it, and although he'd come out to her a while ago, he still wasn't quite ready to talk to her about either Sulu or Jack.

He'd looked up a recipe, and really, how hard could it be?, he thought to himself, as he refrigerated the ingredients that needed to stay cold. They just had to follow the recipe, and everything should turn out fine, right? He certainly hoped so. He'd like to not make a fool of himself in front of the other man if he could help it. Sure, Sulu wouldn't mind, he figured, but. It'd be nice to get this right at least, he thought, as he went to get out the right sized pot from the back of his cabinet where it'd been sitting for probably the majority of the time he'd owned it.

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"Naturally arise," Sulu pointed out, "You can't go manufacturing a huge mess in the flat just to bribe me over here, you know."

The chances that their lives would ever calm down to the point where they'd get to play being normal for the long term was highly unlikely, that was for sure. It was a nice thought, but he knew if it happened they'd probably be driven crazy or something. He wouldn't really want it. Nights like this were plenty, as far as he was concerned. "I think we'll just have to stick to spending a night every so often pretending to be boring, with the way Torchwood and Starfleet have us wrapped happily around their fingers."

Ianto chuckled slightly, shaking his head. "I think you know me a little too well to ever think I was capable of purposely making a mess out of the order of things that I've so carefully established. Lucky for you, there won't be any manufactured messes to help me with."

"Sounds like a plan, though. Pretending to be any other normal, boring couple every now and again. I don't see you enough for it to be every day, though, so we better stick with only occasionally for now." He paused for a minute of their conversation, listening. "You know what, though, I think the water might be finally boiling now. It might be time for phase two, here." And Ianto didn't know whether he was anticipating or dreading the next few steps in cooking, really.

"Wouldn't want to over do it, right?" Sulu joked, grinning as Ianto paused to listen to the water. When he announced that they could move on with their cooking, Sulu pushed his chair back and stood, moving over to the pot. "Alright, so. Time for the pasta? And then the rest of it while that's doing its thing, right?"

Ianto nodded. "Yep. Time for the pasta, and then we start on the rest of it." Standing, Ianto made his way over to the pot, opening the box of fettuccine. "Alright, so... How much do you think we should make? I don't know about you, but serving sizes are never really enough for me. It might do to double the amount of pasta they say to put in. Or at least make it more than the suggestion. I don't think we really want to make the whole box, though..." Ianto didn't know how well leftovers would keep, considering he was never really home to eat them.

Sulu would have said the whole box, if only Ianto hadn't said the exact opposite of that. "I don't know - half of the box? Maybe three-fourths? I mean, pasta keeps forever, doesn't it?"

Then again, he was used to replicators making only the allotted serving size at a time, so maybe he was a bad person to come to in that case. "You're the guy with the box, you should probably pick. I'd say just put the whole thing in, but then again, you never know if you'll want to save it for something."

Ianto stood, having found the right pot, and thought about it for a moment. "Maybe... Well. The recipe might account for you using the whole box, actually. So maybe we should do that. I mean. It'll keep in the fridge, right?" He turned and looked dubiously at the refrigerator, wondering when the last time he'd cleaned the thing out was. The fact that he couldn't remember in the first place saying something, he thought.

"We'll... We'll just use the whole box. Here," he nodded towards the box. "You start that, just stir it in with a spoon in the drawer next to you, I'll set a timer for you and start on the rest of this." He went to the fridge and got the butter, cream, and cheese out of it, putting them on the counter. Okay, melt the butter. He could do that, he thought to himself, as he started to measure out the right amount. "Got it done?" he asked, turning to look at Sulu.

"It's just pasta," Sulu suggested as Ianto gestured to the box, "It's not like it won't keep. It's right up there with take out Chinese food, right?" Opening the box, Sulu contemplated two modes of action. One - he could just dump the box in at once and save time. Or, two - he could put handfuls of pasta in at a time.

Given the fact that he had a bad feeling about dumping a bunch of pasta into a pot of boiling water so close to his person, he decided to go the safer route, making sure the pasta didn't make the water spill over and burn him.

"I think I've got this part covered," he said when Ianto turned to check on him, having successfully done his part in this whole cooking process. He idly gave the pot one more stir before raising a brow at the other man, smiling a little. "What now, head chef?"

"Even Chinese food goes bad if you leave it in the refrigerator for a couple weeks, you know," Ianto said, shaking his head at the other man. "I'm going to hope that the reason you're saying that is just that you've never let it go that long before."

"And as for what's next," he said, stepping over to set the microwave timer for 11 minutes like the box said, before turning back to the pan, "we melt the butter." He looked over at Sulu. "Okay, so. Not the most exciting cooking to do, but. Melting butter. Can't really go wrong there, yeah?" He checked the box. "Then we add the cream and let it simmer for five minutes." Whatever simmering meant. He probably should have done a little more research on this than he really did, but how hard could pasta be, for god's sake.

Sulu grinned. "Maybe in the future, Chinese takeout never goes bad," he said, giving Ianto a wink before moving aside so the other could reach the other burners of the stove. In reality, he'd never left food in his fridge that long; either his family threw it out, or he ate it all well before it went bad. He wasn't one for needless waste. Well, usually, anyway.

He had no idea what simmering entailed, but either Ianto knew or Ianto would figure it out. Sulu really had no place in a kitchen, and that was a fact. "Alright, so. You... do that, and I do something else? Or we both can stand here and stare at the butter melting, whichever works for you."

"Maybe in the future, people are full of it," Ianto countered, before paying attention to what he was doing once more. "I don't... I don't know if there really is that much to do. I mean..." He picked up the box, reading over it quickly. "You could measure out the Parmesan cheese for me, if you like. One and a half cups of the stuff. Here..." He went to the cupboard, quickly digging out measuring cups. "A one cup measuring cup adn a half-cup one. That out to do the trick."

"Meanwhile," he said, turning back to the pan to see that the butter was melting correctly, "I should measure out the cream. Since I'm going to need to use it in a second." Now if only he could remember where the liquid measuring cup went...

Sulu grabbed the cups from Ianto and moved over to the table, grabbing the bag of cheese. "How accurate can they possibly expect you to be with measuring out this?" he groused, goodnaturedly enough despite the fact that he really wasn't sure how accurate he was supposed to be at this point. Still, he managed to rip open the bag without causing a huge disaster, and went about filling the two cups. "I mean, seriously. This is a really inaccurate science."

Ianto measured out the cream needed into a measuring cup, moving to stand back at the stove. The butter was mostly melted, so he decided he might as well pour it in. What next? Oh, simmer for 5 minutes. He set that to simmering and went to wash out the measuring cup. Washing dishes, at least that was familiar. The only familiar thing about his kitchen, really. "It's not precise, no. Hell, most cooks even measure ingredients by what 'feels right'. So who knows, really. I'll never really understand it myself..."

He looked at the clock. Only a minute of simmering had happened. God, cooking took more time than he really had patience to give it sometimes. He understood why he wasn't more of a cook in the first place in that moment.

"What if everything feels right?" Sulu sighed, moving the now-filled cups over to the side of the oven. "That seems like the kind of logic a kid uses when deciding what kind of toppings he wants on his pizza." He grinned, "You know, 'Man, potato chip and chocolate pizza sounds awesome right now,' that sort of thing."

Not that Sulu had ever considered that in the slightest. Really. (It had been a disaster.) "How long do we have now, anyway?"

Ianto gave Sulu a look that obviously said he knew the other man must have been speaking from personal experience. "Well. 'Potato chip and chocolate pizza' isn't something you'd attempt to make twice, now is it? I'd say that any amount of either thing would turn out pretty bad no matter what. So I suspect that it's a little different than that."

He turns to look at the clock. "We're supposed to let it 'simmer' for five minutes, then add in the rest of it, whisk so that it heats through and serve it. As for the pasta," he said, checking the timer. "We've still got a few minutes on that too." So far so good. Maybe this cooking thing wasn't so bad after all?

"What I should've done was use shaved chocolate, but all I had were candybars," Sulu admitted casually, like it was completely normal for a kid to try out horrible pizza concoctions.

When Ianto gave him the times for their various stages, Sulu couldn't help but grin. They had a few minutes overall, right? That was plenty of time for him to reach out and grab Ianto's hand, pulling him over to where he was leaning against the counter. "You know, I have no clue what simmering even means," he said, his hand moving to Ianto's waist once he'd effectively pinned himself between the other and the counter top.

"Remind me never to agree if you ever offer to make me a pizza," Ianto said, shooting the other man yet another look.

Ianto wasn't sure where Sulu was going with the grabbing his hand and pulling him, but he went willingly because...well, why not? He trusted Sulu. And the other man didn't disappoint, pulling him closer to himself and then putting his hands on Ianto's waist to hold him there. Ianto smirked down at Sulu slightly, leaning into Sulu and trapping him there completely. "I'm assuming that it's got something to do with heat..." he said, softly. "You know. What with it being a cooking word and all," he teased.

"You have no idea what it means either, do you?" Sulu prodded with a half-grin, raising an eyebrow as his fingers stroked the parts of Ianto's waist that were within their reach, leaning up to kiss the corner of Ianto's mouth. "Let's hope you got it right, in that case, because otherwise things might get burned. Or not heat up enough."

Ianto shook his head slightly, with a soft chuckle. "Not a clue," he said, affirming Sulu's guess that he really didn't know what he was doing. He pressed closer to the other man, leaning in to plant a slow, passionate kiss on his lips, simply because he could, also because...well. It was hot, having him pressed up against the counter as he was. Ianto wasn't too British to be able to understand that. He pulled away after a moment, though, pressing his forehead against the other man's and smiling slightly as he said. "You're being awfully distracting from the cooking, you know..."

Sulu leaned into the kiss, letting Ianto have control while still pressing his fingers against Ianto, dragging his hand to the small of his back and resisting the urge to pull him flush against him. He didn't want to be too distracting - the last thing they needed was a fire. Or burnt cream and butter. With half a sigh as Ianto pulled back, he couldn't help but grin lazily. "We have time to be a little distracted. Unless there's something else you'd rather be doing."

Ianto laughed, shaking his head. "Mmm, let's see. If given a choice between this or standing there and watching a pot do absolutely nothing for a few minutes..." He pressed forward again to press his lips against Sulu's, not so much kissing him as just being really really close when he spoke again. "I'm not sure that there's any questioning the matter really... I think we both know what I'd rather be doing..." he teased.

"I have a guess," Sulu replied, his voice low as he spoke against Ianto's lips. "A watched pot doesn't do anything, anyway," he added, poorly reciting part of an old wives tale before kissing Ianto once again, running a hand through his hair. As invested as he was in the idea of a homecooked meal, Sulu would never pass up the opportunity to spend more intimate moments with Ianto.

Ianto chuckled into the kiss at Sulu's misquote, but he wasn't going to speak up and try and correct him. There were better things to be doing with their time right at that moment. Ianto stepped a little closer to the other man, not exactly standing flush with him but definitely pressed rather intimately against him as he kissed him back.

He was expecting to be interrupted by some timer or another but it still came as a bit of a surprise when it sounded off. With a groan, he pulled back out of the kiss enough so that he could speak up. "Pasta's done," he said. "Means the sauce's only got about thirty seconds left as well..." He supposed...that he should do something about that. Leaning in for one final brief kiss, he pulled back and went back to the stove, turning the burner off and indicating the pot of pasta. "Care to do the honors, then?" he asked, with a smile, meaning to drain the pasta. "Unless you'd rather add the cheese and garlic and do the whisking..."

Sulu looked briefly thoughtful at his two options. "You did pretty much everything so far, I think, so if you want, I can do the cheese and garlic. No idea how to whisk anything, though." After all, Ianto had pretty much set everything up, aside from Sulu putting in the pasta and measuring out some cheese. He figured that it was the least he could do to give Ianto a break. Worst that would happen, he figured, would be that the cheese would be... lumpy, he supposed.

"Really, though, it's more if you want to risk me doing something wrong or not," he added, fully prepared to take on the very strenuous task of draining the pasta if Ianto asked him to.

"I think the question is more whether you're up to the challenge of it," Ianto countered, with a grin. "Because really, we're both in equally over our heads as far as this whole cooking thing is concerned." Alright, not true. Ianto probably knew how to cook a little more than Sulu. He was trying to be a little more sophisticated than a can of soup on the stove or a box of pasta and a sauce out of a jar for this, though. Which, in hindsight, would have been a lot easier and a guaranteed success, but. He'd wanted to at least give it a go.

He reached forward, taking the pasta off the stove, and moved over to the sink, going to drain it. "I think you can handle it," he said, with a mischievous smile. "Just put in the cheese and however much garlic it says, stir it with a fork, and call it done. Not too hard, yeah?"

"Not too hard at all," Sulu agreed, though he wasn't really sure how much garlic he was supposed to put in. It said a clove, and that would've been fine, but all Ianto had was a jar of pre-minced garlic and, unfortunately, Sulu really wasn't sure how to estimate out a clove when it was already finely chopped. (And, to be honest, he'd only ever used garlic for tea - and that one time to get out of a date in the eighth grade.)

He knew it wasn't more than a few teaspoons, so he went ahead and put in three. They weren't even heaping, so he knew if he'd over shot it, it was just by a little. The cheese was the easiest - but the problem remained that, as he stirred, the cheese wasn't exactly... well, melting. "How do you turn up the heat? I'm not sure this is going to get done before the next ice age." He paused, then grinned, "Don't tell anyone I mentioned that."

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