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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"Mmm, just the once, I see..." He noted that the way Sulu said it made it sound like there would be more nights in the future where they made dinner and ate it together and were pretty mundane in just enjoying each other's company, and really. Ianto like the sound of it. Even if it was mundane. The fact that he could enjoy things that bored him simply because the other man was around and keeping him company during them did wonders for his mood, especially in that moment.

He flushed, slightly, clearing his head of such thoughts and stepping up to the pot with the plates, serving himself what he considered to be a fair portion before looking to Sulu. "D'you want to serve yourself, or shall I do the honors?" he asked. He'd be lying if he said he weren't a bit apprehensive about this whole alfredo thing though. It smelled...really garlic. And he wasn't sure that the sauce should be as thick as it was. It seemed to be solidifying rather quickly.

Sulu was equally as apprehensive, but he hid it well - he could handle pretty much any amount of garlic, really, even if it would make kissing Ianto later a pain (unless he ate just as much, of course), and the sauce... didn't seem to have enough cream or whatever made it less like a block of cheese than it was originally, but it couldn't be that bad.

"I'll take care of it," he said, taking his own plate and dishing up a decent heap of slowly-looking-worse alfredo. He gave Ianto a look. "Well?" he asked, nodding to the table before moving towards it, "You ready to taste... whatever this has turned into?"

Ianto followed after him, sitting down at the table and poking dubiously at the food with his fork. "I'm as ready as I'll ever be," he said. Maybe they should have tried something easier. Hell, maybe they should have just ordered in. It wasn't really very romantic, and yet...well. Failing to cook something together wasn't all that romantic either.

Twirling some on his fork, Ianto gave it one last glance. "Here goes," he said, and leaned forward, taking a bite of it. The texture wasn't right, but that wasn't really the problem. The problem really was the fact that there seemed to be a disproportionate amount of garlic to the sauce, and that the cheese and the garlic had sort of combined to make a paste that was...well. It wasn't godawful, but. It definitely wasn't good. Well. Shit.

Sulu slid into the seat nearest Ianto's, giving the food a slightly wary glance before going ahead and shoveling some into his mouth. Not the best way to approach a strange looking dish, but he was a don't-look-just-jump kind of guy.

Which he immediately regretted, because the sauce was a little too garlicky, and it sort of felt like chewing rubber. He did, however, manage to swallow it down. "...Alright, maybe we should've just used canned sauce," he admitted lamely.

Ianto managed to chew and swallow the bite he'd taken, but at the thought of trying to eat more and hoping that he'd just get used to it, that it'd be salvageable... He groaned, putting down his fork before starting to laugh. "God, well. I guess we're lucky we didn't burn the house down in trying, but maybe it's better that we never try again. There's sauce in cans for a reason, and there's much better things that we could be eating than this." He poked the food around on his plate for a few moments.

"We gave it our best, but. I think I'll just phone in Jubilee's." He pushed the plate away, before moving to stand. "How'd you rather a pizza?" he asked, with a bashful smile, because yes, he had just pretty spectacularly failed at cooking there.

Sulu scratched the back of his head before leaning back in his chair, rolling his eyes upward. "I think we're probably way better off with a pizza." Grinning, he pushed his chair back and stood, grabbing his plate and then Ianto's before moving over to the sink. "I honestly think we'd be better off with pretty much anything. Thankfully we didn't try for anything harder than pasta." He couldn't imagine how bad it might've been if they'd tried to make something involving meat.

"But," he said, leaving the dishes in the sink for the timebeing and grinning over at Ianto, "Can we go for something with pepperoni, or... Anything meaty? And no garlic."

Ianto smiled, shaking his head at the dishes in the sink. "Well. I did choose pasta because it was at least hard to set it on fire. That's a milestone that I hope I never have to check off of the list of stupid cooking mistakes I make, burning down the house in the process. Here," he said, standing and going to get his phone out of his jacket. "Pepperoni you said... Well. Maybe not a meat feast like sometimes, but pepperoni bacon sounds pretty good about right now. Pepperoni really anything without garlic or extra cheese, honestly. I'll just phone it in," he said, pulling out the phone and hitting the speed dial for Jubilee's. From the way he talked to the man on the other end of the line, obviously ordering pizza both from the Hub and his apartment were not new things.

"Sounds good," Sulu replied, considering the plates for a moment before deciding to just leave them there - he wasn't sure if Ianto's sink could handle having fistfuls of congealing cheese and pasta being shoved down its disposal, and he didn't want to break it and cause more problems. It was, after all, sort of his fault why there was so much garlic and the cheese hadn't really melted right.

He smiled as Ianto placed the order, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms comfortably over his chest. When the other hung up, he raised an eyebrow. "Should I be jealous of the pizza place?" he asked, amused. "You order out from them a lot, I take it."

Ianto shrugged, toying with the phone in his hands for a moment. "Only if you're the jealous type, I suppose," he countered in response to Sulu's jealous comment, before shaking his head and stepping forward to put the phone down on the table. "I do, though. Order out from them a lot. Torchwood's hours are pretty shit, yeah? They're the only place that's open nearly every hour of the day where you can get fast, reliable service, considering that they're right there on the Plass." He smiled. "I ordered coleslaw as well, hope you don't mind. I like to pretend to be healthy sometimes," he said, with a chuckle.

He looked at the sink, sighing. "We're probably just going to need to toss that, honestly. The garbage disposal really isn't up to the challenge, especially not while it's a bit on the fritz as it is right now." He raised an eyebrow at the other man. "Care to help me do the dishes while we wait?"

"I don't mind," Sulu replied, even though he knew full well that coleslaw was really the most unhealthy version of a salad. He never ate it himself, but that really didn't matter right then and there. When Ianto looked at the sink, though, he frowned, looking at it as well before shaking his head at Ianto's request.

"I guess I don't really have a choice, huh?" he asked, only a little plaintively even as he moved to grab one of the plates from the sink, making a move for the trash. "It's not like we have anything else to do until then. Might as well make it look like this never happened."

Ianto grabbed a plate and followed Sulu to the trash as well, tipping the paste-like pasta out into it. "Might as well get rid of the evidence, yeah. I'm good at doing that, mind. It's kind of part of my job, but. Not usually in the kitchen." He chuckled slightly, shaking his head. "That isn't to say that I haven't failed this spectacularly before, mind. Maybe we should stick to ordering in, eating out, or keeping things simple from now on though."

He walked back to the sink, sighing and moving to fill the pot with water. "Here," he said, "I'll strike you a deal. We'll get this done faster if we break up the work. I'll do the washing if you do the drying?"

"Yeah, I don't think you usually have to hide any evidence of bad cooking." He followed Ianto back to the counter, putting the plate and cutlery down next to the sink. At Ianto's comment, he nodded, not looking at all put out by the idea of actually doing work. He didn't mind it, in all honesty - and besides. Ianto could probably get him to do every chore in the handbook of clean home living if he asked. "Sure," he said, looking around briefly before finding a dishcloth. "Only if it means we get to watch TV afterwards," he added, mostly as a joke. Then again, honestly, relaxing with Ianto on the couch, eating pizza and watching television sounded pretty good.

"Not unless it's alien cooking, but even so. Never had to deal with cover up for alien domestics gone wrong before," Ianto said, shaking his head and blushing a little. He quickly set about getting the dishes done as fast and efficiently as possible. It was obvious to anyone that Ianto, while he may not be an expert in cooking, was very good at cleaning up. "We could," he responded. "Watch TV afterwards, that is. If you're so inclined. I sort of refuse to have pizza and beer in front of a match or anything like that on principle, but there might be something on. Or I've got movies. I'm sure that they're classic antiques for you now, but there might be something that you like in my collection," he said, as he handed the other man a plate to dry with a smile. "If you feel so inclined, that is."

Sulu was just as good at keeping up with Ianto as Ianto was at cleaning up, and so together they made short work of the dishes they had to take care of. "I'm not much of a sports guy," Sulu admitted mildly, "Not the kind people like to sit around watching on a Sunday night or anything. But... you know, like you said. A movie might be good." Really, just so long as he and Ianto got to relax and eat something actually worth eating tonight, he'd be satisfied. Television and pizza just went hand in hand - or, at least, it did for Sulu, as far as they still had television. He didn't care what they might watch; it was the experience that mattered.

Ianto smiled at him, nodding towards his livingroom as he dried his hands. "C'mon then," he said, making his way into the hallway and the living room, counting on Sulu to follow him. Once he was there, he motioned at the couple of shelves where he kept his movies. "Here. Your pick. I've seen them all already, and I obviously enjoy them enough to own them, so it's your choice this time." And then the bell rang, and Ianto stepped back. "Tell you what. I'll go pay for that and grab some plates while you decide. D'you want me to grab you a beer too?" he called over his shoulder as he headed for the front door.

Sulu went to the shelves of movies, marvelling a little because he'd only ever seen one or two DVD formatted discs in his life, and that was only because he was a sucker for the classics. Lord help Ianto if he happened to have a VHS lying around. "Probably better you pay," Sulu said with a small chuckle, "I only have credits and those aren't going to be a monetary system for a century or so. And yeah," he added, "A beer sounds good too. Practically an American institution, and all." Even though the beer Ianto liked was nothing like the kind you could pick up at corner stores.

"You really like James Bond, don't you?" he added, once Ianto had gotten the pizza. He wasn't sure, but he had a feeling Ianto had every movie from that franchise stacked in his shelves.

Ianto shrugged, setting the pizza box down on the coffee table and the beers down on their own respective coasters and trying not to acknowledge the fact that he was blushing, since Sulu'd pointed that out. (And yes, he did own a few VHS tapes, but they were in the drawer underneath his TV cabinet. He'd replaced whatever VHS movies he'd had with DVDs, but kept the original copies anyway. He was an archivist, after all.) "Yeah, well... It's worth it. You can't tell me that you've never seen a James Bond movie, even in the 23rd century."

Ianto moved and sat down on the sofa, popping open his beer and motioning at the other to ask wordlessly whether Sulu wanted him to open his as well. "I used to want to be him, when I grew up," he said, with a shrug. "Anyway. Did you pick one?" he asked, trying to ignore the flush spread across his cheeks.

"I haven't, but that's mostly because they stopped making them after a while. Once you get to world peace, secret agent movies lose that sense of credibility." He grinned and picked a random Bond film from the shelf. "Besides, there was a sort of shift into space exploration, and space secret agents would just be silly."

He was joking of course, as he held out the DVD. "Count yourself lucky, Ianto, you're the one who's got the cinema classics."

Ianto smiled, taking the DVD from the other man and grinning as he saw which one it was. "This is a good one," he said, as he walked across to the DVD player to pop it in. "You're going to like it. Action, adventure, sex appeal." He flashed a smile at the other man, flushing as he continued, "Dashing British men in finely tailored suits. What isn't there to like about a Bond film?"

He sat down on the sofa, sitting forward to grab a piece of pizza, glad that he'd brought plates and napkins into the room with him as well. "You'll see," he said. "There's a reason that it's a classic, and I own a copy of it even though this film was out before I was even born. But here. Eat first," he said, motioning to the pizza.

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

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