torchwoodteaboy | [RL WITH SULU]

Ianto had grinned at the captain's chair comment. He was still a little surprised that he'd even been allowed to do it, but he wasn't questioning Sulu's judgment, more like praising it.

Ianto stepped closer to Sulu, feeling his tension. If he were Jack, he'd probably have a hand on the other man's shoulder or something to put him at ease, but Ianto wasn't really that much of a physical person. "The glass is pretty much as sturdy as anything see-through can be, but yeah. Staying back might be a wise decision. Hoix aren't known for their intelligence. They just live to eat, and they don't really even care what it is or if its digestible for them or not. We've found a couple here and there that had died from literally biting off more than they could chew."

"That's... intense, to say the least." Sulu, realizing that he was being far too tense in what was supposedly a secure situation - then again, how safe could the 21st century really be? - relaxed his shoulders and crossed his arms. "You don't know much about the origins of Weevils, but - what about these guys? Or do they share more in common than just a sour disposition?"

Ianto sighed. "Nope, don't really know a lot about this one either. Probably know even less about them then we do about the Weevils. See, the Weevils seem to have a community going on underneath the streets of Cardiff, but the Hoix are more solitary creatures. My guess is that they probably just ended up here through the Rift, because really, if there were more of them, we'd know about it. They're not very sneaky about these things."

He shrugged. "We don't know a lot about most of the things we encounter, really. Unless we've got something on record that's the same or similar, and unless Jack doesn't already have some previous knowledge of it, it's an unknown. You'd be surprised how many devices we have really no idea whether we just don't know how to work them or whether they really are completely useless here. Same goes for aliens. It's the problem with getting whatever the Rift throws at us, rather than going out and exploring where it came from, like you do with the Enterprise."

Sulu nodded. "Yeah. I'm sorry I'm asking all these questions, too, I just sort of default to the usual questions we ask ourselves at Starfleet. You know, the who-what-where-how." Which was more of his policy on questioning, really, than a general Starfleet guide, but it was timeless. "It really is too bad you can't find out the origins of some of these things; it'd probably be really interesting. But, you're already ahead of where my universe was at at this point in time, so..." He shrugged. "At least you have that."

Ianto smiled a bit. "Well, yes, we do have that. It's not much, but we do have it. Y'know, I wonder how my universe will compare to yours in the time you come from, but I hesitate to ask Jack about things like that. I mean, I shouldn't really know anyway, no one else in this day and age has someone like Jack around to ask things like this, so. I don't know. I feel like if I knew, I'd want to experience it, but that's impossible, not without the TARDIS or a working Vortex Manipulator, so. Maybe I'm better off not knowing."

Ianto shook himself. "Sorry, that was a bit of a tangent there. It's just that, well, time travel is something I've been trying to come to terms with for a while now."

Sulu shook his head. "No apology necessary. Time travel is one of those things that... Well, it can mess with your head." He chewed on his lip briefly, distracted between watching the Hoix and contemplating just how messy time travel really was.

"I'm not sure what just knowing about it could do to someone, but personal experience dictates that nothing good really ever comes from it. Unless you don't try to change anything. Even then, it's messy. But it's probably better not knowing." He grinned at Ianto, "After all, it's no fun if you already know what's going to happen, right?"

"No, I guess it isn't," Ianto said, with a smile. "I mean, it's not like it's exactly a spoiler. I wouldn't ask anything about something in the near future that I might find out while I'm alive, but. Sometimes I wonder. And then again, it's not worth knowing something if it ruins the way I see the world now, so." He shakes his head. "I wonder how Jack does it, living knowing what's coming next. At least, historically speaking."

The Hoix growled at them from its cell. "Don't suppose you'd like to go down to the archives, then?" Ianto asked, cocking his head with a smile. "Our friend here's not going to get any more interesting, and I'd rather not be snarled at while trying to hold a conversation."

Sulu shook his head. "I don't know. Personally, the idea of seeing the future, near or distant, is honestly kind of worrying. But it's pretty obvious that how our universes handle time-travel is pretty different; when Nero did it, he seriously altered the course of events and triggered an alternate reality." Not that he thought he was very alternate at all. Actually, as far as he was concerned, he was the original.

He stepped out of Ianto's way, gesturing with a hand. "Fine by me. If I wanted to be growled at, I'd talk to a Klingon, anyway."

"C'mon, then, it's this way," Ianto said, moving to lead them back past Janet and to the stairs to go up and back to the hallway they'd come from. "I think time travel might be a lot more similar here than you'd think. I mean, changing things in the past changes whatever had happened in the future of this reality. It's like, changing something, you shut off that door and open another new one. The only downside to it all is if you create a paradox, apparently. 'Then you're really in deep shit,' as Jack would say."

"What's a Klingon, though?" Ianto asked, cocking his head to look at Sulu. "I don't think you've mentioned them before."

He followed Ianto, still kind of hung up on the idea of time travel. "That's true. If Nero hadn't destroyed the Kelvin, things might've not changed. I'm not sure, though." He shrugged, "The only example of what could have been that I really have is some television show people on the community linked to me."

Sulu waved a hand. "Klingons are one of the species that is in direct opposition to the Federation. They're a martial power in the galaxy, but we've come to a sort of understanding. Sort of being the key phrase there. They're the only thing we generally have to worry about when traveling."

"A television show?" Ianto asked, raising an eyebrow. "Now I've heard everything. That'd be some alternate version of yourself, existing only in fiction." He shook his head in what would be disbelief, except for with alternate realities he knows that anything is possible given the right circumstances.

"And these Klingons of yours, they like to growl at people, then?" Ianto asked. "That doesn't sound good, though, growling opposition to the government."

Sulu allowed himself a moment to vent. "The worst thing is, it's not even a good television show! Everything I've seen shows how dated it is. It's not even completely accurate to how the Federation or the Enterprise operates. And I am not that old looking, I don't care what universe we're talking about." He felt kind of silly, being riled up by something as pointless as an alternate universe representation of himself, but people kept pointing it out.

He made a face briefly before shaking his head. "Sorry, it's just a little irritating. And Klingons... well, they're not part of the Federation, for one, they have their own government. And it's not really growling, but they tend to get a little overzealous when it comes to fighting." he shrugged. "I'm a little biased against them, though. It's not fair to compare them to the Hoix."

Ianto tried very hard not to laugh at Sulu's venting. He wouldn't sure how he himself would react to hearing that in some other version of reality he was a character in a TV show, though, and he hoped that no one would ever point it out. Opinions on him as a character would be dreadful, he suspected, especially since if there was a Ianto there would always be a more handsome and heroic Jack type character somewhere in the vicinity.

"I was going to say," Ianto said, "I find it hard to find anything comparative to a Hoix being opposing to much of anything." They rounded another corner that would take them down another few hallways to get to the archives.

"Feels kind of strange, having someone coming willingly down to the archives with me," Ianto said, after a brief pause in the conversation. "Normally if I have anyone along, it's only done kicking and screaming."

Sulu laughed at that, shaking his head. "Is that so? Well, honestly, I'm too interested to see it to pass up an invitation. Besides, you let me show you my plants; it's the least I can do to return the favor, really." He smirked, "Though, can't you just threaten to stop making coffee for them if you need to show them something?"

Ianto smiled at him. "I could, yeah. Now you see the pull that the coffee has on everyone else, yeah? Deny someone their caffeine when they work at a job that doesn't keep regular hours and sometimes merits several 24 hour stints, and things get rather ugly rather fast. It's how I get them to respect me," he said with a smirk, "even though I am basically just a glorified janitor in this place, sometimes."

"Gives me leverage over Jack, even. Although I can't make it a habit of denying caffeine from him. He's stubborn and rather than giving in it just makes him impossible to deal with, which isn't so good in a crisis." He looked away, blushing. "Still, though. There are other things I can deny that man to prove a point."

Sulu snorted at that, looking thoroughly amused. "I'll bet. Better leverage than caffeine, right?" He laughed and added, "And the janitor thing seems a little overstated with you. You're an archivist and the guy who makes coffee. Plus, watering plants." He pointed at him with a smile, "That's not a janitorial duty, I'll have you know."

"Yes, well," Ianto said, smiling and blushing, "I suppose it does."

"I suppose you wouldn't call my job a janitor, then," Ianto said, as they approached the door to the archives hallway. "Problem is, I'm not sure what you would call it. I mean, I do archival, cleanup, coverup, coffee and takeout, feed the plants and pets, stock, repairs, help out in the field and man the tourist office. It's hard enough doing it all, let alone even describe what it all is that I do, you know?"

"Well, technically, I think the term for that is 'Jack of all trades,' but I'm pretty sure that'd offend your boss on some level." Or would it be boyfriend? Better to err on the side of caution, since he'd heard one term used for Jack and not the other. "You can always use the very broad title of 'management' or 'internal affairs officer', if you want to sound important."

Ianto shrugged. "Maybe. Jack just calls me 'general support'. I think its a fancy way for saying that without me, this whole place would fall to pieces," he said, turning to Sulu with a smile. "In any case, we're here." He'd stopped outside the door that the hallway ended in, which indicated it was going to be a pretty big area. "You should count yourself priveledged. It's not every day I show people around the archives, no matter how boring they might be. I don't even think Jack or Gwen've ever gotten a tour--they should understand it a lot more if they have."

He went over a list of things to say in his head, but basically they all boiled down to the same statement. "Yeah, so. Basically, no touching things unless I say you can, but you're free to ask questions if you'd like. Ready?"

That fact did make Sulu feel pretty good about things but, being the reserved sort of guy he was, he refrained from making any more egocentric statements. He was sure he'd hit the quota a while back, anyway. "Hands in my pockets," he said, grinning as he did just that, "Promise."

Ianto raised an eyebrow, not really believing the promise, because he'd seen Sulu exploring things already, but he didn't say anything, giving Sulu the benefit of the doubt. He keyed in his code to the door on the pad beside, and walked inside. The room was pretty dark and cavernous, obviously having been some sort of tunnel at one point or another. Side rooms jutted from the main one for items that couldn't be classified or housed with the others. In the middle were shelves and shelves of files and artifacts and paperwork, all in an order that only Ianto himself seemed to recognize. Far along, at the end of where the shelves sat, was a desk with a computer set up like the rest of the workstations were in the Hub, which Ianto used to input new items to the computerized system.

"Welcome to the archives, then, Sulu," Ianto said, with a sweeping gesture towards the room. "We've got paperwork, weapons, paperwork, miscellaneous, paperwork, secure archives, paperwork, pretty much useless junk, and paperwork. Where would you like to see?"

Sulu steadfastly ignored that eyebrow raise, since he knew he was perfectly capable of not grabbing the first object within reach. He hadn't leaned in and poked the violent aliens, after all, right? Right.

That didn't stop him from nearly pulling his hands free when Ianto let him in; mostly because he was a little distracted by the vague intimidation and more quantifiable amazement factors. "Wow." When he got back to Earth, he was going to invest in an underground hideout. Seriously. "...How about you keep the reins on this one? I don't want to risk getting overzealous about anything."

"Well..." Ianto had asked because he really hadn't know where to show Sulu, but if Sulu was leaving it up for him to decide... "Maybe you'd enjoy the weapons and secure archives, then. They're generally the more 'don't touch' areas of this place, but what they have in there is more interesting than an alien toaster. Which we do have, by the way."

Ianto led Sulu into the archives, through some of the shelves to a door off to the left of the area. This time he leaned forward, the door scanning his retina for identification before unlocking. "This is the weapons section. Everything in here either has duplicates upstairs, or we won't be needing them for a while," Ianto said, reaching out and straightening a strange looking knife that was hanging on the wall, underneath of which hung a label stating "Life Knife".

((Okay, so! To make our lives easier, I made a list of the known artifacts in Torchwood's archives. Everything in the Hub is accurately labeled, so all Sulu has to do is ask something about an item if he wants to know, and Ianto will be able to successfully explain it. Hopefully that'll work for you--Ianto and I both are a little lost as to what to show off and what not to show off in the archives, so this'll help me, at least.))

"You're going to seriously test the limits of my restraint, huh?" Sulu laughed, following Ianto and pausing briefly outside to look over the identification mechanism. "Weird." Not that it was entirely foreign to him to see other modes of identification beyond voice and password recognition, but still, it was sort of like being Alice in Wonderland for him.

Of course, he forgot about retina scanners for the time-being, confronted with new and far more interesting things to resist touching. "Oh, bad choice," he said with an over-dramatic groan, "Never should have promised not to touch anything." Hands-on learning was a terrible thing when confronted with knives and guns. "Why in the world would you name something a 'Life Knife?' Especially one that looks like that." And, turning, "...And that thing, I can't tell if it's supposed to be from the 20th century or the 22nd." Oh, and he was already looking around to see if anything resembled a phaser.

((NOT A PROBLEM I actually... googled most of the stuff on that list before making this tag. Which is why it took so long :X I'm pretty sure that's the Dalek tommy gun you have listed, that I linked, right? If not, tell me. :|;; You have no idea how hard it's going to be for him not to grab things.))

"Oh, this?" Ianto asked. He turned to look at the Life Knife properly. "It isn't much on its own other than just an interesting knife. When someone is stabbed with this knife, they're a lot more likely to be receptive to, well, revival from death from these gauntlets we used to have. Needless to say, the gauntlets themselves proved to be more trouble than they were worth and needed to be destroyed, but the knife's still a knife, after all."

"And that," Ianto said, motioning to the gun Sulu'd pointed out, "is a Dalek-enhanced Thompson machine gun. Regular 1930's era Thompson taken by the Daleks, and well, upgraded to what you see there. Packs a mean punch, good enough to get through the Dalek armor and all. There's one upstairs as well, where it's a bit more, er, handy to get at. The stuff down here is either specific or duplicates of what's upstairs in the armory."

Ianto cocked his head to the side, with a smile, crossing his arms. "Tell you what. As long as you don't go pulling any triggers or pressing any buttons and getting either me or yourself shot or otherwise harmed... I'll let you touch. Think of it as, well, a payback for my one moment of glory."

((Hee, yeah, that's the right gun. And problem solved for him not being able to grab things--Ianto noticed how much it was going to challenge him not to. xD;; Also, sorry it took me this long to get back to you as well--distracted by writing prompts and talking to people in the common room.))

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