torchwoodteaboy | [RL WITH SULU]

Sulu frowned thoughtfully at the explanation, crossing his arms. To him, it sounded like something the 21st century would cook up in a sci-fi novel or something, but the fact that it existed was pretty intriguing. That kind of technology could, theoretically, lead to some major leaps in development around the world - which, obviously, was not how it was supposed to work out here.

"Makes sense," he said after a moment, "Not the mechanics of it, really, but the reason why it's here. I'll be honest, something like that would be amazing to take apart and examine. There's nothing like that anywhere that I've been - or, well, that Starfleet's been." He glanced at Ianto, "What constitutes as significant, though? Sorry, you might be stuck here answering kind of ridiculous questions."

"Anything that's significantly emotional," Ianto said with a shrug. "I don't really know the details myself, no one was really paying much attention to me at that time. But when Owen used the one half he witnessed a crime from the past, and when Gwen used the other half she saw a murder that happened in the future."

"Sorry I can't be more helpful about it, really," he said. He bit his lip a little. "I think it's better left alone and out of this century, though. Both of them were pretty shaken up about it all. It doesn't seem to be something to be playing around with, even if it is in the name of science."

"No, it's okay. Like I said, that was kind of out there, even for me. And don't worry, I'm not planning on hijacking it to try and see what makes it tick," Sulu laughed, "I'm not capable of insidious plots like that."

Sulu looked at Ianto and smiled. "I feel bad, just sort of picking and choosing whatever looks remotely interesting or has a catchy name - is there anything in here you find particularly interesting? Or is it all just kind of run-of-the-mill for you by now?"

"Well," Ianto said, looking around. What was interesting to him? The black tile had been the warning for the end of days, the Amok was ridiculously dangerous to be around, the Depressor... Ianto stepped forward, going for the alien pendant, probably the only item in the whole place that didn't scare him. "This," he said, flicking open the containment box and taking the pendant out. He handed it over to Sulu. "Here, put it on. I guarantee it won't do anything bad to you. This is just in here because its one of those things that could prove to be problematic should it fall into the wrong hands."

((So! The alien pendant allows the wearer to read people's minds/hear their thoughts. Ianto, fortunately, knowing that the thought reading is coming, is able to control whatever he's thinking, because every employee at Torchwood One was required to go through psychic training, so! That's what it does. Ianto wants to surprise Sulu with that fact, but I felt that you should probably know, just to be prepared. xD;))

It was probable that Sulu shouldn't automatically trust guys handing him necklaces that need to be contained in secure vaults, but he could always chalk it up to living life on the edge. He took it from Ianto and gave it a brief once over, before giving Ianto a skeptical look. "Promise it's not going to kill me in some horrible way?" he asked, even though he was already putting it on. Hey, what the heck.

I don't have the ability to make your head explode telepathically, so I think we're in the clear, Ianto thought at him, smirking. He was concentrating very hard to keep his thoughts trained on this moment here, and not wandering off to think of Tosh using the locket, and Mary, and how Jack had killed her and how it had paralleled Jack killing Lisa and how the rest of the team had finally forgiven him for her after that. No, he was definitely not going to think about that. He just hoped the mental chant of now, now, now, now, now to keep him focused on the present wasn't transferring over for Sulu to hear either.

It took Sulu a moment to realize that Ianto's voice was... well, in his head instead of out-loud, but when he did, he beamed like a kid who'd just discovered Santa Claus really did exist.

"Oh, wow." He felt the pendant at his neck and barely restrained himself from making a total idiot out of himself. There were a few telepathic alien species in his universe, but humans never could figure out how to do it themselves - at least, in a way that wasn't immediately dismissed as a hoax. "This is amazing! - Is it only one way?"

"Yep," Ianto said, with a nod, "don't worry about me getting at anything you don't want me to know." Works a bit different if you start trying to dig for thoughts, really, he thought before thinking that he really shouldn't have thought that. Not that he didn't trust Sulu not to go through his memories, but sometimes even suggesting the idea made people accidentally try it, and if Sulu saw into his head, there'd be a lot of things he could find that would make meeting with him a lot more awkward. It was one thing hearing him talk about it, but it would be a whole different ballpark reading Ianto's innermost thoughts.

"Things like this are why we got psychic training at Torchwood One," Ianto said. "I was only a junior researcher, but I got pretty good at it. Too bad you have to be prepared for it though. I had a friend read my thoughts with it during...one of the darker times in my life, and I'm not exactly proud of what she heard." Lisa..., he thought, but he quickly shut that thought process down.

Luckily, Sulu was smart enough to divert his attention away from the idea of wandering through Ianto's mind with a quick recalling of a relatively basic equation - something that'd he'd learned to do in case of psychological warfare. Kind of like recalling his name and rank repeatedly, but a little more involved. "Not that there's much not to know," Sulu shrugged.

He bit his lip at the stray name he heard, looking a little awkward. "Yeah, it doesn't seem like something that's easy to control. You want me to take this off?" Though it was really cool, he wasn't about to let Ianto accidentally let anything else slip that he obviously didn't want heard.

Ianto nodded. He was a bit rusty at the shielding, and it was a lot more difficult than it sounded. "Yeah, sorry. It's been a while since I've had to do stuff like this. I'm not Jack." He shakes his head. "I don't know how he does it, but the man's mind is like a three foot wide wall made of steel. Obviously, they must go through a bit more training at the Time Agency than we did at Torchwood One. Especially compared to the work they did with people in my job. No one really worried too much about the archivists getting their minds read, it was all just standard procedure." He tried very, very hard not to think of Jack while Sulu still had the pendant on. Especially not about Jack and the stopwatch. Lots of things you can do with a stopwatch, after all.

Sulu thought something was coming through when he was removing the pendant, but luckily (probably for both of them), that was quickly ignored and forgotten as he took the thing off and handed it back to Ianto. Well, "forgotten," at least. "I can definitely see why you might not want this wandering out of your sight, though. Especially since mind-reading is kind of one of those things that everyone wants to do."

He sort of wanted to ask who Lisa was, but he had more sense than that. Curiosity, cats, etcetera. He shook his head, deciding to forget about it. "I'm a little amazed at all the psychic... stuff you guys have. I mean, I know there's merit to the whole idea, but we don't have any telepathic pendants or future-machines."

"Yeah," Ianto said, putting it back in the containment box. "It seems like a really good idea to a lot of people, but then you realize that there's no real picking and choosing what you get to hear really, and it doesn't seem to be so great anymore."

He looked around the Secure Archives. "I think that's all that I feel like talking about in here. Some of the things I've already mentioned, some of them I have no idea how they work or what they are exactly, and some of them have too much of a story behind them to even begin to get into, so." He turned to Sulu. "C'mon, I'll show you paperwork on the Daleks? Then we can go see if Myfanwy's up for visitors."

"Sure," Sulu grinned, waving Ianto on, "That sounds a lot better than reading your mind or potentially destroying all humanity." Not that it would happen, but still. Better safe than sorry.

"Oh, actually, end of the world reminds me." He smiled, "I talked to Jim - we've got permission for you to come aboard the Enterprise for fencing and-or martial arts lessons. And he hasn't mentioned anyone sitting in his chair, so I think we're safe there, too."

Ianto opened the door and lead them out into the main archives. "Official permission to come aboard from the Captain, then? Makes me feel rather important, that does. Don't think he'd be letting me on if he knew that I did that, though. Doubt you'd be free to be on leave to come visit here either," he said, with a smirk.

He walked through the aisles, expertly knowing exactly where the folder on the Daleks was. It was rather dark in the archives though, so he lead Sulu back to where his desk was, moving to sit on the table. "This is all we know on them," Ianto said, handing him a rather large file, compared to the rest of the others. He pulled out a photograph. "And this," he said, placing it on the top of the files, "is a Dalek."

"I probably wouldn't be alive if he found out," Sulu grinned, though in all honesty it was true. He knew Jim had a... thing for his captain's chair, after all. "And yeah, official permission. Well, as official as 'Do you mean fencing, or fencing' can get." He rolled his eyes.

He took the hefty file that Ianto gave him, raising an eyebrow at the image. "...So," he said, looking at the picture and flipping through the file, "Robots?"

Ianto laughed. "Well, you can assure your Captain that, as far as I know, my sword will stay in its scabbard on his ship, so he needn't worry about that."

"Not quite, though," he said, gently flipping through the files in Sulu's hands until he found another picture. "See, the Dalek you see on the outside is actually just the armor. This is what's actually controlling the whole thing, what a Dalek really looks like. Of course, generally they're not going to open up and show the real self off to things because, obviously," he said, motioning to the picture, "without their armor, they really are pretty fragile creatures. They aren't born, but created, mutated from other creatures, surgically bonded to the armor. Arguably, they're cyborgs."

((This is what I get for not proofreading before I post... /facepalm))

Edited 2010-03-28 02:08 (UTC)

"I just pointed out that I wouldn't be asking permission, if that was the plan," he grinned, watching Ianto flip through the file. "You have this thing memorized don't you? ...Huh." Sulu made a face when the other stopped at the picture, "Not exactly charming - I can see why they'd need the armor."

He flipped through the file relatively quickly, though he was obviously picking out parts to read and remember. "How often do you have to deal with these things? And how easy are they to take out? I mean, assuming you don't have weapons like those guns of yours just lying around."

Ianto shrugged at the memorizing comment. "I have a lot of time on my hands. Plus, I've had to face these things twice now, and it helps to be prepared against them. Supposedly we keep wiping them out completely, but then they always seem to come back because someone somewhere has made more. That's what's so irritating about them. That, and the armor is basically impenetrable. Regular guns do absolutely nothing--we need the Dalek-enhanced ones if we want to do anything right. One got into the Hub when we didn't have one upstairs, though, that's why we've moved one up to the armory."

Or at least that's what he would have said. He'd gotten up to the "regular guns do absolutely nothing" bit before the door to the archives started to make the sound of someone coding into the door. "Shit," Ianto said, emphatically, just in time for Jack to stride into the room.

"Ianto, we're going to need--..." he trailed off, raising an eyebrow at Sulu. He gave him a once over, before turning to his coworker. "Ianto, what have I told you about sneaking Asians into the Hub? Not that I mind," he said, with a smirk, "but last time it ended rather badly, if you remember."

Ianto didn't answer. Instead, he felt the need to dig himself a rather large ditch and bury himself in it at that moment. He did succeed, however, in turning a very attractive shade of crimson.

For a second there, Sulu had assumed that something very awful and possibly life-threatening was going to happen, from Ianto's reaction. Then, it sort of all fell into place when he realized who this new guy must've been. He gave Ianto a look, feeling a bit bad for him since he looked absolutely mortified - but, it was kind of impossible to resist making his life more miserable. Chalk it up to life with Jim Kirk.

"I thought you said I was the only one?" he asked with a vaguely scandalized expression, casually closing the file on the Daleks. "I never should have trusted a European."

Ianto shut his eyes. Shit. This was really happening, wasn't it? He'd specifically planned this so that he didn't have to introduce Jack, but obviously that plan had backfired on him. He knew exactly the Asian that Jack was mentioning; Dr. Tanizaki, brought in to help Lisa, an unfortunate casualty to the cyberman she had become. Trust Jack to throw an insult and a flirt out at him at the same time.

"Not that I don't like surprises," Jack said, with a wolf's grin, "but I really don't like surprises. So. Hey there. I'm Captain Jack Harkness. You are in the archives of my secret base with my archivist. Unless I forgot, Ianto, I didn't hear you ask my permission to have this man down here."

"Unless I've forgotten," Ianto ground out, "we don't have a protocol for off-world friends, and therefore as far as I know, I don't need permission to have a friend down in my archives. Sir," he added, with a tone.

Sulu wondered if he should conveniently have left a replicator on aboard the ship, with the level of tension he was single-handedly helping to generate. But, there was no beam-up waiting for him at the moment, and he could really just casually shuffle out of Torchwood and into 21st century Wales until his hop showed up, so. He'd have to try not to let Jim's influence seep in any more than it already had.

He smiled calmly at Jack, deciding - for the moment - that Ianto could probably wait. "I apologize, I probably shouldn't have been making wisecracks," he said, voice slipping into a completely calm, professional tone, like the kind he'd use with Jim when trying to negate the fact that he'd done something kind of stupid. "It's a habit my own captain's given me - I'm Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu of the U.S.S. Enterprise." He knew better than to try and defend Ianto's having him down in the secret base, so he refrained from coming up with any sort of excuse. Better to let the guy who actually knew Jack do all the major talking.

Jack took in the situation for a few more seconds. Yes, Ianto seemed like he wanted to be anywhere other than this, and this Sulu guy seemed to have noticed that he had slipped up making a quip and was being professional about this. Jack would at least try not to bite his head off because of that.

"Never heard of you, Lieutenant," Jack said, "which is a pity. Ianto obviously needs to learn how to share a little better with these things."

"Yes, alright, Jack," Ianto said, exasperated. "Fine. I didn't ask your permission, I'm sorry. It's because I knew you were going to be like this even if I did ask." He sighed. "Jack, this is Sulu, a friend from the community. Try not to scare him off. I would like to actually have friends, if I can help it. And Sulu, this is Jack. He's...well, being a bit of an ass right now." He shot Jack a look. "Normally he's a perfectly reasonable man." Okay, maybe that was a lie. But more reasonable than he is right now.

Sulu was starting to feel like he'd seen this kind of conversation before. All he could tell was that it was the kind he really hated getting in the middle of. "It's all right," he said, before smiling at Jack. "I really didn't mean to cause any problems. It's nice to meet you, though - I'm really impressed with your organization." Now, to hope that Jack really was like Jim. Flattering the occupation usually did the trick with his captain...

Luckily for both of them, Jack was susceptible to flattery. "Well, it's not that big, but it's the quality of the work that really matters in the end, I suppose," Jack said, still somehow making the statement sounds like an innuendo.

Ianto stepped up there. He wasn't sure he could handle Jack flirting with Sulu at the moment. "Listen. I was just going to show him Myfanwy, and then we'll be out of the Hub. Do I have permission to do that at least?" Jack shrugged, and that was all the incentive Ianto needed to grab the folder out of Sulu's hands, toss it on the desk, grab Sulu by the arm and drag him toward the door. He had to stop after a second though.

"Jack," he said, "please. Please, would you just, I don't know, go do some actual paperwork or something. There's a form on my desk for the PM that you promised you'd finish a lon time ago."

Jack was bemused with the situation. "Fine. But you owe me. An explanation of all of this if nothing else." Clearly, Jack wanted something else.

"Yes, fine. I'll...see you later," Ianto shot after him, before he all but threw the door open and tugged Sulu out after him, shutting the door firmly behind him. He stopped outside, moving to bring his hands up to his face, groaning.

Sulu showed polite (dis)interest right up until Ianto was dragging him out, which allowed him to give Jack a polite wave and a quick, "It was nice meeting you," before being safely secured beyond the shut door.

Immediately after they stopped, though, he adopted a much more apologetic expression. "I'm sorry - that went really badly." Super awkward, he meant, but he was still in professionalism mode.

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