torchwoodteaboy | [RL WITH SULU]

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.

Ianto snorted at that ~~under~~statement. It was either laugh or cry about it. He definitely wasn't looking forward to explaining himself to Jack afterwards. Jack, who was acting suspiciously jealous for a man who insisted that he didn't care much about anything really. "Yeah, I'd say that it rather did."

He sighed. "I'm sorry. He really was supposed to be out for the day. I though he said he was going to visit some old friends. That usually takes him the whole day at least. I don't know why he's back so soon..." He trailed off, feeling really quite awkward about the whole thing, and fought back the urge to groan again.

"Hey, I honestly don't really mind." He shrugged, "It's kind of disorienting to run into a stranger in a secure area. It could have been worse," he added, "He could have shot me."

Which... honestly, wasn't beyond the realm of "things Sulu would rather deal with than awkward situations." But, hey. He smiled reassuringly. "Do you think it'd be better if I left? I don't really want to stress you out more."

Ianto shook his head. "Even if he'd've shot you, it wouldn't be to kill. He enjoys annoying information out of people a little too much." He sighed again. "No, I'm sorry. Jack's a good man. That was just one of the worst ways to meet him. He doesn't like being surprised by things."

He shook his head again now at Sulu's statement. "Unless you want to let him win. He'll be checking the CCTV we have in here; he'll see that he's scared you off, and it'll make him even worse. Best actually do what we said we were going to. Then at least I'm not lying to him too much. And Myfanwy really is pretty fantastic." He shrugged. "Unless...you'd rather leave now instead. Either way, I'm just putting off a conversation I kind of really don't want to have."

Sulu could honestly understand - being surprised by a random guy in your secret base with your... boyfriend? (He still wasn't sure.) It wasn't the best way to get acquainted with someone."

Sulu grinned and nodded. "No, let's go see your pet dinosaur. I'm completely okay with helping you put off anything that's going to be a less than stellar experience." He winked, "You should have given me a heads up, though - maybe I could have stopped at a Chinese delivery place first. Then we would have had an actual alibi. I can do great broken English."

"Thanks, but..." Ianto laughed a little, shaking his head. He was still a little stressed from the previous encounter, but he was getting better. He motioned for Sulu to follow him as he started down the hall. "As much as I'd love to have heard that, he'd have known I was lying, and then he'd be even more pissed off about it. At least we got of this way with only back-handed jabs disguised in the usual flirting."

"Good point." He followed along patiently, still feeling no small amount of unease from the encounter but, as was customary for him, he was unwilling to show it. "I'm sorry that I'm going to cause an argument." Then again, he felt even more sorry that he'd gone with his mood and made a catty remark, instead of sticking to what usually worked. He wasn't Jim - he really couldn't pull off witty quips as an introduction, if at all, really. Not that he'd say a thing about it, but it was definitely going to be sitting with him for the rest of the day.

"So," he sighed, briefly letting his ruffled status show through as he scratched the back of his head, "I completely butchered that meeting, but with any luck, it won't lead to me being eaten by your... pterodactyl, right?"

Seeing that Sulu was as uncomfortable with that situation put Ianto a little more at ease. He didn't want to be the only one who was sweating the fact that that could've gone a lot better, and he was happy to see that Sulu felt the same way.

"No," he said, shaking his head, smiling and relaxing a little, "Myfanwy's a lot easier to understand. Just bring her a treat and she'll be happy, really. So long as you don't do something to get her to dislike you, you're in the clear. We keep her in the Hub, after all. I had to train her not to attack any of us that work here, as well as not to eat the computers, so. She's kind of just like a big, well, lizard. That happens to be able to fly."

Sulu shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded. "All right, don't make the flying lizard irritated with me. Should be easy." He gave Ianto that "this situation could be disastrous" grin. "How big is big, though? Some people would say Audrey's big, but compared to its mother..." He shrugged. "I just don't want to wander in and feel the instinctual desire to run away. Aliens, Weevils and the like, they're more or less the usual for me. Dinosaurs? Not so much."

Ianto chuckled a little. He recognized that look on Sulu's face. "You watch yourself. You're going to need all your fingers and hands to pilot your spaceship, don't do anything stupid to upset the pterodactyl." He continued to lead Sulu back out of the passages up to the main Hub.

At the question, though, Ianto cocked his head, thinking about it. He'd never really had to explain her to anyone before. "Well, she's about this tall," he said, motioning to around breastbone height on him, around 5 feet off the ground, considering he was 6 feet tall. "Her wingspan is a bit more impressive, but she should be tired right now. Hopefully she won't be doing any flying or the sort and just keep them tucked away."

"I solemnly swear not to do anything that would offend your pet dinosaur," Sulu laughed. Truthfully, he wouldn't really mind seeing her airborne, but that was most likely due to the fact that it was a real, live dinosaur. He guessed it would be only a matter of time before he gloated about seeing one in person to Jim, who would probably be completely envious.

He paused, briefly. "What, exactly, upsets a pterodactyl?"

Ianto started up the stairs to the main Hub. "Well, poking her. Making really sudden movements. She's kind of just like any other wild animal, really. I mean, you wouldn't go poking a lion or pulling on its tail, right?" he asked, with a smile. "oh, and don't try to touch her crest unless she offers it for you to pet. Owen learned that the hard way and was almost knocked out of her loft because of it. Its a bit of a fall, so. Best just keep things on her terms, really."

Sulu followed, grinning. "Sounds like something manageable. I generally don't deal with wild animals, though, remember? Botanist? Plants. Mostly non-sentient plants." He thought it over, then added, "I don't think you ever told me exactly how you caught her. Was it a giant net? Taser? Coffee? It was the coffee, wasn't it."

Ianto laughed. "No. Though that would be a great story, it wasn't the coffee. Although." They made it up to the main level of the Hub, Ianto making his way over to his station, going in the drawer under the coffee machine. "Keep a secret? It was this." He held out a bar of dark chocolate to show Sulu.

"She seems to really like it. I lured her into a warehouse with it, and then came and got Jack to help catch her. It's actually probably the reason that he ended up hiring me, really, because I had enough desire to catch a pterodactyl to get his attention." He looked down at the chocolate bar. "I've since trained her to eat only things with a special protein sauce on them, but she still is partial to chocolate. It's good for your serotonin levels, you know," he added, with a smirk.

He'd figured it had been something creative, but chocolate? He laughed. "I might have to file that away, in case we come across any prehistoric lifeforms." He gave Ianto an approving smile, "That's some initiative, though. I'm not surprised it impressed Jack."

Ianto smirked and headed to the stairs, motioning for Sulu to follow. "Well, I'm happy to say that it worked. I'd tried everything before then. Helping catch a Weevil, wearing my pulling clothes, even making a cup of coffee and waiting outside the Hub for him to come out to have it. The pterodactyl was my last idea. I can't say that I'm proud of my reasons for wanting to join Torchwood 3, but I can't imagine what my life would be like if I didn't have it now. Well, no," he said, shaking his head, "yes I can. It'd be pretty damn depressing, that's how it would be."

He sort of wanted to ask what the reasons were, but he imagined it wasn't the best conversational subject right now. Sulu followed after him, shaking his head in amusement. "Once you set your mind to something, you don't let up, huh?" Honestly, that was the kind of persistence he was more used to seeing out of Starfleet personnel than anyone else, but Torchwood was sort of in the same area of expertise. Sort of.

He smirked. "Depressing, or just boring? There's a difference, despite all evidence to the contrary."

Ianto would probably tell Sulu about Lisa and his dark first days at Torchwood sometime, if they were friends for much longer. He was in a rather good mood, though, all things considered, so he didn't really feel like talking about it and ruining the mood then. "A bit of both, really, but that's neither here nor there."

He changed the subject instead. "I'll have you know that I usually get what I want, Lieutenant," he said, with a smirk and a wink. He liked to use formalities when he joked around, and joking around with Sulu was no exception to that rule.

Sulu didn't bother pressing the issue - they'd bounced back from the awkward encounter with Jack and he wasn't about to ruin it. "I'm starting to regret telling you my rank. But I'm honestly not too surprised." Jack seemed like someone you'd have to really want to actually get, after all. Not that he'd say anything. "A job, a dinosaur, the entire regency of hot caffeinated beverages - pretty impressive. Are you just that tenacious?"

"You'd be amazed what persistence, patience, and a good deal of flattery is able to get you in the long run," Ianto answered, with a smile. He made his way to the second level of the walkways, before heading to the ladder that was securely fastened to the wall there, stretching up about thirty feet before ending in a railing and an opening in the wall.

"I hope you're not afraid of heights. It's a bit of a climb, but it's better to keep her so far up there than to have her down near the computers terrorizing us when we're actually trying to work on things." He cocked his head, smiling. "I guarantee you the ladder's safe too, so long as you know how to climb one."

"See, the part that worries me is that that sounds more like Jim than I'd expect from an archivist. And heights are one of the many things that don't intimidate me. Try entering atmo with a space suit and orders not to pull your chute until the last possible minute, then you can tell me about heights."

Okay, so he was a little proud about that whole drill thing. Who wouldn't be? He smirked at Ianto, waving a hand. "Lead on, Mr. Jones - I'll figure out how to use one of these old-fashioned wall scaling devices by following your lead."

Ianto nodded, stuffing the chocolate bar in his breast pocket and started up the ladder. It was a bit awkward to maneuver one dressed in a three piece suit and dress shoes, but like in every other aspect of his life, Ianto managed. He looked back down the ladder to see that Sulu was following after him once or twice, but didn't hold conversation. It was difficult maintaining the necessary eye contact for conversation when you were on different levels of a ladder, after all, so Ianto settled for climbing in companionable silence.

When he reached the top, Myfanwy squawked at him, but he shushed her, moving aside to make room for Sulu to climb up after him. "Sulu," Ianto said, "meet Myfanwy, our resident pterodactyl."

Expecting to see a prehistoric creature in a secret base and actually seeing said prehistoric creature in a secret base were two very different things, Sulu realized. He'd barely gotten up the ladder before he'd caught sight of Myfanwy, and immediately he felt like he was about to start babbling something like, "Oh my god it's a dinosaur, that is so cool, I can't believe I'm seeing a dinosaur, is this real life?"

He didn't, of course, because he was pretty good at keeping that sort of childish glee to a bare minimum, but his face lit up and he grinned. "Okay," he said slowly, "Dinosaur trumps plant. You win."

Ianto beamed, happy to have impressed Sulu. Perhaps it was because Sulu himself and his job impressed Ianto such a great deal, but he felt like he had to live up to some level of excitement, or else what was the point of someone like Sulu becoming friends with him.

Myfanwy regarded the newcomer very much like she regarded everyone else that wasn't Ianto (or Jack, she kind of really disliked Jack). She shuffled warily, too tired from being let out earlier and then her meal to really react too much.

"She is pretty fantastic," Ianto said, with a smile. He pulled the chocolate bar out of his pocket. "Here. Want to give this to her? It'll put you in good favors with her. Not enough for her to follow you home, though, I'm afraid," he added, with a shrug and a smile.

"Pretty fantastic is one way to put it, yeah," Sulu laughed. When Ianto held out the chocolate, he hesitated - yeah, it was cool, but like Ianto kept pointing out, he could really use his fingers. Still, he took the bar, frowning. "I don't know, my luck seems to be on a steady decline. What if she... decides to knock me over the edge or something?"

He really didn't like showing off the fact that he was nervous, ever - but he really couldn't think of another way to point out he had no idea how to feed chocolate to a lizard that could eat his hand, throw him over the edge or just plain make him look like an idiot. (More of one than he'd already made himself to be, of course.)

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