torchwoodteaboy | [RL WITH SULU]

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.)

Ianto noticed the hesitation that Sulu had, and smiled gently. "Steady decline?" he asked. He reached out, taking the chocolate bar back for a second, unwrapping it and breaking it in half. "Here," he said, "follow my lead." He made a noise much like you would make to a cat or a horse or some other normal animal to get their attention, but you wouldn't expect a dinosaur to answer to it. Still, it got her attention and she watched him sharply. As soon as he was sure he had her attention, he tossed the chocolate at her. She caught it deftly in her mouth and ate it awkwardly, making pleased chucking noises all the while.

Ianto turned back to Sulu, handing him back the second half. "There. Like that. Make sure you toss it underhand, though. She'll try and go for it if you make it a bad throw, and neither of us would like to fall out of here, I'm sure. I can stand behind you, if you'd prefer," he added, though not condescendingly. He understood the fact that no one here would like to be maimed, injured, or killed by a dinosaur today if they could help it.

"Getting here was good luck, not being eaten by either of your pet aliens was good luck - then somewhere along the line, I made a social faux pas and my natural inclination is to be very careful from there on." He watched Ianto's example before accepting the chocolate, deciding that it would be better to fail miserably than to not try at all.

"Underhand, got it. I think I'll be okay - probably one of the cooler ways to die," he grinned. He tried imitating the noise Ianto had made, and when he saw her staring at him like she had Ianto, he shrugged and tossed the chocolate. Worst that could happen was that she'd... kill him. Haha.

Myfanwy didn't know really what to think of the new person, but he was throwing her chocolate, so he might as well be trustworthy. She caught the chocolate deftly, and ate that half down as well.

"There you go," Ianto said, with a smile. "You've now fed a dinosaur. Not a lot of people can say that they've done that, you know. And you've fed one chocolate as well. Even fewer can boast that."

Myfanwy shuffled closer to them. She wanted more, but that was all that Ianto had brought. She rubbed up against him, searching for more. "I'm all out, sorry," he said, stroking her head and trying to keep her from pushing him to hard or invading her space too much. "Here," he said, reaching out to take Sulu's hand and gently placed it on her neck. She stiffened a bit, but he didn't seem to be a threat, so she went back to looking for more sweets.

Sulu didn't need Ianto to explain to him how awesome feeding a dinosaur was; he definitely knew. (He'd just had first-hand experience. Oh, yeah, Jim was going to be so jealous.)

He watched Ianto interact with Myfanwy with interest; it was strange to see her acting like any other domesticated animal, though it did give him a little hope for Audrey. He had to take his reassurances where he could get them.

When Ianto put his and on the pterodactyl's neck, he tensed briefly. When she didn't... well, try to throw him over the edge, though, he relaxed and beamed. "Oh, now you're just rubbing it in." He ran his hand experimentally along the neck, looking nothing short of impressed.

Ianto grinned, shrugging and batting Myfanwy out of routing her way into his suit jacket. "Maybe so. Not a lot about my job is this cool, though. I mean, moving around dead bodies, cleaning up alien messes, doing paperwork, keeping Jack's temper in check..." He sighed. "The fact that Myfanwy is kind of one of the easier bits isn't really fair, really. She is pretty great, though." He reached out to stroke her crest, which earned him a happy-sounding chirruping noise.

"Short of the bodies and Jack, there's really not a lot of difference between the usual Starfleet workweek. That, and our paperwork is all electronic." He laughed. "I think it's good that your pet isn't a huge potential risk to everyone around them. Better than mine," he added.

Part of him wanted to mention that it probably wasn't in Ianto's job description to keep his boss from getting too upset - or, if it was, it wasn't a very good job - but he refrained. The whole thing seemed messy to him; then again, his experiences with inter-office romance lay with Uhura and Spock, and they sort of made any couple look messy. "So," he said after a moment, "Is she really a pterodactyl, or is she alien life that happens to look like one?"

Ianto shrugged. "She used to be a menace. You wouldn't believe the amount of time and effort I had to put into training her." He stroked her head and she chirruped some more. "It was worth it in the end, though. Have my own personal body guard, if other people start to do something against me that works her up."

"To answer your question, though," he said, continuing, "she really is a pterodactyl. I tracked her down using a rift activity detector. She's just a little bit outside of her time, is all. And possibly area as well. I'm not exactly sure whether there were pterodactyls native to this area of Europe back then or not."

"Much better than an attack dog, I'd say," Sulu said, still fascinated by the whole thing - dinosaurs, aliens, rifts and all. "I'm seriously really impressed by this whole operation. You have an amazing job, Ianto." He wasn't really envious, but he was definitely excited by the operation of Torchwood in general.

Ianto smiled to himself. "Yeah, I suppose I do," he said, after a pause. Myfanwy, unable to find any more chocolate on his person, gave up and shuffled back into the cutout in the wall, towards her makeshift nest. "C'mon," Ianto said, motioning to the ladder. "I think we've lost our fun factor, she's had enough of us for now. Best not overstay our welcome."

He started down the ladder, once again not speaking until they'd reached the bottom of it all. "Well, there you are. This is Torchwood. Like you said, it's pretty amazing. Even if it's more trouble than it's worth, even if I knew it would kill me tomorrow, I wouldn't give it up for anything. Because to go back to not knowing about all of this..." he motioned around the Hub, indicating everything he'd shown Sulu, "it's not really a life, comparatively."

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