torchwoodteaboy | [RL WITH SULU]

Sulu, admittedly, wasn't as comfortable with the bridge crew he was working with temporarily as he was with his own crew, but it really was worth it. At least this way, he could come spend time with Ianto during the night, actually sleep with him and have a good night's rest, and leave in the morning when Ianto wasn't as likely to feel trapped in his flat.

Ianto, for the most part, seemed to be at least somewhat stable when it came to his health; he didn't always seem to be doing better than the days previous, but he rarely seemed worse. Sulu had that nagging feeling that Ianto was sometimes hiding how bad he really felt some days, but he figured that if Ianto was seriously having trouble, he would tell Sulu as much. After all, he was getting better at asking for help doing more mundane tasks, so...

Once his shift was over, Sulu made his way back to his cabin, taking the time to change into something more casual than his uniform. It was easier to sit around when he was in jeans, rather than his full uniform, and it made the whole situation a little more comfortable. He'd contemplated bringing something for Ianto - tea, or pre-replicated food so that neither of them had to deal with the kitchen - but like usual he decided against it, for silly reasons he didn't like to think about.

Once he was done changing for Ianto's, he didn't waffle about when he should head down. This had been happening often enough that he didn't hesitate, picking up the portkey and appearing with barely an awkward step in Ianto's flat. Pocketing the watch, he looked around, then called out Ianto's name, more to let the other know he was here than to find him. He had a feeling he was in his bedroom, anyway.

Ianto heard Sulu calling out to him, contemplating for a moment getting up and coming downstairs to meet him, but then thought better of it. There was a reason he hadn't made it down the stairs yet that day, and it wasn't just because he hadn't wanted to. He didn't think that he could. He'd thought about it, and he'd even gotten so far as the top of the stairs, but looking down them had sent the room spinning and he'd had to sit down before he fell down them. Eventually, he'd gotten back into his room and back into bed, but any sort of hungry feeling that had made him stand up and contemplate going down there had completely dissipated. Besides, he'd eaten enough while Sulu'd been there in the morning not to really have to justify having to go downstairs. Or at least, he told himself that.

Ianto realized that he hadn't answered Sulu's calling out to him, so he quickly cleared his throat, dog-earring the page he was on to put the book aside and call back to him. "Yeah," he said, wanting to reassure the other man that he was there and that he had heard him and everything. He wasn't about to jump up and go to meet him, though. Sulu was going to have to come upstairs to talk to him. He definitely wasn't going anywhere near those stairs, not in this state. He quickly tried to school himself to look more present with the situation than he actually was, if he could even manage it at all.

Sulu hadn't expected the brief silence to meet him, but he figured that it was just as likely that Ianto had been napping until he'd called out to him. He hardly expected the other to be moving around - well, a part of him did, but it was becoming less and less likely and so he disregarded the assumption as much as possible - and so he made his way to the stairs, taking them two at a time to get to the top just that much faster.

Reaching the bedroom, Sulu paused at the door out for politeness sake, then came in, toeing off his shoes as he went. He could tell from that one brief glance at the doorway that Ianto had either been sleeping or was on the verge of it, and so he figured he could take a moment to lie with him before he started the inevitable talk about eating, or a bath, or anything else Ianto would want right then.

He had absolutely no grace as he practically fell onto the side of the bed opposite Ianto, lying on his side and reaching out to take one of Ianto's hands. It was disturbing to think that he was used to how cold they were - and so he just didn't think about it. "Hey," he said, finally, smiling at Ianto because at least this was easy for the both of them.

"...hey," he said, closing his fingers around Sulu's, trying to seek out what warmth he could soak from the other man, trying to ignore the fact that even the baths that they were taking weren't really working all the time, anymore. Or well, they were to a certain extent, but then it seemed that as soon as he stood up and dried off, it just seemed to seep out of him. Like the air was just leeching everything he had, energy, heat, comfort, and even emotions now too.

"How was your day?" Ianto asked, because it was the only thing he could think of. He really didn't want to talk about himself, or how his day had gone, for example. Didn't want Sulu to know how long he'd just lay there, staring at a single page in a book that he couldn't quite remember the beginning of anyway, that he'd barely gotten up to do much of anything, other than go to the bathroom and that one time he'd tried and failed to make it downstairs. No, it was better if they stayed away from talking about him for as long as he could possibly hold it off, because...he wasn't going to like what he had to say, and he was pretty sure that Sulu wouldn't like it, either.

"Long," Sulu said with a sigh, "Kind of dull. I don't want to jinx it or anything, but I really wouldn't mind a little dogfight with some hostile aliens, just once. Something that doesn't involve me on their planet like last time," he added, remembering the bear-like creatures he'd had to fight with some time earlier. That seemed eons away, now, and Sulu was a bit overeager for a little more action in his space-faring life. "Still, you know. Nothing happening means that everything's going okay, so I can't really complain."

He almost asked Ianto how his day was in return, even opened his mouth a bit to start, but then he paused and quickly changed the question to, "Were you reading?" He'd noticed the book set aside and went for it, rather than forcing Ianto to tell him about how he slept and read and took a bath and... well. The truth was that Sulu had noticed slight changes in Ianto; nothing getting better or worse, just... differences. And he didn't want to draw attention to the fact that all Ianto really had to do during the day was think. He would ask - he'd have to ask, to find out if Ianto wanted to go downstairs and get something to eat - but right now... Right now, he was preserving the normalcy he could.

Ianto tightened his grip on Sulu's hand, squeezing it slightly in reassurance. "Yeah, I get it. Nothing can be surprisingly good news, sometimes, though. I understand how it could be a bit boring, though, just doing the same thing every day." He hoped that it was boring regardless of what time he were to be scheduled, and not just because he'd switched from being with the people he'd normally worked with, not because of anything that he might have done for Ianto's own sake.

At the mention of the book, though Ianto fought himself hard to remember something, anything about it. "Well, yeah," he said, not quite so smoothly. "I was trying to, at least. I mean. I'm not as far as I could be, but. It's...it's a pretty challenging read, in some parts. Definitely one that you have to be paying a lot of attention to," he lied. Okay, so it might be challenging for some. But Ianto should have had no problem with it. The fact that he was, well. Wasn't a very good sign. He could barely remember any sorts of details about it whatsoever, come to think of it, and really hoped that Sulu wasn't about to quiz him on it, or anything like that.

Sulu noticed a little stumbling there at the beginning, but he chalked it up to Ianto being tired and let it go with a smile. Truthfully, Ianto didn't sound all that enthused about it, and Sulu didn't want to keep talking about something that he wasn't interested in talking about. "All right, then," he said, letting the topic go. Unfortunately, that really only lead to two other topics - and if Ianto wasn't feeling well, he'd probably only tell Sulu if he pestered him about it a little.

So, he squeezed Ianto's hand softly, thumb brushing over the back of his hand, and asked, "Other than the reading, though - how's your day been?" He nearly let it go at that, but then added, "And... how have you been doing?"

Ianto managed to keep his face schooled in the same expression that he'd had before, rather than wincing or frowning or any number of other unhappy expressions he wanted to make at the change in subjects. "My day's been...pretty boring as well, really. Did some reading, did some thinking, slept a little. Same old, same old," he said, as nonchalantly as he could manage. Never mind the fact that he'd almost fallen down the stairs, and that he hadn't made it much further than the bathroom the whole day. Sulu...didn't really need to know that, did he?

Answering the question of how he felt was equally as hard for Ianto. "Oh, you know," he said, trailing off. "Still cold, bit tired. Was thinking of sleeping for a little bit, but now that you're here I'll hold off on that until later, when it's actually the right time to be asleep," he said. Technically, he wasn't lying on any account. He was tired and cold and he had been thinking of sleeping. The only problem was that he'd been thinking of sleeping all day, that he basically had been sleeping all day. Or, well, as close as you could get to sleeping without actually falling asleep.

None of that sounded really... well, reassuring. Sulu was getting used to that fact, but it wasn't something he could just ignore like he could so many other things. Ianto didn't mention eating, and he wasn't sure whether that was because he didn't think it was important or if he simply hadn't eaten since Sulu had left that morning.

He tried not to look disappointed at the fact that nothing seemed to be better - but he had expected that, too, and he felt terrible for that as well. "You can get some sleep now, if you want," he offered, trying to fix his smile, "But... Have you eaten yet? Because I can make you something, so you're at least not passing out on an empty stomach.' Truthfully, he didn't want Ianto to sleep. He wanted him to get up and move around a bit, so that he could keep some sort of schedule. ...And, yes, part of him found it disturbing that Ianto could sleep so much. But he was trying to keep his misgivings out of his mind for now. Plenty of time to worry about that later.

Ianto tried very hard not to bite his lip at the question as to whether he'd had any food yet that day. Of course the answer was no, but. He didn't want to say that, didn't want to go into how intimidating something as simple as a flight of stairs was becoming, so instead he just shrugged and moved on to the next thought. "Well, I am a bit hungry," he said, not really knowing if he was or not, but figuring that he should be, since he really hadn't had that much to eat all day. "And truth be told, I really don't want to go to sleep again quite yet, either."

He was sort of hoping that they could just keep the day going the same as they always did, when Sulu came back, except right from the start that was impossible. Ianto would usually greet Sulu downstairs, and the two of them would eat. Then they might come upstairs and take a bath, or just come upstairs and go to bed, but the fact was that it usually started downstairs, and that it started upstairs today... It had to give something away, didn't it? Maybe that was just Ianto feeling paranoid, but. It had to give something away. There was no way he could be feeling this horrible and not be letting it show just a little bit, no matter how hard he tried, right? Ianto certainly hoped that that weren't the case. He didn't even know why he was hiding it from Sulu anymore, other than the fact that he'd gotten into the habit of it, and it was too hard of a habit to break.

Sulu nodded at that response; it made sense. At least Ianto wasn't trying to hide the fact that he hadn't eaten much that day; Sulu honestly couldn't imagine Ianto to have eaten. Something about how he was acting, or looking, or - who knew what it was that was making Sulu hesitate at almost everything he wanted to say. It wasn't normal for them, not by a long shot; even when they'd first gotten Ianto home from the hospital, Sulu hadn't been able to stop himself from speaking up about whatever it was that was bothering him. But right now, he was trying very hard to keep things... easy.

"Do you want to come downstairs and get something to eat, then?" he asked, giving Ianto a half-smile, "Or do you want me to bring you dinner in bed?" Which was something he would do, without a thought - but the question was probably more loaded than he'd want it to be. Because if Ianto turned down going downstairs, that would mean something was probably... wrong.

Ianto paused after Sulu's questions, which in itself was probably enough of a giveaway that things weren't exactly as they should have been, but after a moment, he nodded, squeezing Sulu's hand. "No, I..." he said. "You don't have to bring it here. We. I can go downstairs for it. I'm not going to have you wait on me, or anything like that, remember? It'll be fine," he said.

The truth of the matter was, though, he wasn't quite sure how he was going to manage the stairs. Maybe it'd be better with Sulu there, and with the railing, and maybe if he just closed his eyes, then...maybe things wouldn't spin as much, looking down them. It would be rather obvious that he'd be relying pretty heavily on the other man to be there and help guide him, but at least he'd be doing it, he'd be making it down the stairs and to the kitchen himself, so he wouldn't feel like quite so much of an invalid, even if...that was rapidly what he was deteriorating into. Who knew how much longer he was going to be able to make it down the stairs? Who knew how much longer he was going to be able to do much of anything, for that matter, he thought, sadly.

Sulu let his smile grow into a real, honest one, though it was by no means very big; he'd sort of dreaded Ianto's response, because all he wanted was for things to get better, for Ianto to get better, and if he was okay with taking on the stairs, it was obviously not as bad as his subconscious had been making it seem.

"I was only offering because I wouldn't normally," Sulu said, stroking the top of Ianto's hand with his thumb once more before letting go, sliding off his side of the bed. "So maybe you should take advantage of my great bedside manner while you can, because I'm not going to offer when you're better. Except on your birthday, maybe." He moved easily to Ianto's side of the bed, holding out a hand to help him out of bed - and also just because it was nice to be able to have some kind of physical connection with Ianto, even if he was a little cool to the touch.

Ianto looked at Sulu smiling down at him, at his hand held out towards him, and in that moment, everything he had in him wanted to just tell Sulu everything. That he wasn't fine at all, that he was most likely going to kill them both while attempting the stairs, that he felt the worst he'd ever felt, including the time he'd spent in the hospital, that... He shook himself out of that train of thought, although one thought remained. Shit. He was going to have to commit to going downstairs with the other man, now that he'd set up that charade.

"I'll have to remember that, then," he said, sitting up straight and slowly pushing the covers back to swing his legs out and sit on the edge of the bed. "The next time I have a birthday that rolls around, that is. See that I get this special treatment that you're promising, here." He took Sulu's hand and stood, and it...wasn't good. Just from that motion, tiny white lights started to dance in Ianto's vision. Even as he started to move towards the stairs, more and more, Ianto was beginning to come to the conclusion that making himself get up had been a really bad idea.

Thankfully, they'd only gotten to the doorway and not the steps themselves before Ianto's vision started to darken from the edges, creeping quickly to cover everything, and a wave washed over him leaving him queasy and weak and incredibly unsteady all at the same time. He was at once extremely grateful that the other man was there with him, to see he didn't accidentally off himself falling down the stairs, and also slightly terrified, because he knew that he was passing out, and there was very little he could do other than hope Sulu caught on. "Wait," he managed, "I... I can't..." But that was all he could get out, before it was like someone cut the power for his body, and Ianto blacked out completely.

The moment Ianto started to sag against him, Sulu immediately twisted and grabbed him with his other arm, feeling Ianto's weight drop against him with no resistance and doing his best to hold him up in spite of the sudden dead weight. He didn't know what to do and so he dropped them both against the wall beside the doorframe, resting Ianto against the wall and allowing himself to freak out only once he brushed his fingers just under Ianto's jawline and managed to feel out a pulse, relief and worry washing over him so intensely that he had to lean his head against Ianto's shoulder.

He took a few shallow breaths of air because this, this was exactly what he had been scared of, that one day things would just stop for Ianto and there would be nothing he could do, no way to stop it, and Ianto would be gone again, for good this time, because they couldn't just bring him back over and over again. And Sulu wouldn't be able to protect him from the dark; no amount of hot baths and lightbulbs could fix it.

But he had to remind himself that Ianto was still alive - he was breathing and he had a pulse, however little they really reassured him. He tried to move his hand away from Ianto's pulsepoint, tried to lean his head back so he could see if there was a way to help him get back to consciousness, but Sulu couldn't find the strength to move. He just couldn't.

Ianto felt himself starting to come around again after a moment, noticing that he was still upright, somehow, and that there was a pressure against his shoulder, and another against his neck. He blinked his eyes open, but for the life of him nothing would focus for a few moments. There weren't really any sounds to be heard, and yet everything was still muffled. He felt like he was down a well, stuck in a tunnel, something that would cause his ears to be full of cotton and his vision to narrow. He shut them after a second, making a little noise as he took in a deep breath, trying to get the blood flowing through his body enough to be able to function again.

What had just happened anyway? Where was he? What was going on? The last thing that he remembered was...Sulu. Sulu coming back, Sulu offering to make him food, sitting on the edge of the bed, holding his hand out to be helped up, and then... Nothing. Everything after that was a haze. The pressure on his shoulder, though, on his neck... It was warm. Which could only mean that it was Sulu. On one hand, Ianto was grateful that he hadn't cracked his head open on the floor or anything like that, but. On the other hand...how was he going to explain this away? He hadn't passed out on the other man before, not since coming home from the hospital. He... God. This wasn't good. This really wasn't good at all, especially not if he wanted to try and keep up the pretense that...things hadn't gotten as bad as they had.

Sulu leaned back when he felt Ianto moving, just slightly, and heard him make a noise as he inhaled. Just looking at Ianto's expression as he came to realize what was going on was enough to throw Sulu into a whirl of emotions he couldn't possibly parse out. There was no way this could have happened if Ianto was really getting better. The lapses in Ianto's moods and health, they never got so bad as this. Which meant that Sulu had been deluding himself to think that Ianto was getting better - or that Ianto himself was pretending it was getting better. Pushing himself, probably - after all, Jack had mentioned he'd worked himself until he'd nearly collapsed while he was sick, once.

"Ianto," he said slowly, keeping his voice calm and patient, "Just relax. Take your time." He forced himself to pull his hand away from Ianto's pulse, reaching instead to brush through Ianto's hair. He was going to yell - he could feel it, that he was going to lose his temper here soon enough - but he was going to hold back as much as possible. It was just anxiety and fear that was making him want to lash out, and he was nothing if not disciplined enough to stop it - or at least hold it off for a while.

Ianto bit his lip, nodding slightly, keeping his eyes shut for a few more moments as he sat there, breathing. At the feeling of Sulu's hand in his hair, he unconsciously tilted his head into the touch, pausing for a little while longer, before cautiously opening his eyes. Cautious because for one thing, he wasn't sure exactly what it was that had set him off, that had put him down for the count in the first place, and for another...he didn't want to see the look in Sulu's eyes. The look that he knew would probably be there, a look that would be completely different from the calm and quiet tone of voice that he'd adopted with him.

After a few moments of sitting there against the wall, collecting himself, Ianto took in another deep breath, and let it out, shakily. He knew that they weren't going to sit there in silence forever, that they couldn't, and that the silence was killing him, so he opened his mouth and tried to cover for himself. "I... I'm sorry, I... I must've stood up too fast, or something," he said, quietly, keeping his eyes firmly anywhere but somewhere where he could watch Sulu's reaction to any of this.

Sulu might've taken that excuse at face value, if only Ianto hadn't looked so worried - if he'd looked Sulu in the eyes as he'd offered it up. Sulu shook his head, slowly but firmly. He knew Ianto would see the motion out of the corner of his eye, and he wanted him to know that he wasn't accepting that. Because if he was getting better...

"Has this happened before?" he asked, his tone changing as he struggled to keep himself calm, to not blame Ianto because Ianto wanted to get better, and Sulu knew just how powerful just believing you were getting better could be. But Ianto's reaction to all of this - he wasn't surprised by it, not really, and Sulu needed to know if this was happening more than once, if Ianto was holding back from him. What Ianto was holding back from him.

Ianto winced at the change in Sulu's tone, keeping his eyes averted from the other man so he could keep himself from looking as guilty as he felt. Any sort of anger and frustration building in the other man...Ianto knew that he deserved it. Deserved all of it. Because he'd been, well...not lying, but masking the truth from the other man for weeks now. Pretending to get better, pretending to be feeling better than he was. Sometimes it seemed like the only thing he wasn't pretending was how grateful he was that the other man had been there for him, and now he'd probably ruined every chance of that being the case as well, he thought, irrationally.

He shook his head at the question, carefully. Just because he was sitting down didn't mean that he couldn't make himself dizzy again. "No, I... I swear. I've...this is the first time that I've actually passed out, since you brought me back." He realized belatedly that he hadn't denied feeling like he was going to pass out before though, and mentally kicked himself for it.

Sulu didn't know what he wanted to do right then. He knew from how Ianto had responded that, while he'd never passed out before, he'd been close to it before, and that made him ache. To think that he hadn't even noticed it... and that Ianto had hidden it from him. He wondered if Ianto had been doing that to keep Sulu from feeling terrible, and realized that it really, really hadn't worked.

"But you've felt like it," he said quietly. "Ianto - have you even been feeling better at all?" His hands moved to Ianto's shoulders, because he didn't want to be petting his hair any more. He was trying to keep from moving away, and this was the only way to do it. "You have to tell me, right now. How long have you been feeling like this?"

Ianto didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to react. How was he supposed to tell the man in front of him that he hadn't really been feeling better at all, that he'd been pretending in an attempt to make himself believe that he was, even if he wasn't really. In an attempt to try and make Sulu himself feel better about the fact that he'd brought him back. He didn't want Sulu to feel guilty about it, or Jack, but. He knew that that had been a stupid thought, as Sulu gripped his shoulders.

He didn't bring his eyes up to look at the other man, really not wanting to know what his reaction was going to be to his next words. Even though Sulu had figured it out at least to some extent, there was a part of him that still wanted to protect the other man from how bad things had gotten, even if that didn't make any sense. Ianto's mind wasn't really making a whole lot of sense, anymore, as it were. "I... I'm fine," he said, swallowing as he lied through his teeth, "really. I just. I forgot to get lunch, so I got a little light headed when I stood up, that's...that's all..."

Sulu took his hands away then, pulling back from Ianto as his stomach lurched. Ianto's pokerface wasn't doing him any good now that Sulu was seeing that there was something really wrong, and it honestly hurt him to think that Ianto was lying - still lying, and had been lying all this time. He sat back heavily, running a hand through his hair and closing his eyes, breathing deeply.

Unable to keep the tension out of his voice now, he almost regretted how angry and upset he sounded. "You're lying," he said, firmly and seriously. He didn't want to play this game, he wanted a straight answer from the other man. "Ianto, just tell me if you haven't been feeling better."

A muscle in Ianto's jaw clenched as Sulu pulled back from him, his heart tightening as he heard the note in Sulu's voice, how much this was getting to the other man. That's why he'd tried to keep it from him for as long as possible. Because...because he hadn't wanted to upset him. Not like this, especially not now. He should have just agreed to have the other man bring him dinner in bed. Then he could have at least kept the pretense up for a bit longer.

He kept his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him, moving to brace himself up now that Sulu wasn't there to hold on to him anymore. He felt sad, and sick, and just tired. So tired that he knew that everything wasn't effecting him the way it should, and that frightened him more. Brought up the fear of the fact that...he couldn't be as frightened should be, he just didn't have the energy to do so anymore. What was there to say, though? Sulu'd figured it out, and now there was no saving grace for him. "...I tried to keep from lying to you as much as I could," he said, quietly. "It... It's not lying if I just change the subject..." Never mind that that was exactly what he was trying to do in that moment.

Sulu groaned and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and putting his head in his hands. This was ridiculous. Ianto was trying to dig himself out of a hole that he was instead only making worse. Trying to keep from lying to him? Sulu couldn't believe he'd think he needed to lie at all. What did he think Sulu would do?

He had no way of knowing what Ianto had been thinking and that just made it hurt more. Some things, all right, Sulu could handle not being told some things. But this was - this was Ianto's health. The one thing Sulu cared about more than anything else this past month, and Ianto was lying to him about it.

With a quiet, strangled noise, Sulu found his voice and said, "I can't believe this. I can't believe you. Why in the hell did you not tell me? We could have been doing something about this!"

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