torchwoodteaboy | [RL WITH SULU]

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[RL WITH SULU]

It was dark. A fact which, recently, had become a lot more of an issue than it normally had been for him before, but Ianto wasn't thinking in terms of then and now. Because something was coming for him out of the darkness, but this time he knew exactly what it was, and exactly what would happen to him when they found him. The same thing that happened to Jim, and Sue, and countless others, others that Ianto had barely taken the effort to learn the names of, but watched in horror as they marched them off in a line to those rooms. Those rooms with the plastic hanging from the ceiling, the rooms that, without any walls to block out the sound, made it that much easier to hear the sounds of his coworkers screaming, the sounds of the machines and thank god he couldn't hear the noises of what they were doing over the screaming, or he might just go mad.

He sat, barricaded in the deepest, darkest parts of the archives, the sounds of the machines and those units echoing across the space, because they'd moved and started to set it up in there, now, and Ianto couldn't do a damned thing except hide and hope against all things that they would make enough units to call it quits. That they would finally, finally leave and that he could move, breathe, get away from this place that for the better part of the day he was so sure was going to be his tomb. He had to get out. Had to find Lisa. Had to get them the hell out of there before god knows what else happened next. He cracked the door open just a hair, to try and check if the coast was clear, just in time for one of them to turn down the hallway, searching, looking his direction. Ianto thought his heart might rip out of his chest, it was beating so fast.

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The bed in Sulu's cabin was too small for Sulu to miss Ianto's anxious shifting. He woke up quickly enough, not entirely unused to the tossing and turning; Ianto had mentioned having some nightmares from whatever medication McCoy was giving him to help with his energy levels, and there had been one or two nights where he found himself waking up to Ianto's distressed noises and his slight thrashing. He never woke Ianto because of it, though, knowing that it was better to wake up naturally from these things than to be forced to get up. A few times, Ianto had even managed to wake himself up, but Sulu still didn't know what, exactly, was haunting Ianto enough to make him thrash around.

Hearing Ianto gasp, like he'd been surprised or shocked, Sulu twisted over and reached out to stroke his hair, hoping that it would calm him down like it seemed to when he was trying to sleep.

Ianto had a moment where he froze, praying, hoping against all hopes that the thing hadn't spotted him. But it was a machine. It was observant like nothing else Ianto had ever come across, and within seconds of spotting him, it started down the hallway, towards the small closet of an archive that Ianto had been hiding out in. He darted out, trying to look for somewhere else, somewhere to run and hide where maybe, if he was lucky, the Cyberman wouldn't find him. But in the opposite direction, more stood in his way, and he knew in that moment that even running, he wasn't going to stand a chance.

The one that he had spotted first came up behind him while he stared at the advancing troupe in the other direction, putting a hand on the top of his head. Ianto cried out in terror, stiffening underneath the Cyberman's grasp. He didn't want to appear to be struggling, not yet. Not when he knew what they would do to him if he didn't cooperate. He may not want to be converted, that much was for certain, but even more so, he didn't want to end up electrocuted, like he knew that they would do if he tried to run right then. Maybe...maybe if they took him upstairs, he'd find Lisa. Maybe they could escape together. Safety in numbers? Find somewhere to hide, some way to escape, and run away from this place? It was the only hope that he had as he was wordlessly marched off, into the direction of the sounds of the screaming, his heart pounding in his chest, frightened out of his mind.

Sulu frowned at the noises Ianto was making, threading his fingers through Ianto's hair once more before moving to brush a thumb over his cheek. He couldn't imagine what Ianto was dreaming about - the dark, maybe? He'd been terrified of that from the start, so maybe that was what he was imagining in his dream.

Sighing, he wrapped his arm around Ianto's waist and continued to stroke his cheek, shushing him quietly. "It's all right," he said, knowing it'd be easier to try and talk to Ianto while he was asleep than it would be to wake him up. "It's okay, it's just a dream."

It's all right, he told himself, as he neared the sounds of the machines. It's okay. He... He'd just figure something out. Figure out a way to get out of there. A way to get away from th-... He looked around. God, there were hundreds of them. And all of his coworkers lined up in front of him, waiting, staring back at him with wide eyes, equally as terrified as he was, hoping, praying that this was a dream, knowing that it was anything but. The Cyberman grabbed him close, a hand on his face turning it this way and that, although what it was looking for, Ianto had no idea. He didn't dare ask, didn't dare speak up, he knew that he wouldn't get a word out of the things. It was as his head was turned to the side, Ianto feeling like a piece of meat being examined for imperfections, when he saw her. There, near the front of the line.

"...L-Lisa...? Oh my god..." He twisted in the Cyberman's grasp, writhing to try to get out of it, but the arms held him firm, and it felt like no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't move. "Lisa!" he called out, turning, pushing against the thing that had him, all elbows and flying hands as he tried to get away, tried to get to her. He just had to get to her. He watched as the line progressed, and she was next. Dear god she was next in line. "NO!!" he cried, flailing madly. "LISA!! You--you can't do this!! You can't DO this!!" The Cybermen looked on, as impassive as ever.

Sulu pulled back quickly as Ianto began to struggle against him, coming to realize that this was not the usual sort of nightmare. Or maybe it was - maybe neither of them had really noticed it because they'd either been in Ianto's flat or separate at night - but the fact stood that this wasn't normal for Sulu's experiences.

Ianto's shouting was slurred, as it usually was when you talked in your sleep, but the name, Lisa, was unmistakable and the tone was frantic and scared - and then Ianto's arm lashed out at him and he clocked Sulu in the nose. Yelping in surprise and pain, Sulu nearly fell off the bed, one hand reaching up to his nose while the other grabbed Ianto's shoulder, shaking him a little, not too roughly but with definite intent. There was no way he was going to let Ianto sleep through this particular nightmare.

His hand connected with the Cyberman's hard metal armor just right, in the glowing panel on its chest, and it dropped him. Ianto almost sobbed in relief, scrambling to his feet. He had to get to her. Had to stop her from being put in that machine, like he knew she would. Like she would before the Daleks would find them and the two would be too intent on fighting each other that they wouldn't notice him trying to rescue her. He had a a chance, this time, a chance to make things better, to keep her safe and whole, if he could just...!

He moved toward her, but he wasn't fast enough. His movement was sluggish, halted, like he was moving through water rather than through air. And he could feel the rest of them bearing down on him, with their cyber guns raised and he knew, he knew that he'd be too late. He'd be too late again and they'd take her and they'd kill him and things were even worse than they ever should have been. And then the ground started to shake, only it wasn't the ground, it was him, rocking back and forth...by the shoulder? There was a harder shake, firmer and more demanding, and suddenly Ianto's eyes flew open, with a cry of fear, his heart beating wildly in his chest as he started, flailing a little more, desperately trying to reorient himself in this dark room that he'd just woken up in.

Still clutching a hand over his nose, feeling blood welling and starting to drip, Sulu gripped Ianto's shoulder and kept shaking him gently until Ianto started flailing again. He grabbed Ianto's arm to keep him from smacking him again, then pulled him into a loose hug to make sure he wouldn't immediately notice the fact that Sulu was now sporting a bloody nose. "Hey, hey. It's all right," he said, muffled because of the one hand over his nose, "It's okay, you're awake now."

Ianto was vaguely aware of being pulled into a hug before he really started coming to terms with exactly what was going on and where he was and everything, his heart racing in his chest. Someone was talking in his ear--the someone that was hugging him, and it took him a moment before realizing that it was Sulu. And he was right. It was a dream, he was awake, but that didn't stop Ianto's hands from flying up and clutching tightly to the other man, as he let out a sound of utter relief, shuddering for a moment.

God, a dream. It had all been a dream. Well, a nightmare really. Ianto was used to having nightmares but lately...lately they'd gotten worse. So much more worse, since he'd been taking whatever it was that McCoy had given him. He'd mentioned it to Sulu, briefly, he just... He hadn't thought to talk to McCoy about it, yet. Especially when the drugs had been working to keep him energized, helping to be normal again, he didn't want to take that away just because of the nightmares it was causing. But this... This one had been pretty bad. "...oh god," he said, quietly, clutching to Sulu tightly for the moment, clinging to reality and to the fact that it had only been a memory, a nightmare, and that he was safe now.

Sulu rubbed at Ianto's back, tilting his head to rest his chin on top Ianto's head, continuing to make as soothing a sound as he could while still holding his nose. He'd have to get up and clean himself up, but that was going to have to wait until after Ianto was a little more coherent.

"It's okay, it's okay," he repeated a few times, "It was just a bad dream." He knew it had been worse than anything Ianto had had around him until now, and he wanted so badly to ask what had happened, but he mostly wanted to comfort Ianto, and he was pretty sure bringing it up right away wouldn't help at all. "I'm right here. ...I'm going to need the bathroom," he said with a quiet laugh, trying to lighten the mood a little, to bring Ianto back into reality just that much quicker, "But I'm right here and I'm not moving."

Edited 2010-12-16 09:11 (UTC)

Ianto clung to Sulu, clung to his reassurances and his voice and the fact that, yes, it really had been just a bad dream. A very realistic dream, based on memories he had hoped he could bury and never have to deal with ever again, but a bad dream nonetheless. He hung onto those reassurances, repeating them to himself in his head, which was why he almost missed Sulu's comment about the bathroom, there. But it stuck out, enough for Ianto to be more than a little confused by it. And the fact that Sulu's voice seemed to be muffled, by...his hand?

Ianto slowly peeled himself back from where he'd been clinging to the other man, pulling back to be able to look at him, realizing that he had his hand over his nose for a reason, that that wasn't a normal pose for someone to do unless... "Oh god," he said, reaching a shaky hand up to rest on the side of Sulu's face, "did I...? Was that me?" Of course it was him, though. How else could it have happened?

Sulu didn't want to pull his hand away, or else he would have leaned in to give Ianto a reassuring kiss at that. "Yeah," he said, unwilling to try and lying to Ianto, "But it's all right. I was half asleep, so it's not like I was ready for it."

He really didn't mind, anyway. It wasn't too big a deal; he knew it wasn't broken, and that was all that really mattered. "Let me get a towel, okay?" he asked, moving his hand to grip Ianto's briefly before shifting to slide off the bed. As an afterthought, he called out for the lights to brighten to seventy percent their normal power - not bright enough to blind either of them from the low percentage they were sleeping with, but bright enough to hopefully ground Ianto. "Do you want me to get you some water?" he asked as he started to stand.

That didn't mean that Ianto didn't feel bad for it, and that he wouldn't take it back if he could. There was nothing for him to do about it now, though, so he nodded, letting go of Sulu completely so that he could move and stand up, blinking as the other man brought the lights up but so grateful that he had, even if bringing them up meant that he could see just how much damage he'd done, there. His hand hurt a little too, where he could only guess it had connected with Sulu's face.

At the question, Ianto nodded. "Yeah, uh..." He swallowed, trying to get a hold on himself, and his voice, and not be quite so shaken as he felt because really, it had been just a nightmare. "Yeah. Water... Water would be great, thanks..."

Sulu gave Ianto a brief thumbs-up as he moved into the bathroom, grabbing a towel and wetting it under the faucet before holding it up to his nose, tilting his head back to try and stop the blood. It almost didn't hurt, really, but it stung enough to let him know that he was going to look a little bruised up the next day. He could only hope that it wouldn't be too bad, or that nobody would ask questions.

After a few minutes, the blood stopped and Sulu took one of the glasses from his sink, filling it with cold water and taking it back to Ianto. He kept a wet towel to his face to make sure he wiped up the last of the blood. "Here you go," he said, holding it out to the other man. "Just try to relax, okay?"

Ianto folded his knees up in front of him as Sulu stepped out of the room for a minute or two, forcing himself to breathe deeply and running a hand through his hair as he did so. That...hadn't been very pleasant, to say the least. He'd been having nightmares for the last while, since he'd started this medicine of McCoy's, but. None of them had been as bad as that one had. Not that he could remember, anyway.

When Sulu came back in and made it over to the bed again, Ianto took the glass, and yet couldn't help but feeling a wave of guilt all over again at the towel. "I'm sorry," he said, quietly, eyes sad and guarded as he looked up at the other man. "Are...are you alright? It isn't too bad, is it?" he asked, nodding to the towel pressed to Sulu's nose.

"I'm fine," Sulu said, finally taking the towel away. His skin was very slightly bruised, but it really wasn't going to be that bad. At least Sulu could tell that it wasn't broken, and that it wouldn't cause him much pain unless he ended up rolling onto his stomach in the night. "I'm more worried about you."

Sulu took a seat on the bed, putting an arm around Ianto's shoulders as he dropped the towel to the floor, pulling the other gently towards him. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked. He knew that Ianto had some things in his past that had to make for vivid nightmares, but the fact was that he didn't know what most of those things were. He wanted to know, though; or, at the very least, he wanted to help Ianto feel better about the things he feared in his sleep. "You can tell me, you know."

Ianto let himself be pulled, leaning heavily against Sulu, soaking in the comfort and support that the other man was offering in that moment. He was trying very hard not to be too shaken by the nightmare, that it had been a dream and nothing more, but he knew as he found himself being so relieved to have the other man there supporting him that no matter how hard he tried, he'd just be lying to himself. The dream had been based off of real memories, after all, and they weren't just something that he could brush off quite as easily as a nightmare created by his own mind.

"Y-yeah..." Ianto said, softly. "I... I mean, I want to tell you, I just..." He turned his head, sighing as he ducked his head against Sulu's shoulder. "...I don't want you to think any less of me, after I do, and. I'm not sure that you can guarantee that you won't. I mean... Jack, for one, is still bitter about some of it, three years after the fact..."

Sulu hesitated at that, not tensing or pulling away but simply pausing a moment. He didn't know what Ianto wanted to tell him. He had no idea whether or not he was going to be able to say that he wouldn't hold it against Ianto. How could he promise something like that in this situation?

That was stupid, and Sulu knew it the moment he thought it. There was no way he could ever hold something Ianto did in the past against him. It wouldn't make him think less of the other man; he wasn't sure anything could, not even the fact that he'd withheld the truth about his health for so long.

"Ianto," he said slowly, deliberately looking round at the other man, catching his chin with one hand to tilt his head up a bit to meet his eyes, "I'm not going to think any less of you. I haven't yet, and I doubt you've done anything I can look down on you for. Just talk to me."

Just talk to me, Sulu had said. And so, Ianto did. "Yeah, alright," he said, biting his lip for a second, before shifting to settle a bit more comfortably against the other man, taking a deep breath as he tried to figure out just where to start from exactly, anyway. Despite everything within him that was telling him that sharing was such a bad idea, that he would regret it, that knowing would change things, there was an even bigger part of him that thought differently. A bigger part of him that just wanted to tell Sulu, to break down this one huge barrier that he'd left standing between the two of them. Maybe...maybe once he told Sulu, the other man might understand a little more about why it was that Ianto was the way he was.

"...did," he started, halting in his words once more as he tried to collect his thoughts. "Did Jack or I ever tell you that I used to work for a different branch of Torchwood? The main branch, Torchwood One, in London? That's...that hasn't ever come up in conversation before, has it?" he asked. He honestly couldn't remember, although if it had, Sulu probably hadn't thought enough of it to memorize anything about Torchwood One, and neither Ianto nor Jack had said much about it, if they did. The fate of Torchwood One wasn't a happy one, even if Yvonne Hartman had been a tyrant, and neither Jack nor Ianto were very much into the habit of sharing any more than they had to, as it was.

"It did, but not in any big way," Sulu said slowly. He'd known it only because Ianto had mentioned that his boss had been... less than appropriate when it came to alien artifacts. He didn't know much else about it, other than the fact that something had happened and Ianto had left to work at Torchwood Three.

He wasn't even sure he'd ever really considered it a part of Ianto's life. Well, he had, but nothing that he'd needed to know. He supposed that was just because Ianto never had given him any reason to suspect that it was important. He'd only brought it up once or twice, after all, and that had all been a long time ago. "You only ever told me that you left, I think. Nothing else, really."

Ianto shut his eyes for a moment, steeling himself for this conversation. Wanting to say it, wanting to share the information with Sulu, it was a lot different than actually saying it aloud and sharing it with the other man. It took a lot more effort than one might think.

"I... I didn't leave, exactly," Ianto said quietly. "Torchwood One... I used to work for Torchwood One, in the secure archives. Got hired straight out of university, and there must've been something promising on the tests I took to get me hired, because I was. And it was brilliant, Torchwood Tower. And I was happy. But then...then it fell." He sighed. "There...there's a race of aliens called the Daleks, and another called the Cybermen. The Daleks I've told you about before, but it was a while ago. I don't know whether you remember or not. But the Cybermen... I'll bet that none of us have really gone into that much detail about them before, yeah...?"

Edited 2010-12-21 08:42 (UTC)

Sulu shook his head slightly, squeezing Ianto's shoulder to reassure him as he began to talk. He didn't want to break the other's concentration or his resolve, and so he kept talking to a minimum. He could tell from how Ianto was talking, how he looked, that this was something he'd been holding in for a long time; something that, maybe, he didn't tell anyone. Jack knew, obviously. But he wondered if it was one of those secrets that simply had to be buried, to keep from hurting you even more.

"No," he said, "You haven't told me anything about them. I know about the Daleks, but not the Cybermen." He could guess where this might be going, of course, but he knew he would let Ianto tell him everything, rather than trying to figure out the plot before it unfolded.

Ianto chewed on his lip for a moment, pausing, before he continued. "Cybermen are...well, from another universe, but they...are humans. Sort of. They're human minds transplanted into robot bodies. And...something goes wrong, in the process. They're not...they're not right. They're soldiers, and the only thing that they want is to upgrade more people to become one of them. Like the Daleks, they've got no emotion, but unlike them, surrender isn't going to save you from them. The choice is upgrade or die. And..."

Ianto took in a sharp, shaky breath. "There was this radar black spot high above London that Torchwood wanted to look into, so they build a tower to reach it. Then a sphere fell through, 'the Void' the Doctor called it, before, and it made a crack. A crack in the dimensions. Which is when the ghosts showed up. Just fuzzy images of vaguely human-like, whiteish figures. So Yvonne, the leader of Torchwood London, she started working on trying to open up that crack, letting more of the 'ghosts' come through. Only...we didn't realize that these ghosts were actually the Cybermen, fighting their way through from the other side. And that...inside of that Void sphere, a whole army of Daleks waited as well, for someone with enough energy from the time vortex to transfer some of that energy to it. Someone...like the Doctor and his companion."

Ianto swallowed, hard. "All... Apparently all it took was a little touch, and she opened the sphere and the Daleks were free. Just like all it took was the right amount of pressure and then the Cybermen were through as well..."

Sulu nodded. He knew that all this was important, that it was all necessary, and he could tell that Ianto was trying to sort out his thoughts even as he spoke. He could understand the idea of what Ianto was describing, as well; the idea of two hostile alien races appearing in one building, in one universe... he knew that however this went, it wouldn't end well. It wouldn't end happily and it wouldn't end with everyone Ianto knew getting out alive. That much was certain. And he had heard Lisa, so he could see where this might be going.

"And they didn't exactly want to talk peace treaties and First Contact relations, I take it," Sulu said, ducking his head to rest against Ianto's shoulder, trying to reassure him as subtly as he could.

Ianto shook his head. "No...they didn't. They really didn't..." He sighed. "They're both emotionless soldier races whose only interest is seeing that they're either the only thing to have to deal with around, or that they are the ones in charge of everything. So, well, they are took one look at each other, and then brought out the guns. Made Torchwood Tower the central base of their battle against each other. We...we didn't even stand a chance. If you weren't shot and killed by one of them, then the Cybermen were lining you up to send you to the conversion units. I..."

Ianto tilted his head back to look up at the ceiling, very glad in that moment that Sulu had turned the lights up, and that he was sitting there next to him, touching him, being there for him. It was difficult to talk about all of this, especially with that dream still so recent in his mind. "I... When I was back at Torchwood One," he said, knowing that this was going to start into the hard part of the conversation, "I... I had a girlfriend, and her name... Her name was Lisa Hallot, and she was beautiful, and headstrong... We had a flat together. She was the one who made me start to like coffee, and..." He trailed off, continuing after a moment, but his voice was considerably softer than before. "And we were going to get married, as soon as she got the promotion that she was lined up for..."

"Oh." Sulu didn't mean to say anything at that, but the noise came out anyway. He had figured Lisa was a past girlfriend, and someone significant, so the idea that Ianto was going to marry this woman didn't even phase him, but the fact was that he knew how this story ended. At least, he knew how it ended for Torchwood One, and he remembered Ianto, as a teen, telling him that there weren't more than 30 survivors, and what were the chances that it was Ianto and Lisa, making it out of there?

He knew it was futile and beyond useless by now to say it, but he said it anyway. "I'm sorry."

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