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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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."

Ianto leaned heavily against Sulu, nodding in response to his condolences, but knowing that he was going to have to keep going, and that it would be almost as hard for Sulu to listen to him explain all of this as it was for him to have to explain it all in the first place. "Lisa...she worked in research. Which was higher up in the tower than the secure archives. I had somewhere safe to hide, which saved me," even if they had found him and he almost hadn't made it in the end, "but Lisa... She hid, but she wasn't as lucky. She hid, and it worked for a while, but. They found her, in the end."

"The Doctor, he... I'm not sure what he did, exactly, but he stopped it all. Sent the Cybermen and the Daleks back through the crack in the dimensions, sealing it up as they left. Only...Lisa was in the conversion unit when it happened. She was still converted, but... She still looked like her, which was how I knew it was her, when... When I went looking for her." He shuddered, remembering that awful day, pulling Lisa out of the burning building to safety. And god, she had been so heavy. "But...she was alive. It. God, it was awful, but she was alive. She...she told me how to make a life-support system for her, but. That sort of technology, it didn't exist anywhere else but Torchwood, and since Torchwood One had fallen, the only chance I had of fixing things was...to work my way into Torchwood Three."

Sulu couldn't at first imagine how it would feel to see someone so dear to you in that sort of situation, but after only a moment of thinking about it and feeling that space in his chest - of course he could. Of course he could understand how that felt, and the moment Ianto said he had to infiltrate Torchwood Three, he knew why.

"And so you got Jack to hire you," he said quietly. "And...?"

Ianto shook his head. "I tricked Jack into hiring me. He didn't want to, but I flirted my way in. Used every trick in the book, because I knew that he had a reputation for...well. For less than professional behavior, sometimes. And it almost wouldn't have worked, if it hadn't been for the fact that I happened upon Myfanwy. It wasn't easy to catch her, but I did, and I showed enough initiative in doing so to prove myself a valuable hire. And...of course, I had to keep up the pretense that I was interested in him too, because it was easier to sneak her in under his nose, try and help her, if he trusted me that much. But...you know Jack," he said, softly. "It wasn't hard, and pretty soon, I didn't have to pretend, either."

"You have to understand, though," he said, shakily. "He... He'd have killed her, the second I told him about her. She was a Cyberman, and he didn't care whether I loved her or not. He'd see her as a threat, and he'd want her destroyed. I... I did what I could to fix her. Set up the unit in the lower levels of the Hub. Called in a specialist to try and help, but. She...she killed him. She... She wasn't really Lisa anymore. She was a Cyberman. She used me, and my feelings for her, to let me help her. But she wasn't Lisa anymore, and I loved her too much to realize that. So, when she went off the ventilators, she started after us. Nearly killed everyone, almost converted Gwen. Torchwood..."

He paused, ducking his head, his voice falling low. "Torchwood did its job, and got rid of the threat she presented. But Jack...Jack was so angry. He ordered me to clean up after everything that she'd done, and when that was finished, he packed me up, sent me home, took everything that I could potentially use to hurt myself out of my flat, put me under house arrest and suspension for the next month. I got out lucky, though. I... Under the rules of Torchwood, he should have executed me. People have been killed for less, in the past..."

Cautiously, Ianto looked up at Sulu, his eyes sad and wary as he waited for the other man's response to it all, preparing himself for the worst, but not really sure that he could handle that, if it did come.

Edited 2010-12-22 05:01 (UTC)

It wasn't easy to hear it, that Ianto had used Jack like that, even if it had changed and was far different now - it wasn't easy to hear any of it. It was easy, though, to think about it all logically and see all the stupid, stupid things Ianto had done, all the mistakes he'd made just for this one person, all the risks he'd taken just to fix one person.

But logic had nothing to do with this. Ianto hadn't thought about this in terms of wins and losses. He'd thought about the one person he was in love with and how he would do anything to fix her. And Jack had to have gotten that, somewhere along the line, because he'd watched out for Ianto even after the other man had gone through and destroyed the very integrity of their team. If he hadn't, then he had to have gotten it later, in this room with him. Sulu sure as hell understood it, and understood why Jack used it against Ianto when Ianto pissed him off.

He knew he was being quiet, too quiet for Ianto's taste probably, and he looked to see Ianto looking up at him. He didn't even know, really, what he was going to say to that. What he could say to that, other than the fact that he understood doing whatever it took to save someone you loved. His heart broke a little for Ianto because there was no way for him to say that. Instead, he reached up to brushed his hand through Ianto's hair. He wanted to say something, but he hoped Ianto would settle for that and a brief, soft kiss. At least until Sulu figured out how to address it verbally.

Ianto appreciated the hand in his hair, but the fact that it had taken him so long to react, at that when he reacted it hadn't been anything more than a gentle brush of Sulu's hand through his hair... Ianto's stomach tied itself in knots. God, if this backfired... If Sulu really wasn't okay with knowing about Lisa, knowing about his betrayal and his Torchwood One and the Cybermen and how close he'd come to just ending it all that night Jack had sent him home after losing her... Well. He supposed he hadn't shared that last bit, after all, but. Considering the lack of reaction there, maybe. Maybe that had been for the best...?

Oh god. Ianto felt his heart sink, and he did the only thing he could think of. "...I'm... I'm sorry," he apologized. "I didn't... I loved her. I did it for her. And maybe that was wrong, but. I... I didn't have a choice. I couldn't just leave her there. She...she used me. No, not she. The... The Cyberman. It used her memories, and I went along with it, because I was weak. Because I wanted to believe that... That I could fix something like that. But I was naive and wrong and..." His heart tightened in his chest, sharp and sudden as a wave of fear that he'd just ruined everything in sharing this swept over him. "...oh god, please don't. Don't hate me for this. Not you too, I. I couldn't stand it..."

Sulu shook his head as Ianto began to talk, surprised that his silence had been taken that way. With a quiet noise, he pulled Ianto closer to him and shook his head, giving him a small, quiet sort of smile. He didn't want to give any indication that Ianto had done anything wrong.

"Ianto," he said, "I don't hate you for this. I'm not going to look down on you for this. I promise. It was a stupid, idiotic thing to do, okay? But I can't hate you for something like this." He ran his hand through Ianto's hair again, trying to soothe him as best as possible. "Trust me when I say i don't. I brought you back from the dead, Ianto - I understand doing anything for someone you care about." And he did, more then he'd ever be able to say to Ianto.

At Sulu's words, the other man moving closer to him again and running his hand through his hair once more, Ianto quieted a little. He even...well. He found tears in his eyes, despite how hard he'd been fighting to keep them away, keep them from starting, and he brought up a hand to angrily rub them away. "I didn't want to lie to Jack," he said, sadly. "I didn't want to do anything to hurt him. Or to put Torchwood in danger. If... If I'd known, if I'd known that it hadn't been Lisa, then maybe..."

He let out a shuddering sigh, slumping against Sulu. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I just... I've been having these nightmares, and more often than not, they've been about that battle, about the fall of Torchwood London and the Cybermen and the Daleks and Lisa and afterwards, and I... It's hard to snap out of them. And I'm trying, here. I'm trying to be more sharing and open and all, but. God. That's all I have to share, just more bad information, and I can only hope that I'm not... That I haven't disappointed you in some way. Because you're right, it. It was stupid, and idiotic, and I wasn't thinking straight, but I... Damn it, I thought I could save her. I thought it would work out, that it would be worth it in the end, but it wasn't, and I was so alone, after that..." he said, trailing off, realizing that his train of thought was derailing, trying to stop himself before he said anything any more incriminating, reaching his hand up to frustratedly brush any tears that might have formed out of his eyes.

Sulu was finding it hard to come up with the right things to say in this situation. He had no idea how to respond to any of this, not verbally, and so he was thankful that Ianto kept talking, giving him more to respond to that could actually help, rather than apologizing and telling him he didn't hate him. He could never hate him, and that was a little scary to realize.

"It's okay. I told you, I understand why you did it. I'm not disappointed in you. Maybe, if I had been there as it happened - maybe things would be different, but after everything we've gone through, Ianto, I'm not going to hold it against you." He paused briefly, though he continued brushing through Ianto's hair, "But... maybe you should talk to McCoy about the nightmares. It might be a side-effect of whatever he's got you on."

Ianto listened to what Sulu had to say in response to his rambling, hanging on to every word offered just so he had some means of grounding himself in this situation. He listened to Sulu's reassurances that he wasn't going to hold it against him, and against everything that he would normally feel, he believed the other man was telling him the truth as well, which made him feel a lot better about himself there, a lot better about the nightmare and the fact that he'd woken Sulu up in the middle of the night to have a conversation about something as heavy as Torchwood One and Lisa.

Ianto leaned into Sulu's touch, relaxed by the hand stroking through his hair again. At the mention of talking to McCoy, though, he picked his head up to pull back and look at Sulu. "You think it could be...?" Ianto asked, not having even realized that there might've been a connection before Sulu suggested it. "Is... Does that happen, sometimes? D'you think that there's anything he could do about it, if it is what he's got me on?" He ran a hand over his face. "I mean, as much as I like being able to stay awake again, I'd prefer if that meant I could sleep the night without being reminded of my worst memories, if it's possible... I don't usually have nearly as many nightmares as I've been having recently. I just." He bit his lip. "I hope that it is the medicine, and not... Well, not anything permanent, or anything." He looked up at Sulu, his eyes still a little wet, but at least the tears had stopped. "...I really am sorry, for hitting you. I don't want to put you in danger, just by sleeping with me at night..."

"You're not putting me in any danger," Sulu said, laughing softly at the idea that a whack in the face was dangerous for him. "Seriously, don't worry about it. I've suffered worse just from falling out of bed." Which wasn't really true, but he wasn't going to tell Ianto that he was a danger, especially when it really wasn't such a big deal. And Ianto looked so sad, Sulu couldn't help but want to cheer him up and reassure him.

"But, nightmares can be a side-effect from all sorts of medications. You really should ask him about it, because if it isn't, maybe he has something that'll help with that, too." Which was doubtful. But in all honesty, Sulu wanted Ianto to talk to McCoy because out of everyone in the loop here, he was probably the best for dealing with this sort of trauma. Maybe Ianto would let him help. "And if it's something we can't make go away, then we'll deal with it. One way or another, we'll make this all work, okay?" Lisa and all.

Ianto smiled a little back at Sulu in response to his brushing the blow off like that. "I should hope that you're not in the habit of falling out of bed, then," he said, softly, looking closely at what would surely at least result in some bruising. "Are you sure you don't want some... I don't know if you guys have icepacks anymore, but. That's what I would give you, to help with that. It might help keep it from bruising or swelling, and all..."

He nodded at Sulu's determined words, not really knowing how they would deal with it, exactly, but knowing that Sulu was honest in saying that he'd do everything he could to make it work. Still... Telling him about Lisa... "You're... I'm sorry that I kept this from you," he said, softly. "Torchwood One, and... Well, everything else involved. I realize that it's come up a few times in the past, but." He sighed. "I don't know. It didn't seem like a good moment to bring it up. It's not exactly. Well, it's not exactly a light conversation piece that I could just stick in anywhere... I didn't mean to keep it from you, though. I. I hope you understand that it's not like that..."

"It'll be okay," Sulu said, "If it gets too bad, I'll swing by the medbay on my way to the bridge and get something for it." Really, he just didn't want to leave the bed, now that he had Ianto more calmed down and comfortably in his arms. He wanted to make sure Ianto knew that it was all right - that it might've not been the right thing to do or the smart thing to do, but it had been something Sulu understood. He knew now that he would've done the same for Ianto, if he'd had to.

"I know, Ianto," Sulu said quietly, pressing another kiss to his temple, "It's okay. It's not something you can just tell people about; I can't imagine there being a good time for this before now. But I'm glad you told me." He really was, too; that Ianto wanted to tell him something like that and was willing to do so now. It meant a lot.

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