Log with Ianto: The Proof is in the Pudding

[parked]

Sulu knew that this was one of those Terrible, Horrible, Rotten, No Good ideas that he was occasionally prone to having. He was grounded, after all; inviting Ianto over to prove that he wasn't just making up the things he'd been talking about was kind of pointless if you couldn't get to the car to prove any of it.

Still, he'd heard his parents leave to visit his aunt in Bakersfield, so... why not? It wasn't like they'd notice - he was really good at hiding his tracks. So, he'd invited Ianto out to prove that his universe really was all he'd said it was. It was the least he could do to prove he was seriously as awesome as he made himself out to be, after all. So, he waited in his room for the inevitable worldhopping Ianto Jones, wondering if that was too specific a place but figuring that worldhopping itself was already pretty specific an art.

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[parked]

Sulu didn't really get it, and it was probably obvious from his expression, but he didn't really make an effort to figure it out. There were bits of friendly rivalry between countries (and states) even now, but he wasn't sure if Ianto's sort of rivalry was as passive as the ones he was familiar with.

"Good point," he said at the mention of knowing more about the history of London than Cardiff, "I guess I can see that. Still, man, it's all just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. San Francisco had it - maybe Cardiff will, too." He laughed, "Or Newport. Who knows!"

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto saw that Sulu didn't get it, but it honestly really wasn't something he could explain. The English and the Welsh were always butting heads--they shared the same island, after all, and Wales was much, much older culturally, but England was the bigger power. There wasn't really a way to explain that succinctly, though, so Ianto didn't even try.

"Who knows," Ianto echoed, laughing slightly, echoing Sulu's own laugh. "It could be either Cardiff or Newport. Could be both. Could be both and London, or any combination thereof. Honestly so long as it's nearby, I could care less about where exactly it is, just so that I'm a bit closer to it in my universe than I would be here. I mean, no offense," he said, with a shrug. "But California's pretty much on the other side of the world from me..."

[parked]

"It's not exactly that far, really," Sulu replied, unable to help it - he had a good sense of distance, which came in handy when you had to think about long distances. (Considering the fact that he spent his time daydreaming about being part of Starfleet, that was pretty much an everyday occurrence for him.) "But still, I get what you mean. There's a strong off-world presence in all the major cities, though, so hey. Even if they don't set up shop in the U.K., they'll visit so much you'll start getting sick of them. Tourists suck, no matter where they're from," he added with a grin, pulling short at a red light to keep from rushing through it. They were only maybe five minutes from his street, but he didn't want to take a chance and get a ticket by trying to rush home.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto felt his seatbelt tug a little tight as they stopped so abruptly for the light change, but it was better than running it as far as he was concerned, so he didn't speak up about this either. "Yeah, I guess so. I mean. It makes sense. I guess it's just the fact that we don't really know about aliens existing for a fact that makes me pretty skeptical about the whole thing. I mean... For all I know, there... There might not even be aliens, in my universe. Or well. Maybe there are, but maybe not in the sense that you have them. I don't know." Ianto shrugged, his combined teenage and Welsh pessimism showing. "It's all a bit up in the air, if you ask me."

[parked]

"Well, yeah, that's true," Sulu conceded, sounding a little put-off by the idea. It was a strange one, most definitely - the idea that there was a universe where there weren't planets and races he was familiar with, especially when it had an Earth, was definitely not one he really wanted to think about. How could the Federation ever form if there was no one out there to form it with?

He shook his head. "Well, I mean, you've probably got a slightly different universe from mine, but hopefully it's not that different. I don't think the Earth would be as great as it is now if we never made first contact." He shrugged. "But, I doubt it. Universes are way too big for just one race." He grinned over at Ianto and floored it through the now green light, "You'll get your aliens, I'm sure of it."

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto couldn't help but grip the handle on the door as Sulu floored the accelerator and they shot forward again. "Oi," he said, as a warning, but that's as far as he went. Sulu knew enough not to try to get in trouble at a time like this, after all, he could only hope that he knew enough not to attract trouble to him, even if he wasn't trying.

He grinned back at the aliens comment, though. "I...hope we will. Get our aliens, that is. In my lifetime, preferably. Not that it wouldn't be a cool idea in other times, but. To be able to see things with my own eyes, people and cultures from other planets, how different all the things are, well. It's all a bit fascinating, isn't it?" He shrugged, trying to take away from the fact that he was being rather a huge geek about all of this. Again.

[parked]

Sulu had no problem with Ianto's geekiness, really, and so he didn't point it out or anything like that. "I think so, yeah." At least, he could imagine how it would be fascinating from Ianto's point of view. Maybe he was too jaded to it to notice, but he could at least appreciate it from the other boy. "I hope you guys do end up following our timeline at least a little - the Federation sort of does wonders for everything, and it wouldn't be here if we didn't have other planets to band together with."

The hill home was nothing in the hovercar, and Sulu took them cruising up it without a thought. He moved to open the garage door at the same time as he topped the hill, his house coming into view.

[torchwoodteaboy]

As much as Ianto wasn't going to be laughed at, geeking out about aliens, he figured it was time to change the conversation topic anyway. As they approached Sulu's house on the top of the hill, he said the first thing that came to his mind, which might not have been the most tactful thing to say, but it was the first thing to come to mind.

"You've got a pretty nice house," he said. "Big. Definitely a lot nicer than the estate that I live on..."

[parked]

Sulu hadn't really thought about how his house must have looked to Ianto, but now that he was, he didn't really see any reason to be awkward about it. "It is a bit bigger than what you usually see, but really, the main house isn't much bigger than any other place you'd find. Other than like... apartments and stuff, but that's more because of building arrangements."

He nodded towards the garage, "That's what makes it look so much bigger than it really is. But, we have a lot of ships and stuff, so we need the space." Speaking of space - they were pulling into the garage now, and Sulu realized he'd be saying goodbye to Ianto soon. Which wasn't really bad - he'd see him on the community - but he did feel a little bad for it. It had been fun, after all.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto shrugged, nodding. "Guess so. Most people where I live don't really have garages, after all, let alone garages with ships and hovercars and the likes," he said, with a bit of a smirk.

Ianto was fast coming to the conclusion that he'd be shipping off soon, too. That he just needed to use Sulu's computer to shoot the worldhopper a message and then he'd be gone and back to where he was supposed to be a matter of minutes from then. Ianto was quickly finding that he really didn't want to go. At all. He knew he had to, but he was starting to proverbially shuffle his feet and stall, being slow to unbuckle his belt as Sulu brought them into the garage and started to power down the car.

[parked]

"I think I got that, yeah," Sulu replied to the fact that their garages wouldn't have ships or hovercars or anything. He had a feeling that the other was as anxious to leave as Sulu was to let him go, even if Sulu's reasoning was mostly that Ianto just happened to be more interesting than the people he normally hung out with. Still, if Ianto didn't get back, his dad would get pissed, and that was the last thing either of them wanted to happen.

"C'mon. We better get you a hop out of here before my parents come back," he said, sounding a little reluctant as the car shut down and he took off his seatbelt.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto was pretty sure that from the moment that he'd set foot on this planet and disappeared from his room and normal hiding spots, his father was going to be pissed at him, but he wasn't really about to say that out loud to the boy. It was more than a little bit of a downer after all, the guarantee that he was pretty much going to be in trouble when he got back. It...kind of really sucked that he had to go back at all. But he knew he had to, and running away from home, while tempting, was a really dumb choice on his part, so.

"Yeah," he said, trying not to sound as put-off as he was at the fact that they were about to ship him off back home. "Guess we should. I'm going to need to get access to the community, then. They told me to find them that way, rather than arranging for a specific time or anything like that."

[parked]

Climbing out of the car, Sulu nodded towards the door leading into the rest of the house. "That's cool, you can use my computer. It's pretty intuitive and all, so it should be easy for you to use." Then again, if it wasn't, Sulu would be around to help out. He moved to the door, it sliding open as he approached, and he gestured for Ianto to follow him.

If he'd known Ianto was going to be in big trouble for this, he would've tried to come up with something to help him out with his dad, but he really didn't know much about Ianto's life and he didn't want to pry, so he just let it drop.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto made a bit of a face at the thought of him struggling to use the computer while the other boy sat behind him and watched him fail at it. "...maybe... Maybe it's better if you help me out on that," he said, tentatively. "The one that I'm used to is pretty ancient, even by my standards. I'm not... I'm not sure that I'd really know what I was doing, there."

"Not," he said, trying to save face, "that I need help typing or anything like that. It's just...getting the right window open. I. Might need you to help me out on that sort of thing."

[parked]

Sulu shrugged and nodded; he figured it would be sort of hard for Ianto to get used to the interface, but he'd connect it to the community and let him go from there. It was weird, but the community always showed up as a really old, 21st century sort of website. It worked fine for him, and he didn't have to wait for anything to load at all, but it was still bizarre. At least, though, it meant Ianto probably wouldn't have trouble navigating it from his computer.

He led Ianto through the house, listening for sounds of other people but not hearing anything. He knew they were back too early for his parents to be home, but that didn't mean he couldn't be cautious, right? Leading Ianto into his room, he closed the door and went over to the computer on his desk, leaning over the chair to open up the browser and access the site. "Does it look like this to you?" he asked as he leaned back.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto stepped forward to look at the community's main page over Sulu's shoulder and the back of the chair as well. "Yeah, it does," he said. "S' a bit weird, though, isn't it? I mean. The whole idea of the community and all. I mean. I know it's real. I'm not questioning it. I've made a worldhop over here and all. I'm just saying...it's odd. The idea of it. That something like it would exist."

He leaned over the chair and started to flick through, trying to find the journal of the person that had helped him get over there in the first place, not really rushing to do so. "I never really understood what the hell it had to do with ducks of any sort, though," he said, after a moment. "I mean. It doesn't really make that much sense, as a name for the place, does it?"

[parked]

"I never could figure it out either," Sulu replied, "It's a mystery. Probably just some kind of joke or something. If... you know, the community can do jokes or whatever." Sulu waved a hand. "Either way, it's pretty cool, so I'll let the name go. Like, it shouldn't exist, there's no real way for it to do that, but it does. So it's cool." He shrugged and watched Ianto navigate the community. "What weirds me out is the viruses. That stuff is just completely impossible and stuff, but... you know. You have to deal with it if you want to be there. ...And it's not like you can really say no when it invites you."

[torchwoodteaboy]

"That's what gets me," Ianto said, as he tried to find the exact entry he'd made to get the world hop over here in the first place (he could go directly to the post, but that would be too easy and wouldn't take any time at all, and he really didn't want to leave). "I mean. The fact that there are a lot of things on here that the community doesn't really give us a choice in the matter of. Like...the thing showing up in the first place. I mean..." He turned to Sulu, stalling because he knew the entry was just right there, if he scrolled down a bit more. "If you had the choice, would you give it up? This place, I mean?"

[parked]

If Sulu noticed the stalling on Ianto's part, he wasn't about to mention it. He didn't mind that the other kid was taking some time trying to find whatever it was that he was looking for - it didn't really matter, since his parents wouldn't be back for probably another hour or so.

The question made him pause, if only for a minute. "I dunno. Probably not. I mean, it doesn't really do any lasting damage," he said, shrugging. "And besides, it's more interesting than sitting around doing normal stuff. I wouldn't get to show off to a 21st century kid without it, and all." He grinned at Ianto, just teasing him, really.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto rolled his eyes amicably at the teasing. That is, as much as one could roll their eyes amicably at anyone, but if anyone had perfected the art of snark as much as one could at the age of 16, it would be Ianto. "No, I guess it doesn't do anything too bad. I mean. I'm here, aren't I? In the future. And lucky for me, you aren't some sort of...I don't know, creepy peedo pretending to be a kid my age or anything like that."

Ianto scrolled to the post of the person who'd sent him on the world hop in the first place, typing out a quick note that whenever they were ready, they could send him back, getting a response back almost immediately. "They say that they'll be ready to send me off in 5, 10 minutes tops." He turned back to Sulu. "Think you can put up with me for that much longer?" he joked.

[parked]

"A what?" Sulu asked, completely baffled by Ianto's... was that another Welshism or what? Whatever it was, he didn't understand it in the slightest. But when the boy asked if he could tolerate him for that much longer, he just shrugged and rolled his own eyes. "I guess. It's not like I have a choice there, right?" He was joking too - after all, he didn't mind the other kid hanging out for a little longer.

[torchwoodteaboy]

"A peedo," Ianto repeated, before realizing that he should probably go into a bit more of an explanation than that. "You know, a pedophile," he said, although the first syllable of the word sounded exactly like the word he'd said before, 'peedo-phile' and all. "There can be some creepy people out there on the internet pretending to be someone that they're not, and I'm glad that you're not one of them, I guess is what I'm trying to say," he said, awkwardly.

[parked]

Sulu looked skeptically at Ianto, but he didn't really want to start down that weird-as-hell conversation right then and there, so he just shrugged. "Yeah, well, I'm definitely not a creep or anything. Just some kid from the future," he added with a smirk.

[torchwoodteaboy]

"And I'm just some kid from the past. Exactly as advertised," Ianto said, with a cheeky grin of his own. He glanced down at his watch. It'd be any time now that the worldhopper would take him and send him on his way. "Tell you what. Next time, you come to Wales, yeah? There's plenty that we could do in Cardiff. Better not get into any more trouble, though. We got lucky that your parents were away today, and that they trust you home grounded by yourself."

[parked]

Sulu nodded and crossed his arms behind his head. "Sure, okay. Wales it is. Old school European standards and all, right?" He would probably want to read up on etiquette and stuff. Ianto didn't have the ability to do that (and hadn't needed it), but at the very least, Sulu could make it easier to blend in if he had to.