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.

Comments

[torchwoodteaboy]

"Oh, ha bloody ha," Ianto said, in response to Sulu's line about walking manually. Of course, the sarcasm was dampened by the fact that he was generally overwhelmed and interested in everything that there was around him. It definitely was an 'Asian' household, but then again, Sulu himself was some kind of Asian, so. It worked for his family.

Ianto rolled his eyes at the 'open door policy' bit, though. "God some things never do change over time, do they?" he wondered aloud. "It's the same at my house." Except...Ianto's door did have a lock. One to lock him in. Not that he was going to share that, though. It...was a little too uncomfortable to bring up in a casual conversation.

[parked]

"Nope. I think it's like an ingrained trait of all parents to never want their kids to have too much privacy. Not that it matters or anything." After all, it wasn't like he did anything that he needed to keep from them, really. Other than sneak a 21st century kid into his house, apparently, but whatever.

The door to the garage slid open, only to reveal something a bit more like a tiny air hangar than a regular garage. There was a side-sliding door for the exit, and a relatively small, helicopter sized aircraft sitting to the far wall. Closer to them, though, was the hovercar - pretty standard, really, with black paint and a retracted roof that made it look a bit like a convertible, only without wheels. It was a retro design, but it worked as far as Sulu was concerned. "Here we go," he said, sliding a glance at Ianto to take in his reaction.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto wasn't sure which bit he was more overwhelmed with. The garage itself, the way it looked, or the individual things that were in it. He glanced sidelong at the plane-looking thing, but decided that it was safer to leave the option of something that really flew out of the mix, and focus on this hovercar.

And...what a weird thing it was, really. All sleek and expensive, but then there weren't wheels so. It almost looked wrong, in a way. Like an unfinished sports car, if that made any sense. Like someone forgot to finish it by adding on the wheels and where the wheels should go, so it was just sitting instead on the floor in the middle of an aircraft hanger. "...that's a hovercar?" Ianto asked trying not to sound as impressed and yet wary as he felt in that moment.

[parked]

"No, it's just a car without wheels," Sulu said with a grin, before moving to grab a remote off of the shelf on the wall. "The bad thing about my parents is, they trust me too much sometimes," he said, moving to the passenger's side and pressing the button on the top of the door, pulling it open for Ianto.

"It's fine, I only scratched it," he said, trying to reassure Ianto a bit, "It's just that it's custom, so they want me to learn to be especially careful. But I'm not planning on showing off," much, "so it should be okay. So long as we're back before seven."

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto looked skeptically from the car to Sulu holding the door open for him back to the car, before he nodded. "Yeah, alright," he said, before getting in and closing the door behind him, wondering what the remote that the other boy had grabbed was for. Wondering also what Sulu had been doing to scratch the car in the first place. Maybe it'd been a mistake to get in after all...

He wondered at the seven comment. Not that he was planning to be there forever, but. "That when your parents will be home, then?" he asked. He was proud of the other boy for pulling this and doing something fun, in his honor, especially while grounded. That took guts, after all. Still. "You're sure that they're not going to come back before then and surprise you, yeah?"

[parked]

"Nah, they never try to surprise me. They're heading down to Bakersfield, it'll take them a while to get back, anyway." Sulu moved to the driver's side door, climbing in before pressing a button on the remote to start the engine, triggering the gravitational field that brought it up to a nice three feet off the ground.

He remembered suddenly that, uh, he should be buckling up, just in case - and so he motioned to the relatively 21st century seat-belts. "They're not exactly standard - usually you have at least two straps, but my dad thinks these look better, so." Another button on the remote triggered the garage door, which slid sideways instead of vertically - another weird thing his dad happened to like.

[torchwoodteaboy]

At the press of the button, and the hovering of the car, Ianto's hands were instantly fastened around both the armrest on his left and the door handle on his right. At Sulu's motioning to buckle up, he nodded, loosening his grip on both those things to grab at the seat-belt, going to do it up.

The horizontally sliding garage door was another neat, futuristic touch. If Ianto hadn't been so unnerved by the fact that they were hovering and that no part of the vehicle was touching the ground, he would've been suitably impressed. As of that moment, though...he was just incredibly wary. But trying not to show it, as much as he could, because. Well, freaking out too much in the presence of another boy relatively his age just wasn't on.

[parked]

Sulu noticed that Ianto was... well, maybe a little worried about this whole thing, so he decided to go slow, putting the vehicle in gear and accelerating forward slowly with just a few quick button-pushes, most of them done without even a glance. He knew this car inside and out, after all. Once they made it out of the garage and onto the street, he brought it up a little higher off the ground, just for the hell of it, then accelerated to the speed limit of 35.

"See?" he said, obviously at home in the car, which honestly drove like any car except for being a little smoother of a ride, "I wasn't lying. I really have a hovercar."

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto nodded, stiltedly. He was unconsciously gripping the door handle again, unaware that he was doing it, but still doing it nonetheless as he tried to school his expression into something more neutral than a cross between 'oh my god, we're in a hovercar, this is the most brilliant thing ever' and 'oh my god, does this kid know what he's doing, what if we crash and die'.

"You... You really do have a hovercar," Ianto repeated, sounding...well. A bit overwhelmed, but excited at the same time. He wondered at how it drove, what the buttons were for, but he knew better than to ask; he just wouldn't understand no matter how he tried. Instead he opted for a much simpler option. "...a hoverconvertible, even," he said.

[parked]

Sulu laughed and nodded, "Yeah, a hoverconvertible. It's all mostly custom, my dad had a big hand in it. I guess he just likes this kind of thing. We have a regular car," he added, "But I figured I needed to prove this thing to you more than an electric car."

His home was near the top of one of San Francisco's many steep hills, and so it took them a few turns to get down to the streetlight for the main thoroughfare. "Usually people are actually flying these things, like..." He pointed to a few distant cars in the air as they headed down the slope, all a few miles away, "Like that, but I've got a permit, technically, so I'm not supposed to go over thirty-five feet yet."

[torchwoodteaboy]

"Does it have a top?" Ianto asked, turning in his seat to look at the back of the car. "Or does it just have to stay inside when it rains?" Could hovercars even work in the rain? How the hell should he know, they weren't even invented in his time. And how did braking work? God, they were going to die, weren't they.

Ianto hadn't been really paying attention to the roads when he was looking out the window of Sulu's room, but now that they were going to be driving on them... Ianto swallowed. Hard. He was suddenly very glad that Sulu could only fly so high. "So...how old do you have to be for a license to fly higher, then?" he asked.

[parked]

"Yeah, it has a top, but c'mon. It's a nice ride without one, right?" He looked over to see Ianto looking not too comfortable, and even though he really did want to make the other feel more at ease, he couldn't help but be a little smug about it. That's what you get for not believing me, he figured.

"You have to be sixteen," he added, stopping at the light as it changed to red. He wasn't about to run yellow lights with Ianto in the car, that was for sure. He was actually still trying to decide where they should even go for food, other than somewhere simple. It wasn't like this was a date or anything. "Which I will be, eventually, and I can fly other aircraft so I don't really need to be flying around with a hovercar. I usually don't go over twenty-five in this, anyway."

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto nodded at the bit about the top and the age that he needed to be to get a license. He was so busy freaking out about the car, though, and how high that it could go that he almost missed the other bits to what Sulu was saying. Almost.

"Wait," Ianto said. "You mean...that those other things in your garage, the ones that looked like real, proper flying science fiction...whatever they are's. You're telling me that you can fly those?" He shook his head. "Aren't there any limitations on any of these things? I mean. I know your parents don't want you to, but. Are you technically supposed to be allowed to drive this around like you are right now?"

[parked]

Sulu couldn't help but be a bit proud of his answer, puffing up a bit as he said, "Yeah, I've learned how to fly most types of aircraft. I'm just good at it." It wasn't even really a boast, this time; it was just the truth. The light changed and he hung a left into light traffic, glancing over at Ianto.

"It's not legal, exactly, but I've got a legal permit for most of the stuff I take out, just because it can be useful for me to be able to do it. I'm not allowed do everything I can do, though, until I'm sixteen." That didn't mean he didn't do it, of course...

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto wasn't really sure whether to believe Sulu about the whole being good at flying most types of aircraft bit, but. So far, he didn't seem...too bad of a driver, or anything, so. Maybe this was the truth. He hadn't pulled any stunts. Yet. Ianto didn't really even mind the not legal part. He just...wanted to make sure that he wasn't going to get in trouble in the future in a world where he had absolutely no idea how to get out of trouble.

"Yeah, right," he said. "Most types of aircraft? At your age? Don't say stories," Ianto said, not realizing he sounded horribly Welsh, with his valleys slang like that. If Sulu was telling the truth, though...he'd be pretty impressed, all things considered.

[parked]

"I'm not saying stories," Sulu said, raising an eyebrow at Ianto for that terrible bit of grammatical slang, "I'm just telling the truth. I can fly most kinds of aircraft. I'm... going to try to learn how to pilot spacecraft as soon as I'm able to." Which meant getting into Starfleet, and telling his family about it, and... well, it was going to be a little dance and song to get that to work out all right.

"It's not really that surprising, is there? I mean, there are probably things you can do that other people can't. It's just my talent." That and fencing, but that was something that didn't necessarily come naturally. He'd just been learning since he was a kid.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto turned his head to look out...well. Where the window would be, if it weren't rolled down. "Yeah," Ianto said, trying to be cocky as he did so, "'course there are." He just...couldn't think of anything that he was good at that anyone would think was cool. ...couldn't think of anything that anyone would be proud of him for. He sunk in his seat a little, both because he was uneasy and also because he was suddenly upset with his life all over again.

"How far away is this place, anyway?" he asked.

[parked]

Sulu was just about to ask Ianto to elaborate when the other boy asked him where they were going. It took him a minute to decide where they should go, but he knew a place down by the pier that would probably be best for them. "Ten minutes, depending on traffic. Then again, I have no idea if the place is gonna be overrun with cadets trying to get lunch in before their classes, or whatever, so. Here's hoping they go somewhere closer to the Academy."

He took a bit of a sharp right suddenly, realizing that they were going to have to actually go to the restaurant if they wanted to eat. "Sorry," he apologized, though he didn't sound too upset by it. He suddenly pointed to Ianto's right, just briefly enough to point out a tall, blue Andorian dressed in the red cadet uniform of the Academy, grinning a bit. "See, I wasn't lying about alien life, either. But don't tell anyone, I'm pretty sure it's breaking the law to show them to you."

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto blanched, clutching the door frame as they turned the corner sharply. He had absolutely no idea where they were going, so he hoped that the other boy did, because that was yet another thing that he didn't want to have to experience, being lost in a foreign world with absolutely no way of getting home save for the kid who'd gotten him lost in the first place, so.

But then there was an alien and Ianto's mind was solely focused on that. "...oh my god," Ianto said, trying to hard not to stare open-mouthedly. "...they're blue."

[parked]

"Yep," Sulu said, laughing, "Blue. Couple that with the antennas and the white hair and I think you can't really say he's just a performance actor, or anything. Andorian, by the way, that's what he is. And that," he pointed to three green-skinned people, two women and one man, on his side of the street.

"Orions. Tellarite," pointing to a more warmly dressed person with a distinctive looking snout and a long beard. "And, you know. Humans, everywhere, because this is still Earth. Don't worry, it hasn't been replaced or anything." He pulled up at the stoplight as a group of cadets, mostly humans, passed by the crosswalk. "That red uniform means they're cadets at Starfleet Academy. Uh, that's like... a military school."

[torchwoodteaboy]

The Tellarite Ianto really didn't know what to think about, but the Andorian, and those Orions... God, but. They were fascinating. Gorgeous, at least in the case of the green women. And all of them vaguely human in appearance, so. At least that was good. No...well. God, who knows what an alien would look like. Apparently like that, but. There could be some really odd ones out there.

"Starfleet?" Ianto questioned, finding it hard to tear his eyes off of the Orion women, although he did so eventually, turning instead to stare at the Starfleet cadets now. "So. Is this the only place that there is an Academy, then? I mean. Why here of all places?" Not that he was going to argue for there to be one in the UK, certainly not in Wales, but. Ianto didn't really know all that much about America, and it was really showing.

[parked]

"San Francisco's the official Starfleet headquarters. I mean, the Federation is widespread and all, but it was founded here in 2161. So, everything just sort of gravitated here, instead of, like, Vulcan or something." Sulu shrugged, accelerating the moment the light turned green despite a Cadet that had been about to enter the crosswalk. He rolled his eyes, "The only problem is that some of them act like they own the city. Which is sorta true, I guess, but seriously. It's a green light," he groused, checking his mirror.

"Anyway, the Federation was founded in 2161, like I said, and the Academy was created to train Starfleet officers. It made sense to put it in San Francisco, I guess."

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto gripped the door handle of the car tightly as Sulu pushed the car through the light right before that Cadet crossed the road, biting back a hiss to be careful and not kill anyone. He...wasn't sure how bad being run over by a hovercar would be as opposed to a regular car, but. He didn't want to have to watch and find out, either.

"...but why? I mean. Why is Starfleet in San Francisco anyway, and not... I don't know, somewhere else? I mean. I'm not sure what there really is in San Francisco in my time." Which could be showing his ignorance, but. Really, though.

[parked]

"It just... is. I dunno." Admittedly, the only reason he didn't know was because he didn't always pay attention during Civics, especially when it came to things that he really should know, but he was sure he could look it up later. He probably would, too, now that Ianto had brought it up.

"We're going to Pier 39, by the way," he added, "So you'll get a good look view of the Golden Gate bridge and stuff. It's like a classic tourist spot, but that's where all the good food is, you know? In tourist spots."

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto was a little annoyed that Sulu didn't know (people should know their local history, shouldn't they? Ianto certainly knew his), but he wasn't going to press it. He just gave himself a mental pat on the back for having stumped the other.

"Pier 39?" Ianto asked. "I'm guessing...that it's by the ocean, then?" Unless it wasn't, and that was just what it was called, in which case Ianto would feel stupid, but. It was a reasonable assumption, and all. If it was by the ocean, though...at least that'd be something familiar. Granted, not the same ocean, but. At least there wouldn't be any surprises, there.

"God, though. Anywhere that has good food would be top. I'm starving." He hadn't had much to eat before going out--he didn't want his dad to catch him and make it impossible to come in the first place, as it were.