parked | Log with Ianto: Date Night

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Log with Ianto: Date Night

It was strange, really, how much effort Sulu had put into preparing for this date with Ianto. His usual modus operandi was to comb back his hair a bit, throw on a tee-shirt and jeans and just, well, show up. No flowers, no chocolates, no presents, just a casual sort of attitude that usually worked wonders to make the whole situation less stressful for both parties.

But. Ianto was not part of his usual style and Sulu found himself taking twice as long getting ready as he did for anyone else. Hell, he'd even went shopping for clothes he'd never normally wear (with Gwen, who he was pretty sure enjoyed putting him through the wringer when it came to Ianto), put effort into how his hair looked, took three double-glances in the mirror - Jesus. It was only a date.

With Ianto. The guy who had this uncanny ability to make him feel like his awkward fifteen-year-old self just by grabbing his hand.

At least he had an excuse for the gift - he'd told Ianto that he'd bring him a plant, and it was Ianto's birthday present, anyway, so it wasn't like this was specifically date-related. He could still pretend to be at least a little casual about these kinds of things. You know, despite the fact that his stomach twisted into knots as soon as he called Ianto to make sure that no last-minute Torchwood business had come up.

World hopping, luckily, did nothing to mess up his hair (not that you could really mess up the generic look it always fell into when he tried to style it), nor did it cause the plant he had in hand to wither, wilt, or otherwise be destroyed. He'd gone out of his way to find a nice pot for it, something a little more futuristic than traditional terracotta, since Ianto would appreciate that more than tradition. Hopefully.

After all, this whole date was pretty traditional. Sulu even went for the front-door approach, which he hadn't done since his girlfriend in senior year of high school. He shook himself out a bit for a second, minding the plant, so he could get rid of some of the jitters he was feeling, and then rolled his eyes at his own idiocy and just went for knocking on the door, before he could get himself even more worked up than he already was.

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"I'd like that, then," Ianto said, looking at their two hands on top of each other on Sulu's chest. "It's going to start getting cold here, soon, after all. I mean. Not too terribly cold, but. Cold and rainy, which isn't always the best of combinations. And while Ianto himself had also grown up with the coastal breezes blowing the cold air around where he lived, he'd always had horrible circulation, so. His skin, and especially his hands and feet, were all going to be pretty cool to the touch, once the Welsh winter finally rolled itself around.

"You can invite me up to sleep with you in your cabin sometimes too, y'know," Ianto said, moving his head to look at Sulu. "I mean, sure your bed is sort of small for the two of us, but. We managed the last time. It's...cozy." He shrugged. "Y'know. So it isn't just me asking you over all the time, and all."

Ianto pulled a face that clearly showed exactly what he thought of wearing a helmet around all the time. "And look like an absolute twat? No thank you," he said. "I'd rather be concussed than laughed at." His expression softened, and he spoke on a more serious note this time. "I... I know I've said this before, but. Really though. I don't think any less of you for what you did as a kid during that virus. We were both pretty out of line, after all."

"Yeah," Sulu said with a small shrug, sounding embarrassed, "But I was moreso. I mean... I was raised to not strike out in anger, and I still did. I never was able to hold myself back when I got worked up, though. And I called you caveman," he added with a grin, "That was really rude."

He liked the idea of the two of them sharing his bed again; it had been nice, comfortable - cozy, yes. He wanted to take Ianto up there whenever possible, just so he'd have the excuse to get so close to him whenever he wanted. After all, it was the only real place for them to sit in his cabin... "I'd gladly have you up on the ship, whenever you want to come up. Whatever you want, Ianto." And he meant it, too.

Ianto shrugged back at Sulu, although he did notice the embarrassed tone to the other man's voice, so he tucked his head in a little closer to the other man. "Maybe it was. But I was asking for it. I wanted there to be something wrong that I could actually deal with myself, and well." He paused, playing with the fabric of Sulu's shirt. "I guess I got that, in the end, yeah? Neither of us is really any more innocent than the other, all things considered."

He sighed at Sulu's words, the sigh one part happy, and one part well...not upset, but. "I really don't want to be bothering you, you know. I mean. Would it really be alright if I just showed up out of the blue and wanted to sit with you? I mean. What if you're busy or something? I wouldn't want to be in the way, or anything of the sort."

"Well," Sulu said slowly, "I guess we'll just have to settle on the fact that we were both asses as teenagers, and move on." He wondered suddenly what his younger self would have to say about how he and Ianto were getting on as adults, and he laughed a bit at the idea. Scandal and surprise, probably.

At Ianto's comment about bothering him, Sulu shifted, bringing a hand to Ianto's chin so that he could angle their eyes to meet. "Ianto," he said, "You're not going to be bothering me. If I'm busy, I'll tell you. I'm not going to necessarily abandon everything to come down here or have you come up to me, but I'm not going to be bothered when you're there, or I'm here." He moved his hand back to Ianto's hair, smiling, "Just call me before hand and ask. I promise, if there's nothing going on that needs my immediate attention, I will gladly spend all my time with you."

He really, really needed to stop making these promises, because the way his relationships went, he usually ended up breaking them; but with Ianto, he wanted to do everything to keep them, and he couldn't see how that'd change.

Ianto looked up at Sulu from where he lay across him, looking into his eyes, searching, and he knew in that moment that Sulu was telling the truth. He blushed and tucked his head back against Sulu's shoulder as Sulu's hand moved back to his hair, but he'd seen the honesty there, and there was no taking that back. He couldn't honestly understand why Sulu would feel that way about him, but he did understand the feeling, considering he felt the same way back towards the other man.

"Yeah," Ianto said, "alright. I...I'd like that. I'd like that a lot, really. Which...well, it makes me feel kind of silly, honestly. That I could enjoy something this simple so much, but." Ianto shrugged. "It's calming. I know we've only been on one date but. It makes me feel--" He cut himself off, blushing.

Sulu didn't know how to respond to Ianto's cut off statement, eyes looking up to the ceiling as he tried to gather himself up. He had been more honest, more open, more ridiculously sappy tonight than he'd ever been before - sure, he could be charming and honest when he wanted to be, but the truth was that none of the people he'd dated really made him feel comfortable enough to be quite like this.

"I'd like it too," he said finally, hand stilling in Ianto's hair as he wondered over how this guy lying with him was making him like this. He cast his eyes downward, shifting to try and look at Ianto, or at least give the indication that he was trying, "-Makes you feel...?" he asked, prodding a bit.

Damn it. Ianto had known that Sulu was probably going to make him finish his statement as soon as it had slipped out of his mouth. He noticed Sulu shifting to look at him, and honestly he couldn't decide whether he'd rather be hiding his face, or looking Sulu straight in the eye as he finished his thought. Because that was what he was going to have to do. Finish what it was that he'd started to say. And in all honesty... He was almost curious as to how Sulu'd respond to it. Almost being the key word. Mostly he just felt stupid that he'd let it slip out in the first place.

"Makes me feel..." He took a deep breath, not ducking his head, but not chancing to look at Sulu either, because in all seriousness, he wasn't sure whether he could finish his thought if he was looking directly at the other man. "It makes me feel good to be with you. More... I don't know. Safe isn't exactly it. Content doesn't begin to cover it. But. Like... Like things are better, when you're around. If that makes sense. I mean, it's kind of like that with Jack too, but. It's... It's different." He blushed, shutting himself up. He believed he'd gone on quite enough already, as it were. "God, I. That sounds so stupid, aloud. Nevermind. Forget... Forget I even said anything."

Sulu didn't really know what to expect when Ianto took that breath, sounding as though he were about to say something that was too heavy, too serious for the night - or for now, in general - but what he did say made a heaviness he hadn't noticed lift a bit.

"Ianto," he said, before deciding that while Ianto might've not wanted to look him in the eye, Sulu was much more fond of eye contact. With a few quick shifts, holding on to Ianto to keep him from falling off the couch, Sulu found himself lying mostly on top of the other, face to face. "Ianto," he said again, smiling and running a hand through his hair, "That's sort of what my goal with you is, you know. That's probably Jack's goal too. You're hard man to not want to make happy."

Ianto made no move to stop Sulu from shifting them the way that he had, both because he really didn't want to be falling off of the couch, and also because he really rather liked Sulu on top of him. From this position, though, it was impossible for him to hide his face or to not look at the other man, though. Nothing short of shutting his eyes, at any rate. He leaned his head into Sulu's hand running through his hair, really enjoying the feeling of it.

He blushed at Sulu's words, though. Logically, he knew that Sulu would want to make him happy. Why shouldn't he? They were dating and all, and Sulu was a nice guy. He certainly would want Ianto to be enjoying his time. The fact of the matter was, however, that Ianto really was enjoying himself, far beyond the simple 'pleasant night out together' type of thing. "Well," Ianto said softly, reaching a hand out to lay it on Sulu's bicep, "whatever it is that your plan is to achieve this, it... It seems to be working. Because, I am. Happy, that is. Really."

"Good," Sulu responded with a coy grin, "I always aim to please." There was something so nice - comfortable, really, about having Ianto under him like this, with nothing planned except going on in an incredibly sentimental way. Ianto's words throughout the conversation had put Sulu in a strange position; on the one hand, he felt more than content and pleased with how things were going, and on the other, he felt more determined and maybe even a little obligated to do everything he could for the other man, to make sure he was happy (and safe, though Sulu knew he'd mostly have to rely on Jack for that).

Leaning down, Sulu gave Ianto a light kiss, smiling at him. "Just remember to hit me when I screw up, all right? I'm impressed I've gotten this far without my foot in my mouth."

Ianto quirked a smile back up at Sulu, amused by his words. "You know, you keep saying that you're impressed about how good you're doing, that you should have screwed something up by now, and well. I mean, maybe it's just a coincidence and I've gotten lucky with you, but. I really can't remember you actually doing something that might be counted as 'screwing up', as it is. I mean, maybe once, but. I mean, you got around that pretty quickly. I just... I think you have lower expectations of yourself in this than you really should."

He stroked Sulu's arm under his hand, absently running his fingers against the fabric of the blazer, enjoying the warm weight of Sulu's body on top of his. "That being said, yeah. I... If you do do something to screw things up, I will point it out to you. I expect you to do the same thing for me too, though, yeah? Who's to say that I won't pull something that neither of us even saw coming?"

Maybe it was low expectations; maybe Ianto was right. But Sulu had never gone a relationship without making an ass out of himself - there were, after all, reasons why each of his dates ended up breaking up with him, and not the other way around.

Still, he couldn't help but think that things might very well be different with Ianto. He didn't feel like he was going to cause problems or do something stupid to make Ianto upset or annoyed with him. That in itself was a little scary - he'd never felt like this around anyone.

"I promise," he said, "Though I seriously doubt you're going to do anything wrong. I - I'm not even sure I can screw this up. After all, I like you enough to not mess up yet... Much, at least."

Ianto smiled up at Sulu at his words, that he wasn't sure that even he could screw up what it was that they had, a warm, slow-blooming smile that spread another blush across his face in the process, but he didn't mind so much about the blush this time around. Ianto's hand on Sulu's arm went to the side of his face, cupping his cheek and pulling him down to meet Ianto in another brief, sweet kiss.

"I'm glad," he said, although whether it was to the idea that Sulu thought that their relationship was such that couldn't be screwed up by one person just making the wrong move or saying something out of place, or whether it was the idea that Sulu liked him enough to believe that that would be the case, he wasn't quite sure.

Sulu couldn't help but laugh a little into the kiss, completely enamored by the way Ianto was looking at him. "I'm glad too," he said. Sure, he wasn't positive that this relationship was going to always be this smooth sailing, but he figured that as long as he ended up like this with the other, it wouldn't matter.

He paused, thinking over a question in his head that he probably didn't need to ask, but... "Is this all right, though?" he asked finally. "It's not too weird for you, is it?" After all, that had been one of Ianto's main issues when they'd started realizing that they could be more than friends, and it felt like a good enough time to ask as any.

Ianto raised an eyebrow at Sulu, looking questioningly up at him. "'This'?" he asked, not sure what Sulu meant by his question. "Do you mean, like, this?" he said, motioning to the way that they were lying together. "Or do you mean..." he gestured a lot more vaguely, as if to imply the situation as a whole instead, "this..." He could see why Sulu might be asking about the situation as a whole, though, so. He chose to answer that one.

"I... It's not too weird for me. I mean. It's a little odd, if I stop to think about how I never would have seen this coming before it did, but. I mean. It's not bad. I... I enjoy this. I..." He paused. "I don't really understand it. And I don't really know how to handle it, sometimes, but. I. I don't want it to go away anytime soon, that having been said. I." He sighed. "It's new to me. And kind of frightening that, well. That I care so much about where it's headed already. And that there's Jack, and...I don't want to be leaving either of you out. But. It's not too weird. I'll. I'll figure it out."

Sulu couldn't help but find Ianto's gestures extremely charming, smiling and nodding along to the last option on his list. He wasn't so worried about their current position; if Ianto was uncomfortable, Sulu imagined that he would have said something by now.

"I don't think you'll have to worry too much about Jack," Sulu admitted with a small smile; after all, he'd asked permission, so there was no real issue there. "And you won't be leaving either of us out. I imagine you're probably one of the best people for this kind of relationship; after all, you can multitask better than others." He paused, then kissed the corner of Ianto's mouth. "Can't do much about the fear, or the lack of understanding, though. I'm not much better right now myself."

Ianto smiles softly as Sulu kissed him. "Well, that is true. I am pretty good at multitasking. I'm lucky that you're not as big of an ego as Jack is, though. I'm not sure how well I could've handled the pair of you being divas, after all."

He ran his hand to the back of Sulu's head, running his fingers through Sulu's hair, stroking the back of his neck slightly. "Like I said before. If you really are afraid or not understanding anything about this, you're definitely better at hiding it than me. I would never have known, if you didn't just say so, after all." He ran his hand through Sulu's hair some more. "I suppose that we're just going to have to figure it out together then, yeah? You and me. I mean. Jack seems to already know what he's doing, and all, the lucky bastard," Ianto said, with a smile up at Sulu.

"Trust me, egotism is strictly a captain's thing, and I'm just a lieutenant," he laughed, eyes half lidded as he leaned into Ianto's hand in his hair. "And it's not... I'm not afraid of this, really, because I know it'll work, but. It's not like I'm used to dating people who are seeing someone else. I'm not opposed to it, but I just never had to deal with it."

He laughed a little, "Yeah, Jack seems to be ahead of the curve. Then again, he's probably used to that." He almost told Ianto about how surprised Jack had been at Sulu when he'd asked if it would be okay to date Ianto, but he decided to hold off on that. It was probably not Sulu's shining moment, and he had no idea how Ianto would react to it.

"Well, I'm glad for that, then," Ianto said, continuing to run his hand through Sulu's hair and chuckling along with him. "One captain is enough for me, thanks. And about the rest of it..." Ianto took a breath. "I... I can't promise that I'll make the right decisions all the time, because well. This is new to me too. I don't really know how to handle it. And like. I worry that you might think that because Jack came first, and because Jack's more demanding, that I like him better or something like that, but." Ianto sighed. "It's hard to explain. You're different, you and Jack. And I...the way I feel about both of you is different too. Not... Not stronger for one or the other. Just. Just different."

Ianto rolled his eyes at Sulu's comment about Jack. "He probably is. And has been for a long time. Sometimes I wonder if he was ahead of the curve even before, when he was in his own time, but. I don't know if I really want to know, other times. I mean. The only other person I've met from that time period is John, and well." Ianto suppressed a shudder. "He... He isn't the best example of humanity, really."

Sulu found himself relaxing a bit more of his weight into Ianto, feeling more comfortable as Ianto continued to run his hand through his hair - he knew he should probably stop Ianto, because... well, because, but it felt so nice...

"I won't think that," he said, even though he'd already considered it, had even sort of prepared himself for it. "Besides. We've only been on one date - it would be unfair of me to expect anything special out of you so soon." And though Sulu had no idea who John was, he felt like he'd talked to him at least once, and the way Ianto said his name pretty much told him exactly what he needed to know. "Don't worry," he said, "I doubt you'd be so close to Jack if he weren't just the right amount of 'ahead.'"

Ianto didn't really notice Sulu getting any heavier, more like he noticed him losing some of the leftover stiffness about their positioning that he might have had earlier, lying a lot more relaxed on top of him. Ianto supposed he should stop his hand as well, and yet. It was nice. Soothing for him, the continuous motion. He knew that Sulu enjoyed the feeling, but. More than that, he should have felt awkward about it, and yet. He didn't. Which was new, and more than a little refreshing to him.

"We've only been on one date so far," Ianto repeated, adding the last two words onto Sulu's statement. "I... I was kind of under the impression that there would be more to come, though," Ianto said, with a soft, timid smile up at Sulu. "Seeing as how this first one seemed to go pretty well for us, and all." He couldn't find a single thing that he remembered really stuck out as being bad about it. It hadn't been perfect, but perfect dates were impossible, and what they'd had... Well, it made Ianto happy. Happy to spend time with the other man. Wasn't that what a date was all about, anyway? Enjoying your time together?

"So far," Sulu echoed, nodding slightly. "But - yeah. Yeah, we'll definitely have more. I'd like to, at least." He laughed a little sourly, "I mean, assuming I don't have to deal with any more away missions gone awry, or viruses where I'm turned into a woman, or something. But..."

He remembered what Ianto had said as he'd been falling asleep against him, what they'd talked about even before that, when Ianto had come to his cabin because he'd wanted to make sure he was alive and well. "It's all going to work out," he said slowly. "Come hell or high water, I'm not about to let anything get in our way."

Ianto didn't fail to notice that almost immediately after Sulu'd allowed himself to be even the slightest bit cynical, he'd reined it in and was back to being positive again. He wasn't sure if that was for his sake, or whether that was just something that Sulu did all the time, but he was grateful for it. Really, there were a lot of things that could go wrong for either of them, and viruses were the least of their worries. At least viruses reverted themselves eventually, right? Space bears or Weevils, on the other hand... His hand stilled in Sulu's hair.

"Come hell or high water, huh?" Ianto repeated, mulling it over. Ianto just simply wasn't as optimistic as Sulu, and so he couldn't say for certain that they would be able to stop everything that got in between the two of them, everything that kept one from another, but. He was more than willing to try. "Well. I'm not sure that there's much I can do, but. I'm try to keep up my end of the deal as well. Come hell or high water, as you say," he said, with a small smile.

Sulu had only let himself get cynical because that was the way the conversation had been heading on his behalf, but he couldn't allow himself to stay that way. He couldn't allow himself to look at this negatively, because if he started that way, who knew how far he'd go.

He smiled at Ianto and reached a hand up to grab his, the one he had left in Sulu's hair, and held it. "As long as we both want it to work out, it will. External circumstances be damned." After all, he had to keep that kind of attitude, if he wanted this to succeed. And, damn it, he wanted nothing more.

Ianto shifted his hand in Sulu's grip to clutch Sulu's hand back, raising an eyebrow and quirking a half smile at Sulu's words. "You're sure of that, then?" he asked, because however much he might want to just blindly trust that everything was going to be alright, he was too much of a realist to manage it. "That so long as we want it to work out, it will and all. You... You really believe that?" he asked.

As much as he was cynical, and a pessimist, Ianto still wanted things to work out for the better, and if Sulu was so sure of it, sure enough to reinforce his words and answer Ianto truthfully in this, then. Maybe Ianto would feel more inclined to believe him. Sulu really was his strength, when it came to optimism. He hadn't realized how down he used to be on a lot of things until Sulu had come along and started changing a lot of that for the better.

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