[LOG WITH SULU][forward-dated to valentine's day]

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto had gotten back from Owen's birthday party and immediately gone to the fridge to get himself a lager. He had intended to leave early that night to sober up, but. He needed the alcohol. Needed the burn and the haze to get over the fact that he had just been talking to a friend that would be dead in a few months time. A friend who he'd watched

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[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto didn't realize that he was being smiled at, or what have you. He had had enough to drink that the world was a lot simper and easier to manage, for that moment, and so admiring the flowers took all of his concentration, so that he couldn't worry or fret about anything at the same time as take care of them.

He went to the cabinet and got a pitcher out, filling it with water, removing the flowers from their wrapping and putting them in the pitcher. At Sulu's question, he shrugged. "Yeah, I guess you are," he said, honestly. He...had been drinking off and on that whole night. He knew that he wasn't too far gone that one or two more would hurt, but. More than one or two, and he'd probably regret it.

"Only a little bit, though," he said. He arranged the roses until he was satisfied, and turned to Sulu with a smile that was probably more proud of that fact than it would be if he were sober. "You've said that you're a bit of a lightweight, though, so. Not too much catching up to do. Plus, you're going to have to keep me from getting absolutely sloshed. ...it's been a long day," he admitted, before turning to get wine glasses from the cupboard.

[takeitoutofpark]

Sulu managed to pry the cork out as Ianto talked, rolling his eyes goodnaturedly as Ianto pointed out his lightweight title. "Yeah, I know, take it slow." He wasn't about to let himself get too drunk, here. He was planning on doing a bit more than sitting around and drinking with Ianto, that was for sure.

He paused as Ianto mentioned his day, wondering if he should ask or just leave it alone. Finally, though, he turned to the other man, reaching out to take the glasses from him when he was close enough. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, honestly unsure as to whether or not he did. It wouldn't exactly be romantic, that was for sure - but if it was bothering Ianto, Sulu would listen.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto let Sulu take the wine glasses from him, and he sighed. He...didn't want to ruin their evening, by talking about Owen, and yet. "He just. He wanted to talk to me about dying. He doesn't even know what happened to me, and. He wanted to talk to me about it. Invited me to tell him what I couldn't before he died, since I have the chance to now. And..."

Ianto lowered his eyes, bringing a hand forward to brush an invisible fleck of dust off of the edge of the table. "It's. It's too soon after everything that happened with me, to really. To really let myself think about any of that, so. ...yeah. That's. That's really all there is to say, on that matter," he said, although that was technically untrue, considering it was eating at him, even now, more than an hour afterward.

[takeitoutofpark]

Sulu knew that Ianto was upset by the meeting; the way he'd talked about the party before had been enough for him to know that it wasn't something he necessarily wanted to do. That it was uncomfortable, and he couldn't imagine how hard it was for Ianto to deal with Owen in person.

"I don't know him," Sulu said slowly, "So I can't say anything about him. But..." He hesitated, then put the glasses down and brought a hand up to Ianto's cheek. "I know you, and. I want you to know you can talk to me about this. I don't care what day it is, you know." He just knew that Ianto was oversimplifying it, trying to play it off, and if that's what he wanted to do, he'd let the other do it - but that didn't mean he wasn't going to try to get him to open up about it more, first.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto brought a hand up to cover Sulu's on his cheek, shutting his eyes for a moment and just standing there, breathing, taking in this moment. He had felt so helpless, so useless in talking to Owen, that to have this kind of support to come back to, to be able to rely on...it was almost too much. He opened his eyes and looked at Sulu, just looked at him for a moment, before he spoke up. "...sometimes," he said quietly, softly, "I think that you're too good to me..."

Like this moment, for example. Ianto hadn't given much thought to Valentine's Day. He hadn't even thought to ask Sulu over in the first place. But he'd come, and he'd had roses and a bottle of wine from his home, even, and...what did Ianto have in return? A pretty low mood on this holiday of all days. He was definitely killing the mood, that was for sure.

[takeitoutofpark]

Sulu shook his head, leaning in to press a kiss to Ianto's lips; a brief and gentle kiss, but a kiss nonetheless. "Don't worry," he replied, smiling a little, "I'm really not." He really didn't think anyone could be too good for Ianto. "I just like helping you feel better, whenever I can."

That's why he pulled away then, moving to pour a glass of wine for each of them before holding one of the glasses out to Ianto. If anything, Risan wine was sweet and tasted better than any bad taste Ianto's meeting with Owen could have left him with. "Here. We can go sit down and talk, if you want." It wouldn't be any fun for either of them if Ianto stayed upset, anyway. There was all night to get to the romantic part of Valentine's day, after all.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto took the wine glass from Sulu, nodding. This wasn't exactly the way that he'd planned for the evening to go, but. Sulu was good to him, and he would hear him out, and after he'd talked a little, he'd feel better, and then they could go about their holiday more easily. Once again, Ianto was glad that Sulu had brought a bottle of wine. It was suitably more romantic than the beer he'd been drinking earlier.

"C'mon," he said, grabbing the bottle and nodding toward the living room. "We'll bring this in too, so we don't have to get up for refills." And with that, he started toward the living room, putting the wine bottle down on the table on a coaster and doing his best not to flop down on the one side and spill wine all over himself, which he just barely succeeded in.

[takeitoutofpark]

Sulu followed Ianto with his glass in hand, grinning a bit as Ianto tried to keep from completely slumping into the couch. He paused for a moment to toe off his shoes, pushing them to the side of the couch. "Sorry," he said, settling in on the other side of the couch, though he leaned more towards Ianto than the arm of the couch, "I've been in shoes all day. I figured you wouldn't mind." After all, later on... it'd probably be better if he wasn't wearing his shoes at all.

"Alright, so." Sulu held out his glass in a brief toast to Ianto, before taking a sip and smiling at him. "How are you doing, now that... you're back here, and not at the party?"

[torchwoodteaboy]

"It's fine," he said to Sulu. After all, no shoes would make it easier to curl up on the couch with him. And elsewhere. Ianto raised the glass back in a half-hearted toast as well, looking down into the liquid and taking a sip before speaking up. "This is good," he said, unintentionally stalling for a moment as he tried to collect his thoughts. He shifted on the sofa, and unconsciously moved to sit a little closer to the other man.

"I'm..." he said, trailing off and shrugging. "I'm alright. I dunno..." He took another sip of his wine, a bigger one, that clearly showed that he was still a little not alright, at least. "I'm not sure how else I'm supposed to be doing, really. Considering that there's nothing really that can be done to help Owen at all..."

[takeitoutofpark]

Sulu wasn't sure how to proceed, here. He didn't know the cause of Owen's death - all he knew was that whenever Ianto had spoken about him, it had been in the past tense, and he'd always been... sad. Not upset, just....

He took another sip and shook his head. "I don't think there's exactly a standard emotion for this situation, so. His... What happens to him isn't really like what happened to you?" He doesn't want to bring up Ianto's death, but there's no getting around it. "It's not something we can bring him back from?"

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto took another sip of his wine. Maybe he was drinking it a little faster than he should be, but. He couldn't help that, especially because he was about to tell Sulu exactly what it was that happened to Owen.

He fiddled with his wine glass. "I... Owen was shot. We were on the case of someone messing with alien biology to produce pharmaceuticals to cure all sorts of things, but. They were wrong. Torturing and imprisoning their experiments. We... We had to kill them all. And then... The man. The owner. He shot him, right in front of us. And Jack killed that man straight after, but. It was too late. Owen bled out right there, on the ground."

He sighed. "The problem with Owen is that...that's not where it ended. I..." He paused, trying to collect his thoughts. Explanations were hard, when you were tipsy. "Do you remember me telling you about the Resurrection Gauntlet, when I gave you the tour of the archives, that time?"

[takeitoutofpark]

Sulu wasn't about to judge Ianto for drinking; he knew that things weren't as good as maybe he'd hoped they would be, and he knew that the party - well. It was a chance to see someone who'd died, and that was good and bad.

He paused at the question, though, honestly trying to remember. It had been a long time since they'd gone through the archives - he mentally reeled a little at just how long ago it seemed - and he had to think about it before he remembered. "Yeah, I remember you showing me that. It... brought people back after they'd died, but just for a few minutes, right?"

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto nodded. "Well. There were two of them. And the other one, it... It brought people back for good. But not the way the first glove did. The first one brought them back alive. This one..." Ianto shifted, moving a little closer still to Sulu. "This one brought him back dead. He. He was literally undead. He couldn't drink, he couldn't eat, couldn't sleep or heal or anything, and. We all remember that happening. We can't keep that from happening to him, when it's already done. The only thing..."

He trailed off and sighed, heavily, before continuing. "The only thing that I can think of to possibly save him would be. The second time. The time he died for good. He was shut into a nuclear power plant's lockdown. We never found a body, because, well. There was nothing to find. Everything inside the place dissolved. If we could somehow..."

But Ianto shook his head, stopping that train of thought. "Nevermind," he said. "It's. I should speak to Jack about it. See what he thinks about all of this. That'd be a whole lot more useful than sitting here, whining to you about it." He took another large sip of his wine.

[takeitoutofpark]

Sulu couldn't help but feel a little bad for Owen, there, but more than that, he felt terrible for Ianto and Jack. They had to watch him die again - twice. He had no doubt the community would show them, either. It liked doing that sort of thing, he knew.

But still. If there was no body - who knew. Time was a strange thing when the community was involved - like a black hole, it could mess up any timeline and make things happen differently. He imagined that Ianto's fate would've been different, if he hadn't been on the community... and that made him chew his lip a little, fretting it as he thought about the implications of that. Shaking his head clear, he finally nodded at what Ianto was saying. "You're not whining, Ianto. Never think that, okay?" He reached out with his free hand and put it on Ianto's knee. "Don't worry about it. But... I think you might. I mean... You might have an idea there. it's something to consider, at least. For all you know, that's what ends up happening to him...'

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto raised his eyes to Sulu, looking at him questioningly, but. He nodded. The other man did have a point. He... He should go to Jack. Talk to him, see what Jack thought about the matter. See what he was thinking about it already, what he might already have brewing or in the works, or whether he might not have anything at all on the matter.

Ianto took his free hand and laid it over on top of Sulu's on his knee, moving to lace his fingers between the other man's. He sat leaning against his side, no even pretending that they weren't just sitting there, enjoying each other's presence and support.

He raised his glass in a bit of a toast. "I... I'll talk to Jack, then. In the meantime..." He smiled slightly. "Happy Valentine's Day, yeah?"

[takeitoutofpark]

Sulu smiled and met Ianto's sort-of toast with one of his own. "Yeah, happy Valentine's day." He laughed a little, ducking his head as he let the previous conversation drop for the meantime, "I hope that I'm not embarrassing you too much with the roses and the wine or anything."

He took a sip of his wine, mostly because he could use the extra courage alcohol gave, but also because he really did enjoy Risan wine. It was just one of those things. He added after a moment, smile turning a bit sly, "Not that I don't mind embarrassing you so much, so long as we're not around anyone."