[RL WITH SULU][backdated to 03-20] Shoreleave: Part 2

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto had thought that one day on the planet had been exciting enough, but the prospect of another, when Sulu had mentioned it, had been too good to pass up. They'd had such a nice time on the beach, after all. It was only fair that they do a little exploring, let Sulu look for the alien plants that he would want to and get to watch the other man

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[torchwoodteaboy]

If Ianto had had the breath to spare to be swearing up a storm out loud, he probably would have been doing exactly that. As it was, he was putting every last ounce of everything he had within him into making sure that he kept going and that he kept his footing. Falling once had been bad enough. Falling again and losing the precious ground that they had gained in the meanwhile would be pretty near catastrophic, as far as Ianto was concerned. That deer thing hadn't been much differently sized than either of them, and the creature had nearly eaten it in one go. If it caught either of them... Let's just say that Ianto didn't want to find out what then.

He looked around, frantically, for some other sort of escape route, as the two of them hurtled through the underbrush. The vegetation that made it difficult for the beast to come after them as fast as it might have liked was also making it near impossible for the pair of them to run as fast away from it as they would have liked as well.

Ianto thought he saw a clearing up ahead, veering off in another direction. Maybe it was the river? If they could make their way back to the river, or a river, maybe...there were some sort of caves or something to hide in? Ianto had no idea, he wasn't quite thinking straight anymore. His lungs and his legs and his chest and stomach were all burning with the strain, but when the choices were either suffer or die, Ianto was quite happy to experience a little discomfort. Making sure he had Sulu's hand firmly in his, he started off in the new direction again.

[takeitoutofpark]

Sulu felt Ianto pull him in a new direction and nearly tripped himself, stumbling a little as he fought to adjust his speed in the new direction. He saw what Ianto saw, however, and forced himself to put on an extra burst of speed, trying to get there faster. If they could get to a clearing - even if it wasn't the river, they could probably lose the creature by doubling back before it had a chance to see which direction they'd gone. And if it was the river, they could probably use it as a way to get away from the creature chasing them.

Gripping Ianto's hand tightly, Sulu pushed through the last few yards of trees and underbrush and into the light that revealed the clearing. He stopped dead, however, when he saw what was before them. Only a few meters separated the treeline from a sheer cliff, and beyond that was nothing but the ocean. "Shit," Sulu panted, unable to catch enough breath to shout it, feeling desperately out of luck for the first time in a while.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto did his best to stop in his tracks as fast as Sulu did, and not collapse right then and there as everything he had within him was screaming at him that this was too much, that he was overwhelmed by it all. He let out a sound of dismay, bending over slightly as he tried to get himself to breathe enough to be able to think beyond the fact that they were going to die, they were going to die on this unknown planet and get eaten by an alien and if he'd wanted to be killed by an alien than he could have stayed in Cardiff and at least then he'd have Jack and Jack's big gun with him to try and do something.

Only one thing was coming to mind, though, as he stared over the cliff down at the ocean, hearing the creature gaining on them from the forest behind them. It was going to catch them, and it was going to kill them, unless. "...jump," Ianto managed, albeit breathlessly. "We've got to... We've got...to jump..."

[takeitoutofpark]

In normal circumstances, jumping off a cliff would be the last thing Sulu would want to do. Hell, even now, with it being his only chance at survival, he was still thinking no way, no how. The sheer height of the fall had his head spinning and he wasn't even all the way to the edge - he could see that the cliff ended in smooth water, no rocks jutting up out of the ocean, but for all they knew, it could be three feet of water and twenty feet of coral or rock waiting at the bottom of their fall.

"Shit," he hissed, hearing the thing approaching and weighing his options. Fighting off a giant alien creature with no weapons and a minimal chance at survival, or dealing with what was at least a thirty foot drop that sort of made him want to throw up even thinking about it? It was an obvious answer, sure, but still...

Grabbing Ianto's hand in his, he swallowed hard and nodded, ready to jump the second Ianto made motions to do the same. He was in Starfleet, for crying out loud - 30 feet was nothing. Right?

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto's chest heaved as he tried to think of what else they could possibly do in that moment, other than the inevitable, but they were really out of options there. He looked around over his shoulder again at the thing coming at them through the trees and let out a noise of terrified frustration. He knew if they stalled any longer it could be the end of them, and if it came between the choice of jumping to his death trying to escape or resorting to the fate of being eaten alive, he'd prefer to try escaping instead.

He squeezed Sulu's hand tightly in his own, his heart going a million miles an hour, his mind just as fast. He knew that they could possibly die jumping off this cliff. He knew that Sulu had a thing about heights, that he'd had a bad experience with falling and that jumping off of a cliff with him was probably not his idea of a good time of things at all, but they were just going to have to take the chance, and hope that everything worked out in the end.

"I'm sorry," Ianto said, breathlessly, taking a few moments to mentally prepare himself and cling tighter to Sulu's hand, before starting forward, hoping that Sulu would be right after him as he went for the jump, figuring taking a running start wouldn't be at all unwelcome, considering they were about to enter a 30 foot free-fall off a cliff and all.

[takeitoutofpark]

Sulu shook his head at Ianto's apology and simply tried to catch his breath himself; when Ianto took off towards the ledge, Sulu gripped his hand as tightly as he could and ran with him, keeping the horizon firmly in sight as he leapt with Ianto over the cliff. He didn't want to look down, but he knew he had to, especially to make sure he landed feet first in the water, instead of headfirst. The sight of it sent his mind reeling, but he honed it in and remembered that he was probably not going to die because of this, because that just wouldn't be right. It was going to be his own sheer force of will, he decided, that kept them alive after this.

Of course, that was assuming he could make any rocks that might be hidden under the surface disappear, but he was too busy internally shrieking at the drop to care - and then they were suddenly in the water, the force of impact making Sulu let go of Ianto's hand, even if it didn't really hurt. As he pulled himself up to the surface of the water, noticing that there were no rocks below them, just sand, he could hear the muffled roars of the creature on the cliff above them.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto kept a firm grip on the other man's hand as they fell through the air, trying to keep himself feet-down as well, not caring if maybe Sulu might be squeezing his hand tighter than was really at all comfortable. They were free-falling through the air, and he knew that this was probably one of the other man's biggest fears, the least he could do was suffer a bit of discomfort in support of the other man, after all.

As they hit the water, Ianto felt himself wrenched away from Sulu as he hit the water at a bit of a different angle than the other man and shot off to the side a little on a diagonal. Luckily, the water was clear, and he didn't go down too far, so it wasn't too much of a struggle to find his way back to the surface. Gasping for air, breathless not only from the run but also from the fall, Ianto broke through the surface of the water, panting as he looked around for the other man, treading water as he did so.

"Holy... Christ," Ianto said, looking up at the cliff that they'd come from, the sounds of the monster there, then back to Sulu as he finally realized that...they'd actually escaped from the thing successfully there. That it'd worked.

[takeitoutofpark]

Sulu broke the surface just a second or so after Ianto did, staring up at where they'd come from with a dazed expression on his face. He was shocked that they had managed to really do that; that they'd run from some gigantic elephant thing and jumped off a damned cliff and survived. With a strained sort of laugh, Sulu looked to Ianto, treading water as he did so. "We did, huh?" he said, before looking back up and adding, "So much for there just being deer and fish on this planet."

He wondered how they'd missed something like that, but no one had really gone too deep into the jungle, so he supposed it was possible that they had just missed it. Whatever the case was, they were past it, and from the sounds of it, the thing was giving up on trying to follow them. He wouldn't either, if he were in its shoes, that was for sure. He laughed again, realizing that through the whole stupid thing, he still had his kit with him - it was floating some five feet away from them, having been let go of sometime during impact. "Holy shit, man."

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto just took a moment to tread water there, breathing, trying to catch his breath and make his heart slow down a little. Luckily, they could both swim. Ianto wasn't sure that he could have handled trying to rescue the other from drowning in the state that he was. He could only just keep himself from drowning, let alone do much of anything else. After a moment, his brain calmed down beyond the 'oh my god what in god's name was that' that it had been stuck in for the last while, and instead he could think enough to be able to turn and speak to the other man.

"Are you alright?" he asked, treading a little closer to Sulu. "What... What the hell was..." He couldn't seem to get the rest of that sentence out of his mouth, however. So instead he settled for the next thing that came to his mind, which was unfortunately, "...we just jumped off a cliff..."

[takeitoutofpark]

Sulu's breath was quickly coming under control; he was sort of used to running long distances on away missions, and so he was accustomed to trying to get his breathing under control quickly. Taking a few deep breaths, he considered their situation for a moment and then told Ianto, "I never want to jump off of a cliff again."

The fact that he'd done it wasn't really surprising, all things considered - Sulu could overcome pretty much anything if it meant surviving - but hindsight was 20/20 and he was starting to feel a little nauseous again just thinking about it. But, hey. They'd survived. He reached out and grabbed his kit before it floated away and looked at Ianto once more. "Through a forest, off a cliff and into the ocean." He grinned wide, "Who says dates can't be exciting?"

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto made a noise that was equal parts frustration and relief and 'oh my god we just nearly died', and ducked under the water for a moment, before popping back up again and treading out further, looking around. "I don't know about you, but I hope that fewer of them are quite as exciting as this one," he said, with a bit of a laugh, that had a bit of an unhinged tone to it that had everything to do with the fact that they'd just been almost eaten and then threw themselves off of a cliff.

He ran a hand through his hair, calming his breathing down, slightly. "Alright, well. That's done. Do you see a way out, anywhere? Not that I don't like swimming, but... I'd prefer not to have to scale a cliff-side to get out of here, if there's an option to do otherwise." He grinned at Sulu, sheepishly. "I don't know whether you know this, but I'm not really an athletic, sporty type. You're lucky I didn't pass out on you, running as much as we had like that." Never mind the fact that he had wiped out, that one time. That was neither here nor there.

[takeitoutofpark]

Sulu grinned at that laugh, understanding it and accepting it for it's slightly hysterical tone. He looked around as well, not really knowing their bearings at the moment. "Uh. I don't know. We should probably swim around the cliff and see if it slopes - it should, too." He didn't want to go climbing up a cliff either, that was for sure.

He took a few moments to swim out along the cliff, looking down the shoreline for a way out. "I think there might be a beach this way," he said finally, "But I can't be sure. We shouldn't have trouble swimming to it." Just so long as there weren't more creatures in the water that could eat them whole - but he wasn't about to suggest that to Ianto.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Best not suggest that there's anything in the water that might pop out and eat him, no, Sulu. There was only so much fearing for his life that Ianto could handle in one day when he's not on the job, and he was pretty sure that he had used all of that up by now. Instead, he followed along, swimming behind Sulu, glad that the pair of them were good swimmers and that there weren't any strong undercurrents or anything that might sweep them away and out to sea.

"You know," Ianto said, echoing his thoughts as his heart-rate finally seemed to be calming down enough for him to strike up a conversation again. "I'm really pretty glad that the pair of us can swim. That jump would have been even worse if there were the possibility of one of us not being able to make it back to the surface after we did so..."

[takeitoutofpark]

"Tell me about it," Sulu called back over the sound of them swimming; his pace was easy and really, if they hadn't just run for their lives from a giant animal, he would have been enjoying himself much more. As it was, he was making the most out of their impromptu swim, not worried about his comm or his tricorder as they were both waterproof.

"I like swimming, honestly. It's one of my favorite ways to work out when I can." He grinned at Ianto, "Of course, I'm usually not wearing all my clothes when I do it." Yesterday had been a really good example of that.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto blushed slightly, recalling the day before as well, and well. He'd rather enjoyed himself, then. Not something that he'd do all the time, but. At the right time, with the right company, he'd definitely make repeat performances. "How often do you get to go swimming, then?" Ianto asked. "I mean. I'll bet there isn't any sort of pool or anything on the ship. ...is there?" God, for all he knew, there could be one. Which was completely weird to think about, but. It was the future, and therefore technically possible. Scotty had said something about making it rain on board the ship if he wanted to, but Ianto hadn't been able to tell whether he was joking or serious on that.

[takeitoutofpark]

"I don't do it very often, especially on the ship, but... you know, when I can." He didn't really have the time to swim, pool or no - not with his job and the community and Ianto. Not that he regretted any of it.

He couldn't help but laugh, even if it got salt water in his mouth. He could see the beach up ahead - they'd reach it in no time. It looked like it led straight back into the jungle, and if he was seeing right, there was even a ridiculously picturesque sort of meadow there. "Hey, at least the water's warm, right? And I think we've found an even more secluded beach than yesterday."