[RL WITH SULU]

[torchwoodteaboy]

The past few days had been exciting ones, and definitely not in the way that Ianto would have predicted them to be when he'd first set foot on the boat. They should have known that there would be something wrong with this, but how were they to know that Sulu saying that nothing could go wrong after what they'd accomplished on the first night would

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[takeitoutofpark]

Sulu almost made a grab for a pair of jeans lying crumpled by the bed, then thought better of it as Ianto continued to pull him towards the parlor - if Ianto was going to run out of the room in his shorts like that, Sulu was positive he could deal with being in a towel. He'd never seen Ianto this before; Sulu hadn't realized that Ianto's rationalization and general level-headedness had been the ground he'd needed during this entire haunting, to keep him from panicking too badly, but now that it was all but gone, he was quickly seeing the difference.

The lights started to flicker like candles in the wind as Ianto tried the door, that ugly, terrifying cold chill sweeping down Sulu's spine like a - like someone -

Sulu spun and slammed his back up against the wall beside Ianto, trying to decide if closing his eyes or keeping watch for the possibly physical manifestations would be better. "Ianto," he said, in a very quiet and strained voice that rose in pitch as he spoke, "I don't want to point out the obvious, but our room is haunted and up until now, I could mostly deal with that, but now I am starting to panic and I think I need that door open now thank you."

Well. The calm rationalization of the last few nights had been great while it had lasted.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto tried the door one more time, but still it remained locked. He heard the mechanism turning, he knew that the door was unlocking every time he turned the key, but something was negating that. He thought about trying to find something to pick the lock, but he didn't think that that would work anyway, what with the way his hands were shaking and also with the fact that he'd still get it unlocked to find that the door wouldn't open. Something didn't want them to get out of the room, and that something was more powerful than a simple key in a door.

Ianto lay his head against the door. He heard the panic bubbling up in Sulu's voice, knew that he'd just terrified the other man with how effected he was by this whole ghost thing. He'd been strong for him up until then, but the ghost climbing into bed with him had rocked him, and he needed to get his footing. "Sulu, it's no use," he said, trying to keep his voice low and as calming as he could, because the other man really wasn't going to like what he had to say, "I'm sorry. The door, it... It won't open. I've tried the lock a dozen times, but it's. It's no use. It's not going to let us leave. Not tonight." As Ianto spoke, a shadow passed over the two of them, like someone had walked in front of the light, and yet Ianto knew for a fact that no one had. He shivered.

[takeitoutofpark]

No, that was not what Sulu had wanted to hear. It was possibly the exact opposite of what he'd wanted to hear. He didn't like the way Ianto was referring to the general feeling of unease as "it", like it was personified - which it clearly was, but Sulu didn't want to believe that. He - didn't quite see the shape that passed in front of the light, not really, but it was almost like a shadow in the corner of his eye. He tensed his shoulders, tried to calm himself down.

"This is a bad time to mention that I'm Not good with ghosts," Sulu mumbled to Ianto, "I'm really, really not good with ghosts." He didn't like the cold air, or the feeling of eyes on them, or the footsteps, or the damned things trying to touch them, and he wasn't sure he could keep it together long enough to deal with this.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto restrained himself from telling Sulu that he'd noticed long before, on that first night when Sulu'd woken him up because things had just been odd, that Sulu really didn't seem all too keen on paranormal things. He didn't mention that he'd rationalized things that he wouldn't normally rationalize, just so Sulu would feel a little better about what it was that was going on in their room.

There was a sound in the bedroom, like the noise of one of their suitcases being dragged across the floor. Ianto shivered and stepped closer to Sulu, trying to stay as calm as he could, putting himself between Sulu and the noise. "I know. I'm sorry. If... If I had known about this, I would've...I don't know, propped the door. Found someone to call so we could get out. I just... I didn't think it'd be that bad. It'd never touched either of us before..." Oops. Maybe... Maybe he shouldn't have said that. No. He really probably shouldn't have said that.

[takeitoutofpark]

"...Touched?" Sulu turned his head to look at Ianto, eyes narrowing a bit, though the rest of his expression betrayed how freaked he was. "What do you mean, touched?"

Because, despite his fear, despite the fact that ghosts - spirits, entities, whatever they were - despite the fact they scared him, terrified him even, they were incorporeal. The most they did was throw things around; maybe they'd stack furniture, or make noises, but they never, never were supposed to touch the people they were haunting. If they did, it moved from the realm of "acceptable fear" to "terror," and Sulu... Sulu couldn't do that.

"I really don't want to be in here, Ianto," he said weakly, listening to the suitcase being opened and the whisper of noise the clothes inside made as they were taken out. He tried not to focus on the fact that he could almost hear some kind of talking, or humming.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto swallowed. "Well, I mean that..." he trailed off. Did he really want to tell Sulu about what'd happened? He wasn't sure how the other man would handle that sort of information. He listened to the...whatever it was, unpacking one of their suitcases, almost frustrated by that, because he'd just had to refold all the clothes and put them back in there that morning, had to sift through the entire suite and find all the clothes that had been tossed about, identify whether they were Sulu's or his, and then put them back in their respective suitcases. He really did want to have to do so again. ...but he would.

He sighed. He didn't want to lie to Sulu, because once he started, he was convinced that it would open a door that would never close, so. "I mean... That while I was waiting for you in the shower, it..." He dropped his eyes to the ground, so Sulu couldn't see the fear in them as he continued, his voice dropping low too. "That it climbed...it climbed into bed with me and it. There was an arm around me, and it..." He couldn't say the part about the kiss, he just couldn't. "I thought it was you, but then you weren't in the room so, I..." Ianto was pretty sure he almost heard a giggle from the other room, and it sent chills down his spine.

[takeitoutofpark]

Oh, no.

Sulu practically felt the blood drain from his face as Ianto spoke, eyes narrowing and moving to look towards the bedroom. He heard that laugh - it sent shivers down his spine to hear it, to know that something was in this room and had touched Ianto, and apparently thought it was fucking funny.

Sulu had two different actions he could take at the moment. The normal route at this point, with the fear and hot-cold adrenaline running through his veins, was to try everything to get the hell out of the room. But Sulu knew that there was no safety out there - people had been seeing ghosts out there, and there was nothing to say the thing wasn't going to just follow them.

The other option was to let that adrenaline take over, embrace that fear and move past it to get pissed off at some dead... demonic son of a bitch to try touching either of them.

Sulu squeezed Ianto's hand tightly, and then growled, shouting in the direction of the bedroom, "You think that's funny, asshole?!" Sure, he sounded scared, but he sounded pissed too, and that was the point. The giggling stopped dead and Sulu snarled, "That's right, you shut the fuck up and don't touch either of us!"

[torchwoodteaboy]

Oh, wow. Ianto blinked. Sulu... Well, on top of sound pretty freaked out, like he had been before, there was a really dangerous tone to his voice, a really angry and feral quality, and well. While Ianto appreciated the sentiments, and probably given a normal situation would have more than welcomed the other man backing him up that ferociously, he... He wasn't sure that it was such a great idea there and then, considering that they were up against ghosts, and well. They couldn't hurt a ghost, but a ghost could probably get them, if it really tried.

Ianto squeezed Sulu's hand gently, putting his other hand overtop of the other man's, trying to comfort and calm him down. "Sulu..." he said, softly. "Maybe... Maybe it's best if we didn't--"

Whatever he was going to say was cut off by the sound of one of the lamps in the bedroom crashing against the wall in a sudden, very loud sound of broken glass, that made Ianto jump a little in surprise, and stop everything that he had been about to say. It was probably too late by then, anyway, the initial damage had been done.

[takeitoutofpark]

"I'm not letting it touch you again," Sulu said, holding Ianto's hand tightly. He found himself nearly charging up, as though this was just the beginning of a very loud yelling match with a non-corporeal being. And then there was the sound of glass shattering as a lamp hit the wall that separated them from the bedroom. "Shit," he hissed, recoiling because if it was getting violent...

He wasn't sure where to go or what to do at that point, an the sound of glass crunching underfoot made Sulu pull Ianto back, away from the wall an away from the door. And then the footsteps changed from slow and steady to a quick dash, and one of the crystal glasses on the coffee table flew at Sulu, crashing a foot or so away from him against the wall. "Shit!"

[torchwoodteaboy]

Shit was right. Ianto very much agreed with that statement. Up until things had started to be thrown around, his largest concern was staying calm and the possibility of not getting a single wink of sleep that night, but now... Now he was more concerned for their safety, and getting out of there unharmed. There was a serious possibility that one of them was going to get hit with something that this thing decided to throw at them, or cut by one of the shards of glass, and that had stepped the terror of the situation up a few notches. "I'm...I'm not sure that it touching me is going to be the issue, anymore..." he said, quietly.

Rule number one of paranormal investigating, which unfortunately Sulu hadn't known about, and really, why should he have? Don't try to provoke whatever it is, especially if there's a chance for it to get violent. Ianto...didn't know what to do. There wasn't any way out, there wasn't a safe place to hide and wait it out, they were in the thick of it all. He heard a loud whisper, sounding like his name, coming from the space between his head and Sulu's, and then the settee shifted very quickly, rotating in its place almost a foot's distance.

A metal cigar box on the desk by the window started rattling, and it was all Ianto could do to tug Sulu out of the way before it went crashing to where his shoulder had been a second ago, leaving a dent in the wall before thudding to the ground. Shit just about covered it. "Christ! Are you alright?" he asked, glad that he'd noticed the thing flying at them before it had been too late.

[takeitoutofpark]

Getting a metal tin thrown at him had a way of making Sulu really regret getting angry and lashing out. Mostly because there was nothing for him to fight off - it couldn't be put into a chokehold; they couldn't even see the thing, know if it was by them, if it wasn't -

"I'm fine," he said weakly, keeping his eyes locked on the room instead of Ianto - he wasn't going to let the same thing happen twice, and he was going to make sure to get out of the way himself, next time. "Probably... shouldn't have said that," Sulu mumbled, as the desk pulled away from against the wall and then slid as though it were on wheels, slamming into the wall across from them.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto shook his head, clutching at Sulu's hand as he watched the furniture moving around of its own accord. Really, those pieces were heavy. There should absolutely be no way that the desk sliding across the floor like that was even possible, let alone with a force great enough to make it hit the wall that violently.

Ianto frantically tried to remember all the training that he'd gone through for Torchwood One. It'd been a lot more in-depth than anything Jack made the others who'd joined Torchwood Three go through. Yvonne had been nothing if not thorough, cold, heartless hag that she was. On top of psychic training, minor combat training, and all other sorts of sessions he'd had to sit through, he was pretty sure that they'd covered at least something that might be helpful in this.

"We..." Ianto called out, stepping in front of Sulu just in case his trying to talk made anything happen, trying to make his voice steady, "we're sorry to have...to have offended you! My friend here, he..." God, he felt mad, talking to thin air. "He's just not used to these sorts of things. Listen. If... If you could just unlock the door, then we'd be--!" A chill went up his whole side, the one furthest away from Sulu, and something that felt like a very cool hand pressed against his cheek, causing Ianto to cut his sentence short, his tone tilting upwards in surprise. As much as he was trying to play the strong role, there, he really wasn't ready for it to touch him again, and so he quickly backed away from it, and right into Sulu.

[takeitoutofpark]

Telling this thing that they were sorry was, first of all, a lie, because the only thing Sulu was sorry for was that he couldn't beat it up. It was also apparently the wrong thing to say, as Ianto's voice pitched and he stepped back. Sulu grabbed him by the shoulder and watched as the lights flickered, dousing the room in darkness for a few moments before returning.

"I don't think that's going to help either," Sulu mumbled into Ianto's ear, feeling woefully underprepared standing there with Ianto in a towel. He knew that he'd probably made the wrong move, yelling at the thing, and his fear was compounded when he heard that godforsaken voice call out Ianto's name from somewhere near the settee. The decanter and the caddy it was in shook, rattling against the coffee table. Sulu suddenly didn't care that he wasn't exactly dressed for a haunting, so long as all that crystal stayed the hell away from them.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto weighed their options. Provoking it obviously wasn't the right way to go about things, since having things thrown at him, or well, thrown at Sulu, generally wasn't the best of circumstances, but. He really didn't want that thing to ever touch him again, if he could help it, so. Apologizing and trying to reason with it wasn't going to work either. He didn't exactly appreciate Sulu pointing out that it didn't, though.

"Look, I... I'm trying here," Ianto whispered back to Sulu. "I know that you only had my best interests in mind, and that well, you're really not used to this sort of thing at all, but. Yelling at it really wasn't the best thing to've done back there," Ianto said, his eyes never leaving the decanter on the table. It started to shake more violently in its place, like whatever it was was trying hard to pick it up and throw it, but it hadn't mustered enough strength to do so yet. "Just...just play along, and maybe we'll actually make it out of here at some point, alright?"

[takeitoutofpark]

In all fairness, Ianto had pointed out Sulu's yelling hadn't worked, too. "If it hadn't decided to touch you," he hissed, "I wouldn't be yelling at it." As far as he was concerned, this was all the ghost's fault.

Still, Ianto had far more knowledge on how to handle ghosts an the like, so he fell silent, gritting his teeth and closing his eyes because, this whole thing just was too much for him at that moment.

"Yeah," he said, directing his voice towards the decanter, "I'm... sorry about that." If Ianto felt crazy talking to thin air, he had no idea how Sulu felt.

[torchwoodteaboy]

Well, in truth, it really was the ghost's fault. If the ghost hadn't done anything, than there would be no reason for them to be in the parlor, trying to reason with it after being upset by its actions. Ianto winced at the tone in Sulu's voice as he spoke back to him, knowing that this wasn't easy on the other man, and that he was going to have to be exceptionally understanding in all of this.

As Sulu spoke to the ghost, Ianto squeezed his hand in support. He was really glad that Sulu was humoring him and making the effort to try things that were definitely less than an exact science, like reasoning with ghosts. "We're..." Ianto swallowed, picking up where Sulu left of. "We're not going to do any more yelling at you, so. In return, could you... Could you please calm down a little? We're... We're not trying to do anything to harm you..."

The decanter slowly stopped rattling in its place on the table, and the room fell eerily silent as all of the noise from things moving about suddenly stopped. "Th-thank you," he said in response to the ghost, although he turned to look at Sulu, addressing him as well. There was another whispering, the same voice as before, repeating his name, and then the giggles that had happened before. He wasn't sure how it knew his name, or why it kept repeating it, but he figured that if how it had reacted before was any sort of clue, he should probably just let it keep repeating, however uneasy it made him feel.