Fic: Camping
Title: Camping
Characters: Ianto, Sulu
Rating: R
Pairings: Ianto/Sulu
Word Count: 3368
Summary: Ianto is convinced that nothing good ever comes out of camping.
Tell me what you think? ;3; Comments/reactions are encouraged and more than welcome.
"Camping," Ianto said, giving Sulu such a look.
"Camping," Sulu confirmed, with a nod and a grin. He was standing there next to a pack of things that Ianto could only assume were tent and bedding type things. Ianto briefly wondered if Sulu had brought food too, or whether he was expected to hunt his own, but he quickly shot down that thought for being too snarky, even for him.
Ianto had apparently stayed silent for far too long, because Sulu spoke up again. "You know... Tent, sleeping bag, spending the night under the stars and the wide open sky...?"
Ianto had to keep himself from glaring at that comment. "Yes, thank you, I'm aware of what camping entitles," he countered. "I've done it before." He wasn't expecting that here, but. At least this planet, with how warm it was and how it was made up of beaches and tropical jungles of alien plants (and god knows what sorts of wildlife) was nothing like the Beacons at all. Besides, he'd been camping on the beach before, even. With Lisa... He swallowed. Hopefully this stay would be different enough that it wouldn't remind him of that. Maybe he'd make his own memories this time. With Sulu.
Sulu seemed to sense Ianto's hesitation, because he stepped up close to the other man, smiling softly, putting a hand on each side of his face before leaning forward and kissing him gently. "It'll be fine," he said. "Don't worry about it."
Ianto kissed him back briefly, before pulling back to look him directly in the eyes. It helped that the only emotion he saw there was honesty. And, well...other things too, but the fact that Sulu wasn't laughing at his reluctance helped. "Yeah, alright," he said. After all, he really did want to believe him...
Ianto wasn't the fondest person of sand, but he did put up with it without complaint. It helped that Sulu had brought a blanket to sit on. And that he was giving him a back massage. Between the warmth of the sun and the softness of the ground below him and Sulu's wonderful hands, Ianto was finally being lulled into relaxing. Which had been the idea right from the start, really. Sulu had planned this trip down for the two of them to relax and spend time just enjoying each other's company without Starfleet or Torchwood to get in the way of that. Hopefully.
Sulu leaned forward, shifting where he was straddling Ianto's waist to lean over and kiss Ianto's shoulder gently. "You haven't fallen asleep on me yet, have you?" he asked. Ianto had become rather boneless and pliant beneath his fingers, after all.
Ianto shook his head slightly, before mustering up a noise. "No, 'm still here," he said, although he was feeling pretty drowsy from it all. Sulu grinned. Sitting up on his knees, so that his weight was no longer resting on Ianto, Sulu spoke up again. "Turn over?" he asked.
Ianto didn't really know why he'd ask that, but he was sure that whatever it was, he'd like it, so after a moment of steeling himself, he shifted, turning over to look up at Sulu.
Sulu wasted no time in leaning forward once more, capturing Ianto's lips in a kiss before moving to kiss his way down Ianto's neck. Ianto, continuing to be lazy and pliant beneath Sulu's ministrations, put his hands on Sulu's shoulders, just resting them there for support as he lay back and let Sulu do what he wanted there, his hands moving from Sulu's shoulders to the blanket on either side of him as the other man kissed his way down Ianto's bared chest. Ianto had been convinced into swimming trunks with Sulu, which, while it made him more susceptible to sunburn, also made it a lot easier for the pair of them to get them off faster.
Sulu's fingers made fast work of the tie of the drawstring of Ianto's trunks and, anticipating where Sulu was going next when he grabbed the waistband of Ianto's trunks, Ianto lifted up his hips and let the other slide them the whole way off. Ianto wasn't too worried about being caught in that moment. He wasn't really too worried about anything right then, actually, but. He trusted that Sulu had found a remote enough place, and they hadn't seen a single other person around all day, so maybe they were in the clear there.
Any worries Ianto might have had, regardless, were entirely silenced when the other man's mouth made it down to his arousal. Ianto moaned softly as Sulu ran his tongue along his length, lazily teasing and coaxing him harder, until Ianto had to whine at him to get on with it. And of course Sulu obliged, swiftly taking him into his mouth in one sudden motion that had Ianto's hands curling in the blanket beneath them and a throaty moan escaping his mouth.
Unlike the other times that Sulu had started on this, Ianto saw absolutely no need to stop him from going the whole way with it. The sun was warm and the sand was soft and Sulu's hands were wonderful and everywhere and it was all Ianto could do to hold on as long as he could before he was panting a warning to the other man that they had mere moments before he'd be finished. Sulu nodded slightly, and with a quick flick of his tongue around the tip of Ianto's erection, his cheeks hollowing slightly as he sucked him off, Ianto came.
It wasn't like other orgasms he'd had with Sulu. For one, it wasn't mutual. Ianto hadn't really done much in terms of reciprocating, other than the noises, which were pretty impossible for him not to make anyway. Of course, said noises were enough to have Sulu worked up as well, but. Ianto wasn't really touching him all that much. For another, it was a slow burn. Rather than crashing over him, overwhelming and blinding, this one hit less like a wave and more like the tide, long and lazy and relaxing and at the end of it, though his breathing was still quicker than normal, Ianto was left feeling relaxed and sated and pretty much ready to fall asleep right then. He didn't, though, instead reaching up to tug Sulu down onto the blanket beside him. He was too relaxed to get up to anything complicated, but his hands were soft and warm as he snuck them into Sulu's swim trunks and wrapped his fingers around the other man's arousal, stroking him towards a climax of his own until the pair of them lay warm and sated, tangled up together on the blanket, entirely pleased and satisfied with it all.
Ianto sat by the edge of their carefully constructed fire pit, rubbing a salve onto his cheeks and chest where he'd gotten just a little too much sun. He'd accidentally fallen asleep on his back for a while, sometime after they'd finished lying around and Sulu had gone into the water for a swim. It wasn't too bad, but he knew that if he didn't put something on it, it'd be worse. Cursing his pale Welsh complexion, he set about finding every spot that might start blistering from the sun if he didn't catch it early, which took a while. A long while. As he finished, though, he realized two things. One, it was starting to get dark. Two... Sulu was taking an awfully long time to get wood for the fire. The jungle was just there. It shouldn't be too hard, right?
So Ianto waited. And waited some more. It'd been half an hour since he'd noticed that it was taking too long before he finally decided enough was enough. Fear gripped his stomach, but he wasn't about to just sit there and wait when god knows what was going on in the jungle right there. All sorts of odd sounds were audible, and not one of them was any sign that Sulu was or was not okay out there.
What was worse was that his phone didn't work, not on a far-off alien planet like this one. No service. A problem so annoyingly normal and yet terrifying. He couldn't comm Sulu. Couldn't call for help. Couldn't do anything but venture out there himself and hope for the best. Hope that Sulu had just found some sort of mysterious plant and gotten distracted, but Ianto knew better, knew that Sulu would come back and take him to look too, just so he wouldn't be leaving him alone on the beach like he had.
And so Ianto set off in the direction that Sulu had headed, taking with him as a precaution the medical kit that he'd found in the supplies Sulu had brought with them, and...his handgun. Just in case.
Ianto had been walking and looking for the other man for what seemed like forever to him. Forever partially to do with the fact that he seemed to be jumping at shadows, which were basically everywhere he stepped in the thickness of the underbrush there. What was worse was he was fairly sure that he was lost. Everywhere looked like where he'd just been and yet there wasn't anything familiar around to recognize. Ianto had a torch with him, but it was dark. Too dark. So dark that he may or may not have been terrifying himself, even without the unknown of being lost and alone on a foreign planet with very little hope of rescue...
He'd started hallucinating sounds of people and creatures and there, enough so that when there was the sound of what distinctly sounded like running in the background, Ianto didn't recognize it at first. But then it was getting closer. And closer. And god, it was coming for him. Coming for him out of the darkness and t and he'd never get away because it would always be there waiting for him and it would get him in the end and--
"Ianto!!" a voice called out to him and he nearly had a heart attack on top of his hyperventilating right then and there. The voice knew his name, and was running toward him, and sounded distinctly like--
"Sulu?!" Ianto managed, as the other man collided with him, grabbing him by the arm and barreling down what little path there was. It was all Ianto could do not to fall over with the sudden unexpectedness of it all as he was tugged at breakneck speed in the opposite direction from where Sulu had come. "Wha--" Ianto managed, before he heard it. Something crashing through the underbrush after them. Ianto didn't need any more hint than that, and picked up the pace with Sulu, until the pair of them were barreling along with each other, Sulu's hand clutching tightly to Ianto's wrist as they ran. There was a sound that sounded distinctly like a roar to Ianto, and made the pair of them run even faster.
Just when it got to the point where Ianto thought he might die if he ran any more, there it was, the edge of the jungle right there in front of them, and with it, a slope of grass and wildflowers leading down to the beach. Which was what Sulu seemed. Sulu seemed to know what he was doing, and Ianto didn't have time or breath to question, so he kept soldiering on.
The filed was unlike anything Ianto had ever experienced, the grass slippery like it was wet, yet it wasn't. He wasn't sure who slipped first, or whether they both were surprised by the sudden change in footing, but regardless, one minute they were running, the next falling over and tumbling down the slope, before rolling to a stop on the edge of the sand, landing sprawled in the flowers.
Ianto struggled to untangle himself from Sulu to get up to run more, but whatever it was hadn't ventured further than the edge of the trees, as if it couldn't come out of the jungle. Or didn't really want to get them as bad as it had originally thought. Regardless it was gone, and they were in the clear and Ianto felt like he was going to die. Throwing himself back down, he forced air in his lungs, the pair of them lying in a tangled heap, gasping for air.
It was a slow process, but gradually Ianto forced himself to remember how to breathe normally, forced the blood to stop rushing through his ears so he could finally hear again. Which was when he realized something was terribly wrong.
Sulu had been running for probably a good while longer than him, but he was also the more fit of the two, and if Ianto was recovering his breath, why was the other man still gasping for air like a drowning man?
"Sulu?" Ianto said, pulling himself up to look at the man in question. His face was deathly white, his eyes wide, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps. "Oh my god, Sulu?! Sulu!! Are you alright? What's wrong? God...are you hurt? Did you break...falling? Was it the fall?" Ianto realized he was babbling, but he was also scared out of his mind, and the looked on Sulu's face was so frightened as well that he just...
Ianto's hands searched the other man frantically, feeling for cuts, stabs, wounds, broken bones, anything. And there was nothing. Besides, Sulu didn't look like he was in pain. He looked like he couldn't breathe. It couldn't be choking, but...
Thinking quickly, the fastest he ever had it seemed to him, Ianto whipped out the med kit that had survived the fall with him and started digging for a hypospray, something like an epipen, anything that could work to fight a reaction to...whatever it was that had happened. Because short of a heart attack, an allergic reaction was really the only other viable option.
Sulu's hand shot out and grabbed a fistful of Ianto's shirt as the sounds of his breathing worsened. Ianto's hands shook as he dug, searching until finally, finally, they closed around one. If this didn't work Ianto didn't know what he was going to do, but he didn't have time to question it, pulling the needle out and depressing it straight into Sulu's thigh.
"Come on, come on, come on," Ianto urged, throwing the needle aside and running his hand through Sulu's hair, moving to clutch the other man's hand in his.
The effect wasn't instant, but it was quick. For a moment, Ianto was sure that he'd just killed Sulu, by how fast his breathing was slowing and he let out a noise of distress, gripping Sulu's hand to his chest, clenching his eyes shut, willing the other man not to die on him. Which was why, when Sulu spoke up, he nearly had another heart attack in and of itself. "Up," the man said.
"What?" Ianto breathed. "'Up'? I don't...?"
"Up," Sulu repeated, struggling to sit. "Up, get... get me up... I need...out..."
Ianto really had no idea why or what Sulu was talking about, but he hooked an arm around his shoulders, helping prop him up. When Sulu didn't stop there, though, he hesitated. "No. Wait. You... Look, you should rest. I don't know... That thing, it's gone, you don't need to worry, just stay--"
"Ianto," the other man's voice cut him off, shaky, breathless, but firm. "Help...me up. Get me up. I need to... The flowers, I..."
And that's when it clicked. Of course. The flowers. They'd rolled around in them. Looking at the pair of them, they were covered in...whatever it was that they let off--not quite pollen. If he was allergic to the flowers then...god. Ianto struggled to his feet, all but dragging Sulu up and out of the flowers to the beach. But he didn't stop there, continuing until they were both in the water, the waves lapping up to their chests, washing over them, and more importantly, washing the flower's residue off. Ianto had to struggle to keep Sulu upright. He wasn't looking too great, but at least he was conscious and breathing, even if his eyes were shut and he was leaning heavily on Ianto himself.
Ianto dragged the pair of them to the shore and sat down, lowering Sulu with him, moving to cradle the other man against him, his head in his lap. Sulu looked positively green, but at least he was breathing normally again. Ianto ran his hand through the other man's hair, rubbed his back, tried to be as comforting and helpful as he could as he silently freaked out.
"Are you alright? Are you...did that work? Can you...?" Ianto tried, questions spinning through his mind, each one sounding a little more frantic, thanks to Sulu's silence in not answering any of them. Ianto was starting to fear the worst, that it was going to happen again and the kit was all the way back there and the hypospray was gone and what was he going to do when Sulu heaved himself upright, throwing himself sideways before he was suddenly and promptly very, very sick. Ianto sat forward, rubbing his back gently, which was all he could do for the other man at that moment.
Eventually, Sulu stopped, and with a groan, leaned back and moved to lie down with his head in Ianto's lap again. "...sorry," he mumbled, sounding absolutely miserable. "Hypospray...that kind makes me nauseous. Should be okay now, though." Ianto nodded, rubbing his back some more. "...you alright?" he asked, sounding just about as shaken as he felt.
Sulu nodded, moving to grip Ianto's thigh gently in support. "Yeah," he said. "I'll... I'll be fine. I just..." he sighed. "I'm probably going to need a trip to medical first, though."
Ianto nodded. Like hell he was going to let Sulu go without taking a trip to see McCoy, not after a stunt like that. "It's alright, I'll take you. Don't worry. What happened?" he asked softly, after a moment.
"Whatever that thing was," Sulu said, sounding exhausted, "it didn't really like me collecting its wood, apparently. Chased me into hiding. But it was mad, really mad, and then I saw your flashlight, and you didn't know, so... I ran towards you..." He shrugged. The next bit was obvious, he figured.
"What about...?" Ianto asked, nodding back toward the field.
Sulu sighed, turning his face into Ianto's thigh for a moment, before answering reluctantly. "...that kind of flower," he said, almost ashamed to say it. "I'm... I'm kind of allergic to it. Really allergic. I didn't think they'd have them here, but. Lucky I packed that hypo, I guess..."
"I'll say," Ianto said. "You should have told me. I could have... God, I thought you were going to..."
"Yeah, sorry," Sulu said sheepishly. "I should have. I just feel dumb about it. I mean, what kind of botanist is deathly allergic to one of his specimens...?"
"This kind, apparently," Ianto said, running his fingers through the other man's hair. "Where's your comm? ...oh god, the water, I--"
"No," Sulu said, "it's waterproof. It should be fine. Here..." He shifted slightly, digging out his comm and flipping it open. A few minutes later, he'd called in the ship and arranged to beam the two of them up in the next couple of minutes, informing McCoy that they were coming, before being informed that they were on standby for transport and instructed not to go anywhere.
Sulu sighed. "I'm sorry. I. I screwed this up," he said. "It wasn't supposed to go like this..."
"It's alright," Ianto soothed. "We have the next few days. We're going to stick to the beach when we come back, though. No jungle, no flowers, no fields, nothing."
"Deal," Sulu said, resting his head in Ianto's lap, sounding absolutely exhausted and almost upset with himself, but smiling at Ianto's hand constantly running through his hair as he reprimanded him.
"And one more request, then," Ianto said. "Well, no, two."
"Anything."
"One, you are going to follow McCoy's medical orders to the letter, no matter what. You really scared me there." To put it mildly.
Sulu found Ianto's hand, gripping it in his own. "Alright, deal."
"And two...you're telling me everything that you're allergic to. So that I know. A thorough one."
"...don't suppose now is a good time to mention that the only thing I'm really allergic to at all is sex pollen, is it...?"
"...what?!"
Characters: Ianto, Sulu
Rating: R
Pairings: Ianto/Sulu
Word Count: 3368
Summary: Ianto is convinced that nothing good ever comes out of camping.
Tell me what you think? ;3; Comments/reactions are encouraged and more than welcome.
"Camping," Ianto said, giving Sulu such a look.
"Camping," Sulu confirmed, with a nod and a grin. He was standing there next to a pack of things that Ianto could only assume were tent and bedding type things. Ianto briefly wondered if Sulu had brought food too, or whether he was expected to hunt his own, but he quickly shot down that thought for being too snarky, even for him.
Ianto had apparently stayed silent for far too long, because Sulu spoke up again. "You know... Tent, sleeping bag, spending the night under the stars and the wide open sky...?"
Ianto had to keep himself from glaring at that comment. "Yes, thank you, I'm aware of what camping entitles," he countered. "I've done it before." He wasn't expecting that here, but. At least this planet, with how warm it was and how it was made up of beaches and tropical jungles of alien plants (and god knows what sorts of wildlife) was nothing like the Beacons at all. Besides, he'd been camping on the beach before, even. With Lisa... He swallowed. Hopefully this stay would be different enough that it wouldn't remind him of that. Maybe he'd make his own memories this time. With Sulu.
Sulu seemed to sense Ianto's hesitation, because he stepped up close to the other man, smiling softly, putting a hand on each side of his face before leaning forward and kissing him gently. "It'll be fine," he said. "Don't worry about it."
Ianto kissed him back briefly, before pulling back to look him directly in the eyes. It helped that the only emotion he saw there was honesty. And, well...other things too, but the fact that Sulu wasn't laughing at his reluctance helped. "Yeah, alright," he said. After all, he really did want to believe him...
Ianto wasn't the fondest person of sand, but he did put up with it without complaint. It helped that Sulu had brought a blanket to sit on. And that he was giving him a back massage. Between the warmth of the sun and the softness of the ground below him and Sulu's wonderful hands, Ianto was finally being lulled into relaxing. Which had been the idea right from the start, really. Sulu had planned this trip down for the two of them to relax and spend time just enjoying each other's company without Starfleet or Torchwood to get in the way of that. Hopefully.
Sulu leaned forward, shifting where he was straddling Ianto's waist to lean over and kiss Ianto's shoulder gently. "You haven't fallen asleep on me yet, have you?" he asked. Ianto had become rather boneless and pliant beneath his fingers, after all.
Ianto shook his head slightly, before mustering up a noise. "No, 'm still here," he said, although he was feeling pretty drowsy from it all. Sulu grinned. Sitting up on his knees, so that his weight was no longer resting on Ianto, Sulu spoke up again. "Turn over?" he asked.
Ianto didn't really know why he'd ask that, but he was sure that whatever it was, he'd like it, so after a moment of steeling himself, he shifted, turning over to look up at Sulu.
Sulu wasted no time in leaning forward once more, capturing Ianto's lips in a kiss before moving to kiss his way down Ianto's neck. Ianto, continuing to be lazy and pliant beneath Sulu's ministrations, put his hands on Sulu's shoulders, just resting them there for support as he lay back and let Sulu do what he wanted there, his hands moving from Sulu's shoulders to the blanket on either side of him as the other man kissed his way down Ianto's bared chest. Ianto had been convinced into swimming trunks with Sulu, which, while it made him more susceptible to sunburn, also made it a lot easier for the pair of them to get them off faster.
Sulu's fingers made fast work of the tie of the drawstring of Ianto's trunks and, anticipating where Sulu was going next when he grabbed the waistband of Ianto's trunks, Ianto lifted up his hips and let the other slide them the whole way off. Ianto wasn't too worried about being caught in that moment. He wasn't really too worried about anything right then, actually, but. He trusted that Sulu had found a remote enough place, and they hadn't seen a single other person around all day, so maybe they were in the clear there.
Any worries Ianto might have had, regardless, were entirely silenced when the other man's mouth made it down to his arousal. Ianto moaned softly as Sulu ran his tongue along his length, lazily teasing and coaxing him harder, until Ianto had to whine at him to get on with it. And of course Sulu obliged, swiftly taking him into his mouth in one sudden motion that had Ianto's hands curling in the blanket beneath them and a throaty moan escaping his mouth.
Unlike the other times that Sulu had started on this, Ianto saw absolutely no need to stop him from going the whole way with it. The sun was warm and the sand was soft and Sulu's hands were wonderful and everywhere and it was all Ianto could do to hold on as long as he could before he was panting a warning to the other man that they had mere moments before he'd be finished. Sulu nodded slightly, and with a quick flick of his tongue around the tip of Ianto's erection, his cheeks hollowing slightly as he sucked him off, Ianto came.
It wasn't like other orgasms he'd had with Sulu. For one, it wasn't mutual. Ianto hadn't really done much in terms of reciprocating, other than the noises, which were pretty impossible for him not to make anyway. Of course, said noises were enough to have Sulu worked up as well, but. Ianto wasn't really touching him all that much. For another, it was a slow burn. Rather than crashing over him, overwhelming and blinding, this one hit less like a wave and more like the tide, long and lazy and relaxing and at the end of it, though his breathing was still quicker than normal, Ianto was left feeling relaxed and sated and pretty much ready to fall asleep right then. He didn't, though, instead reaching up to tug Sulu down onto the blanket beside him. He was too relaxed to get up to anything complicated, but his hands were soft and warm as he snuck them into Sulu's swim trunks and wrapped his fingers around the other man's arousal, stroking him towards a climax of his own until the pair of them lay warm and sated, tangled up together on the blanket, entirely pleased and satisfied with it all.
Ianto sat by the edge of their carefully constructed fire pit, rubbing a salve onto his cheeks and chest where he'd gotten just a little too much sun. He'd accidentally fallen asleep on his back for a while, sometime after they'd finished lying around and Sulu had gone into the water for a swim. It wasn't too bad, but he knew that if he didn't put something on it, it'd be worse. Cursing his pale Welsh complexion, he set about finding every spot that might start blistering from the sun if he didn't catch it early, which took a while. A long while. As he finished, though, he realized two things. One, it was starting to get dark. Two... Sulu was taking an awfully long time to get wood for the fire. The jungle was just there. It shouldn't be too hard, right?
So Ianto waited. And waited some more. It'd been half an hour since he'd noticed that it was taking too long before he finally decided enough was enough. Fear gripped his stomach, but he wasn't about to just sit there and wait when god knows what was going on in the jungle right there. All sorts of odd sounds were audible, and not one of them was any sign that Sulu was or was not okay out there.
What was worse was that his phone didn't work, not on a far-off alien planet like this one. No service. A problem so annoyingly normal and yet terrifying. He couldn't comm Sulu. Couldn't call for help. Couldn't do anything but venture out there himself and hope for the best. Hope that Sulu had just found some sort of mysterious plant and gotten distracted, but Ianto knew better, knew that Sulu would come back and take him to look too, just so he wouldn't be leaving him alone on the beach like he had.
And so Ianto set off in the direction that Sulu had headed, taking with him as a precaution the medical kit that he'd found in the supplies Sulu had brought with them, and...his handgun. Just in case.
Ianto had been walking and looking for the other man for what seemed like forever to him. Forever partially to do with the fact that he seemed to be jumping at shadows, which were basically everywhere he stepped in the thickness of the underbrush there. What was worse was he was fairly sure that he was lost. Everywhere looked like where he'd just been and yet there wasn't anything familiar around to recognize. Ianto had a torch with him, but it was dark. Too dark. So dark that he may or may not have been terrifying himself, even without the unknown of being lost and alone on a foreign planet with very little hope of rescue...
He'd started hallucinating sounds of people and creatures and there, enough so that when there was the sound of what distinctly sounded like running in the background, Ianto didn't recognize it at first. But then it was getting closer. And closer. And god, it was coming for him. Coming for him out of the darkness and t and he'd never get away because it would always be there waiting for him and it would get him in the end and--
"Ianto!!" a voice called out to him and he nearly had a heart attack on top of his hyperventilating right then and there. The voice knew his name, and was running toward him, and sounded distinctly like--
"Sulu?!" Ianto managed, as the other man collided with him, grabbing him by the arm and barreling down what little path there was. It was all Ianto could do not to fall over with the sudden unexpectedness of it all as he was tugged at breakneck speed in the opposite direction from where Sulu had come. "Wha--" Ianto managed, before he heard it. Something crashing through the underbrush after them. Ianto didn't need any more hint than that, and picked up the pace with Sulu, until the pair of them were barreling along with each other, Sulu's hand clutching tightly to Ianto's wrist as they ran. There was a sound that sounded distinctly like a roar to Ianto, and made the pair of them run even faster.
Just when it got to the point where Ianto thought he might die if he ran any more, there it was, the edge of the jungle right there in front of them, and with it, a slope of grass and wildflowers leading down to the beach. Which was what Sulu seemed. Sulu seemed to know what he was doing, and Ianto didn't have time or breath to question, so he kept soldiering on.
The filed was unlike anything Ianto had ever experienced, the grass slippery like it was wet, yet it wasn't. He wasn't sure who slipped first, or whether they both were surprised by the sudden change in footing, but regardless, one minute they were running, the next falling over and tumbling down the slope, before rolling to a stop on the edge of the sand, landing sprawled in the flowers.
Ianto struggled to untangle himself from Sulu to get up to run more, but whatever it was hadn't ventured further than the edge of the trees, as if it couldn't come out of the jungle. Or didn't really want to get them as bad as it had originally thought. Regardless it was gone, and they were in the clear and Ianto felt like he was going to die. Throwing himself back down, he forced air in his lungs, the pair of them lying in a tangled heap, gasping for air.
It was a slow process, but gradually Ianto forced himself to remember how to breathe normally, forced the blood to stop rushing through his ears so he could finally hear again. Which was when he realized something was terribly wrong.
Sulu had been running for probably a good while longer than him, but he was also the more fit of the two, and if Ianto was recovering his breath, why was the other man still gasping for air like a drowning man?
"Sulu?" Ianto said, pulling himself up to look at the man in question. His face was deathly white, his eyes wide, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps. "Oh my god, Sulu?! Sulu!! Are you alright? What's wrong? God...are you hurt? Did you break...falling? Was it the fall?" Ianto realized he was babbling, but he was also scared out of his mind, and the looked on Sulu's face was so frightened as well that he just...
Ianto's hands searched the other man frantically, feeling for cuts, stabs, wounds, broken bones, anything. And there was nothing. Besides, Sulu didn't look like he was in pain. He looked like he couldn't breathe. It couldn't be choking, but...
Thinking quickly, the fastest he ever had it seemed to him, Ianto whipped out the med kit that had survived the fall with him and started digging for a hypospray, something like an epipen, anything that could work to fight a reaction to...whatever it was that had happened. Because short of a heart attack, an allergic reaction was really the only other viable option.
Sulu's hand shot out and grabbed a fistful of Ianto's shirt as the sounds of his breathing worsened. Ianto's hands shook as he dug, searching until finally, finally, they closed around one. If this didn't work Ianto didn't know what he was going to do, but he didn't have time to question it, pulling the needle out and depressing it straight into Sulu's thigh.
"Come on, come on, come on," Ianto urged, throwing the needle aside and running his hand through Sulu's hair, moving to clutch the other man's hand in his.
The effect wasn't instant, but it was quick. For a moment, Ianto was sure that he'd just killed Sulu, by how fast his breathing was slowing and he let out a noise of distress, gripping Sulu's hand to his chest, clenching his eyes shut, willing the other man not to die on him. Which was why, when Sulu spoke up, he nearly had another heart attack in and of itself. "Up," the man said.
"What?" Ianto breathed. "'Up'? I don't...?"
"Up," Sulu repeated, struggling to sit. "Up, get... get me up... I need...out..."
Ianto really had no idea why or what Sulu was talking about, but he hooked an arm around his shoulders, helping prop him up. When Sulu didn't stop there, though, he hesitated. "No. Wait. You... Look, you should rest. I don't know... That thing, it's gone, you don't need to worry, just stay--"
"Ianto," the other man's voice cut him off, shaky, breathless, but firm. "Help...me up. Get me up. I need to... The flowers, I..."
And that's when it clicked. Of course. The flowers. They'd rolled around in them. Looking at the pair of them, they were covered in...whatever it was that they let off--not quite pollen. If he was allergic to the flowers then...god. Ianto struggled to his feet, all but dragging Sulu up and out of the flowers to the beach. But he didn't stop there, continuing until they were both in the water, the waves lapping up to their chests, washing over them, and more importantly, washing the flower's residue off. Ianto had to struggle to keep Sulu upright. He wasn't looking too great, but at least he was conscious and breathing, even if his eyes were shut and he was leaning heavily on Ianto himself.
Ianto dragged the pair of them to the shore and sat down, lowering Sulu with him, moving to cradle the other man against him, his head in his lap. Sulu looked positively green, but at least he was breathing normally again. Ianto ran his hand through the other man's hair, rubbed his back, tried to be as comforting and helpful as he could as he silently freaked out.
"Are you alright? Are you...did that work? Can you...?" Ianto tried, questions spinning through his mind, each one sounding a little more frantic, thanks to Sulu's silence in not answering any of them. Ianto was starting to fear the worst, that it was going to happen again and the kit was all the way back there and the hypospray was gone and what was he going to do when Sulu heaved himself upright, throwing himself sideways before he was suddenly and promptly very, very sick. Ianto sat forward, rubbing his back gently, which was all he could do for the other man at that moment.
Eventually, Sulu stopped, and with a groan, leaned back and moved to lie down with his head in Ianto's lap again. "...sorry," he mumbled, sounding absolutely miserable. "Hypospray...that kind makes me nauseous. Should be okay now, though." Ianto nodded, rubbing his back some more. "...you alright?" he asked, sounding just about as shaken as he felt.
Sulu nodded, moving to grip Ianto's thigh gently in support. "Yeah," he said. "I'll... I'll be fine. I just..." he sighed. "I'm probably going to need a trip to medical first, though."
Ianto nodded. Like hell he was going to let Sulu go without taking a trip to see McCoy, not after a stunt like that. "It's alright, I'll take you. Don't worry. What happened?" he asked softly, after a moment.
"Whatever that thing was," Sulu said, sounding exhausted, "it didn't really like me collecting its wood, apparently. Chased me into hiding. But it was mad, really mad, and then I saw your flashlight, and you didn't know, so... I ran towards you..." He shrugged. The next bit was obvious, he figured.
"What about...?" Ianto asked, nodding back toward the field.
Sulu sighed, turning his face into Ianto's thigh for a moment, before answering reluctantly. "...that kind of flower," he said, almost ashamed to say it. "I'm... I'm kind of allergic to it. Really allergic. I didn't think they'd have them here, but. Lucky I packed that hypo, I guess..."
"I'll say," Ianto said. "You should have told me. I could have... God, I thought you were going to..."
"Yeah, sorry," Sulu said sheepishly. "I should have. I just feel dumb about it. I mean, what kind of botanist is deathly allergic to one of his specimens...?"
"This kind, apparently," Ianto said, running his fingers through the other man's hair. "Where's your comm? ...oh god, the water, I--"
"No," Sulu said, "it's waterproof. It should be fine. Here..." He shifted slightly, digging out his comm and flipping it open. A few minutes later, he'd called in the ship and arranged to beam the two of them up in the next couple of minutes, informing McCoy that they were coming, before being informed that they were on standby for transport and instructed not to go anywhere.
Sulu sighed. "I'm sorry. I. I screwed this up," he said. "It wasn't supposed to go like this..."
"It's alright," Ianto soothed. "We have the next few days. We're going to stick to the beach when we come back, though. No jungle, no flowers, no fields, nothing."
"Deal," Sulu said, resting his head in Ianto's lap, sounding absolutely exhausted and almost upset with himself, but smiling at Ianto's hand constantly running through his hair as he reprimanded him.
"And one more request, then," Ianto said. "Well, no, two."
"Anything."
"One, you are going to follow McCoy's medical orders to the letter, no matter what. You really scared me there." To put it mildly.
Sulu found Ianto's hand, gripping it in his own. "Alright, deal."
"And two...you're telling me everything that you're allergic to. So that I know. A thorough one."
"...don't suppose now is a good time to mention that the only thing I'm really allergic to at all is sex pollen, is it...?"
"...what?!"