[backdated to the 27th][RL WITH SULU]

[torchwoodteaboy]

Ianto worked on filing in the archives, normally a mind numbing task that he'd enjoy to have a moment to himself, but at this stage in the game, it'd almost become torturous. Left to himself, alone with only his mind, all of his doubts and fears came out to play, and he began to dislike being down in the archives by himself, because there were no

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[takeitoutofpark]

If Sulu hadn't known better, he would have thought that the virus he'd last experienced hadn't ended when he'd arrived back at the Enterprise in his usual body. The time he spent as a woman attached to Ianto (and Jack, and then Gwen...) hadn't been all that bad, of course, but having to deal with the aftermath had been pretty hellish. After returning to the ship, he'd been confronted by the beta helmsman, Kirk and nurse Chapel. Apparently his alibi of being sick and wanting to recover in a traditional fashion had worked, but not enough to get him out of a checkup and a ton of busywork that had piled up in his absence. His only consolation was that it was only for a day or two, and that he could just try to figure out how he was going to act on this date of theirs; how suave he could be, what he should wear... How he should talk to Ianto when he called him - that was probably the most important

[torchwoodteaboy]

At the sound of Sulu's voice on the other end of the line, Ianto realized that he needed to sit down, or else he was going to fall down, but there wasn't a chair in sight. So he promptly sunk down against the filing cabinet he was sitting next to, leaning back against it. He was pretty sure that, for all Sulu's words, he didn't actually expect him to repeat his answering the telephone again. Ianto bit his lip, fighting back tears as an overwhelming sense of relief washed over him. This wasn't one of those calls he envisioned receiving from Sulu's higher ups informing him that they'd been instructed to inform him of Sulu's demise, it was actually Sulu on the other end of the line

[takeitoutofpark]

"It's really me," Sulu laughed, breathless and relieved. He practically fell backwards onto his bed, which he hadn't spent more than a few hours in this entire week, and honestly he couldn't even care what Ianto was saying. It didn't matter if he was singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" or anything. He was just glad to hear Ianto's voice, to realize that finally, everything was all right.

He knew that he would have to explain himself soon, and he wanted to. He wanted to show Ianto his old uniform shirt, which was utterly trashed, and to laugh at the aliens that had very nearly killed him from the safety of Cardiff. That urge to kiss Ianto, the one he'd had when he had been a woman in the back seat of Ianto's car, was back - and now Sulu could do that.

"God," he said, still reeling a little from how intensely he was feeling in that moment, "I've missed your weird Welsh accent."

[torchwoodteaboy]

A fist tightened around Ianto's heart, and he had to let out a long breath so that it wouldn't turn into a sob, because he needed to get the emotions out somehow, and those were his only two options at the moment. "...you missed my accent," he said, shutting his eyes and moving his head forward and then back, hitting it against the filing cabinet behind him. "You...you missed my accent."

In that moment, Ianto'd had enough. He'd had enough of all of it. He'd spent the last few days reassuring himself at every free moment he had that Sulu was alright, that there was an explanation as to why he wasn't around, that everything would be cleared up and right as rain as soon as he received the phone call he'd been so desperately waiting for. But now that Sulu was there, on the other end of the line, and he was laughing and talking about Ianto's accent, Ianto was suddenly irrationally angry. Okay, so maybe yelling was his third option.

"No word from you for over a week, and then here you are, talking about my bloody accent. ...I thought you