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Who: John Sheppard, Ianto Jones & TJ!
What: ~~Florida~~ California Man introduces air-force medic to his roommate
When: Early in the month, when the new folk are waking up!
Where: Mess hall!
Warning(s): N/A

John had deferred the giant mech adventure for now -- since TJ was new and all, and it seemed like there was probably a lot of context and... general local information that might be beneficial to go over before plunging down in a time-frozen dystopia to tidy up after a dragon.

He's been evasive, which he feels a little bad about but overall he's not... quite sure he wants to open with 'oh, yeah, I was a branch of the US military which did space travel' right off the bat. It's meant to be classified, and sure he's... reasonably sure all that stuff no longer applies when Earth, New Lantea and probably all the other off-world bases have been eaten by the storm but --

But it's just such a long conversation, and people ask questions and he's tired and just wants to be normal for five minutes. So he's briefly mentioned Antarctica, Afghanistan, a vague summary of how he's flown in every continent and is currently idly going through 'my first adventure with the Natha' over a cup of tea and a plate of cheesy fries.

"So they finally beam us down to the planet," John is saying, "And this guy Voss is giving this twenty minute speech on how the Light of Thesa is a blessing or something and Thesa is a goddess who watches over them -- and I'm pretty sure the light is the teleport. But -- we're not meant to say, right? We've got to blend in. Pretend we're just local refugees even if we're all mismatched and weird. So --"

He pauses to take a sip of his drink, then something in his expression changes and he begins waving at someone behind TJ.

"Hey! There you are! TJ, this is Ianto Jones! Ianto, First Lieutenant Tamara Johansen -- Air Force. I was just giving her the delightful story of our first adventure out on the surface." Which was... definitely memorable, but John hasn't actually gone over all the more memorable bits and was probably planning to skip those. He glances back at TJ and flicks an idle smile. "Ianto's my roommate, he's in charge of telling me no. Ianto, sit!"

Apparently the 'no' part doesn't apply to things like diet choices. So Ianto should join them and eat more cheesy fries! They're in the middle of the table for a reason.

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Look, this wasn't the usual but things like this did happen from time to time. Blame Billis Manger, alright? Ianto's still not even sure what the man had been, other than ridiculous and creepy.

He glances aside to TJ, as if to apologize in advance for this conversation -- and for John for that matter, he knew he was going to ask about this as soon as he saw that look on the other man's face -- before he turns back to the other man to respond.

"The Great Devourer. Son of the Great Beast," he continues. As if the rest of it weren't enough. "Cast out before time." He pauses a moment, before raising his eyebrows and explaining, "It's in the Bible, it's not like I'm just coming up with this stuff on my own."

Edited (html) 2018-08-20 03:01 (UTC)

It wasn't that TJ didn't have questions. She did. She could have sat there and asked a lot of questions, but it seemed like Ianto hadn't wanted to answer them, or elaborate on what he'd already said, so she'd gone with her supportive nod and smile routine instead. She was trying to make friends and forcing them to relieve a painful past didn't seem like the best way to do it.

Thanks, John.

She lifts a shoulder in solidarity when Ianto looks at her, but the truth is... she's curious. "I've read the Bible and, not that I'd call it fiction, you know, necessarily." She doesn't want to offend in case either man is particularly religious. "I just. Wasn't sure that the things mentioned inside were still." Looking at John for help, she finishes lamely. "Real."

Don't give him that look, Ianto, you know exactly why they're confused.

"No," John says, "I'm sorry but I'm with TJ on this. I thought you were miniature home-world security -- you know, alien threats. So did you name an alien after a biblical threat or are you also The Slayer part time and the rift is a hell-mouth?"

This is something you should have mentioned, Ianto! Demons! Demons are absolutely worth mentioning! There is no way John can just let go of demonic things suddenly being part of your job!

Ianto makes a face that may as well be described as pained. He didn't come up with this stuff either, you know!

"Listen, I'm. Look, I'm pretty sure it inspired the Biblical threat, I mean it definitely existed before then," he says. "But I'm not an expert. I barely even knew about Abaddon myself until we ran into it first-hand. I'm not talking heaven and hell, John. I mean -- real, ancient creatures. Beings capable of existing outside of time and space, I mean. So, yes, they called it a demon when they were figuring out how to classify it. I mean. It's not like it came from space. Not everything we dealt with came from space, there were. The cannibals? And the -- fairies?"

In retrospect that one is going to need a bit of explanation too.

Edited (clarification) 2018-08-20 17:57 (UTC)

Something that inspired a Biblical threat didn't inspire a whole lot of happy thoughts in TJ and her encouraging smile fades the more Ianto talks. Her eyes get bigger and her brow furrows as he goes on to explain something about ancient creatures and time and space and when he finishes with cannibals and fairies, she blinks.

Absolutely refusing to look at John this time because, honestly, she's not trying to gang up on Ianto, she clears her throat. "And fairies, right? Not cannibal fairies." Right? "Not that you have any say on things, exactly, but." What. "What?"

Wait, wait. John holds up a hand to back up TJ, frowning in thought as he reassesses the whole Abaddon thing.

"The cannibals were outside Cardiff," he says finally, because he does remember that bit. Anyway -- "This is actually horribly plausible. I mean, we're buddies with Hermiod and the SGC spent a long time dealing with Ba'al."

So, in the grand scheme of things... John turns his squint on Ianto.

"I still don't like your hell-mouth situation, thought."

Just so they're clear on that.

Edited 2018-08-21 00:00 (UTC)

He nods in response to John's explanation. "Cannibals and fairies," he says. "Separate problems." The cannibals were outside of Cardiff. The fairies on the other hand had been right on their back door. Murdering people with flower petals and other naturally occurring phenomena, all for the sake of stealing a little girl -- a chosen one -- to become one of their own.

Hermiod and Ba'al? The names vaguely ring a bell and he supposes they must mean something in the context of this conversation, but for the life of him Ianto can't quite place them. Regardless, it's enough to help the other man believe what he's saying and he supposes that's something. Still...

He makes a face at the other man in turn. "For what it's worth, I'm not exactly keen on the idea of it myself," he replies. "Though he's dead now. Jack killed him -- my boss," he says, explaining for TJ's sake, "so there'll be no more torment from The Great Devourer, at least. So long as we don't open it up intentionally again, I'm pretty sure nothing that big can actually come through. Comparatively speaking, the odd unknown alien artifact is a relief."

Actually, as long as there weren't cannibal fairies - what would she tell her nieces?! - TJ was pretty sure she could handle learning about anything else and she nods along with what John's saying. She remembers hearing about a Thor once.

"Alien artifacts sound more up-" This time she'll spare the Colonel a glance, feeling more at ease. "That's why the SGC started, really. Exploration, learning and finding new things." See, practically the same thing. Except. She watches Ianto for a moment longer, then: "Okay, one more question. How'd he kill it?"

Just to make sure. Not that the Storm shouldn't have done it's job, but is that thing in stasis somewhere?

That's a good question. How do you kill a legendary biblical threat? John mulls it over in thought, looking between the two of them.

"Throw it back in the rift?" he guesses, "along with a nuke?"

Careless use of nukes: the american way. It's always worth a try.

Ah, that is. Not a question that is easily answered. Not without a lot of explaining something that Ianto's not all that certain of himself. Jack didn't exactly stick around to explain his immortality very well, before he'd run off with the Doctor. Though Ianto had gotten the gist of everything he'd told Gwen so far from Gwen herself, at least.

"Not the worst idea," he replies, raising an eyebrow at John, "though I'm not sure that wouldn't have blown up the entire city in the process. No, he..." Ianto dances delicately around the reply. "Abaddon fed on life, yeah? He seeped the life out of things. So I guess you could say we gave him something we had on hand that. He wasn't able to feed off of, and he couldn't handle the result."

A delicate way of saying he sucked so much life out of Jack that he died and Jack himself didn't come back for three full days. But. That is neither here nor there.

That's a little bit here and somewhat there, actually. And now that she's invested in this story of Biblical threats and cannibals and fairies, TJ's kind of glad that she's been stuck on a space ship because at least her threats have been somewhat normal. Life ending, but not actually world ending.

"If it fed on life, what could you have possibly given it that it couldn't handle?"

Look, Ianto. Delicate isn't going to work at this point. She has to know details.

Obscurely enough, something John also has experience with.

"Something that would poison it, or interrupt the feeding process in some way?"

John feels his spidey senses prickling nervously at this, because he's imagining different scenarios. Terminally ill people, drugs, situations that he's already had to abandon once before because they rubbed wrong.

Was it poison? Ianto shakes his head.

"I don't know exactly how it worked," he replies honestly. "I wasn't there to see how it happened, Jack wouldn't. Let any of us get too close while he did it." Since it would have killed any of them but him. "But it overwhelmed the creature, so much so that it died from what I understand, so I suppose it could have been considered as a sort of poison?"

Don't judge them for this, the thing was literally three times the size of anything around and it killed people just by passing its shadow over them. It needed to be stopped...

Whatever expression TJ is holding on her face, it's not judgment. It might be confusion, or even interest, but it's not judgment. She's read files about some of the civilizations the SGC has encountered on various planets, but nothing like this. She knows that not all methods are good ones, but a creature that carries a name that goes with the Great Devourer and equates with Biblical threats?

She's definitely not judging. She also doesn't know Jack or his idea of a very long life.

"What did he feed it?"

John is sharp enough that he can tell Ianto is being evasive, mostly because it's the kind of evasive wording he uses himself. Like recognises like.

"If it's all sciencey, don't worry about the details," he says. An out, of sorts, if Ianto needs it. "I know not everyone is as brilliant at diagram drawing as I am."

A topic change as well, if he wants. John is happy to redirect onto himself as a joke if need be, it doesn't bother him. He'd be a hypocrite if he forced Ianto into discussing things he didn't want to after dodging so many things himself.

Ianto is grateful for the out that John gives him. Not that he doesn't appreciate TJ's curiosity, but that he's not certain Jack's immortality is really his secret to tell. Especially when Jack didn't even tell Ianto himself about it, and he had had to find out the hard way after months of working beside the other man and worrying for him every time he'd put his life in harm's way, not knowing that even if he'd died he would still come back anyway.

"You know Torchwood," Ianto replies. "The alien and the weird. Anyway, he's the only one to really understand it well, since he ran off only a few days after that. Maybe if he shows up around here one of these days you can ask him," he suggests. Which is in truth a terrible idea, but its in his opinion much better than him answering now.

Speaking of those diagrams. "I've got a question for you two then. Who or what is this SGC? I'm guessing that's. Who you work for, at least?" Maybe.

As someone who doesn't know Torchwood, she's just going to have to take Ianto's word for it when he says it like that, but from the looks and the verbiage, she can tell the conversation is at an end.

Speaking of those diagrams, she finds it odd that John's letting Ianto keep them, but she's not the Colonel and the entire place doesn't seem all that regulated by military personnel, anyway. Since they're roommates, TJ has a feeling that John has explaining to do no matter what, so when the question is posed, she doesn't see the harm in answering for the acronym.

"The SGC is Stargate Command. I was assigned there through the Air Force as a medic," she answers easily. "I planned on going to medical school before, well. Everything."

Icarus. Destiny. This place.

It's not as if he wrote down a gate address, TJ, it's just a sketch of a gate! Along with some math! Nothing anyone can use to get anywhere.

"It's like our version of your secret basement," he adds, since he's distantly aware of Torchwood's HQ. "Only more sterile looking, and with uniform regulations."

Which... Torchwood didn't seem to have? Maybe a dress-code he supposes, but no uniform.

No, John. They don't have a dress code either. Just some eclectic tastes. He wonders if he should take offense to John calling Torchwood his 'secret basement', but he supposes he should just let it go.

"Assigned through the Air Force?" Ianto asks, tilting his head to glance between the pair of them. "Do the Air Force and Stargate Command have such a close relationship that they pass their personnel over like that?" Come to think of it, why was John transferred then? He'd said he'd gone to Antarctica to keep him out of trouble, but. Was that the Air Force's decision, or had he already transferred by then? It's not a question he feels comfortable asking in front of company, knowing what some of the answer might be, but. He has to wonder.

"I don't make the personnel decisions," TJ tells Ianto with an apologetic look. "I just go where I'm told."

It's an evasion and also an answer; she'd been stationed in New Mexico and then in Colorado, but it was her aptitude and desire to go further in her career that had led to the SGC and then some extremely questionable personal decisions. Nearly tanking her career had been a close call and the resulting fallout had left her desperate to be back on Earth. Unfortunately, circumstances had left her elsewhere. Far away elsewhere.

It's underground! It's secret! That makes it a secret basement!

"The SGC is run by the Air Force," John fills in, "alongside the United Nations and the IOA. We get civilians and marines and all kinds working with us, but essentially it's run by the Air Force."

John shrugs, rocks back his chair a little.

"I wouldn't know the official transfer protocol since I just kinda walked in."

Of course he had. It certainly sounds like something John would do. And the level of attention he would pay to protocol, at that. Ianto just shakes his head at the other man before glancing back to TJ. Who seems to be rather uncomfortable with answering his direct questions about her top secret job, if he's being honest with himself.

"It sounds much more collaborative than Torchwood," he observes. "A bit like UNIT, I suppose. Since you're an international operation."

He raises his coffee and takes another long sip to consider it. "I can only imagine the disputes that might have come up, if our organizations had crossed paths." Especially if Jack had been at the helm at the time. He's about as good as John is himself at following protocol and procedure, for that matter.

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