Work Text:
After a certain Vampire made a “slight miscalculation” that nearly blew a hole through the haul of the landship, all of engineering has been working 24/7 to keep Rhodes moving, and Glaucus was no exception.
It’s Sunday now, and Glaucus finally has a day off to themselves. The Aegir was overworked and extremely stressed from a hellish week of welding work. They had no time to tend to themself at all, sleeping in their workstation for a few hours a day just to wake up to the chaos of the endless repair work for the better part of a week.
And so, today they had planned to just spend all day in their room relaxing and indulging in their hobbies. Play some video games, read yuri, perhaps splurge on some new shiny cardboard, and, of course, text around with Blue.
However, the aforementioned Anura had other plans. She texted Glaucus earlier that morning asking if they would like to meet at noon to do some baking, an offer the Aegir was not about to pass on no matter how tired they may be.
Glaucus decided to do some maintenance work on their trusty Raythean Franker before they go meet up with Blue. The poor thing was as overworked as them and was in dire need of some love, so the engineer decided a full tune-up was in order.
“That should about do it.”
They lift the weapon, giving it a good look from all angles making sure it is just perfect. Satisfied with their handiwork, the engineer puts it back down on the table and takes their phone out to check on the time.
“I’m good on time, but I should go soon.”
Glaucus backs away on their wheelchair and moves towards the braces lying in bed. They are not too keen on walking around since their body is still feeling the fatigue of the week, but the eagerness to see Blue far surpasses it. They will just put up with the discomfort for a while. Once the locks are secured in place, they stand up ready to go meet their friend.
“Mmm, the place is a bit of a mess . Maybe I should clean a little. At least put the Raythean Franker back in its place.”
Glaucus usually doesn’t mind the mess too much, mostly only cleaning the workbench when it’s necessary or when they feel like playing some card games with themselves, but for some reason they felt inclined to clean up right now.
The Aegir was punctual, arriving at the communal kitchen five minutes before their meeting time. Much to their surprise, Blue was already there getting the ingredients lined up on the counter.
“Glau! You came early.”
“I didn't want to keep you waiting.”
Truth be told, Glaucus was not the best when it came to keeping track of time. As a result of it, they had left Blue waiting for about half an hour one time, so they decided to make a deliberate effort not to repeat that and instead aiming to be early whenever they meet.
“What are we making?”
“Muffins!” enthusiastically responds Blue.
“Neat.”
Despite their nonchalant response, Glaucus was ecstatic. Blue’s muffins are their favorite. Truly this must have been a blessing for getting stuck cleaning up their boss’s mistakes all week long.
“What do I help with?”
“Nothing.” Blue Poison smiles wide. “You must be tired from all the overtime, so let me handle it.”
“But…”
Blue Poison walks up to Glaucus holding a plate of blueberries she just took out the fridge.
“No buts . You just sit there and relax.”
Glaucus is tired and sore all over and yet they still wanted to help Blue. I’ll probably just slow her down, they think to themselves as they sit in defeat, a small almost imperceptible pout on their face, one that most people would not even distinguish from their usual expression, but not Blue.
“Well, there is one thing you can do…” she teases knowingly.
There is a clear spark of excitement in Glaucus’s eyes.
“What?” they ask expectantly.
“You can be my taste tester.”
Blue takes a berry into her fingers and moves it towards Glaucus. The Aegir can’t believe their eyes. I must be dreaming, this is a dream for sure. But this is no dream, it was really happening.
They let Blue feed them, the Anura’s delicate fingers brushing up against Glaucus’s lips as she pushes the fruit into their mouth. Her skin is soft and her touch tender like nothing the sea slug could have imagined.
“Sweet,” they say with a flush, their heart drumming erratically from the unexpected contact.
“Good! Well, now tell me all about your week while I work my magic!”
Truth be told, as much as Glaucus enjoys helping Blue with the preparations, the baking part is not their strength, and they really can’t take the heat of the oven at all. Not to mention they are exhausted, and Blue is a sight for sore eyes, so this arrangement was not bad at all.
As they sat there chatting away with Blue and reaping in the benefits of being a taste tester, a thought crossed the engineer’s mind.
Is she doing this for me?
It certainly looked that way, but it couldn’t be, right? Why would Blue go through all that trouble just for them? It must be a coincidence nothing more.
Glaucus touches their lips almost as if on autopilot, tracing along where the Anura’s slender finger had just touched a moment ago as they consider the possibility.
That would be nice, very nice , but I shouldn't get my hopes up.
After a few minutes, the timer of the oven rings and the jolly frog takes out a tray of freshly baked blueberry muffins ripe for the taking, placing it on the counter next to where Glaucus was sitting. The sea slug makes a move for one of them, but is promptly stopped by Blue.
“Not yet.” She playfully slaps Glaucus’s hand away.
“But they smell so good, why not?”
“Let’s go back to your room and have them there.” The Anura sports a radiant smile. “I got a surprise for you!”
“A surprise?”
Blue reaches into one of the pouches around her waist, producing a small plastic box which she proudly presents to Glaucus. The box depicts a cute blue haired girl surrounded by water and ice effects, one Glaucus recognizes instantly as one of the main characters from the card game they like to play.
“Ta-da! I got myself a deck. Kirara helped me pick it. We can play a few games while we enjoy our muffins!”
Glaucus was surprised. They didn’t think Blue was into card games, let alone one so niche. That thought from before returns in full force. Had she done this for them too? No, there was no way.
She must have been curious since I talk so much about it, yeah that’s the only explanation, Glaucus convinces themselves.
“You do have sleeves, right?”
“Of course! Kirara hooked me up with all that I need.” Blue Poison sounds very proud of herself.
“Good, let’s go then.”
Glaucus sure was glad they decided to clean up before going out; they could never live with themselves if their crush saw their room like that. It wasn't the first time Blue had come over, not by far, but it was the first time she did alone. Kirara or Indigo were usually there too. Glaucus still could not believe how good their day was going. It was in all honesty perplexing and a bit nerve wracking, but they were not about to complain.
Blue sits at the table, deck box at the ready and a cutesy purple and blue playmat set up in front of her as she waits for Glaucus to get their stuff. When the engineer comes back, they carefully set up their side of the table with an all-matching set of deck box, playmat, and sleeves themed around their deck’s ace card.
“Wow, your sleeves are very cool!”
“Thanks.”
Taking praise is hard and Glaucus can’t help but to blush a little at the compliment. This still doesn’t feel quite real to them. When Blue takes the cards out the box and starts shuffling them, Glaucus takes note that the Anura’s deck is all in plain yellow sleeves.
“Hey Blue, won't it be hard for you to tell the two decks apart like that?”
The frog looks back at Glaucus with a confused expression.
“Two decks?” she asks.
“Yeah, your LIRG deck and the main deck go in separate piles.”
“Uh?”
The pink haired frog looks even more confused than before.
“You didn’t read the rules, did you?” asks Glaucus knowingly.
Blue laughs awkwardly. “Not really, I just wanted to play with you Glau, so I kinda just told Kirara the one I liked, and she got everything for me.”
Blue’s eyes focus on Glaucus’s calm gray lakes, and she smiles. Bringing a nice warm sensation to the sea slug’s chest.
“Figured I could just learn as we go,” she explains.
Without much of a word, Glaucus nods before taking to a drawer near the work desk. After a quick search, they return with a small plastic bag to offer to Blue.
“Here, some sleeves.”
“Ah, thank you.”
Glaucus lets out a tiny sigh followed by a soft smile.
“Let’s put your LIRG deck in them and I will teach you how to play.”
“Roger!”
Blue opens the plastic bag and takes a few of the sleeves out, instantly realizing they are of the girl on her deck box. It's a different art than the one on her cards or the box itself, but a very cute one nonetheless.
“Ah, it is her! She is so pretty.”
“The sleeves have to match,” calmly says Glaucus.
Despite their calm demeanor, the Aegir’s heart was racing a thousand miles an hour. The suspicions they had denied and pushed to the back of their mind were starting to become far more real.
What, what if Blue was doing all of this for them after all? What if…if she liked them?
“I see, thank you.”
“No problem.” Glaucus leans in over the table to get a better look at Blue’s cards. “Let’s start by separating your LIRG cards from the main deck.”
“Ok.”
Blue lays the cards in the middle of the table and leans in. Glaucus can feel their cheeks and ears heating up as they realize just how close their faces are now. They look up from the cards making eye contact with Blue and flush almost instantly.
She is way too pretty, this is illegal. How am I supposed to even concentrate like this…? they complain to themselves as they swiftly turn to try and separate the character cards from the bunch.
“So why did you pick her as your center?” asks the flushed sea slug trying to distract their mind.
“Well, she looked cute, and she kind of reminded me of you…”
Glaucus’s heart almost halts to a stop. Did she…did she just call me cute!? If they weren’t blushing before they sure were now.
“With the blue hair and all, you know?” continues the frog.
Glaucus stumbles over their words as they attempt to reply, “Ah, yeah the hair… that makes sense.”
Of course, that was it. What was I even thinking? No way Blue thinks that way about me, Glaucus reassures themselves, their blush now starting to subside a little.
“Yeah, I mean you are far cuter!”
Well, that does it. Glaucus is now sure they will die here of a heart attack.
It was good while it lasted. I do wish I had one last muffin.
“Anyway, thanks for helping me with the cards.” The Anura takes advantage of their closeness to plant a soft kiss on the engineer’s unsuspecting cheek.
Glaucus touches their cheek in disbelief, their face now beat red with embarrassment and their heart trying its best to burst out their chest. A soft “Huh?” is all they can muster in their infinitely flustered state.
Blue turns her gaze away and speaks in an uncharacteristically shy tone.
“I said thanks for the help.”
It's at this point that Glaucus regains enough composure to notice they are not the only one blushing. Blue is trying to hide behind the cards, but it's obvious she is blushing too, likely waiting and hoping that Glaucus’s reaction was positive.
Glaucus is not sure what to say. Sure, they are happy, beyond happy. After all this is just what they had dreamed about since coming to know Blue better, but it is also overwhelming and too much for them to fully process. They are at a total loss for words.
“Blue?” they ask, still in disbelief.
They needed to make sure this means what they thought it meant.
“Was that too bold? I’m sorry , Glau…”
“No,” Glaucus finds their footing, voice coming through loud and clear. “I liked it, don’t be sorry. I am just… surprised.”
Blue Poison brings her hand up to cover a giggle. “I’m very glad, but you don’t have to sound that serious. Relax a little.”
“I’ll try.”
Glaucus takes in a deep breath, feeling the tension rinse from their body as they let it out. They look up at Blue’s face once again. She has always been beautiful to Glaucus but right now she looks absolutely radiant, that smile could melt a glacier in an instant and her cerulean eyes are glimmering with excitement.
The young engineer touches the place Blue’s lips met their skin once more. Was kissing my cheek really that special? they wonder as their fingers trace over the still lingering feeling of Blue’s soft lips.
“You are too earnest, Glau, but I like that about you.” Blue finishes changing the sleeves of her cards, stacking them neatly in a pile next to her.
“I am?”
“Yes, you are!” She laughs. “I had a feeling you liked me, but I could never see you taking the first step, so… well, I’m glad I went and did it myself”
A part of Glaucus still expected to just wake up any moment now, but they were not dreaming. They couldn’t be happier about it. A kiss from Blue and now they also get to play cards with her? This day could not be better, or so they thought.
“I’m glad too. Anyway, I’ll teach you how to play. So first you take your 3 LIRGS and put them face down like this . Make sure the center one is in the middle, that’s important. Then you…”
It took a few rounds before Blue could wrap her head around the rules completely, and in the end, she didn’t even win a single game, but she had a good time regardless.
“Waaa, you got me again!”
Glaucus nods, satisfied with the perfect execution of their strategy.
“You almost won. You are getting better.”
“This was very fun. We should do it again next time.”
Blue puts her deck back in its box and leaves it to rest on the table. The Anura wants to move things to a more comfortable place, maybe sit around on the couch, so she can get nice and comfy with Glaucus.
“Hey Glau, want to move to the couch? Your leg braces must be annoying you by now.”
She was right. Glaucus’s legs felt a little tired and sluggish from wearing the gear while sitting around in the hard steel chair. They would not mind taking them off right about now.
“Yeah, now that you mention it, they are starting to bother me a little.”
“Cool, I’ll take the muffins there and make us some tea while you take them off.”
And so, the two came to find themselves settled on the couch, laying around in the middle of Glaucus’s improvised living room.
While the rooms aboard Rhodes are not small by any measure, they are not gigantic either and how an operator uses their space is important as one can only fit so much in.
Glaucus, being a fan of video games, had a little set up with a couch, a nice TV, and a coffee table. While not extravagant, especially when compared to Kirara’s set up, it was enough for the reserved engineer, and it left them enough space to comfortably have a worktable and a few chairs in the dorm without making mobility hard for them.
“What do you want to do?” asks Glaucus in a flustered tone, extremely conscious of the distance between the two of them.
“You got a new video game that you were very excited about, right?”
“Yeah, but it is one player only.”
Blue closes the distance between the two even further. Their thighs now touching one another as they sit so close that Glaucus fears Blue can hear the agitated thump of their heart.
“That’s fine, I’m happy just watching. Besides with all the work Closure had you do , I bet you haven’t had any time to play it at all.”
“Yeah, I should ask for a raise after all that. Are you sure you are fine just watching?”
“Yep!”
Unbeknownst to Glaucus, Blue had some ulterior motives. From the beginning she had set up today with a single goal in mind, to pamper her sea slug, to spoil them rotten. And pamper them she will, almost as soon as Glaucus gets to playing, the Anura’s arm reaches behind them and wraps around their waist.
Glaucus blushes, but they say nothing. Thinking back to the kiss earlier, they realize they never asked Blue what that meant. Were they dating now? Was this a date? The sea slug was a bit afraid to ask.
“Hey, can I touch your tail?”
“My tail? Yeah, all yours.”
Blue had heard from an online forum that Aegirs have very sensitive tails and some really liked them being massaged by their partners. She was not sure if that would be the case for Glaucus as Aegirs vary wildly, but she had been eager to touch Glaucus’s tail for a while now and if it turned out to be something the engineer would enjoy too then even better.
Blue stars slow, gently petting the tip of the tail while looking carefully for her partner's reaction. The tail has a fascinating texture to it and is quite soft to the touch. As for Glaucus, they don't seem to show any discomfort.
Good. Time to amp it up a little. This time the Anura’s fingers caress the length of the tail up towards the base. Glaucus’s reaction is immediate; they try to hide it, but that felt good, really good.
Score, Blue moves on with her plan. She reaches for the underside of the tail, gently lifting it up and dropping it onto her lap where she can continue petting it to her heart's content. She is quick to discover the underside is not only softer but far more sensitive, a fact she is fast to exploit in order to make Glaucus feel good.
Glaucus can feel all the stress from their week melt away under Blue’s soft touch. Ah! That feels very nice, so relaxing, they think to themselves.
Heaven, surely this is what heaven must be. At least as close to heaven as Glaucus has ever been. That’s it, the sea slug can't take it anymore. They are about to give themselves up to Blue, and they need to know what their status is right now. It doesn’t matter if it is embarrassing to ask or if they have missed some very obvious social queue again.
“Hey Blue…” They turn to face the frog.
“Yeah?”
“Are we like…mmm…” Glaucus does some incomprehensible gestures with their hands. They don’t really help them express their case at all and having a controller in their hands just makes it all the more awkward.
“You know?”
“Dating?” Blue expertly interprets from Glaucus’s awkward motions. “I mean, if you are ok with it. Don’t want to rush you into anything.”
The last bit of tension in Glaucus’s body gives way, and the engineer smiles softly.
“I want to,” they answer to Blue’s delight. “Hey since we are partners, does that mean I can kiss you?”
“Whenever you want, yes!”
“Good.”
Glaucus wastes no time, kissing the spots on Blue's neck with a passionate hunger before simply turning away and keeping on with their gaming.
“Wow, and here I thought I was the bold one.”
“You said I could kiss you, so I did.”
Glaucus was bad at following social norms, way too straightforward, awkward and serious, and Blue loved them for it. She was not lying when she said it was one of the things, she liked the most about Glaucus.
Blue couldn’t be happier. Smiling away as she holds Glaucus close while playing with their soft tail. Her plan had to help the sea slug relax had excided her wildest expectations.
As for Glaucus, well, they concluded that much like their overworked Raythean Franker, they also needed some love. They were more than glad that Blue was here to give it to them. Perhaps doing some overwork from time to time was not that bad if they get to come home to Blue like this.
Still, they would ask Closure for a raise and give her a piece of their mind next time they see her, perhaps even ask for a little paid vacation. For now, it was time for them to just relax, play a video game, and let their girlfriend take care of them.
The end.