#also the bio major in me wanted to cite my references for this fic so bad haha

[sonderthroughthestreets]

Moon Jellies

For anon, a sobbe aquarium first date fic (I’m so sorry this is late!)

Also I’ve never been to an aquarium, much less on a date in one, so sorry if this sucks. Also sorry for any mistakes. 

Any more prompts are welcome!

Robbe was a nervous wreck. His palms were sweaty, his head was racing, and his heart was beating a million miles per minute as he stared at himself in the mirror. He smelled his wrists to check the cologne and then shook them out to relieve a bit of the nerves. He blew out a breath as he ran his fingers through his hair one last time, trying to get all the curls and spikes just right. This is ridiculous, he thought. It’s just a date. No. It was actually more than that. It was his first date with Sander. Something he couldn’t have ever dreamed of actually happening a week ago.

Just last week, they had been laying on Robbe’s bed, ankles and heads at opposite ends of each other, talking about school, assignments, friends, places and somehow they’d ended up on the topic of sea creatures and aquariums.

“Do you know that jellyfish don’t have a brain?” Sander asked. There was a twinkle in his eye and a mischievous smile forming across his mouth. Robbe looked at him.

“You don’t have a brain,” he playfully and lightly kicked his shoulder, a smile playing on his lips too.

“Ok, but seriously, they don’t have a nervous system, like people don’t even know how they move!” he continued.

Robbe shrugged. “They are beautiful though,” he said, looking up at the ceiling.

Sander sat up, now fully engaged in the conversation, his thoughts running.

“They have four feeding tentacles, they can sting you so bad, they have five stomachs and they’re 97% water. Is that not impressive?” he asked.

“I guess,” Robbe smiled at his enthusiasm.

“You guess?” Sander scoffed, tilting his head. “So what impresses you, Ijzermans?”

Robbe tried to ignore how his tone made his heart flip in dizzying cartwheels. Tried to not let the sound of his last name coming from him drown him. Tried not to say, you.

“Not much. Right now they sound like the kind of thing I’d be reading about in my biology textbook,” he shifted his legs and slumped further into the bed.

“But you like reading your biology textbook,” Sander smirked.

“I don’t know, they sound kind of scary. Whimsical little things at the bottom of the ocean that we don’t know much about. Like you said, we don’t even know how they move.”

He could feel Sander’s eyes on him, wholly green, sparkling with intent. Robbe couldn’t take it anymore and finally looked at him questioningly as if to say, what?

“They drift through the current” he finally said. “That doesn’t mean they know where they’re going but...” he kept his eyes on him. “Do you wanna go see them?”

“What?”

“There’s an exhibit at the aquarium that I really wanted to see and they’ve got- well you- I mean - we don’t have to-“

“We?”

Robbe couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Yes we. If you want to that is” Sander smiled. He was suddenly kind of sheepish, but his eyes never left Robbe’s. And Robbe in his abrupt state of confusion could never have imagined Sander like this, all nervous and anxious. He and Sander had been spending a lot of time together over the past few months and he could never tell when his energy changed if it was because he was Sander or if it was because of an effect Robbe had on him. He couldn’t even imagine that he could ever have any sort of effect on him at all. He realized it had been a while and he needed to respond.

“Yeah,” he grinned, nodding his head. “Yeah, I want to.”

“It’s a date, then,” he reached over for his phone, scrolling through his calendar. “We could go Wednesday after school. Half day, right?”

As Sander tapped to go to the aquarium’s website to buy tickets, Robbe stared at him. His eyes shifted over his bleached hair, his endearing eyes, his black Bowie shirt, and the way he looked so nonchalant now, seconds after being anything but calm. And Robbe didn’t know where his courage came from but he wanted to take advantage of his last sentence to say,

“When you say date, do you mean like a date date?” he asked.

Sander froze. He slowly looked up from his phone, licked his lips and asked, “Do you want it to be a date date?”

Robbe breathed in. There was no turning back now.

“Yeah. Do you?”

“Yeah,” Sander’s lips curved upwards.

And now Robbe was standing in front of the mirror feeling very self-conscious and not at all like the Robbe that asked him out. Or was it Sander that asked him? He couldn’t tell but he’d be here very soon and all he could think about was what do you even wear to an aquarium? He opted to wear his dark green hoodie and jeans. This was casual anyways and he didn’t really feel like a dress shirt would be appropriate for the occasion and just when he felt like maybe he could change, he heard the doorbell ring. Shaking his hair one last time and grabbing his phone off the counter he went to greet Sander.

“Hey,” said a smiling Sander.

“Hi,” said a smiling Robbe.

“You look good,” Sander’s eyes drifted down. It vanished Robbe’s doubts and he looked at Sander too, in his white shirt and black leather jacket.

“So do you.”

“Ready?”

“Yeah.”

They started with the sea turtles and then would make their way to the stingrays. Sander had said they’d go through the whole aquarium and he was saving the best one, the jellyfish of course, for last.

He was so excited, he was practically vibrating at the front doors. There weren’t as many people inside since it was a weekday and Robbe figured that probably made Sander beam even more whenever he looked at him.

As they walked around each exhibit, Robbe felt like he’d never seen such beauty and iridescence. Seeing how the lights made all the creatures glimmer in the water and how the curves of the glass above them engulfed them into the sea made Robbe feel the strangest sense of calm. He watched in their respective exhibits as stingrays and sea turtles and beluga whales swam by, their slow movements synchronizing with his heartbeat. It felt as if time stopped and when Sander grabbed his hand, he looked to see him staring at him with such sincerity, the crinkles in his eyes prominent from his smile. Robbe sighed.

“I can see you like it,” he felt Sander’s breath on his cheek.

“Yeah, it’s really great.”

“You haven’t seen anything yet.”

“The jellyfish?”

“Mmmmhh,” Sander hummed in agreement. “But first, lets check out that one,” he nodded to another area in the corner, a more hands-on and interactive exhibit.

Robbe and Sander stood near the tank in front of them inspecting the oddly shaped starfish. Sander nudged Robbe.

“Touch it.”

“No.”

“Touch it.”

“No.”

“Touch it.”

“No! You touch it!” Robbe giggled and shoved him lightly. Sander reached out and ran his fingers over one of its arms.

“It’s soft,” he said. Then suddenly, “Ahh!” as he pulled his hand out of the water. His finger had bumped a sharp rock and he shook the water off his hand as he inspected it. “Can you kiss it better?” he asked Robbe.

Robbe shook his head, chuckling as he lifted his hand to his lips and kissed it lightly.

“Actually my lips hurt, can you kiss them better too?” Sander smirked.

“I don’t kiss on the first date,” Robbe wrapped his arms around him.

“Mmmmh, maybe on the next one then.”

And then finally, finally, they made it to the jellyfish exhibit. Sander’s pace picked up faster than Robbe’s as he let go of his fingers to run up to the glass. Robbe followed, watching. He looked up to the bioluminescent creatures, neon colours of pinks, purples, blues and yellows, and stared in awe. Seeing them in his textbook was one thing, but seeing them in person, right in front of you, floating around like some strange, other-worldly thing? It wasn’t scary, it was...breathtaking.

“Aurelia aurita,” Sander broke his trance. “Or more commonly known as moon jellyfish or the common jellyfish, moon jellies if you will,” he made a face, laughing. “They’re found in most oceans but mostly the Atlantic. No nervous system, no muscles, they feed on plankton. They live a simple life” he finished. It sounded exactly like what Robbe had read in his textbook. He thought he was the science nerd here and he wasn’t expecting Sander to be so knowledgeable in all this.

“So,” his lips etched up. “Why jellyfish?” Robbe asked. Sander took a moment to watch the creatures slowly float by.

“My mom said I used to draw them all the time when I was a kid. Then I got obsessed with them and as I learned more about them, I think I got really interested in the fact that they don’t have brains. At least not in a complicated way like some animals and humans do.”

He looked lost in the water, eyes in a daze and Robbe almost regretted asking the question. Sander took a seat on the empty bench placed for viewing the fish. Robbe followed.

“Do you remember how I told you about my thoughts? And how they don’t stop sometimes?”

Robbe nodded. They’d gotten quite close the last few months.

“Well, I think I like jellyfish bc they don’t have brains to have any thoughts. They can just drift wherever the current takes them,” he said. “But sometimes they can sting you and I- I don’t want to do that.”

Robbe thought back to their conversation a week ago and how he had called jellyfish scary. He had no idea Sander felt like that. He didn’t know if Sander even meant it like this when they were talking then. He thought it was just about the sea creatures. And maybe it had been in the beginning.

“Sander,” Robbe immediately took his hands in his, rubbing his thumb over his knuckles. “You’re not a jellyfish. You’re you.” He shifted closer, touching his knees to his. “And I really like you.”

“I really like you, too,” Sander touched his forehead to Robbe’s. After a long moment of just sitting still like that, Robbe whispered,

“Can I kiss you?”

“I thought you didn’t kiss on first dates,” Sander chuckled softly. “Yes.”

Robbe softly pressed his lips to his. Though the exhibit was practically empty, he was thankful to keep it short and sweet, still basking in the taste, lightheaded from the fact that he was here with Sander. And as their date came to an end, Robbe left feeling content and grateful that he agreed to come to the aquarium with him. And the best part was Sander holding his hand throughout it all, excited and giddy to look at all the sea animals. Once they walked back to Robbe’s door, Sander felt reluctant to let go of his hand.

“I had a great time today,” Robbe said.

“Me too.”

And before Sander knew it, Robbe was pulling him in for another longer kiss, kissing him in ways he couldn’t at the aquarium.

“See you tomorrow.”

“See you,” Sander lingered a bit longer until he let go and headed out.

“Remember!” Robbe shouted as Sander turned back. “You’re not a jellyfish!”

“I could be! Am I not pretty enough?”

“Beautiful!”

Sander gave him one last smile before he disappeared around the corner. Robbe finally closed the door and his cheeks hurt from grinning so widely. Today didn’t feel real but he was so glad Sander let him into his world. One thing that he knew for sure was that this was the best first date ever and that he couldn’t wait until the next one.