Littlebirdy: haha yes! sharing is caring for these two dorks. :D

Now let's see what shenanigans Red has come up with!

Unknown to Purple, Red continued to study him. His desperate plan had worked. He never begged for anything in his life, but he begged Purple to not hide again. Besides the new thoughts that kept popping into his head, he really did want to just be next to his long-time companion. They rarely spent time apart and he never realized how Purple's presence kept him from being bored. Even before whenever he became bored it had always been when he was alone and Purple was busy doing something else.

When Purple decided to stay next to him, Red hatched a brilliant plan. He wanted to touch antennae again, he wanted to taste Purple's tongue, but the same plan wouldn't work. Purple wouldn't be tricked into fighting again, and knowing what Red asked for last time Purple would be much more defensive and scrappy. Red knew that from experience. The first time Red won a match and demanded snacks from Purple, Red at first thought that it would be a great way to get extra rations, all he had to do was win against Purple again. He did it once, he thought it would be easy to beat him again. He had been sorely mistaken. The next fight Purple was twice as vicious and cunning. Red lost in half the time and Purple demanded twice as much from Red. That had deterred him from ever starting a fight purposefully.

At first Red entertained the fantasy that if he fought and lost then Purple would want to touch antennae for twice as long, or maybe that Purple would touch his antennae. That image had his antennae twitching, but he highly doubted that would happen. Purple would probably demand that Red kept as far from him as possible. To make sure that didn't happen, he had to put them back on good terms.

Red was pleased to find that his embarrassment had pretty much dissipated. It wasn't that he was eager to try mating, he just wanted to touch his co-leader more, he wanted to have that scent surround him again. To make that happen he would have to make Purple's embarrassment go away too, but that only seemed to happen when Purple was distracted by snacks or when he was already in the middle of the sensations. Thus, Red came up with his brilliant plan. He wouldn't be able to just start touching antennae, not unless he wanted Purple to lock himself away. He was would have to be sly and slow. Purple was still defensive and on guard whenever Red came close. Red was going to have to slowly infiltrate those defenses.

So he started very small, occasionally bumping hands with Purple. He reacted just how Red expected him to. At first he pulled away, but when Red acted like nothing was wrong Purple relaxed and let the slight touches happen. It wasn't like they had never physically come in contact before, but with their PAKs activated they had become very sensitive to each others' presence.

Red was going to reverse that. He was going to slowly get Purple used to touching until he didn't react at all to Red's presence. That's when Red would strike and then Purple would be right in the middle of the sensations and he wouldn't have time to be embarrassed. He knew his co-leader thought he was rash and impulsive, and he was, but when it came to his missions Red could be very patient and calculating. And his mission: Operation Taste Purple was going to be a long mission and he was going to enjoy every calculated action.

Grinning wickedly at his unsuspecting co-leader, Red wiggled down into the gel next to Purple making sure to slightly bump shoulders as he did so. Purple tensed up and opened his eyes, but when Red closed his and settled down, Purple relaxed again.

They sat in silence, relaxing in the soothing gel and eating snacks. Red made sure that when he reached around to grab his next snack, he leaned closer to Purple sometimes slightly leaning on him until he grabbed a bag. Purple leaned away the first few times, but eventually stopped bothering and let Red lean against him.

Red was feeling the relaxing effects of the gel too and he lazily kept his eyes open and stared at his co-leader's legs. Sitting side-by-side Purple couldn't see where his focus was, so Red let his eyes wander over Purple's figure, stopping more than once where his legs joined his hips. The image of the recessive-gendered Irken in the vid kept playing through his mind and Red was very curious as to what it would actually look like, and not just a drawing.

Movement caught his attention, and Red let his eyes travel down to Purple's toes as they occasionally wiggled and stretched in the gel. He hadn't given them much thought before, but it occurred to him that he hadn't seen them before. Most Irken pants came down over their feet as well, but Purple's pants ended just above his ankles. He vaguely remembered seeing Purple cut the bottom of his pants off while they were at the academy. He asked why once, but Purple just shrugged and said he like it better this way.

"If you didn't cut the bottoms of your pants off, then the gel wouldn't squish in your boots," Red said, still wearing his own boots and not having any problem when the gel seeped in to cleanse his feet and the insides of his boots.

Purple picked up his head and looked down at his feet. He wiggled his toes around. "Maybe, but I don't like the feeling of my toes being trapped. There's plenty of room to move them in my boots when they aren't wrapped in fabric. It feels nice to be able to wiggle them in the gel too."

"Yeah?" Red asked and grew curious. With his feet he pushed off his boots while his PAK opened and a small laser attachment came out. Taking his boots and dumping out the gel he set them aside. Lifting one foot at a time out of the gel he used the laser to carefully cut the feet part of his pants off. He tossed the extra fabric out of the tub then set his feet back into the gel and next to Purple's. Wiggling his toes experimentally, Red's eyes widened,. Purple was right, it did feel nice. The gel was much more comfortable against his bare skin and the slick and warm gel sliding between his toes made his feet tingle in a pleasant manner.

"See?" Purple said triumphantly, seeing Red's pleasantly surprised expression. "And you used to think it was weird," he said with a smirk and settled back down in the warm gel.

"It still is weird," Red said his attention on his own wiggling toes. "Hey, did you know," Red began as his PAK supplied him with a random bit of information he picked up somewhere along the line. "That some races bathe without any clothes?"

"What? Why? How do they wash their uniforms then?" Purple asked sitting up. Their gel cleaned their bodies and also anything they wore, it just didn't do well with any technology (besides their PAKs) hence why they had to remove their hover belts.

"I think they wash them separately," Red said to which Purple snorted to show what he thought of such inferior ways of cleaning. "But," Red said thoughtfully. "They might be onto something." Without thinking Red began pulling his shirt off and threw it out of the tub so he was only wearing his standard issue pants. He then sunk back down into the gel up to his neck. "Oooooh," he said blissfully. The warm gel against his bare skin felt fantastic. "Purple you have to try this," Red said looking up at his co-leader.

Purple's face was tinted blue and when he noticed that Red was looking up at him, the color deepened and he quickly looked away. "No, I'll pass," he mumbled and very subtly scooted just a little further away from Red.

Red was confused at his Purple's sudden withdrawal until he realized that, like himself, Purple hadn't seen much of Red's actual skin. A blue dusted across his own face as that embarrassed feeling crept back and he suddenly felt a bit too exposed. However, acknowledging his embarrassment would counter-act with his mission and the idea of coaxing Purple into exposing more of his unseen skin appealed greatly to Red.

"You're missing out," Red stretched out under the gel's surface, out of corner of his eyes he watched Purple watch him. "It's just gel, it won't hurt, there's nothing to be scared of," Red said in a slightly teasing tone.

Purple jut out his jaw, indignant, "I'm not scared."

"Well, why else would you not want to do something that feels this nice?" Red asked keeping his tone curious and slightly confused. Either Purple would be stubborn and prove he wasn't scared by removing his shirt too, or he would admit that he was thinking about the vid after seeing Red's skin. Either way was fine with Red, he liked seeing Purple's face flush with blue. He knew Purple didn't hate it when they rubbed antennae and tasted each other. The blush would let him know that Purple was thinking about him and it made his spooch do flips.

"Because I'm clean, and getting out," Purple said standing and scrambling out of the tub.

Red swore under his breath, he didn't expect Purple to avoid him so completely. He had moved too quickly, maybe he wasn't as patient as he thought. With a sigh he watched Purple put his boots back on and grab some snacks. A sudden and dreadful thought occurred to Red. "Where are you going?" he asked trying not to sound anxious. The last thing he wanted was for Purple to lock himself back in his closet.

"Back to my room, where else would I go?" Purple said looking over his shoulder.

Red let out the breath he had been holding. "I'll get out too," he said pushing himself through the gel to the edge. "We promised to share the snacks remember?" Red said.

"Right," Purple said sounding distant, watching Red lift himself out of the tub. The gel easily slid off his skin and back into the tub, leaving him completely dry. When Red looked back up at him, Purple quickly looked away. "You bring the other half then," he said quickly leaving the cleansing room.

Red had just put his boots back on when Purple popped his head back into the room excitedly. "Hey, Red, the door is unlocked again," he said then slipped back out.

"Oh, good," Red said flatly, knowing Purple wouldn't hear him. It just meant there would be more places for Purple to avoid him. Red trudged out of Purple's room and into their common space. He found his co-Tallest happily walking around, enjoying the freedom. He stepped in front of Red's door and frowned when it didn't open.

"Red, did you lock your—Eep!" Purple squeaked when he turned to face Red. His face flushed blue. "Why didn't you put your shirt back on?"

Red looked down at himself, seemingly just noticing. "Too lazy," he lied with a shrug. "The main door is still locked and no one is getting in, so why bother?" Since he couldn't get Purple to remove his own shirt, he would just work on Purple getting used to him without one. Maybe he would work on brushing more of his bare skin against Purple. Red suddenly perked up, that's exactly what he would do. Now that his shirt was off, it would be easier to have Purple touch more of him by 'accident'.

He casually walked over and stood next to Purple a little closer than he would have normally as he inspected his door. It didn't open for him so Red pressed his hand against the locking pad, which fortunately was on the other side of Purple, so he was able to reach across his co-leader getting closer to him. Purple backed up a little, and Red pretended not to notice. His door did not open.

In the background they heard the snack tube drop more snacks onto Purple's bed. "Guess, I'll be going into your room for snacks then," Red said. "Let's go see what dropped. Mik will be coming back later to check on us, lets make some requests for more flavors to try. And donuts," Red added.

"Yeah," Purple agreed watching Red walk back into his room. "More flavor is good," he said but he didn't think Red heard as the door shut behind him. When Red was out of sight, Purple leaned against Red's door. He'd never seen so much skin in his entire life. It was weird and little animated Irkens kept appearing in his head. Inevitably his memories would then drift to their antennae touching and his body would freeze up.

Every time Red came close Purple wanted to move away, but he didn't want to seem weak or fearful. Purple felt that he was losing some unspoken contest by moving away, but sometimes his embarrassed feeling was so strong that tensing up was necessary in order not to flee. The fact that Red didn't seem to be bothered by anything, not Purple's closeness nor the idea that they needed to make a smeet, was down right frustrating. It made Purple feel weaker, and he wasn't weak. He'd show Red that he was strong, that he could spend time with his co-leader normally too. Stealing his resolve, Purple followed after Red to check out this batch of snacks.

Red's plan = be as sexy as possible lol