Work Text:
“You've got to be kidding me!” Laura choked and backed away from the smoking engine in front of them. They'd been attempting to fix their ship's engine for a good day now, barely any time to rest in between working on the engine and making sure that –
“Verdammt!” Laura rolled their eyes as they slowly turned around to spy their current assistant, the albino brother of their engineering idol and dear friend, Ludwig Beilschmidt. He had practically pushed his older brother under your wing right before heading off to some unknown location to meet with an unknown person. Pretty much everything he was currently doing was completely unknown to you, even the reasoning to leaving his brother with you. Gilbert was a great engineer as well, and he could easily take care of himself... well, for the most part anyway.
With a sigh, Laura turned from their work and headed over to wherever it was that Gilbert had sworn from, giving their dog a good noggin-rubbin' as they passed, steam coming from the dog's ears as it yipped happily and started rolling after them, following them to wherever their creator was going.
“You okay in here?” Laura called out once they came upon Gilbert's current room and lab. They already knew it was quite an unwise decision to just barge in, having done so several times in the past and nearly having their head lobbed off once by... they didn't even know what it was! Either way, never again. Instead, they knocked on the door, crouched down, and then slowly turned the knob and pushed the door open as soon as their hand was back at their side.
It was quiet.
Another, this time relieved, sigh came from their lips as they pushed the door open further and scuttled into the room, glancing around carefully before standing back up, brushing dust and dirt off their pants before continuing on. Though, they paused and pursed their lips, their eyebrows creasing the skin of their forehead as they looked around the, apparently, empty room. Considering the fact that there were no conjoining rooms to this one, it should've been quite simple to find Gilbert. But, alas, the German – excuse me, Prussian – albino was no where to be seen.
“Gil..?” Laura called out again, taking bolder steps into the room, their hearing focusing temporarily on the whirls and clinks of their dog following them into the room, a small yip coming out before their hearing focused elsewhere. The room seemed to be completely silent with the exception of Laura's dog rolling around the room.
Finally, though, there was a soft grunt from underneath the bed that was shoved quite haphazardly into the far right corner of the room, far away from the work space that had been set up near the front left and center. [Y/d/n] started yapping and gave an occasional growl, followed by a vocal short-out, towards the bed. A [y/h/c] brow raised as they made their way towards the bed, kneeling down to get a glance underneath once they had reached it.
“Gil.”
“Oh! Hallo Laura..” Gilbert looked over and smirked, though it looked more guilty than anything, which gave cause to keep that one brow raised as they laid down, squirming their way underneath the bed with Gilbert, patting his hip to get him to scoot over.
“What did you do this time?”
“Well...” He sighed and, surprisingly humble, told Laura what had happened, lifting away his goggles to let his ruby eyes shine dully, possibly due to being caught making a mess of his bed. Laura listened carefully as he described how he was trying to simply get the lever on the bottom of the mattress to be on the side facing towards the room, which meant pretty much re-doing all of the mechanical work to the frame of the bed as well. But, not very surprisingly, a pipe had busted and warm steam started to leak out, fogging up Gilbert's goggles. Without enough room to manuver, he tried to escape from underneath the bed, but his pant leg got caught on a different pipe and, well, the story went on and on and on. Laura had a very hard time trying not to laugh at just how clumsy Gilbert was.
Finally, after he finished his explination of the situation, Laura gave his hip another pat before scooting out from underneath the bed, saying that they would have him out in a giffy. Once out, they turned to [y/d/n] and clapped twice.
“Hol meinen Werkzeugkasten. Wir müssen ihn da raus holen.” Laura spoke to their dog, thankful that it would understand the German. They also hoped that they hadn't butchered the wording and pronunciation of the words, seeing as how they were actually, in some form or another, trying to impress Gilbert with how much they had learned. Having known the German brothers for so long, it felt like a disgrace to not know at least the minimal amount of their language! So, Laura had been practicing!
In no time, [y/d/n] came back with their toolbox and sat down, panting as steam rose from their mouth. Laura smiled and gave them a small pat on the head.
“Guter Junge,” they muttered before getting to work, putting a lift under the edge of the bed, raising it just enough to help Gilbert wiggle to freedom, as well as trying not to get any burns from hot steam or metal piping on the lift. Once he was out from underneath the bed, Laura got to work on the broken pipes while Gilbert continued to work on his earlier project. Laura looked over during a pause and licked their lips, nervous about talking to their friend in German.
“Was ist, dass verwendet?” They spoke hesitantly, and rather softly to be honest. They were kind of hoping that he wouldn't catch what they had said and be spared humiliation in case they had messed something up, but that seemed to not be the case as Gilbert answered fluently without even pausing his work.
“Um das Bett zu kippen.” He paused after he spoke and looked over his now completed work. Once it was to his satisfaction, he smirked and looked down at Laura, “Deutschsprachig?”
Laura blushed and looked back at their own work before answering to the best of their ability, lightly biting their bottom lip as they concentrated on the two different objectives of working and answering.
“Ja, Ich praktiziere.” They shrugged, trying to play it off as if it were nothing, though the redness of their face was giving them away pretty badly. Thankfully, all Gilbert did was chuckle and stand before leaving the room, not having asked why they were blushing and what the cause could've been. Laura sighed and took a break, letting their arms fall to their sides and closed their eyes, enjoying the warm steam breathing over them and the hum of mechanical parts here and their working as they should.
When they opened their eyes next, they jolted upright. They were no longer underneath the bed, but on top. From what they gathered, looking around, Gilbert had taken them out from underneath the bed and finished up their work before lowering it and setting them on top as they slept. They groaned and pressed their hands to their face. How could they fall asleep under the bed?! It was not only embarrassing to have to be pulled out like that and have someone else finish your work, but it was a safety hazard! What would've happened if clothing had caught on fire from heated pipes?! Or even buring your own skin on the hot metal!
“I see you're finally awake.” Laura jolted and looked over to the door, where Gilbert was leaning on the frame, a smirk on his lips and his thumbs hooked around his overalls. Laura groaned and fell back onto the bed, a small smile forming on their own lips at the sound of Gilbert laughing. They turned their body enough in bed to be able to see where Gil was.
“Why didn't you wake me up earlier?! Like, as soon as you found me?!” they whined and flopped their limps around, thumping and bouncing them on the mattress. Again, Gilbert laughed and shrugged. Instead of a verbal answer, he bent down and picked something up, bringing it over to the bed before dropping it on Laura's stomach: [y/d/n]!
“Oh, and, by the way, Ludwig is coming back this afternoon.” Laura's sat back up and began to play with their dog, a confused look masking their face as they took in what he had said. It took them about a good minute or so before they were able to come up with something intelligable to respond with.
“But... he just left about 2 days ago... how is he already done?” Gilbert shrugged and flopped down on the bed, wrapping his arms around Laura's waist and played with [y/d/n] as well. They smiled softly and pressed a kiss to his head before pushing him and the dog off their lap in order to get up and stretch a little.
“And I think I understand why he left you with me...” Gil paused in playing with [y/d/n] in exchange to giving you a confused look. They smirked and poked his nose, “Cause you can't even tuck yourself into bed properly!” Laura laughed as they started to be chased by Gilbert.
“Me?! You're the one that fell asleep under the bed!” Both of them let out loud laughs as he caught them and blew a raspberry on their neck, making them squirm, but unable to release themselves from his grasp around their waist.
“Whatever! I guess we both have trouble with bed.”