AN: Lyrics in the beginning are to Vulnerable by Sarah Jaffe, which you should totally go listen to cause it's lovely.
The Futurama episode they discuss is The Prisoner of Benda (season 6 episode 10) and the trivia is totally true and I'll put more in the note at the end about it.

Wake me up just to call me
Sleeping beauty
Oh fine
That's fine
I got my hands up
I'm feeling vulnerable

"Great," Jake groaned after they got back to the cabin. "That widows thing was the last dancing thing they had planned for the rest of the cruise. Who does that? Why have all the dancing stuff scheduled in the first 3 days and leave the rest blank? They should have at least spaced out one for every night. This cruise schedule is a total train wreck. Or a total ship wreck."

When they left the widows salsa dancing class they went straight back to their room and Jake got out Amy's itinerary to scan it for something while muttering the whole time. She asked him what he was looking for but he didn't answer and didn't even say a word until he had read the whole time list 3 times over (when if he would just tell her what he was searching for she would be able to tell him off the top of her head). If he would have answered she could have told him that there weren't any more times allotted for dancing- salsa, ballroom, or any other styles. It really was poor planning on the schedule designer because they really should have at least one every night for couples- but they didn't even have one last dance on the last night of the cruise. But she didn't know why Jake was so frustrated about dancing. He didn't even like dancing- as far as she knew. Especially with her. Really the only time she had ever danced with Jake was when they were dancing undercover before he went mafia undercover. She hadn't gotten any better since that night- so she was just as horrible when they were salsa dancing on the cruise. She didn't step on his feet at all this time and she got into a bit of a rhythm with him that she wasn't too bad at and they were full of smiles- then there was the really good moment where he said he loved her.

And he was happy after that and on the whole way back to the room, it was just when they got back and he was scanning through the schedule that he started to get frustrated. She didn't know what he was so frustrated over, but she definitely didn't think it was dancing.

"Since when do you care about dancing?"

"I don't, really. I just never got to do it right with you. I thought I was gonna get to do it right with you this time," he said without a second thought while he looked through the list of times yet again.

"What do you mean 'right'?" She asked the back of his head from where she was standing.

"Like when we did it before it wasn't actually us. Like undercover and stuff. Not actually us, dancing."

2 years ago when they were at the dance competition really was the only time she had ever danced with him, undercover or not. She hadn't been in any other dance situations with him, even at the precinct annual parties no one ever actually danced. Technically they could have danced at the Boyle-Linetti wedding as Jake Peralta and Amy Santiago, but they didn't. The only dance situation they had ever been in that they had taken the opportunity to dance together was the one time they went undercover.

"You really want to do that? Dancing? Why haven't you ever said something about it before?"

"Like noice and smort?" Jake asked wryly. "This whole thing has been a disaster anyway. Let's just go to bed, I'm exhausted. I'm too tired to even be that upset about how sucky it's been. I might need some shrimp to get me unbummed tomorrow, but I promise I will get up and do at least 2 scheduled things tomorrow so this trip wasn't a total waste for you."

He didn't even turn around when she started digging around in her bag for something that she finally found after dumping out her beach bag (because of course the one thing she was sure could cheer him up had fallen to the bottom of the bag). By then he had slumped face first into the bed with her laminated itineraries cutting into his cheek finally looking like the slug he thought he was gonna be before the got on the ship. He was so tired that not even his usual kill-the-cat level of curiosity could make him lift his head at all the noise she was making.

"The only thing that makes me feel a little bit better about Doug Judy tricking me again is that he tricked you too, and you're the smart one here," Jake mumbled with at least half of his mouth pressed into the bed spread, and she was sure that the only reason the other half wasn't was so he could breathe.

"Yup, and you're the scrappy one here. Now get up."

He just groaned in response to her order, and groaned even louder when she started tugging on his arm to pull him up. It was when the music finally started playing from her phone that he made anything other than angry animal noises.

"What are you doing?"

"We are dancing."

"Gross, you're getting all sappy on me," he gagged, but he actually got up when she tugged on him that time (albeit sluggishly).

"Yup, I am. Getting my sappiness all over you, so just go along with it or else I'm gonna crank up the sappiness to level 11," Amy threatened as she set his hands a little too high on her waist to be proper position (she really knew nothing about it) and Jake rolled his eyes and shook his head, but he smiled too and placed his hands on her hips (since he actually knew proper position). "You're on sappiness level 2 right now. You don't want to see what comes next."

Jake honest to god laughed at that- which she was thankful for. The first song was an okay speed (she had just picked the first dancing playlist she could find) but the second song was impossibly slow, but they adapted from salsa pace to high school prom slow dancing without any trouble.

He'd complained before about having to learn dances when he was younger for special occasions (like his bar mitzvah that Jenny Gildenhorn ditched him when she was supposed to slow dance with Jake) but it was always complaining- Jake complained about dancing. Never even said something once in its favor. But of course, it was Jake. Who never said anything.

But when she dropped any semblance of proper hand position and wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into him he didn't say anything either- but it was a good silence.

Really just held him and breathed him in, letting herself get wrapped up in all that Jake was. She could feel his heart beat when she nestled into him as his steady breath rustled her hair and everything about the 2 of them together was wonderful and warm.

His hands on her back and the side of her head pressed to his chest while they were really taking more of baby steps than actually dancing to the music was a good silence.

She trailed her fingers lightly on the back of his neck before speaking, "You can say nice and smart to this because I get it, but you don't have to say anything to it at all. Like you don't have to respond or even say a word, but even if you do it's okay if you use those 2 words because I get it. And sometimes it's annoying and frustrating how you're so hard to get to open up, but I'd rather hear you say nice and smart a million times than have someone who's not you say a million different words. Because the words don't matter at all. You matter. Dancing with you matters."

Jake didn't say anything to that, but he pulled her closer (really he couldn't puller her any closer than she already was, just held her tighter) and nuzzled into her neck and Amy just sighed content. She had the thought that maybe they should always be dancing when she brings up something emotional in the future, because it was much better having his arms wrapped around her in silence than him trying to brush it off with a halfhearted joke.

"You matter too," he said eventually, though she would have been just fine with the quiet and her tucked into his shoulder smiling. "I like you more than I hate words. Which is a lot. Cause you obviously know how much I suck at talking cause I'm just awful at it, but you're more important than that. Dancing with you is more important than that."

"At least I didn't step on your toes this time. Guess that's a bit of an improvement from last time," she joked, because aside from causing him pain she was just as bad as the first time they had danced with each other.

"I thought you were gonna get lessons."

"Why on earth would you think that?" Amy crinkled her nose in confusion. She was horrible at dancing, and was never really hit with the inspiration to get better at it, so she wasn't sure where he got that idea from. She really hadn't gone dancing with anyone since the time she had fun dancing with him, and while she thought it might be nice to not suck at dancing she was pretty sure she was a lost cause. And the only time they brought up dancing was when Jake was complaining about it, so she had no clue when he got the impression that she was going to take lessons.

"You told me."

"When did I ever say I was gonna get lessons? I don't remember that at all."

"You said it last time we were dancing. You said you were gonna get lessons with Teddy," he managed to sound only the slightest bit begrudging at the mention of her ex and she bit her lip to keep from chuckling. That he still sounded jealous even when she was slow dancing in his arms was beyond cute.

"Did I say that?" She asked faux innocently- she still didn't remember saying it, but the faux innocent on her part was because she obviously had for him to still be upset over it.

"Yup. I remember it perfectly."

"Why? Did it really bother you that much that I said I was possibly going to take a dance class that you remembered it after all these years?"

"What bothered me was that you were going to do it with someone else. Me and you were having fun and then you said you wanted to do it with someone else. I was having fun too but after you said that I had this really petty thought that I wished we had found another way to get upstairs instead of entering the competition because if we had you would have still hated dancing," he confessed with a low and soft voice, lips buried in her hair. "That's what really pushed me over into telling you that night. Like I wouldn't have said anything if I didn't get fake fired because I didn't want to make it weird and mess up you being happy or something, so it was the i-might-die about the situation and the realization of how much I really hated the thought of you dancing with anyone else that pushed me over into telling you that night."

Right now Amy had to stop herself from saying noice and smort, because that was a lot coming from him. More than a little overwhelming hearing Jake Peralta say that to her. Like can't-even-speak overwhelming, couldn't manage a 'thank you' or an 'I love you'. She couldn't even say nice or noice. So she didn't try. She nodded into his shoulder and didn't try to speak at all. Just kept up their barely even dancing. She had actually stopped lifting her feet a whole song back and had really just been swaying since then, and it was still so perfect.

"You should always catch me when I'm this exhausted," he advised after god knows how many minutes of music. Even if one song increased the pace they just kept the same slowness because they were both pretty tired but didn't want to stop. The music was more of background noise than something they were dancing to. "I don't know who's holding up who anymore, and I could honestly fall asleep at any moment. But it's nice saying stuff other than those 2 words with you."

"I was thinking about always catching you when we're dancing. You're this exhausted at least one day every other week, and you've never said anything other than those 2 words before. I think it's the dancing. The exhaustion probably helps, but I think dancing is your emotional kryptonite. So you don't have to say anything. I can just talk to you and you can just dance with me. Cause I know you say nice and smart cause you don't know what to say when you think you have to respond, but dancing can be responding- touching instead of word stuff. I'm not gonna lie- I like hugging you in silence better than I like hearing you say nice and smart from across the room. And dancing is kinda like hugging with footsteps and music, so I can say emotional stuff and you can respond by hugging back. Or dancing back. So you'll know it's okay to be silent."

"We can lay down now, right? I think I'm gonna topple over you any second now," Jake mumbled and she could hear how sleepy he was even without the mumbly hints.

"The playlist ended a good 10 minutes ago."

"I'm so tired I didn't even notice."

Amy stood him up with warning that she was going to clear the mess off the bed and he'd have to support himself for the time being, but he didn't even wait 2 seconds after she had removed the itineraries before falling face first into the bed and laying there like a dead man's float.

"At least take your shoes off if you're not going to change into pajamas," she scolded. He did kick off his shoes with the help of both feet, but when he had trouble taking his socks off he only groaned and used a good 2 minutes just swiping at them with his toes until they finally fell off when it would have taken 2 seconds if he had just sat up and used his hands. While he was being a lazy slug with his feet Amy actually changed into some of her own comfortable pajamas and turned all the lights off before slipping in next to him. He shifted his head so he was facing her at least, even though his eyes were still closed, and she just ran her hands through his hair and looked at his calm and sleepy face.

"I'm really happy we came, Jake," she whispered, fully expecting him to already be lost to sleep and past the realm of conscious hearing.

"Ditto, Ames. Very, very ditto."

The next morning Amy woke up first as she always did and let him sleep in, but after 9 AM she started trying to annoy him into wakefulness and he just mumbled and groaned and started throwing pillows at her so she would stop bugging him, but he ran out of pillows by the 3rd throw and she started yelling from the bathroom while she was going through her morning routine to keep up the pestering (plus the wall was a good shield if he found something other than pillows to throw at her).

When he stopped complaining and trying to insult her she assumed he really was up, and when she peeked out from the bathroom toothbrush in hand he was sitting up wide awake, but when he saw her he covered his head with the sheet to hide himself.

"What are you doing now?" She asked, since he was still sitting up even with the sheet covering him, so not an effective hiding technique.

"Did embarrassing dancing happen last night, or was that actually just a really embarrassing dream I had that now I regret ever mentioning because now you know about it?"

"No, you sappy and embarrassing danced with me last night, and you actually opened up. Are you gonna stop cowering anytime soon? You promised me 2 scheduled activities."

"I'll do three activities if you promise to never bring it up ever again," he offered still hiding under the sheet.

"Big whoop. You have emotions just like the rest of humanity. You're nothing special. Get over yourself and get dressed."

When he still didn't move or say anything she threw a pillow that had missed her earlier and hit him right in his blind sheet-covered face "Get up, Scrappy. We have things to do."

"Are you gonna keep calling me scrappy?"

"What? I like it!"

"It's offensive!" He whined and ripped the sheet off his head and she was so glad to see his pouty face that morning.

"And yet so accurate," she teased and his pout only grew.

"Still offensive."

"Is scruffy any better?"

"I have no scruff, and that's the name of the janitor from Futurama and you know it. Scrappy is Scooby Doo's annoying nephew and Scruffy is the janitor from Futurama."

"I don't see you offering any better suggestions," she pointed out since he was shooting down all the cute nicknames without helping her come up with a better one- just a negative nancy. He just thought he was too good for scrappy and scruffy.

"That's cause I want you to call me Jake!"

"But Scrappy is so cute! It's got that whole Lady and the Tramp feel, but calling you Tramp actually would be offensive. Oh, I know! Scamp was the name of their son in the 2nd movie! That's perfect! Your new nickname is scamp!"

He did an activity with her because he promised he would the night before, but he was glaring at her half the time cause she kept calling him scamp. He would have liked to hide away from her all day cause ugh emotions, but it was useless since they were on a cruise in the middle of the ocean so there were only so many hiding places he had access to. Just trapped on a big boat with his girlfriend. And she kept pestering him and smiling at him and not being weird about big displays of emotion from the night before, so eventually he started having fun and he let himself have fun.

He knew he was a tang in the mud a lot of times. It wasn't like he was trying though- he'd stop if he could. Jake Peralta was just naturally tangy.

And Amy deserved a not-tangy person to play shuffleboard with (he wasn't going bring the term biscuit into the analogy).

But here he was, playing shuffleboard with Amy Santiago and having fun. Even after a night of gross emotions and opening up she was making him laugh the next day.

He wasn't good at being all emotional and sentimental and crap, but he was more than willing to just be happy with Amy- that was a very good Amy emotion. Being happy with her. Being happy because of her.

"Also, the only reason I said that about you growing a mustache is because I know it's impossible," she said as they were walking back to their cabin. He turned out to be pretty hopeless at shuffleboard since he kept hitting the biscuit as hard as he could which was apparently not how to win at shuffleboarding. "Otherwise I know you would have followed through on a challenge like that even if it was a joke, so don't even try it. I've thought about it before. You go from baby face Jake to Michael Cera with a mustache real quick."

Jake grimaced at the comparison. "Now I feel like I have to find a way for me to grow one just to prove you wrong. Or just get a really expensive realistic looking fake one and still prove you wrong."

"Don't do it. I'm right. Just let it go and we'll both never have to see you become Michael Cera. Besides, you're cute now. Don't ruin it."

Amy said that they should chose a 2nd activity later in the day for him to fulfill his promise, and that she was gonna fulfill her promise of eating shrimp in bed and watching something that the cruise had on their TV programming. It had commercials and seemed like regular cable, but neither of them were convinced that it was possible for a cruise ship to have actual land-cable and not ocean-satellite. Jake told her he actually wasn't as bummed as he thought he was gonna be, but he also wasn't going to refuse shrimp in bed.

He actually admitted that unscheduled action was probably a happy medium between his sluggish-ness expectations and her itinerary plans, and since Amy had signed them up for almost every activity and there wasn't any penalty for backing out (courtesy of Doug Judy) they were more of picking and choosing specific activities they wanted to do for the rest of the cruise and filling up all the down time in between with eating and laziness.

Amy wouldn't let him walk out of the room in pajamas but he wanted to laze around in them, so whenever they got back to their room he shed the tourist going-out clothes and put on his favorite pair of sweats and a cotton T shirt (magnum PI beach shirt was so not the right material for lazy days).

And while Jake was never ever going to thank him, Doug Judy giving them his all access pass and clearing everything up about it with the captain was a kinda cool thing to do. Escaping was not cool, but all the amenities he left behind may have made up just a little bit of the uncoolness. Jake would rather Doug Judy be in custody and he and Amy never getting the equivalent of a back stage pass, but since he would have escaped either way, him leaving it behind for them was cooler than him escaping and leaving nothing. And they were off duty, in international waters (where Doug Judy wasn't a criminal), and he was already long gone so it wasn't even close to being a shifty bribe, so Jake just swallowed his pride and bitterness at being tricked and abused room service privileges. Like the shrimp bowl that was sitting in front of Amy on a towel on the bed while she was flipping through channels.

Jake was still standing and searching for the impossibly soft robe that he was sure was lying somewhere under a mountain of clothes that he was sorting through by tossing them every which way when Amy started ribbing him again.

"That's my new plan from now on. Getting all dance-y next time I want to talk about emotions. You're gonna start breaking into cold sweats every time you hear classical music cause you're gonna start associating it with embarrassing feelings after so many times."

"You're not supposed to tell me about your secret plan! And you're not supposed to make fun of me either! You're supposed to be super nice about me actually talking for once," he informed her. Even though he wasn't the best at emotions and he wasn't mad at all, he was pretty sure that she was supposed to do anything but tease him. She was going about this whole thing wrong. "Making fun of me does not make me want to open up to you again."

Like teasing made it way less weird than if she acted like it was a big deal, and it actually didn't bother him at all. What bothered him was that she was so bad about him opening up that it was almost unfathomable. It was honestly ridiculous. Everyone knew that you didn't tease someone about being closed up right after they opened up for the first time. That was some like universal rule that even he knew. So he had no idea how Amy didn't know that rule.

"No, you want to do it again. I know you do. You like being lame and vulnerable. And I like it too. But if I was extra nice and careful you'd be way more embarrassed than if I wasn't teasing you like I am now. You're welcome," she said, still focused on flipping through the channels and not even looking his way. And even if she probably was right he wasn't going to admit it.

"You suck at this. You suck at emotions."

"Not as much as you," she shot back without a glance.

"Oh my god! What is wrong with you? You're not supposed to make fun of me after finally opening up! It's counter intuitive to say the least!"

"You're all pouty instead of embarrassed, so I think I made the right choice. I really liked last night too, and I'm not making fun of you for it. I'm affectionately teasing you about how you always are. And I'm being nice too in case you haven't noticed," she motioned to the shrimp bowl in front of her, "Now stop being in a huff and come eat shrimp with me. I found Futurama on the cruise-cable thing, so I'm gonna watch Scruffy the janitor and eat shrimp with my Scamp."

Jake grumbled at that, but when he found the robe hanging up (of course he couldn't find it because Amy actually hung it up and he was looking on the floor the whole time) and grumbled when he put on the robe, grumbled when he sat down beside her, and grumbled through every mouthful of shrimp.

"Did I ever tell you why this episode is one of my favorites?" She asked as she started the episode about brain switching and he grumbled out a no. Jake had always prided himself on how good he was with movie quotes and lines and hadn't met anyone who could memorize quotes as good as him (though Sophia was pretty well versed on Die Hard, but she couldn't handle him in a quote off on any other franchise) and Amy hated a lot of movies he liked so of course she never memorized quotes to them, but it was annoying how Futurama was in like his top 5 TV shows of all time and she could quote it better than him. It wasn't fair when she used her smart-person memory to best him, cause she always beat him in a Futurama quote off.

"The math proof they use to solve the brain thing with no take backs works in real life. It's falls under group theory, and I don't know if invented is the right word, but one of the writers wanted to use it as a plot point in the show and no one had worked out the exact problem before, so he invented it- and now people call it the Futurama theorem or the Keeler theorem. Because Keeler was the writer who worked out all the math and had a PHD in mathematics way before writing for Futurama. Isn't that so cool?" Amy practically gushed, and Jake tried to let her down easy.

"No, it's not cool. It's not cool at all," he told her when he figured out there was no easy way to say it. "I would be perfectly fine not knowing that a cartoon placed 1000 years in the future chose to invent a math theory just for the show when they break the laws of physics literally every second of every episode. I couldn't care less if the math was accurate or not."

"Theorem. And you're wrong, because it's so cool," Amy said and was grinning ear to ear cause she got so worked up about the nerdy stuff. She really did think it was cool, and he had to shake his head with a smile because she was completely hopeless. She was so lame and such a nerd, but it was cute when she got so excited over lame and nerdy stuff- and it was kinda hopeless for Jake too. He had no hope of escaping her black hole of lameness, but then again he didn't want to escape it either way.

"How can a show be so funny and yet so nerdy?" He mused, and she elbowed him at his deep, insightful pondering.

"Hey! Nerds have a sense of humor! Case in point: Futurama was written by a load of nerds. And I, as a nerd, find it hilarious even without the nerd references snuck in. And you, a not-nerd, also find it hilarious even though you don't notice all the nerd references snuck in. Besides, I find you funny so you can't say nerds have no sense of humor without insulting yourself. Game, set, match."

"Geesh, Ames. No need to get so worked up about it. You'd think I was looking in a mirror of myself watching Die Hard."

She rolled her eyes at that, then laid her head on his shoulder. Even though she kept shushing him every time he started to speak, though she'd seen the episode a good hundred times, it was a really nice 25 minute moment.

"I know it sucked losing Doug Judy again, but otherwise I really loved this cruise with you," Amy wrapped her arms around his torso and said something actually kinda serious since the episode had ended and she allowed talking then. And even though it was slightly lame, and he had a sneaking suspicion that her impromptu hug/cuddling had more than a little to do with the impossibly soft robe he was wearing, he still really liked it.

"This is the best vacation I've had in years, minus Doug Judy. Nah, even with him tricking me again this is the best vacation I've had in years. And that's not because I overwork myself and hate taking time off and laze around when I do have time off. It's cause of you. It's the best cause of you."

She pressed her smile into his neck even past the credits rolling, and he was kinda proud for making her smile because he actually said something nice and not for saying noice.

"Okay, you should go brush your teeth now cause we're all out of shrimp and I wanna kiss you but I'm not kissing you with shrimp mouth," she ordered still sitting on the bed next to him, even though she was a total hypocrite.

"But you're eating shrimp with me! You have shrimp mouth too! My mouth is no more shrimpier than yours!"

"Yup, that's why I'm brushing my teeth too," she responded like it was the only reasonable answer to the accusation, when it was probably the weirdest explanation.

"God, you're so weird. You're lucky you're a good kisser, cause otherwise it wouldn't be worth it."

"You keep telling yourself that, scamp. You keep telling yourself that."

AN: Me bringing in Futurama has nothing to do with Katey Sagal being in an upcoming B99 episode. Whenever I was planning this out after I finished the episode I mistakenly remembered Doug Judy calling Jake scruffy and lovable, and by the time I realized my mistake I already wrote some Futurama jokes in, so I just went full out Futurama with it.

I would post the wikipedia page to the writer who did the Futurama/Keeler Theorem/Proof but ff-net and websites, so you can just google Ken Keeler and it'll be the first or one of the first things that pops up.

And Jake is totally wrong, cause that is so frickin' cool. It's astounding when you read all of the people who wrote for Futurama over the years and how so many of them PHDs or Master's degrees and they could have developed a think tank with all of their smarty pants qualifications, but I'm so glad they went the Futurama route instead of the think tank route.
Like I just would not expect that many experts out of anything to write for any sort of show (much less a humor cartoon), and at best would be consultants and not actually writers if they were acting as experts, but all the peeps were acting as writers and just used their knowledge to make it more fun for themselves, and that's fantastic.

I'll be posting more on tumblr (disruptedvice) regarding my fic update schedule, so check that out if I've been absent for a while.