#god ive spent so much time away from these eggheads i dont even remember which ship tag i normally use

[presidentbungus]

“What are you looking at so intently?” says Engie like any good Texan boy would, all fluttering eyelashes and blushy grins despite the fact his eyes are behind half a centimeter of tinted glass. Medic puffs out his lips into a little pucker, then smooths back out, and Engie glints with satisfaction at just the lightest dusting of pink that rises to his cheeks.

He makes sure to be just a little extra slow and sultry when he leans over and plucks a beer from the case by his recliner-chair. “See somethin’ ya like?” By which he means: you're staring for a good reason, please, god, aren't you? But he’s too respectful and upstanding to say that, though he considers himself certainly talented at this whole implications thing, and the deep mauve Medic turns when he tosses just a slightly inflected look in his direction indicates he must get the general idea.

“Well—hoo, well.” He spends two seconds frankly adorably stumbling through his words and then that gloved hand darts out and there’s rubber around Engie’s wrist, two long, thick fingers barely touching thumb-to-pointer in a little ring. “I was—er…”

He rescinds the hand, temples his fingers under his chin, caught between sitting and standing and settling in a weird in-between as Engie watches, fascinated. “I was just… thinking… about your heart. And your lungs.” He tilts his head. “And, in a small measure, your brain, I suppose. Er, imagining your breathing, and your circulation, and the oxygen flowing in and out of your limbs, and… so on. Drawing your veins in my mind and, and such.”

… Huh. Maybe he misread the situation.

And he keeps just stumbling through, pushing up his glasses every few seconds, still perched on his heels with his arms wrapped around his knees. “You’re a—private man. I have not seen much of you besides what I have been able to—have the company require,” and his voice pushes up a few notes on the last word, and well he’ll be damned if it’s not the cutest thing he’s ever seen, “but I… think about you.”

He lowers his voice just a little for this one, reclining down onto his back. “Oh, you do.”

“You have a very impressive set of lungs. Even for all the, er, damage." Engie frowns and Medic puts his hands up. "That's a compliment."

"Uh-huh."

"And your heart is a perfect specimen. Strong, and healthy… pulsing with vitality," and his eyes bug out just a little on the last line. "I was almost upset to have to cut it out of you… until, well…"

Ain't that interesting. "Until?"

He smiles sheepishly, wringing his hands together with a frankly disgusting sound of rubber against rubber. “… I may or may not have kept your original heart in a jar. With my other personal possessions.”

He mentally re-catalogues everything of interest in the lab, mentally travels to Medic’s big mahogany former-bookshelf, stacked top-to-bottom with preserved organs in jars, and sees a lot of hearts. A lot of hearts. But, then again, his mind is drawn back to a smallish mason jar near the front, suspiciously unlabeled, amidst rows and rows of perfectly organized bits and pieces.

Yeah, sure.

He's sure Medic is approaching this more from scientific curiosity than any particular angle he'd prefer, but heat's rising to his face before he knows it and frankly he doesn't really feel like putting in the effort to quell it.

And just to press the envelope that tiny bit further, he ventures: "Well I'll be darned if that's not the most romantic thing I've ever heard."

Medic turns the color of his tie. Engineer's sure he follows suit.