Following the events of Expiration Date, Engineer decides to invite Medic for a few beers out back of the base, as a final sort of come-down from everything they'd been through over the weekend. Some easy conversation and light flirting seems a pretty good way to celebrate being alive.
A giftie fic for @missjamiekaye, and thank-you for that lovely Sword Van piece! <3 They asked for some Engie and Medic being flirty bros. I hope this passes muster!
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It had taken hours, but finally, the last of the giant, mutant bread monster had been disposed of. Most of the work had been done by Pyro, if they were all honest. The firebug had delighted in torching that big mess of grains and tentacles, reducing it to ash which was then unceremoniously dumped in a nearby ravine, hopefully not polluting any groundwater after the fact.
Not like the groundwater here could get any more polluted than it already was, anyway. Not without changing its colour and viscosity, at least. The lead levels were already more than enough to scare even penny-pinching RED into supplying an external water source for its mercenaries, whom had never been known to be the recipients of much in the way of creature comforts from their employers.
Thank goodness the paychecks were huge.
Engineer hung his hardhat and goggles up on the pegs he'd installed next to the door in his quarters. He scrubbed a hand over the stubble of his shaven head and let out a long breath, now that everything was said and done. He was exhausted. It had been the longest three days of his life. Terror, shame, determination, panic, and entirely too little sleep had filled the time between the discovery of just what teleporting does to bread, and the discovery that what teleporting does, it just does to bread. He didn't think it possible to chug along on adrenaline for days on end, but now, as it leaked away, he wasn't just tired, he was weary.
Even so, he wasn't headed to bed just yet. There was something important he needed to do.
*
The door to the infirmary opened slowly but not quietly, the door's hinge squealing almost as a defense measure. Engineer made a mental note to oil the damn things tomorrow.
The room was only half-lit, theories and calculations still scrawled on the chalk board, wall, floor, anything chalk could cling to; evidence of their weekend-long desperate bout of research and development. Engineer hadn't worked that hard that fast since college, though he had to say, the company was much better. Medic was at least as much the mad genius as he was, and it had been nice to have someone on a similar wavelength to bounce ideas against.
"Hallo?" Medic asked, turning, bent over in front of his open refrigerator. Likely chilling what few samples he'd managed to wrangle after Pyro had befriended the small, angry loaf of mutant bread the doctor had managed to keep contained for most of the weekend.
"Hey there, Doc," Engineer greeted with an easy smile.
"Ah, Engie. I'm surprised to find you awake. I had assumed you'd be dead to the world at this point." Medic chuckled lightly, standing and closing the fridge.
"Still too wound up from it all. Exhaustion's finally crashin' in but my mind ain't done turnin' yet. You know how it is."
"Indeed I do." Medic took a deep breath, feeling the same fatigue creeping over him. His nose scrunched up in dismay. "Ach, this whole room smells like yeast."
Engineer chuckled at that. "Weren't gonna say nothin', but you ain't wrong. But speakin' of..." He lifted his hand, showing the gift he'd brought: a six-pack of frosty, cold beers. "How 'bout we go partake of some more yeast out back? Actually enjoy some of this weekend 'fore we gotta be up for work in the mornin'?"
"Those are the only carbohydrates I think I'll be interested in for some time," Medic chuckled. "My friend, once again you prove to be the idea man between the two of us." He gladly followed Engineer out the door, shutting the lights off in the infirmary behind him.
The night sky stretched out for what seemed like forever, dampened only by the light pollution of a few stray lamps along the perimeter fence. Engineer switched off the porch light, saving their eyes a bit of strain in the dark, and settled on the edge of the dry, creaky old structure, the six-pack of beers separating him from Medic.
The cool breeze of the night air caressed them gently, neither chilling nor buffeting them, merely whispering past in a gentle sussurus that seemed to ferry away the stress of the prior three days. Engineer snatched up a beer and popped the cap on the edge of the porch, then handed the bottle to Medic before doing the same for himself. They lifted their beers and clinked the bottles together in a silent toast before taking a pull.
"Thank you for inviting me," Medic said with a wistful smile, watching a stray cloud drift past the moon, its light illuminating it with a silver halo.
"'Course," Engineer demurred. "After what we been through, some cold beers with a good buddy is just what this doctor ordered."
Medic snorted a laugh at that. "I'll admit, this is a far better way to spend time together than in utter, mortal terror, furiously experimenting for three days straight."
"Amen to that. If I'm gonna be experimentin' with you, I'd much rather it be relaxed, 'n after a couple of beers." He smirked against the lip of his bottle, a proper smile pulling at his lips as Medic blushed and tittered in reply.
Medic didn't look at him, a laugh caught in his voice. "So is that why you asked me out here?"
Engineer split into a crooked grin. "That depends on whether it's gettin' me anywhere."
Lifting an eyebrow, Medic took another swig from his bottle, letting the silence stretch on just a bit. "You know, one of these days I'm going to call you on your bluff and take you seriously."
"When that day comes we're both in for a lot of trouble."
"I worry far more for everyone else."
They shared a laugh at that, downing the rest of their beers. Medic glanced sidelong at Engineer. It had been a long, long weekend. Though, truly, even if their initial theory had held true and it had been the end for them, he could scarcely think of a better way to go, throwing science at the wall and trying to crack a nearly insurmountable problem with Engineer at his side. He was the only man he'd ever known whose ever-churning mind could keep up with his own. If he had just a few fewer morals he could even surpass him, which made Medic glad that his friend had at least some scruples left to his name, if only to save his own pride.
Engineer's thoughts must have followed a similar path. He withdrew another beer from the pack and gestured to Medic with it. "Still can't believe we both managed to jump to a conclusion like that. Somethin' affectin' bread like that sure is gonna be one-to-one with humans." He scoffed. "We were so wound up we straight skipped over where that didn't make a lick of sense."
Medic shrugged, nodding with the assessment. "To be fair, it isn't exactly like there are reams of research on the side effects of teleportation on the human body in the first place. Our daily use of them and the records kept about it is probably the closest thing to a study that's ever been done, which is hardly saying anything. Something, anything, showing a reaction like that is cause for concern, since it was such an anomaly. We were working with the data available, which was very incomplete." An impish grin crossed his too-white teeth, "We did manage to untangle the problem. After all, we had the two greatest minds of our generation working on the project."
"Shucks," Engineer demurred, blushing a bit. "I'm just glad this weren't the end. Would'a been a sad way for a bunch of hardened killers to go. All that fight in us just to die from tumors? Shame."
"Agreed. Even living as we do, it would be cutting everything far too short. Too much left undone, too much left unsaid," he took a sharp breath, realizing how personal that sounded, and quickly rejoined, "too much yet to learn and discover!"
Engineer let it slide, not taking the easy opening to needle his friend. "Ain't that right." He used the edge of the porch to finally open the bottle he was holding and offered it to Medic, "Doctor?"
"Doctor," Medic replied, accepting it gladly with a giggle.
Engineer opened his own beer and they clinked the bottles again. "To wheat."
"To complex carbohydrates!"
They chuckled and knocked back their beers, settling into a comfortable silence as they stared out across the desert, the pale, silvery light of the moon lighting up the rusty sand a fetching shade of blue.
"Y'know, Doc, I—"
"Ludwig."
Engineer turned to look at Medic, lifting an eyebrow. "Pardon?"
"My name is Ludwig."
"Oh."
Medic finished his beer, taking the pause to sort out his thoughts. "We just stared Death in the face and watched him flinch so hard it was physically indistinguishable from a seizure. We spent three days with barely any food or sleep, experimenting and theorizing and calculating, around the clock. We've just been through a special Hell together; we deserve know one another's names, OPSEC be damned, don't you think?"
"Awful poetic of you," Engineer replied, his voice soft. He was a bit touched, truth be told. "Alright, Lou. You can call me Dell."
Medic smiled at that, more than a little amused by the American's immediate need to create a nickname for a name that was only two syllables long. "Dell. Sehr gut."
"Nice to meetcha," Engineer teased. He finished his beer and set about cracking the last two, handing Medic his and lifting his own for a final, silent toast.
Medic grinned, and their bottles clinked, and the chirping of crickets filled the easy quiet that settled there as the exhausted, trimphant mercenaries spent the last hours of their weekend enjoying one another's company.
