"Good morning, BABE," Paine smirked at Gippal as she hopped in line next to him at the breakfast buffet Buddy had gotten them all into.

"Very funny," Gippal pretended to laugh. They were all unhappy with a 9 am meeting on their day off, but Buddy didn't want to waste any time on the road. They all settled into a long table as usual, Buddy at the head with far too much paperwork for that hour of the morning.

"Hi," Rikku said, almost chipper, to Gippal who sat down across from her. Her voice was stuck in her throat. She wasn't quite ready for a hangover-zapping potion just yet. It might make her feel worse.

"Hi," he smiled back. This was nice. This he could handle. She was half dressed, her stupid miniskirt he loved to hate and he could see the straps of her bikini poking out the neck of his t shirt. She hadn't dealt with her hair yet, it was just in a high ponytail with messy pieces all over her face from tossing and turning into her pillow. She was also wearing flip flops, having not quite made it into any Gullwing Heels yet this morning.

"Sleep okay?" she asked, biting into a fruit.

"Yeah. You?" he asked, spooning oatmeal into his mouth.

"Like a big fat rock!" she giggled.

"Good morning everyone," Buddy said glumly from the head of the table. He had his goggles on and looked worse for wear. His late night hours logged at the club were starting to show.

"Buddy, can you take your goggles off? I didn't wait in line all day to guess what you look like," Rikku grinned playfully, a piece of melon between her teeth. Laughs went up all around the table.

"Yuck, Yuck, Rikku," Buddy smiled at her. She looked back down at her plate to avoid his eye. "Moving on. Reports. Brother?" Buddy pointed at Brother with his pen. The eccentric Al Bhed was fast asleep at the table. He had been sighted slinking back onto the Celsius about twenty minutes before they all left for breakfast. He smelled like cheap cheerleaders and champagne.

"E'mm dyga oui pudr yd uhla! Drana ec ahuikr du ku ynuiht!" (I'll take you both at once! There is enough to go around!) he shouted, snorting and throwing his head up, waking with a start.

"Pnudran!" (Brother) Rikku gasped.

"He shoots he scores!" Gippal tipped his glass of juice at their bizarre pilot who was just coming to and was clueless as to why everyone was in his fantasy.

"Brother. Reports." Buddy sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"The engine. She is busted, I am thinking. I noticed it when I was taking Tidus's little Auroch friends home last night. She makes a gagging sound, kind of a kkk-kk-kkkkrrrrggghhh-HA! HA! ka-CHA" Brother shouted.

"I noticed that myself. Can you fix it?" Buddy asked.

"Probably not, but I am guessing the greaser or my sister could have a good go at it," Brother shrugged, folding his arms and preparing to go back to sleep.

"Done. Gippal? Fix the engine today. Moving on," Buddy looked at his paper work and turned the page.

"Whoa, whoa, we don't even know what's wrong it with. And this guy's half asleep. ka-CHA and ka-CHOW and cha-CHINK all sound a like when you're still drunk from yesterday, but those are all very different problems!" Gippal sat up straight.

"And ka-chu-chug is typically expensive," Rikku added absentmindedly.

"She's right," Gippal pointed at Rikku without looking away from Buddy.

"I know," Rikku smiled to herself as she picked apart another fruit with her hands.

"So figure out what kind of ka-cha we have on our hands and take care of it. Next," Buddy huffed.

"By myself? We need to be in the air in two days. Not to mention me and Tidus are booked all day tomorrow. I'm going to need help," Gippal said firmly.

"So go into town and find a mechanic. Next, Yuna-"

"Why can't Rikku just do it? She's better at it than either of you are," Gippal nodded at Buddy and Brother. Buddy set his jaw and stared hard at Gippal.

"Fine. Rikku, you and Gippal can fix the engine," Buddy said. They smiled at one another across the table. Just like old times. At least that's what they would tell themselves to make it easier. "And Tidus will help you."

"WHAT?!" They both yelped. Buddy tried not to let his smile show. No way he was leaving the two of them alone. Lugnuts and motoroil were aphrodisiacs to the ex-lovers.

"Someone else should learn how it works incase you need to sort ka-chings and ka-plows while Rikku has a show to put on," Buddy said. "Moving on."

"But he doesn't know anything about-"

"Moving on."

"Paine knows more than he does about-"

"Moving ON."

"Let us get a mechanic from town then!"

"MOVING. ON." Buddy snapped. "Yuna. I want to sit down with you and discuss productivity with your practicing and how the dresspheres..."

"drec ec vilgehk netelimuic," (this is fucking ridiculous) Gippal muttered, stabbing his fork into anything on his plate that would take the blow.

"E ghuf, pid mad'c zicd kad ed tuha. Bmayca?" (I know, but let's just get it done. Please?) Rikku glanced up at him.

"Fine."

"Hey, Gip, hey," Tidus caught up with Gippal as the group headed back to the ship. "Look Bro, I'm sorry. You know I had nothing to do with this," Tidus said in a hushed voice, falling into stride alongside Gippal.

"Yeah, I know. It's nothing personal. You just don't know the work. It will be pointless to show you what takes months, even years, to learn, so you're going to just waste your day sitting there," Gippal shrugged.

"Oh. Right. The actual work," Tidus clapped Gippal on the shoulder.

"What?" Gippal squinted back at him.

"Dude, come on." Tidus tried not to laugh. "Are you dense?"

"Kettle? I'm the pot. You're very black," Gippal said faltly.

"Wait what? Whatever. Dude come on! This is your chance to get all hot and sweaty and dirty with Rikku and I have to sit there all day and watch!" Tidus said, keeping his voice low. "Which might not be all bad for me, now that I think about it."

It started to dawn on Gippal just what he'd be up to all day long. They were on some pretty good terms right now and he didn't need to ruin everything by getting over excited by her wrenching wires in a skirt. He wouldn't admit out loud that machines made him a little hot anyway, and Rikku with machines were present in countless late night fantasies of his. Maybe having Tidus around wouldn't be such a bad idea after all. It would certainly cut down on him accidentally calling her Babe.

"I want you there. The whole time," Gippal said firmly, resting a heavy hand on Tidus's shoulder.

"What?" Tidus shook his head in disbelief.

"Unless I tell you to leave? You're going to be my big, dumb, blond safety blanket," Gippal smiled. "No offense."

"Whatever you say, Boss," Tidus shrugged. Those Al Bhed were weird.

--

"So are we going to teach him what's actually going on or just do this thing as fast as possible?" Rikku asked, strolling into the engine room. She was right on time, a few minutes early by his watch, and he refused to take it as some sort of good sign.

"Buddy says he has to be here, so I figure he can nap by the door while you and I get busy over there," Gippal flinched. "I mean get to work," he paused again. "Rather, do our thing, I mean-"

"Please, spare me the 'lube and oil' and 'drill and screw' jokes and let's get this done so we can nap before we go out later," Rikku rolled her eyes with a smile that bordered on flirty and kicked her toolbox open with her boot.

"Now I remember why I asked for you on this job," Gippal smiled at her back. She was already heading for the malfunctioning engine, tools in hand.

The afore mentioned ka-CHA was coupled with a series of ker-plunks, gr-gr-gr-RWWWs and a very unnerving whiirrrrrr. Tidus sat diligently by the door with a wrench nearby that he could grab and look attentive should Buddy waltz in to check on progress. It was highly likely since Rikku was present. Rikku and Gippal worked hard on the engine with little to no communication. They didn't need it This was their element. This was what they knew. Machines were in their blood.

She'd put on a skin tight black tank top. It was perfect attire for squirming in and out of the tight spaces in the engine, but the way it lingered on every edge of her curves made Gippal grind his teeth. That tiny green miniskirt didn't seem all together practical, but she had saved the world in it, so why not the engine? She was lying on her back under the main combustion unit reaching up into the belly of the Celsius's main power source. She had work goggles on and was firing a welding gun like it was nothing to talk about.

He hated himself for noticing how sweaty she was. She had grease all over her and it was so sexy that he slipped and scraped all of his knuckles on the rotator he was adjusting that would supposedly do something about the whiirrrr issue. He silently cursed and pressed his bloody knuckles against his pants. He'd tossed his shirt hours ago. It was almost a hundred and twenty degrees down there. Heat they could handle, they were children of the desert, but he was cursing his ancestors for being such a scantily clad race.

She couldn't see him from down there and certainly couldn't hear him with the welder going, but she knew he was watching. She could feel his eyes on her the moment she walked in. She was silently flirting. It wasn't the kind were he could flirt back, at least not right away anyway. She used her feminine wiles to get him interested and her mechanical know-how to really turn him on. She blushed in spite of herself as she welded the computer chips back into place. She knew what she was doing was mean, but the heat in her gut was taking over for her normally so-so conscience.

She just wished Tidus would leave. And then what? Nothing could happen, not yet anyway. It as all too soon and she was trying to keep her legs crossed for as long as humanly possible per Lulu's request. That mage had good advice. Even though he was asleep more often than not, Tidus's presence made her unspoken mating dance of repairs a lot harder to perform. She was doing a fine enough job, and she could tell, and perhaps she ought to start actually working hard so as to get that nap in she was joking about earlier.

Her legs. WHY were her legs so long? And so touchable. He could see the sweat running down them, mixing with the grease and oil from the ship that lay in smudged handprints up and down her bare thighs. Those black and brown smears were incriminating. It was like the grease had invaded his mind, painting up and down her smooth skin exactly here he wanted his hands. He swallowed hard as she stretched to reach the farthest wire fixture and a thin line of tan skin peeked out between her skirt and her top.

He shook off the rest of the pain in his knuckles and went back to work. This was torture. He should never have asked for help and just worked all night alone and frustrated. Shit, she was good at this. The way they climbed all over the engine, barely needing to speak, they just knew. They worked in perfect rhythm, the same perfect rhythm, silent conversations, hands and legs and tools and all the SWEAT holy FUCK it was like having SEX with her! He hated that this was turning him on as much as it was. And last night's talk of bathrooms and dance floors and sexsexSEX it was suffocating!

This would be a lot easier if he was wearing a shirt. Life would be a lot easier for her if he could keep a stupid shirt on. She slid herself out. She was done below and needed to focus her attention on the gr-gr-gr-RWWWs coming from the vertical thrusters. Maybe it would take her mind off his pecks. She set the welder down and bent at the waist, leaving very little to the imagination as she searched through the array of tools spread out on the floor. She could see his annoying biceps out of the corner of her eye, and stole a better look. His back, holy shit, his back. Everything rippled in rhythm as he forced the rotators tighter. All that talk about dance floors and bathrooms... that's how his back looked in the mirror in Pop's bathroom when she made Gippal screw her in there cause she was mad at her father.

And Brother' bathroom mirror.

And Yuna's.

She slipped an assortment of wrenches into her belt that she'd probably need and set about fixing the vertical thrusters, all the while trying very hard not to think about vertical thrusting and failing miserably. Maybe she should have kept being a bitch. Then he would have kept being a jerk and no one would smile at each other and there would be no shared glances and she could go about her 9 to 5 rock star job in peace.

She looked really tiny next to the thrusters. Her waist was so little. Her shoulders were taught as she lifted the caps off. They were almost too heavy for her, but not quite. Offering to help would put him back in the dog house. He knew to just let her be. Also, from that angle, he could watch. She paused and let out the sexiest little sigh before setting aside her wrenches and pulling her headband down to wipe the sweat off her face. She took down her hair and ran her fingers though it, flicking sweat off the wet ends. He winced. She whipped it back up onto a pony tail and resumed working. She had to know what she was doing to him, didn't she? Somehow, it was hotter if she did.

The dim orange light in the engine room was giving their glistening bodies an all too familiar bedroom hue. She tried not to look at him. It was almost dinner time and they were nearing completion. She could hear him behind her working on the turbines. That was the last project left. She was done with the verticals and was going to have to join him soon. She took her sweet time screwing the caps back into place to delay the inevitable.

She said nothing as she kneeled across from him. He tried to ignore her closeness as he cleaned the excess oil out of the run off traps with a filthy rag. She was unrolling a coil of wire and replacing the charred ones in the fixture between them. She was close enough to touch, close enough to kiss even, and it was taking every ounce of him to ignore her. He set the main units back in place and they both worked socket wrenches hard on all the lock pieces. They pumped their arms faster, trying to match the other as they sped up, wanting to get their side finished first just to prove a childish point. Breath was heavy and he caught a glimpse of a trail of sweat dripping from her chin to the floor boards. They both dropped their wrenches in victory at the same time, taking in labored gasps.

"Oh my god, it's been ages," she sighed, a dreamy look in her eye. She forgot how much she loved machina. How well she knew it.

"Feeling rusty?" He grinned.

"Maybe a little. I hope I didn't disappoint." she smirked.

"Never."

"Was it as good for you?" She sighed, wiping her brow and basking in the vast job they had completed in under nine hours.

"Always," he tried to keep his grin from reaching his ears.

"It never used to make me this tired," she wrinkled her nose a bit.

"You're just out of practice," he chuckled.

"We used to do it non-stop! Days at a time! I just started speaking to you again, I didn't expect a work out!" She was panting heavily.

"That's IT! You two are DISGUSTING and I can't STAND IT!" Tidus jumped up. "Are we done?!"

"I dunno, I could go again?" Gippal smirked at her.

"Oh yeah? So soon? You used to need a break," Rikku smirked back harder.

"I'm leaving," Tidus said flatly.