Country Boys
Chapter 1
~o~
The summer sun was warm against the back of his head, warmer than he was used to from where he used to live. It was also humid, and made the man huff a bit in his black shirt, but he'd deal with it. He would have to get used to the heat, he'd be in law school down here for many years to come, only being able to escape it on certain holidays. He heaved a sigh of relief as a nice cool breeze whipped gently across his face, allowing him some relief from the heat that he was standing under. At that thought he lifted his things and headed inside, having moved down just a few days ago, all situated now inside his small apartment only a few blocks from the Law school he was to attend. He still had a nice long month and a half of summer left, deciding to come down early when he caught the good deal on the apartment.
Rude stepped inside and gave a sigh again, only this time it was silent, thankful for the apartment's air conditioning. He stepped up the stairs and headed to his new apartment, which was on the third floor of the seven floor apartment complex. He dug out his keys and unlocked his door when he reached it and then stepped inside and shut the door behind him, locking it for good measure, even though it was a good neighborhood and he need not worry about break ins, yet he did it anyway, a habit he'd developed. He kicked off his shoes and went over to his kitchen, tugging out a small bottle of water, draining it before he refilled it and replaced it into the refrigerator.
After Rude made himself something to eat he settled down with a book, relaxing on his bed happily as he flipped the worn pages, having picked it up from a used book store, smiling contently to himself while his glasses sat on his face comfortably, having swapped his sunglasses out for the regular lenses when he got home. Eventually he felt tired enough to sleep and marked his page before getting up to change into a more sleep appropriate attire, for the south, no shirt and thin cotton shorts that had once been pants. He removed his glasses and folded them up and set them on the end table next to his bed, pulling a thin blanket over his form he settled in the dark and slowly let himself drift to sleep.
~o~
When Rude got up the next day he decided to take a drive around town, get more used to the new surroundings. He was a wanderer, loving to roam and explore new places, not that he looked like he did, even when he did, his face held no look of wonder, or outward interest, but it was there in his eyes. His eyes shone with simple contentness, loving to wander around when he could get the chance. He stopped at a gas station to get a bit of gas so he wouldn't drain a lot of his gas with his drive, and then started on his journey.
He drove through the residential areas, warm brown eyes glancing around behind his sunglasses, taking care to go the speed limit and to keep an eye out for any kids that may or may not run out into his way, chasing a ball or something of the like, seeing as this was a bit of a residential area. He kept his window down, arm resting on the edge while one hand gently held onto the steering wheel. He liked to know his way around the place he lived, he preferred it in fact, to not knowing where everything was at.
As he turned onto a new road, back into a more urban part of the town, Rude's car began to sputter angrily, but still ran. He groaned and glanced around, looking for any signs to mechanic shops. He heaved a sigh of relief when he saw one not too far off, and hoped his new little car could make it the ways away that the shop was. As it were, the car died just as he turned into the driveway, Rude put it into park and got out and jogged up to the shop and looked around, blinking as he saw someone bent into an open car hood, examining the engine, and then they straightened and brushed a long ponytail over a shoulder. Rude's blinking was mainly from the intensity of the color in the person's hair, who's gender he had yet to figure out as they had an androgynous figure, which was a very bright red, as red as a fire hydrant. The person huffed a small groan and pulled the rag that was sticking out of a pocket and wiped their hands off on it, before stuffing it back into the pocket. Their hands were then placed on slender hips, as they gazed down at the exposed engine, seemingly trying to dissect the problem with the vehicle with just the gaze. It took a long moment of Rude's part, having to shake himself from the urge to continue ogling the person before him, and with a small polite cough into his hand the person perked up. They seemed to be broken from the trance they'd been in and spun on their heel.
The next thing that Rude noticed aside from the almost obnoxious bright red hair was their set of eyes, an equally bright blue to match the hair. Rude was almost certain this person dyed their hair on a regular basis and wore colored contacts because he'd never seen anyone with that intense a hair shade, or intense an eye color. The eyes were light and shone in the dim lighting of the garage, with an almost mischievous glint. Bordering the blueness of their eyes, were red tattoos, along the bottom edge, that almost made him gape, he'd never seen anyone with facial tattoos before either. Though, to be fair, he had grown up in a very conservative neighborhood his entire life, never moving once.
Another thing about this person, and he hadn't gotten past their face, was he felt oddly drawn to them. Perhaps it was just their charisma, which they seemed to have floating all around them, because he wasn't that social with people. He tended to be a loner, and was all throughout school, despite being a star on the football team. He neither partied nor bothered himself to make many friends outside the small handful he had when he was a child, no matter the many attempts the other students, the much more popular students, made. Suitors were equally ignored, and it wasn't as if he was cold about it, whenever approached he would politely decline and offer a rare smile. After the first handful of approachers, he was bothered no more and the suitors stayed strictly private in their crushes.
The person took a small moment to do as Rude was to them, but not on the same degree, as Rude could ogle as he wanted, eyes covered by the dark lens of his sunglasses. They then gave a small smile and shifted into a comfortable stance, hands inside of pockets. It was finally the full assessment of Rude's eyes on them, as their voice that gave them away.
He was wearing what seemed to be the uniform shirt, for the garage, and had a tight, black wife beater underneath, showing no curve of the chest, in any feminine way. His voice was higher than Rude's low baritone voice, but still had a deep click to it and was extremely smooth. And by smooth, Rude meant his accent. It was neither weak nor heavy, but sure and strong at the same time. It almost sent a shiver down Rude's back, not something that he was accustomed to.
"Hey yo, how may I help yah?" the man before Rude asked, ah, a light mischievous tone was in his voice as well, just like his eyes. It took Rude a moment to find his voice, and when he did he coughed into his hand briefly before feeling grateful that he was darker skinned, for he felt his cheeks flush a deep warmth over the bones.
"Ah, my car just died, it's in the driveway, I'm not sure what's wrong." He announced to the man, before noticing the name tag. Reno, hmm… Reno blinked and then smiled and nodded.
"C'mon, I'll help ya push it into the garage so I can take a look." Reno said, holding up a hand and stepping behind a car to shout at someone. "Hey, Ax! Come n' help me a minute!" Reno smiled when he heard an affirmative shout back. When the male, nearly as tall as Rude himself, but just as skinny as Reno appeared, Rude felt like he was seeing double, for Reno and 'Ax' looked like they could have been identical twins, minus the different hair and height, and as Rude took a closer look, Ax's eyes were actually a green, and just as intensely bright as Reno's.
"Ax, you can steer the car an' me n'…" Reno had begun only to blink and grin sheepishly, never having gotten Rude's name. "Ah, never introduced me self, sorry, yo. I'm Reno, and this is meh bro Axel." Reno introduced, holding his hand out to shake. Which made Rude blink at the formality of it, not figuring by what he knew so far to be like that, shows to not judge by the cover at least. Rude gave a polite nod and gripped Reno's hand in return, again surprised that the other male had a tight grip.
"Rude. Nice to meet you both." Reno smiled and nodded before he got back to what he was saying.
"Back at cha, Rude. As I was sayin' Axel, you can steer an' me n' Rude here can push the car up into the garage, just don't be an ass about it, yo" Reno said, scolding Axel playfully, only banter. Axel laughed and ruffled Reno's hair some, before nudging him with a hip.
"Y'know I only do that when we gotta work on Demyx's car." Axel teased back, his voice, while like Reno's, just wasn't as smooth. His accent was a bit more clicked, like he hadn't lived down south all his life, which made Rude wonder before he shook his head some and waited for the brothers to commence with their work.
"Alright, alright, yo. Let's get workin', I'm hungry and lunch is only an hour or two away." Reno said with a roll of his eyes, but was still playful. He then headed over to stand closer to Rude, giving the larger man a smile. "Alright, now. Where's this car?" He asked and Rude obliged in showing where the vehicle had died. It didn't take too long, the two of them being more than enough strength to push the vehicle up into the garage into an open space.
Rude couldn't help but notice a few times when he had glanced over to Reno, that while he was skinny, and perceived to be just that at first, he was actually mainly lean. For he had muscle, it was thinly defined and was light, unlike his own bulking form, with heavy and obvious muscle underneath the tanned, darker skin.
After the three of them managed to get the vehicle into the garage, Axel departed, going back to whatever project he had before helping Reno out. Reno asked Rude to pop the hood and then slunk under it, much like he had been when Rude walked into the garage. He tinkered a bit and played with a few things, before smiling and stepping back, leaving the car hood up.
"Yer battery's dead, yo. Though your car does need a good tune up soon, it's outta shape a bit. But nothin' a bit of some good ol' TLC will fix." Reno assessed, smiling as Rude heaved a sigh of relief.
"Good, I thought something was wrong with it, worse than a dead battery. How much for today? I think I'll swing back by once I save up some so I can get that tune up." Rude said, forcing himself to be strictly business like, and to leave whatever was drawing him in out of it. Reno perked a bit at the last bit of Rude's sentence before shaking a hand at Rude.
"Don't worry about it, I'll just give you a boost and you can buy a new battery." Reno blinked at Rude, whose face didn't look quite as confident as before, despite his eyes being covered by glasses. "Unless you don't know how to, in that case here, you go get a battery, they sell them right down the street, three buildings down on this side." How Rude was now, it made Reno burst into a laugh, shaking his head before walking over to the car and removing the dead battery from the vehicle. "Here, yo. I'll go with you and show you what to get." The redheaded mechanic said with a grin. Rude blinked behind his glasses and then nodded with a small chuckle. He had to get to know this Reno better. He'd never met anyone who could read him like this person could, especially while he wore his standard sunglasses. This Reno could be quite a bit of fun, probably a good distraction from the ungodly heat and humidity.
~o~
While Rude drove down the road, his car never having run better with its new battery, he recounted the couple hours he'd spent at the garage, and the experience of buying the new battery. Reno had been good about it, understanding that Rude just wasn't a car person, and promised to help him out whenever he needed. He also was really reasonable with prices, as he'd given him an estimate about the tune up his car needed. He hadn't bothered to charge Rude the swapping of a battery.
Reno also showed him how to put in the battery which was really simple and easy to do. It had taken a total of half an hour to get Rude's car running again, including the trip to the auto body shop down the road, but Rude couldn't bring himself to pull away and move on with his adventure, keeping Reno company while he returned to work on the car he'd been working on when Rude had walked into the shop. He even went around and retrieved things for Reno, having to ask more then once about things, not knowing the actual term for a few things, which seemed to only amuse Reno even more. Rude, being the antisocial person he was, didn't really understand why he stuck around and even contributed to the conversation they were holding more then he usually did, for he usually didn't bother with adding his two cents to a conversation, being one to just listen to the words.
Rude had left after sticking around until Reno had to go back to work after his lunch break. Reno even went and scrounged up something for Rude to eat, joking that it was Axel's lunch for the day, but really wasn't. They talked more over the meal, though before Rude left Reno made him promise to stop by every now and then so they could talk. He seemed to enjoy the larger male's company just as much as Rude did with Reno.
Once Rude reached his new apartment he parked his car and headed inside the building to get up to his apartment. After letting himself in he kicked off his shoes and went over to the kitchen area to grab a bottle of water from his fridge and then walked to his room to swap out his glasses, having no need to cover his eyes from anyone in his apartment, as no one but him lived there. Once that was done he returned to his worn novel, settling and reading until his stomach growled in protest, now being time to make some dinner for it, having read longer than he thought he had.
Rude settled with a simple meal of spaghetti and a little bit of garlic bread, the meal being easy for him to prepare. It may not have seemed like it but Rude was actually a good cook, and would far rather become one for a living then a lawyer, but it's what his parents pushed and nudged him to be.
~o~
