Development: Wrench Wench
OneShot
Pairings: Implied EdxWinry and Implied PinakoxA multitude of nameless men in her youth
Author's Note: This is a gently funny exploration of what it must of been like growing up for Winry under the tutellage of a woman famed for her antics in her youth- especially in regards to certain things... coughsexcough
I've done absolutely everything to make sure the characterisation is spot on but am still more than hapy to receive any constructive criticism or reviews.
Life had been running smoothly lately like the wheels and gears of a well-oiled, handcrafted watch.
The summer weather sprouting from the spring rain laid down a gentle heaviness like the lazy hazy heat of the lingering sun. It was the kind of summer that only existed in idyllic childhoods described in novels or in the slightly monochrome memories of the elderly couples who liked to drink out late with Granny Pinako from big green glasses.
The evenings were filled with fairs or socials for the young adults of the village. If nothing planned was happening then there was an unspoken agreement to meet outside the stores in the main street of the village for lazy talking and some illicit smoking. Winry herself preferred to spend her evenings swimming in the lake, in the woods behind the house.
And, whilst the evenings were a wonderful time to de-stress after a long day, it was the beginning of the day she liked the best. Winry had always thought, perhaps whimsically, that beginnings of anything were better than the bittersweet end of anything – whether it be a day or an activity. She would spend her mornings smiling at the warmth, at the birds, at the peace outside of her bedroom window until the smell of her granny's cooking wafted up to the loft. Then she would lazily climb out of her wide bed and trudge down the stairs slowly, hair still all mussed up and wearing an oversized white T-Shirt that reached mid-thigh.
Each day seemed to be the same as the last – chores, mechanic work to bring in some money and then she'd study up on Auto-mail which was a lot more hard work than most people realised. The amount of variables in the human body – was she operating on a man, a woman, a child? What kind of lifestyle? What was being replaced? Was there a possibility of re-growth? – all changed the musculature and therefore the attachments or materials the Auto-mail took. It was still a developing field and a lot was experimental because no two clients were the same. Granny Pinako helped her with that stuff a lot, but Winry felt that soon she would no longer need any more guidance. She noticed that most of the advice ceased being about the mechanics and savoir-faire but had shifted to the little tricks of the trade learnt only through personal experience.
Tricks like how to deal with rude customers (Keep a wrench at hand at all times and wave it around a lot. That and take out the rustiest biggest tools and lay them out on the work desk. This should calm them down. They don't have to know you're not going to actually use them.). Tricks like keeping as much eye contact as possible so they had something to focus on besides the inevitable pain. Swear like a sailor because it's hard work worth swearing for and people feel at home with someone who swears as opposed to cold and silent strangers. Not to cross your arms and shake your head. To talk first timers through everything and never ever utter the words "I think" or "should" or "hopefully".
Now Winry was receiving a completely different education and it was, all in all, traumatic.
It was a rather big problem. In fact Winry could not quite imagine the problem to be any worse.
Of course there were worse things in life- that much was certain. She hadn't grown up in a mechanic shop with auto-mail service not to notice the devastation that war and accident left behind – screams, and sobs, and, worst of all, bitterness. She'd seen too much of bitterness and resentment that burnt long and steady underneath every word and look to let it take hold or affect her. She forced happiness and optimism and this became a second nature. After all, her parents hadn't let the worst stop them so she wouldn't let anything stop her either.
Winry feels strongly and passionately but never for long (unless it's Auto-mail, or Ed, or Al – the three passions in her life. She hasn't yet sorted out the order of importance. Al is a constant. She loves him unequivocally and without thinking about it; in the same way, you don't think about loving the sun or the earth. Ed – she thinks about a lot, or has been recently. Okay, that's a lie. Lately, she's been mostly thinking about Auto-mail, and pretending she doesn't give a toss for Edward Elric as she is perfectly happy without him, has no problem whatsoever with him gallivanting across the country, saving the people at his own detriment and almost getting killed. Without her. No, Auto-mail at least never talks back. And when you hit it with a wrench, it usually works better as well.)
It had happened about four months after her thirteenth birthday. Okay, maybe not exactly. It had been building up slowly. Things started changing; growing ever so slightly that it was barely noticeable. She'd been feeling less stable than normal for about a week before hand. One lunchtime she'd dropped a bunch of screws on the floor and burst into uncontrollable sobbing. Granny had just looked at her shrewdly before picking up the equipment, not saying a word.
And then one day Winry woke to find her sheets red and sticky. When Granny Pinako walked in to see her sobbing uncontrollably, and then started chuckling (which soon turned into full blown laughter), it was the most humiliating experience of her life bar none.
At that point Winry had felt like committing unspeakable acts of violence and running away or maybe having the floor swallow her. All the options seemed attractive but of course none of them came.
Therein followed the talk.
And Winry's mind was torn in half trying to decide whether in fact this was more embarrassing than the fact she was having a period and Granny knew about it or not. It was a rather tough choice.
That time in her first year of school, when she had taken apart her chair and desk during break time – just to see how it fit together – and been made to stand at the front of the class for the rest of the day, despite her assurance that she was going to put it back together, really she was, didn't even come close – even with Ed's embarrassing defence of her by yelling and throwing a book at the teacher. Granny had seemed proud of her anyway so it didn't matter.
But the type of pride Granny was displaying now – the kind accompanied with winks and double-entendres and raucous laughter when Winry looked clueless at what she could possibly mean by that, along with the promise that "Soon you will know, don't you worry!" – was downright disturbing. Granny Pinako didn't so much usher girls gently into womanhood as forcibly kidnap them, kicking and screaming, before doing the emotional equivalent of drinking them under the table with straight shots of too-much-information.
Thankfully, Winry tried to act as if she couldn't remember a thing. This selective amnesia served her well during the embarrassing next months and she snottily held her nose in the air every time her Granny smirked at her added items on the shopping list.
When the pains started, Granny Pinako fixed the best remedies and brews, but Winry never said anything about it. It would be quietly handed over without eye contact on her part. For that she was grateful. Besides, she was a mechanic and a professional. She refused to be distracted by such trivial concerns like growing up.
Of course, that didn't mean no one else was.
With time Winry had to go shopping for a different style of clothes – a style that she filled out more and more.
This proved to be slightly distressing (Shopping for first bras with her Granny was not an experience she wanted to remember – though Pinako loved embarrassing her about it. Mostly by loudly suggesting she purchase more and more scandalising bras and ensembles with bows and lace and satin. Giving hints towards how to emphasise her assets with such certainty and hinted-at anecdotes made Winry very suspicious of the kind of sordid life her grandmother had lead. It also made her very worried that the elderly woman was hoping that she would follow in her footsteps to become a one-woman terror. She was not very sorry to disappoint in that case.)
However, it was also a bit empowering as she noticed that she was in fact slightly erm… bigger up there than Nelly, with whom she had held a streak of competitiveness against for many years. It was gratifying to know that her, the tomboy rough handed mechanic, was in some ways more of a woman than traditional smooth-skinned flirtatious Nelly. Of course, Winry also knew this was a childish and completely sexist attitude, which she ought to crush immediately.
The whole situation led to many other problems Winry hadn't thought she's ever face before.
Such as walking to the neighbours to buy some eggs off them and sixteen year old – Trent, was it? – detaining her for half an hour.
He stood on the side of the porch leaning against the support with his right arm, his left arm forming a triangle connecting at his waist and his legs crossed. He dangled his cigarette, puffing slowly and in a way that he probably mistook for languid, but that came across as unpractised, giving her one-overs with squinted eyes behind the smoke. He gazed at her in the same way she had seen farmers look at potential property at the livestock auction.
When Winry was finally home, huffing and coughing, Pinako offered no sympathy. The whole thing was like a big joke to her. After all, she had herself been quite a hell-raiser. Why, her granddaughter ought to take advantage of the situation and see if they could get a discount on the eggs. If she played it right, she might not have to pay for anything at all!
Her grip tightened and she nearly broke the glass she was drinking out of.
Winry was furious that night and locked herself in the workroom, stripping wires and hammering with an intensity that would have scared all lesser mortals.
How dare she make fun of what she was going through? Just because the old bat had gone through menopause years ago and no longer had to worry about that stuff didn't mean she could lord it over her! How dare she not be sympathetic?
Winry had never been a weak character. She was strong and levelheaded and didn't get flustered easily, which was exactly why those types of things had no place in her life. Which was exactly why it frustrated her when Granny would tell her to go and have fun with the boys with that knowing wink and crinkle around her eye.
Because Granny knew she wasn't going to do that. And Granny knew how much Winry was not the kind of girl who even thought about that.
Receiving blunt and frank technical advice on grown-up… things… from a woman related to you, who also happened to appear to be several centuries old, was disturbing. And no more need be said.
And if only no more was actually said…
"So, if you tell a client to take his clothes off and meet you in the back room in five, it usually breaks the pre-operative tension. But be careful, because some have actually taken me up on that one."
"Granny!"
"And, when it comes to screwing them up, I find that doing it quickly tends to be sloppy. Take your time and make sure you cover all of the bases. And clean up after yourself. I don't want to have to deal with your messes."
"What? Eew!"
"Your face, child! One would think you've never used the operating table for anything other than…"
"That's because I haven't!"
"Well, when you do, make sure there aren't any nuts or gears lying around that aren't currently in use. It'll give you such a crick in the back if you lay on them for extended periods of time."
"…"
"And don't forget to use the cream. Eases tensions before, after, and during all kinds of operations."
Winry promptly dropped the bottle of cream and it bounced onto the floor.
"So…" the Rockbell Matriarch took a deep puff on her pipe and crossed her arm, "I think it's time that we have a more in-depth lesson here."
She picked up the bottle of cream and gestured for Winry to follow her. Hesitantly and ever so slightly scared, Winry walked behind her in towards the workstation. She was dreading whatever lesson this was going to be.
"Let's see, let's see… Where shall we start…? Ah, yes."
Pinako turned to her granddaughter and looked her up and down appraisingly. There was a familiar twinkle in her eye that made the later rather worried. She already knew everything there seemed to be to know so she was dreading what kind of lesson this would be.
"Now, a lot of our customers will be coming here downtrodden, depressed and never expecting to get laid again – I'm sorry, Winry, but that's the truth and it's got to be said no matter how blunt it is. Once you're an amputee, you're on the shelf."
"That's not true – Ed isn't –"
"Isn't what?"
"Nothing." Winry fiddled with the edge of her black skirt.
There was another long puff on the pipe, whilst Granny inspected her granddaughter who was slouching and leaning on her left leg, trying very hard to appear nonchalant. She harrumphed before turning back to the lesson.
"Point is, that, when they are being given a rather intensive makeover, that constitutes a lot of attention and physical contact by a young lady and things are bound to come up at some point or other. And, in more than one way, if you're lucky."
"I don't believe you!" Winry threw her hands up in the air, "It's always about that with you, isn't it?"
"Don't walk away on me! This is important! Tell me, what will you do the day you are working on some poor sods' leg and he gets an erection?"
There are certain words that are disturbing to hear coming from your relatives. The word "erection" is one of them. It is even doubly disturbing when relating to a situation where you are directly involved, Winry decided.
This was a bit of a shock. It became even more of a shock when the meaning behind the words became clear. The thought (and the visual that accompanied it) was terrifying. What would she do? How would she be able to keep on working on the person after that? What if they were like Trent and well…
The more she thought about it, the worse it became and the more her face flushed red.
"I thought so." Opined Granny Pinako, raising an eyebrow.
"So, erm… What do you do?"
Nobody would ever know how much it took out of the young girl to ask that.
"First of all, you give them a robe to cover up with. Hopefully, before it happens. It helps guys to focus on other stuff if there is more than just their boxer shorts between you and them. You don't have to say anything about why they have the robe, but make sure they put it on. The ones we have here are baggy enough to hide most uprisings. That is unless the patient is really well endowed and in that case –"
"Granny!"
"Well, that's a story for when you're a bit older. Apart from that, it helps if you only ever keep contact with them for the barest amount of time. And if you do have to hold onto something, make sure it's metal. Grasping a guy's thigh for five minutes can only ever lead to certain things. If you want to know more about those things, I'm sure you can find a book about it somewhere. The really good ones have illustrations as well. Here, I can recommend a few titles, and don't you look at me that way, young lady!"
"What way do you expect me to look at you!"
"With a bit more respect! I'm your elder and I have a lot of valuable experience under my belt that you could do well to learn from!"
"Experience? Yeah! I'm sure you've got lots of it! I'm sure you used to spread your legs like no one else, you bat!"
Needless to say, the lesson was cancelled for that day. As was any constructive work being accomplished as the two Rockbell women faced off in a battle of the generations, a battle that of course included wrenches, blowtorches and the living room furniture.
The next day they faced off across the breakfast table. Winry was twirling a fork in between her thumb and forefingers, leaning heavily against the table. She was feeling just about as worn out as the faded grey shirt she was wearing – the one Ed had left behind a while back and she'd appropriated.
Granny was patting down her apron, face indecipherable. Neither of them seemed happy to speak. Granny Pinako coughed finally deciding to take control.
"Come on. We've got to do this."
So Winry learnt. She learnt in which situations to use innuendo to diffuse tension and when to avoid it (this wasn't half as often as she would have liked).
She learnt that men could be touchy about size, and thus to never refer to it, no matter how veiled. She'd always know that Ed was touchy about that, but had never imagined it as a shared trait – only an endearing, but predictable eccentricity that belonged to him alone. That was until Granny explained that it was the size of something all together different that she meant.
She learnt that there were ways to tell if a man had tense muscles because of the operation or because of something else.
She learnt about the syndrome that affected so many women – that of falling in love with their patients.
Winry scoffed at the idea. She didn't see the appeal of that at all. Men were stubborn and frustrating and doubly so when they were incapacitated. She could understand that, during the rehabilitation process, you would have to work close and long with them, which could lead to something, but all of the guys she'd seen had hardly held any appeal. They were all heavy set, bearded and scruffy. Not her type. (What exactly was her type she never questioned.)
Granny Pinako, however, assured her that when a guy asks for some special treatment and, if he's capable of administrating it well, it's safe to say he is mostly recovered. Winry decided that this was one technique she'd rather not try out herself.
All the instructions kept on for several days until the harvest season started and along with it came more work.
It was mid-afternoon and Winry was chewing on a fresh carrot whilst tinkering with some wire mesh that she had been soldering. Her bedroom was a cocoon of quiet, and concentration seemed to seep from the walls.
Unfortunately, this peacefulness was shattered short when urgent business called from downstairs.
This happened every so often. Farming instruments, especially for harvest, are sharp, and, if not careful, lethal.
Winry had been to far too many funerals in her life, but the one that no one talked about was the one when she, Ed and Al had been only starting school. The father of the little chubby boy, who sat at the back of the classroom, had gotten in the way of the business end of one of the harvesters. The coffin had been kept shut at all times. Somehow, this was terrifying as all manners of disfiguration and loose skin hung in the imaginations of the trio attending.
The rumours about how exactly they'd had to separate him from the machine and how they'd had to scrub it down with enzymes to remove all traces of remaining skin or meat had left an impression creating nightmares for weeks.
So Winry braced herself when she rushed down the stairs for the scene in front of her.
A young boy – she recognised him from around the village; he was a couple of years older – had his foot crushed under the bulk of a collapsing something or other – Winry didn't catch it exactly. Her knowledge of machinery was extensive, but when faced with something like this, she became extremely focussed.
Crushed tendons and amputations tended to do that.
So here is when the knowledge imparted to her turned into application. Of course, during the first operation and the immediate after-effects of it, there was nothing to worry about.
But, during the recovery time…
"Winry, why don't you go and check up on our patient? We don't want him to get lonely now, do we?"
"Winry, why don't you go and polish his uh… extra limb?"
"Winry, dear, is everything here screwed right? Go make sure it's done well."
"Winry, I'm sure our guest is feeling down. Here's the cream to relieve some tension. Give him a nice foot rub or massage or something. You know what to do."
"Winry, a couple of the wires need fiddling with. This might even call for an all-nighter if you're lucky."
To be honest she hadn't expected any less. But, when she went down to tune up the new foot and found the young man grinning, whilst Granny finished lighting up scented candles in the room before rushing out and saying that it's all over to her now, it was a bit much.
Needless to say that she was ecstatic when their patient left.
It made no sense that Granny would take pains to teach her all that stuff and then throw her in situations such as that. But, then, that was completely in character, wasn't it? From then on every single operation or check-up was laden with the Matriarch's innuendo and her positive delight at her granddaughter's discomfiture. She positively revelled in pushing Winry into awkward situations.
Always had.
That was until Ed came back.
One flying wrench in response to his broken auto-mail leg and a bone-crushing hug that lingered ever so slightly, when he put his hands on her waist to hold her in place just so, and, Granny Pinako went thundering silent.
And, when Ed and Winry had the usual fight about his dairy consumption habits and ended up yelling at each other with their noses touching, Granny left the dining table to go do some dishes in the kitchen.
And, then, when Ed had taken his shirt off – oh my! He's grown up too, hasn't he?- and was about to take off his trousers right in the middle of the living room and Granny threw one of the robes they kept in reserve, Winry knew she was in for it.
And, when she came back after her evening-time swim wearing an old shirt of Ed's that stuck and clung to her still wet body and saw the look on his face and noticed that Granny had seen it too, Winry knew that this was going to be the longest and most awkward repair session of them all.
But, who knew? Maybe she would have to pull an all-nighter. Or two.
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