Chapter Six
*CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE*
Saturday was a lazy day. Both Jered and Winry had slept in, taking a late breakfast of toast and cereal with strong coffee, a little sugar in Winry's mug. After getting some food and caffeine into their system, Winry tied her hair up in her bandana and got to work finally rearranging her living room which stood across from her kitchen. There was a couch and a coffee table, but on the far side was the workbench that had been in Jered's room and all her crates of parts and automail. She started to organize, directing Jered to move the heavier parts (she figured he was stronger, so why not?). Once she deemed herself set up, she brushed off her hands and turned to Jered expectantly.
"Okay, take off your pants."
Jered stared at her blankly, eyes wide and blinking as he became perfectly still. "Uh… what?" He could feel a cold sweat break out on his back. Does this have something to do with what her and Paninya were talking about last night? He wondered with a mix of excitement, nerves, and trepidation.
Winry looked up at his startled tone and burst out laughing at his expression. "No!" She said, clutching her stomach as she continued laughing. "I was going to get some more measurements so I can start working on your leg dummy!"
Jered felt his face flush at his immediate assumption. "R-right…" he chuckled, trying to regain his equilibrium. "Now?" he asked, eyeing her hesitantly.
Winry had smothered her giggles and fished a measuring tape from her open toolbox. "Might as well." He still hesitated for a moment. "I've seen you without pants before. I've seen plenty of patients without pants. This is strictly business." She said with an indifferent shrug to try to assure him.
"Riiight." He dragged out the word, giving her a skeptical look, his smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He reached for the button fly and dropped the well-worn cargo pants to the living room floor and kicked them away. "Where do you want me?" He asked, spreading his arms wide.
Winry chuckled. "Just stay where you are, I'll tell you if I need you to move." She came towards him with the measuring tape, a pencil and pad of paper. She knelt before him and got to work, measuring different aspects of his flesh leg, writing the numbers in her tight scrawl on the notepad. A few awkward (for Jered at least) moments later and Winry tossed the tape measure back into her toolbox and took her notepad back to the workbench, muttering to herself.
"Uh…" When Winry didn't respond, Jered quickly snatched up his pants and put them back on.
Winry pulled out a battered and oil smudged sketch pad and started making wide sweeping strokes across it with her pencil and eagerly snatched up a ruler and protractor and became fully emersed in her project. Jered recognized her concentration for what it was, Winry was deep in "the zone" as Jered liked to mentally refer to it. Jered took a moment to look around the house and decide a good way, or at least a productive way, to spend the day would be deep cleaning the apartment.
Winry had lived alone, and she was an automail mechanic, which meant the presence of oil and grease was on nearly every surface. She was a good cook, but less devoted to the cleaning process that followed meals. He began wiping down the kitchen, washing and putting away dishes, cleaning out the fridge… "How long has that been in there?" He muttered to himself. "I can't even tell what it used to be…" He threw the offending, moldering object in the trash and began checking dates on other things in the fridge. Once the fridge had been purged, he wiped the sticky shelves with a warm cloth until the inside of the fridge no longer resembled a science experiment.
Once the kitchen was once again respectable, he turned his attention to the shared bathroom. The shower had been draining slowly and when he cleared the drain, he could see why. "Ugh!" He exclaimed as he dislodged a soap scum, blonde hairball the size of a hamster and nearly gagged as he hurled it into the trash and away from himself. "Women are disgusting…" he said with a shudder. The sink and walls of the shower and tub were covered in a light film of grease, but with some degreasing cleaner and a lot of elbow grease, the bathroom smelled lemony-fresh and had returned to its once-white state once again. Jered had been unsure what to do with the stash of bobby pins and hair ties scattered across every available surface, so he got a bag from the kitchen and with a shrug, rounded up all the stray girly hair bobs and put them in a drawer under the sink.
His room was clean, he had seen to that shortly after moving in, and he didn't dare go in Winry's room so he tidied the hallway, cleaning the floor and walls the best he could and moved on to the living room down the hall and next to the kitchen. It wasn't too bad now that Winry had set up her work bench and moved all her bits and pieces of automail to it, he just had to sweep and mop up the floors and cleaned the coffee table in front of the couch on the opposite wall.
The apartment was probably the cleanest it had been since Winry moved in and she only noticed once Jered called her to dinner. She rubbed her eyes, only just realizing it was dark outside the windows. She had made so much progress! She had sketched out the entire limb, included measurements and composition of the metals and joints, had schematic diagrams of the nerves and wiring; she had even begun building the framework and some of the wiring. She stretched in her chair and stood, looking around and then having to do a double take.
All the clutter, all the dirt and grime were gone. Even the windows had been wiped free of fingerprints! She poked her head around the corner and saw the hallways had been swept and mopped for the first time since… well… probably since the last tenant had done it. She turned into the kitchen and never realized the marbled countertops could actually gleam. "Wow…" She said breathlessly as she gently padded into the kitchen. "This place looks great, and dinner smells so good."
Jered turned from the stovetop and grinned. "Old family recipe." He said with a wink. "The cleaning… well, it was the least I could do after… everything." He finished with a lame shrug.
"Well, I made a lot of headway today and I'm starving, so let's eat!" She chirped brightly as Jered began to dish their food and bring it to the table.
"Dig in." Jered said with another smile as the petite blonde began to eat ravenously before he even finished his sentence.
As Winry and Jered walked to work on Monday morning, they noticed the streets seemed a little emptier than usual. They hadn't thought much of it until they entered Mr. Garfiel's automail shop where upon their entry, Mr. Garfiel slammed the paper onto the counter, his face wrought with horror, fear and something Winry couldn't identify before he rushed around the counter, waving the front page in their face.
"Have you seen the news?" He demanded, still waving the paper so neither teen could see what it said.
Jered calmly reached out and caught hold of the corner of the newspaper and gently pulled it from Mr. Garfiel's grasp. He straightened the crinkled paper and held it at arm's length so Winry could see it too. Winry and Jered scanned the newspaper quickly. The front page had a large black and white picture of a covered body surrounded by officers and behind police tape with "Missing Woman Found Murdered" splashed across the top. Winry's eyes skimmed the article, picking out certain phrases, "…starved and dehydrated… beaten… raped… body dumped…"
She felt the blood drain from her face and a wave of nausea rolled over her. A strangled sound emitted from Jered beside her.
"Do…" Jered's voice was thick, and he swallowed hard. "Do they know who…?" Mr. Garfiel shook his head. "And the other women?"
"They don't know, but… it's not promising." The normally flamboyant man said gravely.
"We, uh, we should get to work." Winry said, trying to minimize the shaking in her voice. They had several surgeries scheduled for that day and Winry and Mr. Garfiel had decided beforehand that Jered was ready to start helping Winry in the surgery room. Winry needed a few minutes to get herself together before she was ready to perform any surgeries. She strode quickly to the back workroom and slung her heavy pack to the workbench with more force than necessary.
"Winry…?" Jered asked tentatively as he joined her in the back. "You okay?"
Winry fixed her face with a smile before turning to face him, her voice brighter than she felt. "Ya, I'm fine. Just a little… startled, I guess."
Jered frowned at her lie. "What happened- "He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. "It was horrible , but that won't happen to you. We'll be extra cautious, and I'll keep you company anywhere you want to go."
It wasn't the ideal situation, but neither was being kidnapped and tortured, and Winry appreciated the effort. "Thanks Jered." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, she had the familiar gleam in her blue eyes, and she flashed him a grin. "Ready for surgery?"
"Surgery?" He asked, looking startled. "Uh… I guess?"
Winry would be in charge of connecting each individual nerve to the artificial nerves in the automail port, a grueling process. Eventually Jered would learn to do this, but the surgical technique was very delicate and required lots of practice. As for the patients, this process was excruciating, but it was important that they stayed conscious so she could check the connections as she forged them, needing the patient to verify if they could feel the small electrical pulses through the artificial nerves to ensure the connections would actually control the automail. Winry had experienced over the years the whole range of human reactions to the pain.
She had patients pass out, scream uncontrollably, sob and cry, curse her out, threaten her and one man had even taken a swing at her before she'd knocked him upside the head with a wrench, rendering him unconscious. The last one, she had finished the surgery with him unconscious, though it was ill advised. Granny had told Winry she was capable of it, and it was safer anyway since the man clearly couldn't control himself.
Winry reviewed the list of surgical patients and frowned at the name Leo Mitchell. She took a deep breath and let her cheeks puff up before forcefully blowing it out, rustling her bangs. Leo was a real jerk, real arrogant and every last bit of toxic masculinity. His recent arm amputation was sure to make him extra mean. It was best to do his surgery first and get it over with.
Winry and Jered were in one of the operating rooms setting up when Mr. Garfiel came back with a pout on his normally sparkling face.
"Mr. Mitchell has arrived. He seems to be… in a mood."
Winry let out a loud sigh. "Give me one minute, then send him in." She instructed. Once Garfiel left, Winry turned to Jered. "This guy is a real asshole. Just ignore him and watch what I do." Winry said as she tied her hair up and put on her bandana, gloves, and a surgical mask.
"No worries." Jered said with an affable smile before he covered it with his own surgical mask, a bandana also covering his lightly curling brown hair and a pair of gloves. The door to surgical ward number two was thrown wide and an angry man with only one arm stomped in.
"Where's the doctor?" He demanded of the two young people before him.
Winry took a bold step forward. "That's me." She said in a firm voice, her normal warmth and chipper-ness were dampened when she addressed this short, assuming man.
He looked her up and down, obviously ogling her chest, before he set his face in a sneer. "You're a woman."
"Very observant." Winry said coolly. "Did you want a port installed or not?"
This gave Leo pause as he considered his options before stomping over to the reclined medical chair (much like one would find at the dentist) and rolled up the sleeve of the arm that was now just a stump. Winry rolled up her stool and unwrapped the bandage and examined the wound, still fresh, but healing nicely. "This looks good, we can definitely put in a port today."
"Obviously." He sneered. "Why else would I be here?"
Winry didn't bother explaining that she couldn't attach it if the limb wasn't healing well, the risk of rejection was too high. She ignored the comment, missed the eye twitch that came from Jered and moved forward. "I must warn you, this is going to be a very painful process, and I can't give you any pain medications or anesthetics because I need you awake to make sure the nerve connections are working." She explained calmly and thoroughly.
"Stop yakin' and get to work already."
Winry took a deep breath, glad most of her face was hidden behind her mask as she stuck her tongue out at him as she began to lay out her tools and prep the site with cleaning solutions to prepare the stump for surgery.
"FUUUUUCK!" Screamed Leo Mitchell as Winry worked diligently at attaching nerve fibers to individual wires that would be connected to the port. They had been at this for an hour already and she was nearing the end of her work. Once each nerve was attached to a wire, then she could wire it to the port and anchor it to the bone and suture the skin around it. Connecting the nerves was delicate and the swearing and jerking about definitely didn't help her concentration. She had ordered Jered to use the straps to hold him to the chair and keep him from moving so much as she continued her work under his constant verbal assault.
"You dumb whore!" He shouted. "You stupid fucking bitch! You must be doing it wrong! It shouldn't hurt this much! Fucking cunt!" He shrieked, glaring at her with hateful eyes. Winry was grateful the surgery rooms had been soundproofed. "Stupid fucking woman! Who thought a slit in overalls was capable of this kind of stuff? Mechanics and doctors are men, not stupid little blonde bitches!"
Jered had been able to ignore the angry comments when they had started, but they grew more offensive and derogatory as the surgery progressed and Leo had a harder time coping with the pain. He glared at the oozing stump and Winry's fast and precise work as he tried to memorize her steady hands and their graceful movements, tried to figure how he could translate her actions into his own large, calloused hands. It was getting harder to ignore the man spewing obscenities as his hands and jaw clenched and unclenched regularly.
Winry had finished attaching all the nerves but needed to attach the port to the bone, so it stayed well anchored. This part meant she had to drill through the port, his flesh and into the bone to secure it. She couldn't give him any drugs yet, she still needed to test the connection of the nerves once the port was fully attached, so she braced herself for the next round of angry berating.
She began drilling and Leo began screaming, rivaling the sound of the drill. She got to the third screw when the screams turned to angry, coherent rantings. "I hope you're the next one taken you useless bitch! Someone ought to teach you a lesson! Mess up that pretty little face of yours! Put your mouth to work on the only thing it's good for, sucking my dick!"
Something blurred past Winry's vision, there was a dull thwack, and suddenly Leo Mitchell finally lay still. Winry blinked several times before she slowly swiveled on her stool to look at Jered who was slowly massaging the knuckles of his left hand, a hard glint in his eyes.
"Well…" Winry said, still feeling stunned. "I guess that works… It's not ideal for testing the connections, but at least it'll be quieter."
"I'm sorry." Jered said quietly. "I was trying to ignore him like you said, but something just came over me."
"I get it. I hit a guy with a wrench when he took a swing at me. It's probably better this way."
Jered let out a low whistle of appreciation which caused Winry to giggle. "Alright, let's hurry up and finish this so we can move on to the next surgery. The rest of today shouldn't be too bad; they already have ports installed, we just need to check the connections and one client's wiring in their hand has been shorting out."
Jered nodded. "Sounds good."
Sarahplainntall here! Thanks for sticking with me and I hope you continue to enjoy. Special thanks to WhoisMissa for the complimentary review, that was very kind and appreciated. Elvenstar146, glad your enjoying and I promise Ed and Al are coming, it might just be another chapter or two. LovingandLiving64, Winry angst is the best!