Open rp: Winry fixes things!

[deadlywrenches]

Because Winry was a mechanic, the frequency of having something to work on largely depending on other people bringing her things to fix, but since getting married most of her time had been spent with Edward, and she had made very little progress in the 'consumer relations' category

Comments

[bantersucks]

((Assuming some of Winry's tools are pretty universal and that she's got quite a spread. If he can interrupt while Ed's still there, cool, I just didn't want to interrupt the other ongoing thread! Victims of constant short jokes unite.))

Jaime was heading to the Great Hall when he passed the booth and stopped short. His eyes practically lit up at the sight of the tools Winry had laid out. "Whoa. I thought there weren't any mechanics here at Hogwarts." The other might have been implied; helping out his Dad didn't really qualify him as a mechanic, if you asked him.

He looked at the spread of tools, impressed but knowing better than to touch any of it. "What kinda repairs you specialize in? Engines? Heavy machinery?" Some of the tools he didn't recognize looked like some tools he'd seen for use with repairing farm machinery, so he kept the guess vague.

[deadlywrenches]

Winry's eyes glittered at the chance to talk to someone about what she did, and she smiled warmly at Jaime. "I specialize in automail, which is this," Winry said, and wrapped her hand around Edward's right wrist to hold his metal arm. "Though I'm not too bad with engines and other things."

[fm_elric]

Ed's hackles rose at the way she smiled at the other man and he barely noticed her mandhandling him in order to show off his automail.

[bantersucks]

Jaime, of course, was completely oblivious to anything Ed might have interpreted in Winry's smile. So he read the scowl as "what am I, your personal science project?" instead.

"Wow. Did she have to hook that into your nervous system?" he asked Ed, wincing sympathetically. He knew firsthand how much having something like that would hurt.

He caught himself, embarrassed for staring. "Sorry. I got here a couple months ago and people thought it was amazing I knew how to fix a car. I'm Jaime, by the way," he added, addressing both of them and extending his left hand to Ed to shake.

[deadlywrenches]

Winry's smile grew, and she dropped Ed's hand to focus her attention fully on Jaime. "I'm Winry, and this is Ed," she said, "and yes, it's connected to all the nerves in his arm. It's better than normal prosthetics, but the installation and initial surgery to install the port are very painful." She knew she was ranting now, but she really never got a chance to talk about these things anymore, and she was more than a little excited.

[fm_elric]

Ed silently shook Jaime's hand, glad that the inevitable explanation of his automail that came after handshakes was already over with. He nodded toward Winry. "I'm her husband," he said, because suddenly that was a very important thing for Jaime to know.

[bantersucks]

"Nice to meet you," Jaime said, confused at Ed's attitude but deciding he might have just come in right in the middle of something that was none of his business. "Glad you both wound up here. Or did you meet here?" He could imagine if, say, Bonita showed up here without her husband or her baby - that reaction would not have been pretty. (Assuming she and Damper were even married, but that was the first comparison he thought of.)

The explanation got a flinch. "Damn. I bet," he said, giving Ed an impressed look - at anyone choosing to go through that kind of pain. It was different if you didn't have any choice in the matter. "You have to train with it to get used to it? Or is it tuned to be as strong as the original arm?" Guessing at the arm loss here. NOT asking how. That was not the kind of story most people wanted to relive.

[deadlywrenches]

"We knew each other growing up, actually," Winry said, and blushed lightly as she looked over at Ed. "We were separated, but then ended up here together, and got married, so everything worked out well for us."

[fm_elric]

Ed smiled softly at her and leaned in to kiss her cheek.

He turned back to Jaime and answered, "Yeah, it took about a year for me to be able to do much with it, but for most people it takes two. I had to learn how to walk again too, but that didn't take near as long as being uble to use my hand again."

[bantersucks]

Jaime grinned, looking away for a second because it felt like he was intruding. "Congratulations."

"Walk? Oh. Guess you'd have to compensate for the extra weight," he observed, nodding and looking a little bit distant. "I guess the hand would need a LOT more tuning and practice - fine motor skills and all that. They need a power source?" The scarab, which he was failing at ignoring, couldn't figure that one out. Which actually made Jaime feel a bit smug.

[deadlywrenches]

"Ed's sort of the power source. It's his nerves that move it, so it's just like moving a real arm, only... well, it's metal." Winry said, propping her chin in her hand as she thought. She had been there while Ed had been adjusting to his new limbs, but she wasn't about to mention how hard it had been.

[fm_elric]

"Ah, no, I had to learn to walk again because-" Ed paused and tapped on his left knee with his right hand, making a dull clanging noise. He glanced over at Winry, his mind idly wandering to that time as well. He laid his hand on her knee and smiled over at her gratefully.

[bantersucks]

Jaime didn't look as surprised at that as one might expect. "So that's why you didn't go for regular prosthetics? Assuming they still use them back where you're from, I'm guessing." As an alternative to the hurts-like-hell that installing automail had to be.

[deadlywrenches]

Winry smiled at Ed and dropped her hand under the table to twine her fingers together with his. "Some people still use normal prosthetics, to avoid the pain and maintainence that goes along with automail," she said, looking back to Jaime as she squeezed Ed's hand.

[fm_elric]

"Yeah, but automail's still the best, since once you're used to it, you can use it almost exactly like the real thing- well, I still can't write with my right hand, but you can still do a lot more with it than regular prosthetics," he added, running his thumb over Winry's fingers lightly.

[bantersucks]

"Maintenance? If you have to reconnect it every single time, yeah, I can see why," Jaime said. "Ever get any less painful the more often you have to connect it, or do you just know what to brace yourself for?" He was honestly curious; he'd never been entirely sure why it had stopped hurting each time the armor came out and retracted, and if one could actually get used to such a thing.

"Hell of a better range of motion," he agreed, still fascinated and for once listening to what the scarab was telling him. "Guess even if you simulated nerve fibers, it'd be rough to emulate something like writing." He lifted a hand, and paused. "Mind if I - or you already been treated like a science fair exhibit enough today?"