(Untitled)

[mechanics_0taku]

What: Fixing a car and doing some studying
Who: Winry and Izuru
When: Wednesday afternoon, April 8th
Where: Izuru's house
Rating: PG
Open/Closed To: Izuru

Comments

[straying_star]

At the sound of the doorbell, Izuru looked up from his books and checked the time. Oh, right. Winry. He'd been trying to catch up with things since the disaster of him sleeping through the last weekend of his spring break. Everything had turned out alright, but panic had set over him, with finals so close, and him slowly losing control over himself. He couldn't afford to lose control.

Standing up from the table, he walked to the door, opening it with a smile he wouldn't allow to be touched by the weariness that seemed bone-deep. "Hi, Winry," he greeted her and stepped aside to let her in. "I really appreciate the help with my car." He didn't want to launch straight into that--she was a guest, after all--so he padded through the hallway so she could follow him. "Can I get you anything?"

[mechanics_0taku]

So it was Izuru who would open the door. As she walked into the house and found it to be incredibly quiet and overwhelmingly empty, compared to the size of it, she doubted that there was anyone else that would open the door. She followed after him not really giving him that much attention as they walked through the hallway. "Don't worry about it," she murmured as she looked around at the house. She was happy to help him with his car. She hadn't done much fixing cars for fun lately.

"Um... Something to drink, I guess?" She was still taking in the house around her. What to say...? Nice place was a bit of an understatement and making a comment about how much money he had wasn't exactly a polite thing to do. She was sure she could figure out something to say, she just had a tendency to say the first thing that came to mind without putting much consideration into it. "I knew you didn't live on campus, but I had no idea you lived somewhere like this."

[straying_star]

Izuru led Winry into the kitchen and paused by the counter at her statement. Oh. Right. Winry had never been to his house and he was used to the variety of reactions he got when someone visited for the first time, but it somehow caught him off guard and he flushed darkly. When he moved again, he opened the refrigerator and looked inside. He needed to go grocery shopping. It was just one more thing he often neglected to do for himself that he really needed to get into the habit of doing. Still, there was some juice, a few bottles of water left over from a visit from one of his aunts, tea, and... he checked the cabinet, rattling off the things he could offer before turning to her with a half smile. "And coffee, if you really want

[mechanics_0taku]

Winry stopped near the entrance to the kitchen. A tiny smile formed on her lips as he rambled off a list of options. Her brow quirked at the slight color on his face before finally saying, "Um, juice would be fine." She wasn't a fan of tea or coffee, the caffeine made her more energetic and crazy than she usually was, and water was too boring. Walking a little farther into the kitchen, she took off her jacket leaving her in jeans and a lacy tank top that didn't exactly say 'I'm going to be working on a car'. She planned on going shopping the following weekend, so she didn't see why she shouldn't be working in something like that

[straying_star]

The smile on Izuru's face bloomed into a full one as he poured the juice and handed it to her. "I was lucky; my first roommate wasn't hard to live with. It was everyone else on the hall that made it difficult." He leaned back against the counter so she could drink some of the juice. "I made the mistake of stepping into the hall at about... eleven o'clock one night. I never did it again after seeing most of my hall mates streaking through." Shrugging helplessly, he laughed at the memory, gently nudging the topic of conversation away from a question of his inheritance. "New initiates of one of the fraternities," he explained quickly. "Some sort of nightly tradition they had." Not a wonder he hadn't joined a fraternity, despite the long tradition of men in his family. Izuru wasn't really the type for it, anyway

[mechanics_0taku]

After sipping a little of the juice, Winry gave a little laugh at his story. "Never thought of joining a fraternity yourself?" she asked. She couldn't imagine it, really, he didn't seem like the fraternity type. She figured most of them were athletic guys, possibly football players or some other popular college sport. Izuru looked much too thin to do anything like that. "I thought about joining a sorority... for about five seconds until I realized all the ones on campus were horribly stereotypical."

Moving her hand, she brushed away his concerns. "I've got a different jacket in my car to keep my shirt clean and if my jeans get a little dirty... I don't really mind. I'm going shopping this weekend anyway. All of my clothes end up getting dirty an greasy at some point. Which is why I'm wearing this," she motioned to herself. "I'm starting to run out of clothes." She ran her fingers through her hair as she set down the juice. "I suppose I could look at the car first."

[straying_star]

"Mm, thought of it, but actually carrying through with the idea didn't happen." He shrugged, "It didn't really seem like my sort of thing. I'm busy enough as it is. I can't imagine trying to keep up with that on top of... everything else." It wasn't that all of the fraternities were overrun with the school's athletes and the others who fit the mould for what the fraternities were looking for as much as Izuru didn't totally fit their ideal. Poet-doctors need not apply. It gave him more time to worry about classes and work and his deep-set longing to just take time to write for himself

[mechanics_0taku]

Laughing softly, Winry nodded. "You wouldn't have time to breath if you had joined one. You probably would have slept through an entire week, maybe even two, instead of a weekend." He barely seemed to have any free time now, she couldn't imagine what it would be like if he had been involved in a fraternity. "Besides, who wants to deal with that whole rushing thing. I've heard some pretty horrible stories about the stuff that happens during that. None of the stories are about our college specifically, but still

[straying_star]

Izuru laughed and shrugged helplessly. "You're probably right. They would have probably thought of me as a wet rag, anyway." Perhaps, and perhaps not. Izuru just knew that it was something he hadn't done yet, and didn't plan on doing in the future. Certainly, there were the positives of social interaction and the other good things that Greeks did, but... yes, there was also a dark side that he wasn't sure he wouldn't encounter at their university. "No great loss, I'm sure, to either side."

Shrugging again, he beckoned to her and started down the hallway. At the end, he opened the door into the large garage where his grandfather had kept his trio of old cars. Izuru hadn't touched them, despite that they were all classics of some sort, and just kept to his own car. If he couldn't keep this one working properly without a hitch, he didn't trust himself with the others. Sooner or later, though, he would have to do something with them. Later, probably. Much later. At the end of the line of covered cars was his own, and the only one that

[mechanics_0taku]

Winry followed him quickly, peeking into the garage from behind him. Her eyes were drawn to the three cars in the garage that looked like they hadn't been touched in quite a while. She all but squealed when he mentioned his grandfather's liking of cars and she finally got a good look at them. "You shouldn't leave them just sitting there for too long." She wanted to go closer to them, but she was a bit worried she'd get sent into one of her weird modes and start going crazy over the cars. "Cars like those should at least be driven a little." And what she wouldn't give to be the one driving them.

She finally turned her attention to his car. "A clattering?" she asked curiously. "Do you have the keys?" She needed to hear the sound for herself before he could even think of some possibilities. There were countless things that could cause a clattering, but depending on what it sounded like and exactly where it came from would help her narrow it down.