Envy Pov
"You can't be fuckin serious." I croaked quietly as Al chuckled. We were standing by the Resembool repair yard, which was basically a garage with a few specialized tools for repairing local machines and the newer cars that were growing more and more popular, even this far out.
"Nope. Jonathan says he can't handle the wrench anymore, but something tells me you know how to fix a lot." He offered a wrench while flashing me another of those weird little smiles that made my head buzz.
"Hmph." I snatched it. "Might know a thing or two about machines, ya." I grumbled. I had been the one that often had to impersonate folks of talent, so I would be lying if some skills hadn't stuck. Didn't expect him to pick that up, though.
"Awesome." He gave a much bigger smile that made me wanna hit him in the face with the wrench, but I settled on walking inside the joke of a repair yard. There was a faded black car, one of the nicer ones from central sitting inside. The wheels were gone, and I could tell just with a glance that there were a thousand and one things broken from the tail light to the radiator. "The fuck is this?"
"This was Dad's." He smiled. "He left a journal for me to find at home before everything happened, showed me where to find this. He said he had abandoned it before we were born, but he figured I should have it. Ed wanted the newest and shiniest anyway." He chuckled, rubbing under his nose.
"So what. Exploiting me for free labor now?" He rolled his eyes, which infuriated me. I nearly launched the wrench across the garage at his stomach for that one, and I was definitely imagining the act with a visceral enjoyment.
"No, but where better to practice? After a while, people might notice. Start hiring you for jobs." He undid the old metal latch as the slightly dome shape hood popped open. I swear the dust was almost as old as me when it popped up, making me cough and sweep my arm. This asshole didn't even look yet?!
He coughed a bit himself but recovered faster, looking over the insides. "Ya, a lot of this is old, out of date or way too rusted."
"No shit." I coughed, wiping my eyes as I inspected the interior. To say it was a junker would be an insult to a scrapyard. Still, the body was still pretty solid and there wasn't any damage on the axel, much to my shock when I glanced underneath. "I guess it's not a total piece a trash, though." I kicked the side of it, grumbling as the whole chasis rattled for a moment. "Shit! What's holding it together?! Fucking glue?"
He laughed heavily, a full blown belly laugh for a good moment. I grumbled, but I'd be lying if a giggle didn't slip out from his stupid infectious laughter. It was only a moment, and I swear I only grinned for half a second.
"Wow." He muttered when he calmed down, looking at me with a splash of that annoying red in his cheeks.
"W-what?!" I growled.
"You can laugh!" He smiled, like it was the best revelation in the world.
I promptly fulfilled a fantasy of my own, and dragged him, unconscious and smiling, back to the house. At least the wrench only knocked him out.
...
The next month was... Blech. Pleasant. The word felt like sludge on my tongue, but it wasn't an inaccurate description. I had taken pretty well to repairing the old junker, even if was going to barely resemble itself once I was finished. Word spread pretty fast that the strange girl with weird hair was good with tools, and pretty soon, everyone and their mother started nagging me to fix this that and the other damn thing!
Not that it was hard to do. Most of their requests were mundane things. Can you fix this old hatchet? Can you figure out why this gate is all jammed? Shit they should be able to do all on their own. I made a habit of teaching them the basics of repair as I did it, though how much stuck given my... Rough delivery Metal Boy had called it was anyone's bet.
I got used to the smell of grease and oil every day. The sound of paper on pen was no longer a frustration, but the sound of home. Home... Had I really started aeeing Resembool as home that fast? Shit. The metal boy was rubbing off on me!
The full metal runt kept his distance, but I felt his eyes on the back of my neck at the most random times. He clearly wanted me to know he was watching and how fast he would be on my ass. I couldn't blame him, given my history. I wasn't happy with the situation, but, if I was going to be stuck human? There were worse places.
I had three good meals now, and the hubbub of chatter at the dinner table had started to become inviting. Even Ed shot me a thinly barbed joke instead of silencing insults now, while Pinako always retaliated on my behalf. Winry had started getting more comfortable around me, even suggesting we go shopping for parts together since we both were a different flavor of grease monkey now. Damnit, I even found myself smiling about it.
After two months, life had become comfortable. I had set up that garage so I could move around barefoot. It just felt more comfortable. The walls had been repainted and I finally managed to get all of the dust out of the cracks.
I looked out at the twilight sun, a quiet smile on my face. Al was probably sletching the horizon, as he loved to map the differing clouds. He was such a dumbass, always finding the beauty in little things like that. It made my face all hot just thinking of it!
I got home soon after that, anticipating the aroma of stew. Tuesday was Winry and the full metal runt's date night so we could make something with dairy for dinner. I always liked that.
Strangely, there was something odd nearby the house. A small patch of grass looked dead. Had a wild dog wandered out and pissed there or something? A cold chill went up my spine while the wind whipped across the field, my hand on the brass handle. I glanced back at the grass, quiet for a moment as my hand tensed on the handle.
That wasn't dry. It was ashen. It had been scrubbed of life. Panic took me hard as I had learned to name it. "Old hag?!" I shouted as I threw open the door, only to find the living room and dining table in ruins, ashen splotched on wooden walls and gunshot wreckage from the double barrel.
"Granny?!" I shouted, dropping Al behind me as my legs took off like a bird. I was gliding up the stares like my old self suddenly, rapid and almost serpentine swiftness striking me across the halls in far too short of a time. I could feel the rips in my muscles, going this fast. I had felt them before and never worried. I didn't care now, either.
I found the upstairs full of bullet holes. Her bedroom door had been blown open from the inside, and I heard struggling. A dark and quiet voice saying, "Just die already..." It was raspy and inhumanly sharp.
"PINAKO!" I ran through the shattered door. Granny was laying on the bed, choked beneath a man in a military uniform. My body flew with a fury I hadn't felt since I wasn't human. He turned to me before impact, those deep red eyes telling me a thousand horrors at once, and none would slow me down.
We tumbled out of the window, kicking and flailing at each other as I twisted my locked hips on his waist, just as we crashed outfront with a painful snap of his spine beneath me. I grunted painfully, feeling an ankle snap beneath him, but I didn't care right now.
My hand flew to the pocket knife on my belt, only for this grey faced soldier to grip my throat.
"Mmm. Old model." He stood up slowly, the sparks of red lightning confirming ecery horrible suspicion I had. I felt something creeping into me, then. It was like a tiger dragging its fangs and claws all over my soul, ripping and tearing at it like it dared to devour it. "How qre you alive...?"
His question faded in the blackness of my vision as my hands scratched and pulled at his powerful grip, but it was fruitless. I couldn't fight back. I was powerless. I was so... Weak. So...
Human...
"Ennie!" My eyes gained clarity along with a rush of painful air hitting my lungs. I fell to the ground, coughing and gagging as my eyes opened on a pillar of stone, having launched the asshole far away from me in a single alchemical fling.
"A.. Al....G granny...!" I choked out shakily. I felt my vision getting spotty, and everything felt so... So heavy.
"Stay with me Ennie! Stay.... Ennie...!"