Work Text:
The forest is quiet. It’s eerily quiet. It’s fucking chest-tightening, skin-crawling, breath-catching quiet. The patter of rain should be deafening, but the tension overrides it. Jean narrows his eyes, crouched on a thick tree branch and obscuring himself in the leaves. Today’s points come from stealth of assault, which is why the forest lacks the usual cries of success, or loud accusations of kill-stealing.
The dummies are on wheels today. They’re lumbering around the rainy forest, and even in the grey light they lack threat.
Jean is still chewing on his thumb nail. It’s a bad habit, especially considering it means he’s holding his blade crazy close to his face. But he can’t risk sheathing it and not being able to move at a moment’s notice.
Somewhere nearby, he hears the thick wheels struggling through the mud and momentarily pities the poor assholes tugging them around. His teeth work at his sore nail, gold eyes searching, knees starting to go a little numb. But he can’t risk standing or sitting; he has to stay here, lest the plywood cutouts spot him.
He’s well aware of the symbolism. And what it could mean if he gets in the habit of blowing this off.
Pain shoots through his thumb as he bites just a little too deep, hand shaking wildly. He didn’t eat enough meat this morning. His appetite isn’t what it used to be.
Movement out of the corner of his eye and he’s gone. There’s no time. He just barely manages to rip his blade away from his face before the force of his movement along the 3DMG lines drags the edge directly into his eye. It takes more muscle than he’d thought.
He rips the line out of a tree just as he bursts out of cover behind the shitty wooden thing squishing around in the mud; there’s no time to think. His heart pounds in his ears. He triggers a burst of gas from his left side to spin and bring his swords to the weird padding on the thing’s neck. The blades make contact and slice through fabric and padding and wood like butter. Jean knows because he can feel it, like the blades are an extension of his body, of his mind. As his rotation faces him away from the dummy, he knows he has no time to admire his work. He fires his lines into a tree ten meters away.
Once he’s sure he’s away from the dummy, firmly attached to the tree with his feet braced against its comforting solidarity, he leans backward to survey his work. Leaves block him from view; the only thing visible from the clearing would be his eyes and his dripping hair sticking out from under another branch.
The slice of padding falls into the mud with a squelch. Jean breathes in. The wood breaks. He holds it in. Not yet. Splinters from the thing’s face fall, seemingly in slow motion. Don’t let it out yet. Marco’s feet land on a branch across the clearing and he jumps into the leaves. Don’t let it out. Hold it…
Just as his friend peeks out from behind the tree, the wooden titan falls with a great squish. Jean lets out his breath (finally) and looks toward Marco. Where had he come from? How did he know when Jean was going to attack? Who the hell taught him to assist by cutting the damned things’ eyes out? Seriously, who thinks of this shit?
He watches from his vantage point as Marco’s gaze shifts from hard and calculating to relieved, flicking dark eyes over to Jean’s hiding spot. Blood might be starting to rush to his head a little bit, the thundering of his pulse in his ears starting to become overwhelming. Just before he sets off to find another dummy, and just before Marco shoots back into the trees, he catches his friend grinning widely.
Jean can’t help but grin himself as he flips off the tree and heads in another direction.
When he comes to stand on another tree branch, Marco’s already there, crouching and silently surveying.
Jean crouches next to him and watches his face for a brief second. It’s one second too long, and he knows it, but he stalls just a second longer before shooting higher in the tree. He gets the smile he was waiting for.
Higher up, waiting for another target, Jean looks at his shaking thumb. Blood had trailed from the cracked flesh around his nail and onto his wrist, streaked from the rain.
Jean chews on his other thumb as the fear settles deeper in his heart.