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The smell of old petrol stings Marco’s eyes as he comes face to face with the back of the passenger’s seat. The whole chassis shakes, squeaking and screaming under the speed as the car races across the searing hot sand rushing beneath him. The vehicle is barely more than a junker, held together by scraps of leather and old screws, a relic of better times now entering its worst.
Marco’s feet perch upon the cracks of leather and foam peeking through the growing tear that runs across it. He lies across the back seat, arms grasping for the top of the seats before him on his left and on his right. Each arm tenses at every bump, sand flying through the open passenger window. It brushes coarsely against his cheek and tastes both salty and foreign on his tongue. So that’s what the remnants of civilisation tastes like, he wonders.
“You a’right back there?” The gruff voice of the man called Jean yells over the roar of the diesel engine. One hand on the wheel, he leans back, his tanned cheek rubbing against the driver’s seat as he eyes Marco in the back. With stubble lining his jaw, his oddly cut hair, and his crooked smile, Jean sets Marco’s nerves at ease and his stomach aflutter.
“Jean,” Marco said the man’s name through chapped lips and gritted teeth. “How is this thing in one piece?” As if in answer, the car shakes, swerving left across the road and struggling over loose stones in the sand.
“Luck,” answers the woman in the passenger seat, her hand firmly grasped onto the steering wheel while Jean blatantly ignores the winding road that lays before them. Her voice holds all authority despite the softness of its sound. Peering around the seat to properly check her over, Marco finds of her of firm build, stern eyes, and a soft face. He hasn’t taken much notice of her with the man in the driver seat stealing nearly all of his glances.
“Luck doesn’t always hold out,” Marco retorts, leaning to peer out the window into the hot desert outside. It rushes past in a blur of dead trees and unfamiliar hills. He is a long way from home, but one glance back to Jean’s face tells him that this is where he wants to be.
“She’ll be right. We only need her to carry us past these bastards.” He nods to his left, eyes set to the road this time. Rocks beneath the tires crunch loudly, but louder screeches come from out across the horizon of the wasteland.
Squinting, Marco peers out to find large plumes of dust reaching up to brush against the sky. Several cars race across the flat drought ridden ground, taking a sharp turn in their direction.
“They’ve noticed us,” Mikasa states, propping her long rifle onto her lap, seeming to prepare it for firing. Marco watches with keen interest and remarks to himself that this might be the first time he has ever seen a gun this close before. It looks a lot less deadly than he was expecting it would.
A thought occurs to him, “You’re going to kill them?” He can’t see the faces of the men screaming out towards them in a clamour of words seeming to hit against each other in the air. Their cars look almost as bad as this one does. They are rusted old projects of iron and junkyard scrap, hoisting up long chains and hooks to swing wildly in the air.
Mikasa considers Marco briefly with a raise of her eyebrow, still fiddling with the gun in her hands, its end pointed towards the gap for a windscreen. “That’s what it’s for.”
“Why?” He blurts out the words before he knows what he’s asking and regrets it almost immediately. His head turns between Mikasa’s stern face and the window and the dust rising slowly up into the sky like all of Marco’s hopes.
“It’s them or us.” Her jaw clenches and her eyes assess the room in the backseat by his feet. “I’m hoping you’re prepared to keep yourself in one piece.” She shuffles in her seat, getting up onto her knees and squinting out of Jean’s window.
“Mikasa,” Jean warns through gritted teeth, his eyes darting over to the cars headed straight for him. Marco isn’t sure whether there’s tension here or not. He finds himself wondering how much he really knows these strangers in this rusted out junker and whether he can truly trust them.
“This is the world out here.” Her voice is cold and flat, stating the obvious fact they both knew. Regardless of how pretty she is, beneath the facade of oil and dirt and sweat, she is just as full of fire as the rest of the bandits out there, if not more so. She knows this world better than Marco suspects he ever would. “It’s better he knows it now than later.” Her attention turns from Jean and she thrusts the gun before Marco’s face. With a sharp nod, he knows he’s meant to take it from her.
“But do we need to kill them?” Marco takes the gun from her with a slight shake in his hand. He looks so uncertain next to her. Even her hand is so dead still next to his that he has to question if she’s not made of steel herself.
Mikasa considers him. Rather than the cruel hard look he expects to find, he sees a soft consideration of his objection. It takes him aback. He pauses and waits for the words he can see forming in the warm brown of her eyes. She looks over him, seconds ticking as her jaw clenches, and Marco finds himself feeling more and more exposed beneath her gaze.
“Jean,” she says finally, grabbing his attention as if it were a gentle gesture in a safe calm room, despite the roaring of engines in the distance. He simply nods and swerves the car to the right. Marco digs his fingers into the chair and still finds his body being thrown across the backseat. The hot leather sticks to his thighs, unwilling to let him go. He only wishes that it could hold onto him to prevent him from flying out the window.
Mikasa crawls into the back, grabbing for anything she can take hold of as they speed down the dusty orange road, sending their own cloud of dust flying up like a signal of defiance. Her hands press over Marco’s legs, shoving them aside and gaining purchase in her new position. Once ready, she reaches out her hand to demand her gun, staring out the window without a word.
“Give her the gun, Spiff,” Jean commands with a low growl. Beneath it sit a heavy breath waiting to exhale and just a hint of flirtation. He might have been imagining it out of hope, and peers at him again for clarity. Jean clears this throat. “Give her the fucking gun.”
The gun slaps into Mikasa’s waiting hand. Marco cringes at how it hits her heavier than he intends. She pays no mind to it however and swiftly preps herself with it, kneeling closer to the open window, gun ready in position. This isn’t the first time she had done this, and while he watches her, he realises how much more lost he is to be in this seat, than out in the wasteland on his own.
“Get your ass up here,” Jean reaches over to pat the seat with a hard whack. Marco’s attention snaps towards his bark. His heart races even faster when they lock eyes and he sees the stern demand written on Jean’s face. “You don’t want to be next to her when she gets started.”
“Oh, okay.” Marco nods quicker than he’s ever nodded and struggles to make his way between the seats. A roaring in the distance puts the shock into his shoulders and his head collides with the fraying ceiling. He groans, cursing at the mixture of human yelling and mechanical screeching that caused his injury.
He moves quicker then and shuffles through. He brushes by Jean’s muscular arm with every intention to make the most of it until the sudden jerk in the engine forces Marco to crash into the passenger seat. Laughing, Jean pats Marco on the thigh. It's a firm, loud slap that leaves no mark, but sends redness to Marco’s face all the same.
Returning his hand to the wheel, Jean leans over with a tilt of his head and winks, “Besides, you get to look at the shocker that’s my face.”
Marco rubs his thigh, feeling the tingling of Jean’s touch beneath his fingers, and stammers down at his leg, “I-It’s really not that--” He cuts himself short, unsure of where he was going with it, but it was no where good, surely. Pressing his lips tightly together, he stares ahead at the road and wishes that he could simply bury his head in all of that sand.
Jean disturbs his daydream with a curt chuckle. It’s the kind that set Marco’s back straight while he dismisses the threat Mikasa was eyeing up in the back. Jean’s far too casual with all of this, Marco realises, and realises that he kind of likes it. There’s a security to it that he can’t place his finger on. Even when Jean turns to him to speak again bluntly, Marco feels the hope there. “Seem to have lost your sense of humour with your --”
Mikasa cocks her gun and kicks Jean’s seat. “Enough with the flirting. Drive!”
Jean clears his throat and grunts before she can retort back. Like a strange signal between them, the noise he makes seems to make sense to her and she relaxes back into position.
Streaming down the hill, their pursuers come. Their yelling becomes no less incoherent screaming as they approach. Each new yell setting the panic up a new level in Marco’s chest. This is no place for him, but beside him sits a man who lives and breathes the red dust, who knew the wasteland and the shifting of gears, and Marco places all of his hopes in him now. Perhaps more than he should risk.
He can smell the dust and sand in the air, their tires churning up the long untouched wasteland and leaving deep tire tracks in their wake. Every time Marco thinks craning his neck has helped to count them correctly, he finds that once again the number’s wrong. There’s five, then seven, then six, and then eight. He tries his best to get better glimpses, but Jean catches his eye or tells him to duck down and look straight ahead. He’s never felt more useless in his life.
Their choking cries carry with them a barrage of threats, speaking of trepasses and debts and all the things that find themselves shrouded with confusion in Marco’s mind. As they near, closer and closer, now within a stone’s throw, Mikasa tenses her feet and fires off a loud warning shot. The bullet disappears into the sand like it was never there, but the sound echoes painfully in Marco’s ears.
“That’s really loud,” Marco whines, places his hands over his ears. Beside him Jean seems so unphased by it all, hands gripping tight to the wheel. He’s so stern and focussed on the task at hand that Marco’s surprised that he manages to keep talking with a face that looks like it was never meant to change. His thoughts escape from him before he can wrangle them back. “Is this normal for you?”
Jean shrugs and turns the steering wheel sharply towards a motorbike gaining up on the rear. The back of their car hits its front wheel and the impact shakes the car. Neither Jean or Mikasa flinch at the thump. The bike hits back against the car in retaliation, its rider hitting against the car with a leather-gloved fist. They had caught up to them now.
As if nothing happened, as if the aggressive drivers weren’t right behind them, Jean flatly informs him with another tug at the wheel, “I’ve long since given up on normal.” He immediately rams the car into another one of their pursuers. Their cars scrape against each other, metal against metal, emitting a piercing inhuman screech. A shiver sets itself down Marco’s spine. Jean takes one more look at him before he yells behind him, “Do you actually want to shoot them, Mika?”
“I don’t judge you on your choices.” Mikasa glances between Jean and back at Marco. A glint of the harsh midday sun catches in her eyes through a tear in the roof. Marco isn’t sure what he sees then, but an uncomfortable feeling worms its way into his chest. “I wasn’t the one who said we should pick him up. Now they’ve caught up with us.”
Jean grunts through clenched teeth. He pulls tight on the wheel with another, slamming the back of his car into the car approaching on their right. “Is this you asking to drive? Because I could pull over.” The car shakes violently. Jean’s hand grips tighter on the gear stick and with one more grunt he changes gears like he’s trying to snap the stick itself. “All I gotta do is hit the brakes.” Marco withdraws down further into his seat.
“You do that and I’ll shoot you!” Mikasa yells back at him, hunching down to aim and taking another shot like it's second nature. She hits one of the drivers squarely in the shoulder. Not a moment goes by before their car goes careening into the dust. She aims her next shot like she had only taken a breath.
Jean chuckles, the tension in his shoulders eases. “It wouldn’t be the first time.” The car tailing them slams into the back with an almighty crunch. Marco can feel the back bumper crumpling and falling away. Every nick and bump in the road vibrates the floor beneath his feet and they all leave Marco wondering whether this metal junker will be his coffin.
He grabs his knees and pulls them up to his chest, huddling in the front seat and staring up hopelessly at Jean’s jawline. He had clenched his teeth, turning his head every which way that their pursuers were surrounding them. Mikasa let off another shot before Jean jolted the car against another one of the motorbikes. They were everywhere, crowding around them like flies, even as the bend in the road came up.
Jean turns his head then. His eyes settle on Marco’s with a sense of pity and apology. Somewhere behind the gruff exterior he was softer than the hard lines of his face or the tension in his muscles. He opens his mouth to speak but the sound Marco hears next is not Jean’s voice but the crunch of metal, the screech of tires, and the heavy thunk of bodies being thrown in a chunky, rusted box of a car.
His head hits against the ceiling first, hands gripping onto his knees and eyes shutting tight in the hopes he had drifted off to a restless sleep. The sudden sharp pain growing his back and his legs that hit against the insides of the car reminds him otherwise.
Dust rushes in through the open windows. Coarse and red, it streaks past his cheek with every bounce the car makes as it rolls through the dirt. He can’t hear or see or feel either Jean or Mikasa near him. All sounds but those of the car tumbling to a halt blur around him, lost amongst their own dust cloud surrounding the car.
A great thud seems to surround him when the vehicle comes to a stop. Marco’s suddenly aware of the dirt in his hair, his ears, his mouth, and covering his eyes. Blinking them open, he coughs into his hand, choking on how much he seems to have breathed in. He peers around the car, lost and disorientated, only able to make up which way is up by the sun in the sky.
He finds himself lying awkwardly on his side within the upturned car with no idea of how much time might have passed. Its roof is partially buried in the sand. Its part are scattering into pieces like all the magic holding it together had worn away. He can feel the bruises forming on his skin and his chest heaves and struggles to catch back his breath. Turning around, he sees Jean’s not in the car and there’s no sign of Mikasa in the back. Even the sounds of engines is disappearing into the distance.
His voice croaks when he calls out the first thing he can think of, “Jean?!” He coughs more of the dirt from his mouth. It tastes of tires and petrol with a hint of his own blood. Maybe he’s more injured than he thought.
Footsteps in the dirt answer him. They approach slowly. Torn leather boots come into view by Marco’s head and for a moment he wonders how much longer he has left. The car door complains as it's pulled open and reveals Jean standing over him, all scratched up and covered head to toe in dirt. His hands reach down to pull Marco from the wreckage with a few extra grunts for effort.
Marco stares silently. No words seem to come into his mind when Jean lifts him up to his feet and starts checking over him, lifting arms and getting him to turn around. Jean’s hand grabs Marco’s chin roughly and turns his face this way and that, checking for damage like he was just another part of the car.
“He looks fine,” Jean calls out over his shoulder. Further behind him, resting on the sand with her legs crossed sits Mikasa, appearing unscathed and unaffected by their crash. She stares blankly at the both of them. Everything about her gives Marco the impression she is incredibly unimpressed.
Her lips pull taut as her eyes shift from Marco to the car. “I can’t say the same for the car.” There is just a hint of sadness in her voice that catches him off guard.
Jean’s eyes never leave Marco’s face. He stares unwaveringly, watching for every change in it as Marco tenses and blinks awkwardly. “Are you okay?” Jean asks. His tone is softer, still gruff and gravelly but not hiding the concern beneath it all.
“I-I’m fine,” Marco confirms and nods for extra measure. His heart keeps racing no matter how much he tries to slow his breathing. Jean being this close to his face doesn’t seem to help.
Jean smiles a soft smile then. The lines of years of sun damage crinkle around his eyes and once again he reaches out for Marco’s face. For a moment, he considers a thought with a bite to his lips before pressing them against Marco’s with a low satisfied grunt.
Marco closes his eyes in surprise but relents beneath Jean’s hands pulling him closer. He finds Jean’s lips to be dry and cracked against his own chapped ones. He presses back and grabs onto Jean’s side.
Jean smells of the dirt and the dust, of engine grease and a long day’s sweat. It’s foul and dirty and foreign to Marco, but whether it’s the thrill of the crash or the lingering adoration in his mind, he laps it all up and lets himself fall into that moment with Jean.
A minute passes before Mikasa clears her throat loudly and Jean breaks away from the kiss with a displeased grunt. Her face contorts into an expression of disapproval, lips pursed and eyes rolling. “When I asked you if you had a plan, this isn’t what I intended.”
Jean closes his eyes and answers her without moving. “We’re going to need a moment.” Opening his eyes again, he checks Marco’s face over, looking for something else this time. Marco opens his eyes in surprise when Jean’s hand rubs up his arm.
Mikasa walks past them both and climbs onto the carcass of the car. She perches herself on one of the tires and waves her dismissal at them as she turns her back to them. “Don’t complain to me about all the places the sand ends up.”
Jean chuckles against Marco’s lips and grunts once again while the dust settles, the sounds of engines die, and the sun sets upon the horizon.