Childish Games

Childish Games - Fifteen

-Chapter fifteen-

'Shit.'

'Okay, so, if I just...'

'God fucking damn it!'

Fact of the day; 3DMG is not made for people with a limited amount of fingers. Jean grumbled and tried to set his hands around the handles of the blades again, one hand being as easy as ever, but the other proving to be difficult. He could hold it relatively well, but when it came to triggers and other technical bullshit, he struggled immensely. He set his feet and locked his eyes on his target of a practice dummy, before attempting to slash at it again, the blade falling out of his right hand as it came into contact with the dummy.

'Kirschtein!' Erwin called, his voice a lot softer than his stern expression. 'That's enough for today. Go and get some rest and we'll try again tomorrow.' Jean sighed but nodded anyway, saluting when necessary and starting to dismantle his gear.

The stitched up wounds on his hands hurt a lot less now, although there was still the inevitable dull thrum of pain there no matter what. He'd learnt to write with his left hand, albeit unsightly, but it would do. He'd learnt to eat mostly with his left hand, only using the right one when absolutely necessary. Marco had been literally mothering him and making sure he didn't either pick at his stitches or put too much strain on his bad hand which could have probably opened the wounds again which most certainly wouldn't benefit anybody. He headed back towards his room, once he'd returned his equipment to its store and signed that he'd returned it, sitting down on the edge of the bed and spreading his arms out either side of him before just letting himself fall backwards onto the thin mattress.

'Fucking typical.' He grumbled. 'Why couldn't Jaeger have lost a finger. He'd just grow the damn thing back in no time.' He curled in on himself and rolled onto his side a bit, sighing softer as he realised his frustration was getting the better of him. 'I didn't mean that.' He said to the room, almost asking it for its forgiveness, pleading with it to not tell Eren or Marco or anyone about his ill wishes on the aforementioned teen. Although, the more he thought on it, the less he cared about what he had said, and the more he cared about his own sake and wellbeing. He deserved to be selfish in this situation. Anyone on the planet would be bitter about losing appendages, and Jean was certainly no exclusion from that. A light knock to the door caused Jean to sit upright again, crossing his legs as though he wasn't about to have a mini mental breakdown.

'Jean?' Marco walked slowly into the room with a soft smile on his face, closing the door behind him. He sat beside Jean and held his arms out, the comforting invite enticing Jean all but instantly as he leant into the familiar embrace. 'How did it go today?' He asked, Jean shrugged a bit.

'About as well as you could expect it to.' He started, sighing. 'I'm defected. I'm basically no use to the legion anymore.'

'That's not true.' Marco argued. 'It's only your first attempt.'

'Yeah but you know yourself that the holes in those handles are specifically for people with all their fingers attached to their hand.'

'Well, then we'll make a new handle. One specifically for people without all their fingers attached to their hand.' Jean paused. He looked at Marco with a quirked brow and shook his head a little in surprise at the notion.

'A new handle how would we even begin to-'

'I'll ask Commander Smith.' He responded instantly. 'You're a good soldier and I'm sure he'd be more than willing to do what it takes to get you back to your normal, determined, fighting self.' He was right. Jean knew he was. But he was almost certain that Levi would favour just removing him from the corps entirely instead of 'wasting' materials and funds just to craft a new handle for one of Jean's blades.

'Well, I guess it's worth a try.'

[I am so sorry this took so long for such a short chapter. I had insane writers block.]