Childish Games

Childish Games - Eight

-Chapter Eight-

'...One on one combat... Against each other... No weapons..' That was all Jean chose to listen to from the first stage of their training regimen, they'd all done it before, when they started as cadets. Everyone had grown a lot stronger since then though, so the battles were a lot more interesting to watch. No serious injuries were to be inflicted but injuries such as black eyes and other bruises weren't forbidden, meaning people still attacked just as brutally as they had the chance to. Watching Sasha fighting was something of a spectacle though; she had a great stance and knew what she was doing but each time she hurt her opposition she'd apologise but continue anyway. Polite combat. That wasn't something you saw every day.

'If we have to fight, I'm not sure what to do really.' He looked to his side where a rather nervous looking Marco was chewing his lip and glancing down at him. Marco could probably easily beat him in a combat fight but judging from the way he spoke, he didn't want to find out if that was the case.

'I don't want to have to fight you, maybe if we look busy fighting other people we'll be ignored.' And thankfully it worked. For a few days at least;

By the time it came to the last day of the week, Everybody had to participate in tasks to determine where they would be placed in their formation on the journey outside the walls, meaning individual fights against everybody except superiors such as Levi and Erwin themselves. Jean had thought he was doing pretty well until he had to go head-to-head against Marco. Luckily for both of them, they only had to fight one another once though, taking into account the win or loss to your overall rank. They already had a tactic planned out: Jean takes the first hit as it's his test they have to fight in, Marco dodges and goes in to try and hit back but he's blocked, only a couple of the punches actually hitting themselves. That is until a loud sneeze on Levi's behalf threw Jean off guard and Marco in turn hit him straight in the face, trying to look triumphant instead of worried, but they were excused after their marks were written down.

'Jean are you alright?' He asked, looking over him almost like a worried mother. Thanks to the size of Marco's hands, he'd left Jean with quite a heavy nosebleed as well as a fashionable black eye. 'I'm so sorry, I-'

'No, it's okay.' Jean smiled, 'Don't worry, it was an accident and kind of my fault for getting distracted.' He said, walking with the boy as his guide as he had his head tipped backwards to try and calm the nosebleed at least a little. Once they got back to their room, Marco waisted no time in fetching a cloth for Jean; it wasn't anything extravagant but it was sufficient to help with the bleeding. He pressed it against his nose and ignored the unpleasant sting brought on from the pressure as he knew that the pressure would eventually help the blood to clot and dry better.

'I really am sorry, I didn't want to hurt you.' Marco muttered, laying his head in Jean's lap as sitting beside him clearly wasn't enough contact for the boy. Jean just shook his head and smiled softly, about to lean down and kiss his forehead but then remembering the bloody rag he was holding to his nose.

'I would kiss you right now but I don't want to bleed on you.' He voiced aloud, so Marco sat up a little bit more, kissing the underside of his chin. Jean had thought it was a bizarre place to kiss someone but it still made him smile nonetheless.

~

Jean's black eye had healed quite well after just a week and luckily he hadn't broken his nose. It was quite surprising that he didn't because Marco did actually throw quite an impressive punch. Today was one of the few days that everyone was allowed to just kick back, relax and do as they pleased. He referred to them as 'Happy Days' because nobody spoke about the enormous stacks of shit they know as Titans and nobody spoke about any deceased relatives or friends. Only happy topics were spoken of on Happy Days.

Naturally, all the regulars joined together for their old fashioned game of Marco Polo, but minus Annie as she'd joined the Military Police instead of the Survey Corps and minus Eren as he was under strict surveillance since the whole Titan transforming malarky was brought up. The last two standing when Marco was the seeker with the blindfold on were Jean and Armin. Nobody had said anything for a couple moments so Jean decided to help the boy along a bit by saying 'Marco' as you do in the game.

'Jean.' Came the reply, which caused Jean to roll his eyes and scoff a little.

'You're supposed to say Polo, you nitwit.'

'Polo, you nitwit.'

'Smartarse.'

'Got you, loser.' And he had as well, without Jean even realising, Marco had walked right over to him and grabbed onto his wrist to prove that he'd in fact 'got him' making Armin the winner which he was very pleased about.

'You're such a dork.' Jean muttered, pulling off Marco's blindfold and not caring at all who was watching them when he pushed up that little bit to press their lips together.

'You're more of a dork, shortstack.' Marco chided, grinning to himself. Jean was about to retort with another comment but they could've been there all day so he just chuckled and kissed the boy again, this time for a little longer until people started whistling and calling at them.

'Alright, lovebirds, break it up.' Sasha sighed, rolling her eyes and twisting her ponytail, only to sigh even louder when she saw that Ymir had taken the opportunity to start kissing Krista quite similarly to how Jean and Marco had been, but just a tad more passionate and bordering on unfit for the eyes of children. However, when Sasha tried to break those two apart, Ymir simply lifted her hand, middle finger elegantly stretched up from her fist and continued what she'd started with the shorter blonde girl.

'And she thought we were bad.' Jean chuckled, blushing a bit when Marco slipped his arm around his waist. This was already promising to be a good day considering all the jokes people were making, but everyone fell silent and turned around when a swinging gate closing caught their attention and Erwin came marching through, Levi following quite closely behind.

'Kirschtein. I have a message for you that has been delivered from the Trost refuge within Wall Sina.' Jean's expression wove itself into one of worry and curiosity combined. He nodded once to show he was listening. 'It's your mother. She's dead.'