Swirls of colour erupt behind my eyelids.
They're twisting, undulating, oscillating.
I'm blind, blind to everything but the flashes of red.
Red like splashes of blood.
I'm bleeding.
I can't breathe, it's suffocating, it's deep, it's horrible-
Jean? Jean? Are you there? Help me...
Please...
Marco screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed and just couldn't. Stop. Screaming. He clawed in desperation at the giant fingers wrapped around his torso, watching his blades clatter to the ground with a flash of dull silver as they fell from his grip. No noise from them smashing to shards reached his ears; he was too far off the ground, the sound of wind roaring instead as he was whipped through the air by the titan's running.
The places were the titan's skin touched his own were boiling from the heat emanating from the furnace in its core. His eyes were streaming from the sting of wind, but he forced them wide open, desperate to see where he was, to see if there was anyone to save him, anyone to notice that he wasn't already dead (as unlikely as it seemed). The red tiles of roofs blurred into rusty smears as he blew past, but in the distance motion seemed to hang still in time. The city was still being swarmed. Soldiers blitzed in and out of his view like dust motes on a summer's day. Titans crumpled to the ground every so often, seemingly at random, but to Marco's trained eye, he could see the trails left by the gas canisters that signalled the soldiers, the warriors willing to sacrifice all to save just a few.
Marco laughed hysterically, his voice raw from screaming. How jaded, how bitter he had become.
He almost sounded like Jean.
But in the second he thought the words, he felt the tight grip around his middle slacken and he began to free-fall towards the floor at a speed that rattled every bone and shook every organ. He started to scream again, but the sound was broken and guttural. Rational thoughts were trying to force themselves to the forefront of his mind (the titan was killed, someone killed it, someone's there, someone's there, they have to help me they must see me falling they must see me) but the only thought that made it to his mouth was-
"Jean-"
before the breath was slammed out of his lungs. Arms with corded muscles looped around his middle where the titan's fingers had been before and Marco felt his breath hitch in a brief flare of panic. He realised the instant that the thought entered his head that he was being an idiot, that he had been fucking saved. Someone had saved his life. He was alive.
"Yeaaaaaaaaah!" Marco whooped in glee. He turned to face his saviour, the perfect warrior who felled the titan without it killing him at the same time, the 3DMG master who was keeping them both stable in the air whilst blasting onwards faster than any titan could possibly run.
A familiar chuckle rasped beside Marco's ear and his heart jumped into his throat.
"Jean?" he breathed, hardly daring to believe what his heart told him was the truth. He hadn't caught a glimpse of his saviour's face yet from the angle he was dangling by, but he knew, he knew.
"'Lo, freckles. That's my name, and if you want, you can scream it like you did earlier." Jean's voice was a breath of fresh air in the smoke of the panic. Even the teasing couldn't stop a huge grin from breaking out across his lips.
"God, I could kiss you right now."
"Well, maybe when we stop. Don't want us crashing now do I, after I just risked my butt to save yours."
The pit of Marco's stomach felt like it had just fallen away. Were any of his organs going to stay where they should, he thought with another hysterical burst of laughter. Matching laughter came from Jean, and when they landed on top of the Trost wall, far away from any of the other soldiers, from any of the other brave warriors, Marco groaned Jean's name again and again and again against his lips.
AN - Day 4. I like this one.