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saxophonicSeries: CJC Week 2019
Title: Splat!!
Summary: Caesar, Joseph, and their coworkers run through a paintball course as a "team building" exercise.
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 3,478
Note: Fill for CJC Week 2019, Day 2: Fighting/Competition. X-posted to AO3 today!
Diving behind a stack of hay bales, Joseph rolls over his shoulder and comes to a stop on one knee. He clutches the paintball gun to his chest, his extra ammo rattling in the pouch at his hip. Joseph steadies them with a hand. He strains his ears to listen for the next sign of attack. Nothing unusual cuts through the humid air or disturbs the quiet sounds of the forest around him.
Joseph grits his teeth and readjusts his grip on the weapon. With the heel of his palm, he presses the protective goggles tighter against his face. Risking a paintball to the head, Joseph pushes himself higher to see over the top of the hay. A brief survey of the surrounding area yields no clues as to Caesar’s whereabouts. No tell-tale sign of a gun barrel in the bushes, no blond hair sticking out behind a tree trunk, no cocky green-eyed bastard in sight. Knowing Caesar would land a headshot square between his eyes given the chance, Joseph doesn’t leave an opening. He ducks down again, quickly, before Caesar can snipe him.
“JoJo,” a voice calls out from somewhere beyond Joseph’s cover in a menacing sing-song. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
So. He’s around. Lurking somewhere. Joseph considers peeking again and decides against it. He looks down at his tight white jumpsuit. The largest size they had was barely big enough for him, and it’s already stained with a few bright splotches of different-colored paints. Though six of them went into the arena this afternoon for a company-sanctioned team building exercise, he’s only run into Caesar. It’s like they have the whole paintball course to themselves. For better or for worse.
Instead, Joseph slowly raises two fingers into the line of sight. When his fingerless gloves clear the cover, shots ring out in warning. They whizz past his hand, dangerously close. He swears one paint bullet flew right between his fingers.
He retracts his hand and checks the bale of hay directly behind him. Fresh paint splatter against the straw demonstrates Caesar’s control over his weapon. He must have aimed for Joseph’s hand. Those paintballs came damn near close to bruising the knuckles on his fingers, by the look of things. The tricolor paint from the bullets are clustered in tight formation.
Joseph stares at the paint, blinks, then lets a smile spread across his face. The layout of the field forms in his mind, the height of the trees in this section of the forest, the man-made stacks of hay for improvised cover. He lets his eyes close as he visualizes all possible points of attack that could hit that mark, at that angle. Factor in the course Joseph took through the woods, with Caesar in pursuit, and…
There.
Rushing into action, Joseph brings his gun up as he stands to attack. “How do you like this?” He aims for a section of the tree line by a stack of hay three bales tall and lets fire. “Come and get it!” A rainbow of paint bursts against the bark. Joseph can see a brief flash of movement as the barrel of a paintball gun tucks in tight behind the trunk. Ha! Got him.
Joseph ceases fire but keeps his finger on the trigger. He waits, patient, for the next move of his prey. Well, as patient as he can be. Joseph whistles loud and clear like birdsong. He squeezes the trigger and lets fly a few more bullets. They land wetly on the thick layer of paint he made with his earlier shots.
Silence falls again and remains unbroken by the creatures of the forest, no birds trilling to each other, no cricket songs from the underbrush, no irritating buzz of mosquitoes.
The crack of a twig is all the warning Joseph gets before Caesar steps out from his tree cover, his paintball gun at chest-level and dead-set on Joseph. His lips pull back in a snarl to reveal his gritted teeth. Ammo explodes from the barrel of the gun.
Screaming unintelligible threats, Joseph returns fire as he runs along his cover. Ducking and dodging Caesar’s aim, Joseph pauses every few steps to stick his gun in the air over the top of the hay and shoot blindly. The intermittent pauses between rounds of paintball gunfire signal to Joseph that Caesar’s taking more care with his ammo. He wonders how many paintballs Caesar has left. A handful in the chamber, at least, but how full is his pouch?
Joseph pats his own reserves again, grateful to find it full enough for one more reload of his weapon. He exhales through his nose as he judges the distance between his current cover and the next. A few easy paces.
“Should I risk it?” he says quietly to himself. His heart beats rhythmically in his chest. With Caesar’s watchful eyes tracking his movement down to the hair, a few easy paces could be deadly. He visualizes his run before it happens, shuffles through several scenarios in his mind’s eye, and the difference a leap here or a footfall there could make.
The lack of paintballs flying across the clearing brews an ominous feeling in the air.
He blinks again and wipes clean the slate of his mind. “I’m gonna risk it.” He dashes out, gripping his weapon to give himself cover.
One, two, three, and—yes! Made it. No paintball gunfire whatsoever. He huddles behind the relative safety of the next stack of hay. This one stands a bale shorter than the previous cover. With his height, he won’t be able to stand up straight without exposing his entire torso to vicious attack.
In the woods, quick footfalls rustle fallen leaves and crunch twigs in the underbrush. It would seem that Caesar’s on the move, too. Joseph strains to hear where the sounds are coming from, where they’re going. It’s dangerous for Caesar to stay in one place too long. Dangerous for Joseph, too. The others may be preoccupied with fighting amongst themselves for now, but there’s no guarantee how long their conflicts will remain separate.
A crackle of a dead leaf snaps Joseph from his brief musings. This one sounds closer than before. He listens for another sound, but when nothing comes, Joseph sneaks a quick peek to one side to check.
Caesar creeps forward from the treeline, exposed. His eyes, focused further along the new cover, soon snap to meet Joseph’s, and Caesar swivels his gun to follow. “Found you!”
Rolling away, Joseph darts along the cover but keeps his weapon trained behind him. With good reason, too, because Caesar soon appears at the end of the stack, grinning and gunning him down like some handsome Hollywood actor in the summer’s hottest blockbuster. Joseph laughs and fires back. He dodges the worst of the paint splatter. By Caesar’s cursing, Joseph knows he’s hit Caesar. Probably as much as Caesar’s hit him.
Joseph dodges to his left, rolling on the ground and turning to the open field. He lopes into the treeline and dives into the bushes. Picking up rubbish from the ground—a clump of dirt and some rocks—he throws it in the opposite direction where it rustles a different bush, hoping to create the illusion of continued movement.
He sinks down amongst the leaves, slow and quiet to resist disturbing them too much, and waits.
Caesar reappears in the clearing seconds later. There’s fresh paint on his body, bright against his mostly pristine jumpsuit, and Joseph grins to himself in satisfaction. Yeah, it’s about even between them. He eases the barrel of his gun forward, avoiding branches to minimize disturbance. If he can clear the leaves, this would be as perfect a chance as any to take Caesar by surprise.
When Caesar swivels, aiming his gun around the clearing and backing up to cover his six with the hay, Joseph pauses. Not too quick, or that would arouse suspicion too. “Where’d you go?” Caesar mutters. He clicks his tongue.
A breeze shuffles its way through the woods, and Joseph uses the chance to rock his barrel forward in a mimic of the leaves. Turning his body and paintball gun for another survey of the area, Caesar’s eyes meet his. Joseph’s veins turn icy. He’s a sitting duck, even with all this cover. But then Caesar keeps moving, keeps searching. Joseph lets out a breath of relief and crawls forward.
“Come on out and play, JoJo!” Caesar shakes his gun in a menace, the balls of paint rattling in the hopper.
The wind dies down. Joseph steadies his aim with a breath and pulls the trigger.
Vivid color erupts on Caesar’s hip as Joseph marks a line of paint pellets up his torso. With a scream of Italian obscenities, Caesar drops to the ground and out of Joseph’s range. Joseph grunts and follows Caesar’s movement to fire off a few more shots.
With his chest to the grass, Caesar commando-crawls forward a few paces before he rolls like a log a few feet over. He props himself up on his elbows and raises his weapon into shooting formation. This time, his gaze doesn’t gloss over Joseph’s hiding spot. Their eyes meet as Caesar stares down the barrel of his gun he’s trained on Joseph with deadly accuracy.
Caesar smirks. “Gotcha.”
“Shit,” Joseph groans.
Paintball ammo whizzes around his head. Sharp pain blooms in his shoulders and chest as Caesar hits his marks. Another pellet explodes against the corner of his goggles, obscuring part of his vision with lurid yellow paint. Aiming for his head…what an asshole! Sure, they may have elected to play with the bare minimum protective gear, but still. What if it had gotten into his mouth? Disgusting. And painful.
Joseph backs out of the bush, ripping up some twiggy branches with him, and makes a run for it. Where he’s headed, well, he’ll figure out those details as he goes. There’s not much cover. His choices are limited. He keeps churning his feet beneath him anyway.
Caesar must give chase because the shooting stops shortly after he darts into the trees. Joseph chances a glance back over his shoulder to see Caesar leap gracefully over the bushes a few yards back. He turns his eyes front, unwilling to risk catching his foot on an upturned root and falling to the ground to be caught and executed like a D-list actor in a slasher flick. Despite the lack of paintballs flying, Joseph still bobs and weaves through the trees. Just in case.
He comes upon an unadorned clearing amongst the trees. In the distance, Joseph can see another set-up of hay bales stacked in various configurations for cover. If he can make it there, he and Caesar can resume the firefight on more-or-less equal footing.
Right on Joseph’s heels, Caesar bursts into the clearing. Joseph whirls around and raises his weapon to keep Caesar at bay. They hold a stand-off for a few seconds, both of them catching their breath.
The mistrust in Caesar’s expression matches Joseph’s own wariness. Instead of lingering, Joseph fires off a few distracting shots from his hip before he dodges to one side and makes a break for it. Caesar yelps, either in surprise or protest, Joseph doesn’t care. He focuses on weaving through the trees, skidding on a patch of leaves before his feet find traction again and he zips in another direction. Anything to keep paint from staining his white jumpsuit any further.
Over more bushes, around another bunch of trees, Joseph widens the gap between him and Caesar dashing through the woods behind him. He’s almost made it to the relative safety of the man-made cover when Caesar fires off a few shots. Joseph dives head over feet, his hands breaking his fall as he rolls to avoid the paintballs.
Nothing strikes his back, no pain spreads. “Ha! Missed me!” Joseph shouts as he gets back to his feet and resumes his charge.
It’s only a few steps now. Joseph slides behind cover, pressing his back against the bales of hay. He checks the status of his hopper. Damn. It’s a lower quantity than he expected. Flicking his eyes from side to side to keep alert, Joseph makes quick work of the strings cinching the pouch at his hip. Careful not to drop any to the ground, he pours the spare paintballs into the twist-off opening of the hopper. They clatter into the bowl. Joseph tries not to wince at the racket giving away his position, but Caesar was several paces behind and watching him dive anyway, so he figures this noise doesn’t lose him any stealth.
The sound of paintballs rattling in another hopper, with a decrescendo like a rainstick, clues Joseph into the status of Caesar’s paintball stash. They’re still even, both of them emptying their last reserves.
In the silence that follows their simultaneous reloading sequence, Joseph holds his gun to his chest and inches closer to the edge of the cover. He’s quiet, keeping his ears trained for the sound of Caesar’s footsteps. Caesar must be standing still or creeping on tiptoe, because Joseph can’t hear anything beyond his own breathing and the wind rustling through the treetops.
A low groan from the opposite direction surprises him. Joseph whips his head, half expecting Caesar to appear with a sneak attack.
“JoJo?” Caesar sounds closer than Joseph anticipated, like he’s crouching right on the other side of the cover. “Was that you?”
He shakes his head. “No,” Joseph says. “Did that sound familiar to you, too?”
“Yeah.” Caesar pauses, and Joseph can imagine the expression on his face as he ponders the possibilities. “Call a truce to check on it?” Genuine concern wavers in Caesar’s voice.
With a laugh, Joseph repeats, “‘It?’ Do you think it’s an animal?”
Caesar says nothing, so Joseph assumes he shrugs.
“They don’t have, like, wolves or anything in these woods. Do they?” Joseph would rather not meet a wolf armed with nothing but a paintball gun.
“How should I know?”
“You said you’d been to this place before.”
Paintballs rattle in the hopper of Caesar’s gun as he shifts around. “That doesn’t make me an expert on the wildlife here. But whatever made that noise, it sounded sick or injured.”
“Fine.” Joseph sighs. “At the count of three, we face each other and drop our weapons.”
Another pause. “Do you mean we move on three or after three?”
“On three, obviously.”
Caesar scoffs. “Not obviously. Some people say count of three but really mean the fourth beat.”
“If that’s what I wanted to happen, then I’d say count of four.”
“No one says count of four.” Joseph can hear the eyeroll in his voice. “Stop being difficult.” Caesar sighs. “Okay, I’ll count us off.”
“What? No!” Joseph frowns. “I wanna do it.”
“Stop arguing; I just told you I’d do it.”
His frown deepens. ”It was my idea.”
“Then we’ll both do it at the same time.”
Shaking his head, Joseph relaxes his face. “Whatever. At least I know you won’t cheat and shoot me.”
Caesar clears his throat, harsher than Joseph thinks he needs to, and says, “Okay. Ready?”
Joseph drawls, “One…”
“Two…”
“Three!”
They jump out from the cover in a simultaneous leap, landing with their weapons at the ready in a mirror of one another. Joseph should have expected as much. “You’re still holding your gun.” He doesn’t look away from Caesar’s face.
Caesar keeps his gaze steady, too. “So are you,” he says evenly. Inclining his head, Caesar raises his eyebrows. “You first.”
Joseph laughs, loud and fake. “Fat chance.” Neither makes a move to let the barrel of their paintball guns drop to one side. They fall quiet and still, appraising each other, bodies tense. Ready to start firing at a moment’s notice.
But something moans again, louder this time.
Moving on instinct, Joseph takes a step forward and pivots on his foot. Caesar does the same. He and Caesar back up against each other, shoulders and elbows brushing. “Okay, seriously, what is that?” he asks, looking over his shoulder at Caesar.
With a jerk of his head, Caesar gestures toward the next line of hay bales. “It sounded like it was coming from over there. Let’s go check it out.”
Careful of one another and whatever might be lurking in the woods, they steal down the stacked bales of hay. Joseph stops short. He shushes Caesar when they bump into each other. After a quick check to ensure the coast is clear, they turn the corner.
Messina and Loggins lay on the ground, one manager laying belly up and the other face down on the ground. Their jumpsuits are well-splattered with paint. Bright pigment stands out on their faces and gloved hands. Whoever got them was merciless. “Holy shit!” Joseph rushes over, kneeling beside Loggins. He touches two fingers against the manager’s neck.
“What happened here?” Caesar asks. He keeps both hands on his paintball gun as his eyes scan the trees.
Joseph pulls his hand away. “I don’t know.” The paint is still wet. “But it was recent.” He looks up at Caesar. “I guess it wasn’t a wolf.”
Caesar scoffs. “Of course not.”
“Well, you didn’t know,” Joseph retorts.
“Unlike you, I didn’t think it was a wolf.”
Suddenly, Loggins stirs and reaches for Joseph. Caesar whirls, training his gun on him. Loggins grips Joseph’s jumpsuit with both fists, pulling himself up as much as he is pulling Joseph closer.
“Jesus Christ, Loggins!”
“Run,” Loggins gasps. He shakes Joseph. “Run while you still can.” His eyes are wide. Fearful. “Our extra ammo….” His gaze shifts to focus on something over Joseph’s shoulder before Loggins collapses back to the ground with a dramatic exhale.
Joseph stands and turns to Caesar. “What was that all about?” Caesar shakes his head and shrugs.
“Us,” says a woman’s voice from behind them.
Both Caesar and Joseph whirl to see Suzie, the department’s admin, standing with her weapon aimed at waist level. Her white suit has a few grazes of color. She’s got two pouches at her hip, both empty.
“Us?” Joseph repeats in disbelief. “There’s only one of you.” He snorts and aims his weapon with a smirk.
Thwip.
A paintball slams into Joseph’s back. He stumbles forward, coughing like he’d been elbowed in the gut, and turns to see who fired that shot.
Lisa Lisa stands on a thick tree limb with the confident grace of an acrobat. From this distance, her white suit looks as pristine as when the arena staff loaned it to her. The paintball gun in her hand remains trained on him. “Us,” their department head says. “You lose, JoJo.”
Seconds stretch out painfully long as paintballs fly at Caesar and Joseph from two directions. They both struggle to bring their weapons up in time to defend themselves, like the air has grown thick as library paste. Joseph’s body shudders as paintballs splatter against his chest, his back, his legs. His knees buckle and he falls to the ground. Caesar reaches for him and screams his name. It sounds distorted to Joseph’s ears.
As he braces his fall, Joseph tries to bring his weapon up to shoot at Suzie’s legs. He thought he’d be making himself a harder target to hit, but death comes from above as Lisa Lisa focuses her attention on him. Meanwhile, Suzie empties her paintball hopper into Caesar’s chest. Caesar stumbles backwards under the force of her attack.
Sharp pain lessens into a dull ache once the shooting stops. Time resumes its normal flow.
Joseph groans. “What just happened?” He pushes himself up to his knees. “Did we lose?”
Kicking up a clod of grass and dirt at Joseph, Caesar says, “Yes. Without question.”
Behind them, Lisa Lisa lands on the ground with a soft thump. Joseph isn’t sure if she jumped from that height or climbed down a bit first. He’s too sore to care.
“Nice cue, Suzie,” Lisa Lisa says.
“Thanks.” Suzie skips closer, swinging on her now-empty weapon. “That was fun.” She holds up an open hand and beams.
Lisa Lisa hefts her paintball gun over one shoulder before giving Suzie a high five. “I love team building.” She surveys the rest of her department. “Come on, everyone. Let’s get back to the lodge at the start of the course.”
Loggins and Messina climb to their feet as if they weren’t lying motionless on the ground moments before. They turn, following Lisa Lisa and Suzie, leaving Joseph and Caesar standing dumbfounded.
Caesar turns to Joseph and pushes his goggles up off his head. He’s sweaty, his hair disheveled, and frowning slightly.
Joseph pulls his own gear off. “Race you back to the start?”
“You’re on,” Caesar says. A grin returns to his face. “Count of three?”
Title: Splat!!
Summary: Caesar, Joseph, and their coworkers run through a paintball course as a "team building" exercise.
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 3,478
Note: Fill for CJC Week 2019, Day 2: Fighting/Competition. X-posted to AO3 today!
Diving behind a stack of hay bales, Joseph rolls over his shoulder and comes to a stop on one knee. He clutches the paintball gun to his chest, his extra ammo rattling in the pouch at his hip. Joseph steadies them with a hand. He strains his ears to listen for the next sign of attack. Nothing unusual cuts through the humid air or disturbs the quiet sounds of the forest around him.
Joseph grits his teeth and readjusts his grip on the weapon. With the heel of his palm, he presses the protective goggles tighter against his face. Risking a paintball to the head, Joseph pushes himself higher to see over the top of the hay. A brief survey of the surrounding area yields no clues as to Caesar’s whereabouts. No tell-tale sign of a gun barrel in the bushes, no blond hair sticking out behind a tree trunk, no cocky green-eyed bastard in sight. Knowing Caesar would land a headshot square between his eyes given the chance, Joseph doesn’t leave an opening. He ducks down again, quickly, before Caesar can snipe him.
“JoJo,” a voice calls out from somewhere beyond Joseph’s cover in a menacing sing-song. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
So. He’s around. Lurking somewhere. Joseph considers peeking again and decides against it. He looks down at his tight white jumpsuit. The largest size they had was barely big enough for him, and it’s already stained with a few bright splotches of different-colored paints. Though six of them went into the arena this afternoon for a company-sanctioned team building exercise, he’s only run into Caesar. It’s like they have the whole paintball course to themselves. For better or for worse.
Instead, Joseph slowly raises two fingers into the line of sight. When his fingerless gloves clear the cover, shots ring out in warning. They whizz past his hand, dangerously close. He swears one paint bullet flew right between his fingers.
He retracts his hand and checks the bale of hay directly behind him. Fresh paint splatter against the straw demonstrates Caesar’s control over his weapon. He must have aimed for Joseph’s hand. Those paintballs came damn near close to bruising the knuckles on his fingers, by the look of things. The tricolor paint from the bullets are clustered in tight formation.
Joseph stares at the paint, blinks, then lets a smile spread across his face. The layout of the field forms in his mind, the height of the trees in this section of the forest, the man-made stacks of hay for improvised cover. He lets his eyes close as he visualizes all possible points of attack that could hit that mark, at that angle. Factor in the course Joseph took through the woods, with Caesar in pursuit, and…
There.
Rushing into action, Joseph brings his gun up as he stands to attack. “How do you like this?” He aims for a section of the tree line by a stack of hay three bales tall and lets fire. “Come and get it!” A rainbow of paint bursts against the bark. Joseph can see a brief flash of movement as the barrel of a paintball gun tucks in tight behind the trunk. Ha! Got him.
Joseph ceases fire but keeps his finger on the trigger. He waits, patient, for the next move of his prey. Well, as patient as he can be. Joseph whistles loud and clear like birdsong. He squeezes the trigger and lets fly a few more bullets. They land wetly on the thick layer of paint he made with his earlier shots.
Silence falls again and remains unbroken by the creatures of the forest, no birds trilling to each other, no cricket songs from the underbrush, no irritating buzz of mosquitoes.
The crack of a twig is all the warning Joseph gets before Caesar steps out from his tree cover, his paintball gun at chest-level and dead-set on Joseph. His lips pull back in a snarl to reveal his gritted teeth. Ammo explodes from the barrel of the gun.
Screaming unintelligible threats, Joseph returns fire as he runs along his cover. Ducking and dodging Caesar’s aim, Joseph pauses every few steps to stick his gun in the air over the top of the hay and shoot blindly. The intermittent pauses between rounds of paintball gunfire signal to Joseph that Caesar’s taking more care with his ammo. He wonders how many paintballs Caesar has left. A handful in the chamber, at least, but how full is his pouch?
Joseph pats his own reserves again, grateful to find it full enough for one more reload of his weapon. He exhales through his nose as he judges the distance between his current cover and the next. A few easy paces.
“Should I risk it?” he says quietly to himself. His heart beats rhythmically in his chest. With Caesar’s watchful eyes tracking his movement down to the hair, a few easy paces could be deadly. He visualizes his run before it happens, shuffles through several scenarios in his mind’s eye, and the difference a leap here or a footfall there could make.
The lack of paintballs flying across the clearing brews an ominous feeling in the air.
He blinks again and wipes clean the slate of his mind. “I’m gonna risk it.” He dashes out, gripping his weapon to give himself cover.
One, two, three, and—yes! Made it. No paintball gunfire whatsoever. He huddles behind the relative safety of the next stack of hay. This one stands a bale shorter than the previous cover. With his height, he won’t be able to stand up straight without exposing his entire torso to vicious attack.
In the woods, quick footfalls rustle fallen leaves and crunch twigs in the underbrush. It would seem that Caesar’s on the move, too. Joseph strains to hear where the sounds are coming from, where they’re going. It’s dangerous for Caesar to stay in one place too long. Dangerous for Joseph, too. The others may be preoccupied with fighting amongst themselves for now, but there’s no guarantee how long their conflicts will remain separate.
A crackle of a dead leaf snaps Joseph from his brief musings. This one sounds closer than before. He listens for another sound, but when nothing comes, Joseph sneaks a quick peek to one side to check.
Caesar creeps forward from the treeline, exposed. His eyes, focused further along the new cover, soon snap to meet Joseph’s, and Caesar swivels his gun to follow. “Found you!”
Rolling away, Joseph darts along the cover but keeps his weapon trained behind him. With good reason, too, because Caesar soon appears at the end of the stack, grinning and gunning him down like some handsome Hollywood actor in the summer’s hottest blockbuster. Joseph laughs and fires back. He dodges the worst of the paint splatter. By Caesar’s cursing, Joseph knows he’s hit Caesar. Probably as much as Caesar’s hit him.
Joseph dodges to his left, rolling on the ground and turning to the open field. He lopes into the treeline and dives into the bushes. Picking up rubbish from the ground—a clump of dirt and some rocks—he throws it in the opposite direction where it rustles a different bush, hoping to create the illusion of continued movement.
He sinks down amongst the leaves, slow and quiet to resist disturbing them too much, and waits.
Caesar reappears in the clearing seconds later. There’s fresh paint on his body, bright against his mostly pristine jumpsuit, and Joseph grins to himself in satisfaction. Yeah, it’s about even between them. He eases the barrel of his gun forward, avoiding branches to minimize disturbance. If he can clear the leaves, this would be as perfect a chance as any to take Caesar by surprise.
When Caesar swivels, aiming his gun around the clearing and backing up to cover his six with the hay, Joseph pauses. Not too quick, or that would arouse suspicion too. “Where’d you go?” Caesar mutters. He clicks his tongue.
A breeze shuffles its way through the woods, and Joseph uses the chance to rock his barrel forward in a mimic of the leaves. Turning his body and paintball gun for another survey of the area, Caesar’s eyes meet his. Joseph’s veins turn icy. He’s a sitting duck, even with all this cover. But then Caesar keeps moving, keeps searching. Joseph lets out a breath of relief and crawls forward.
“Come on out and play, JoJo!” Caesar shakes his gun in a menace, the balls of paint rattling in the hopper.
The wind dies down. Joseph steadies his aim with a breath and pulls the trigger.
Vivid color erupts on Caesar’s hip as Joseph marks a line of paint pellets up his torso. With a scream of Italian obscenities, Caesar drops to the ground and out of Joseph’s range. Joseph grunts and follows Caesar’s movement to fire off a few more shots.
With his chest to the grass, Caesar commando-crawls forward a few paces before he rolls like a log a few feet over. He props himself up on his elbows and raises his weapon into shooting formation. This time, his gaze doesn’t gloss over Joseph’s hiding spot. Their eyes meet as Caesar stares down the barrel of his gun he’s trained on Joseph with deadly accuracy.
Caesar smirks. “Gotcha.”
“Shit,” Joseph groans.
Paintball ammo whizzes around his head. Sharp pain blooms in his shoulders and chest as Caesar hits his marks. Another pellet explodes against the corner of his goggles, obscuring part of his vision with lurid yellow paint. Aiming for his head…what an asshole! Sure, they may have elected to play with the bare minimum protective gear, but still. What if it had gotten into his mouth? Disgusting. And painful.
Joseph backs out of the bush, ripping up some twiggy branches with him, and makes a run for it. Where he’s headed, well, he’ll figure out those details as he goes. There’s not much cover. His choices are limited. He keeps churning his feet beneath him anyway.
Caesar must give chase because the shooting stops shortly after he darts into the trees. Joseph chances a glance back over his shoulder to see Caesar leap gracefully over the bushes a few yards back. He turns his eyes front, unwilling to risk catching his foot on an upturned root and falling to the ground to be caught and executed like a D-list actor in a slasher flick. Despite the lack of paintballs flying, Joseph still bobs and weaves through the trees. Just in case.
He comes upon an unadorned clearing amongst the trees. In the distance, Joseph can see another set-up of hay bales stacked in various configurations for cover. If he can make it there, he and Caesar can resume the firefight on more-or-less equal footing.
Right on Joseph’s heels, Caesar bursts into the clearing. Joseph whirls around and raises his weapon to keep Caesar at bay. They hold a stand-off for a few seconds, both of them catching their breath.
The mistrust in Caesar’s expression matches Joseph’s own wariness. Instead of lingering, Joseph fires off a few distracting shots from his hip before he dodges to one side and makes a break for it. Caesar yelps, either in surprise or protest, Joseph doesn’t care. He focuses on weaving through the trees, skidding on a patch of leaves before his feet find traction again and he zips in another direction. Anything to keep paint from staining his white jumpsuit any further.
Over more bushes, around another bunch of trees, Joseph widens the gap between him and Caesar dashing through the woods behind him. He’s almost made it to the relative safety of the man-made cover when Caesar fires off a few shots. Joseph dives head over feet, his hands breaking his fall as he rolls to avoid the paintballs.
Nothing strikes his back, no pain spreads. “Ha! Missed me!” Joseph shouts as he gets back to his feet and resumes his charge.
It’s only a few steps now. Joseph slides behind cover, pressing his back against the bales of hay. He checks the status of his hopper. Damn. It’s a lower quantity than he expected. Flicking his eyes from side to side to keep alert, Joseph makes quick work of the strings cinching the pouch at his hip. Careful not to drop any to the ground, he pours the spare paintballs into the twist-off opening of the hopper. They clatter into the bowl. Joseph tries not to wince at the racket giving away his position, but Caesar was several paces behind and watching him dive anyway, so he figures this noise doesn’t lose him any stealth.
The sound of paintballs rattling in another hopper, with a decrescendo like a rainstick, clues Joseph into the status of Caesar’s paintball stash. They’re still even, both of them emptying their last reserves.
In the silence that follows their simultaneous reloading sequence, Joseph holds his gun to his chest and inches closer to the edge of the cover. He’s quiet, keeping his ears trained for the sound of Caesar’s footsteps. Caesar must be standing still or creeping on tiptoe, because Joseph can’t hear anything beyond his own breathing and the wind rustling through the treetops.
A low groan from the opposite direction surprises him. Joseph whips his head, half expecting Caesar to appear with a sneak attack.
“JoJo?” Caesar sounds closer than Joseph anticipated, like he’s crouching right on the other side of the cover. “Was that you?”
He shakes his head. “No,” Joseph says. “Did that sound familiar to you, too?”
“Yeah.” Caesar pauses, and Joseph can imagine the expression on his face as he ponders the possibilities. “Call a truce to check on it?” Genuine concern wavers in Caesar’s voice.
With a laugh, Joseph repeats, “‘It?’ Do you think it’s an animal?”
Caesar says nothing, so Joseph assumes he shrugs.
“They don’t have, like, wolves or anything in these woods. Do they?” Joseph would rather not meet a wolf armed with nothing but a paintball gun.
“How should I know?”
“You said you’d been to this place before.”
Paintballs rattle in the hopper of Caesar’s gun as he shifts around. “That doesn’t make me an expert on the wildlife here. But whatever made that noise, it sounded sick or injured.”
“Fine.” Joseph sighs. “At the count of three, we face each other and drop our weapons.”
Another pause. “Do you mean we move on three or after three?”
“On three, obviously.”
Caesar scoffs. “Not obviously. Some people say count of three but really mean the fourth beat.”
“If that’s what I wanted to happen, then I’d say count of four.”
“No one says count of four.” Joseph can hear the eyeroll in his voice. “Stop being difficult.” Caesar sighs. “Okay, I’ll count us off.”
“What? No!” Joseph frowns. “I wanna do it.”
“Stop arguing; I just told you I’d do it.”
His frown deepens. ”It was my idea.”
“Then we’ll both do it at the same time.”
Shaking his head, Joseph relaxes his face. “Whatever. At least I know you won’t cheat and shoot me.”
Caesar clears his throat, harsher than Joseph thinks he needs to, and says, “Okay. Ready?”
Joseph drawls, “One…”
“Two…”
“Three!”
They jump out from the cover in a simultaneous leap, landing with their weapons at the ready in a mirror of one another. Joseph should have expected as much. “You’re still holding your gun.” He doesn’t look away from Caesar’s face.
Caesar keeps his gaze steady, too. “So are you,” he says evenly. Inclining his head, Caesar raises his eyebrows. “You first.”
Joseph laughs, loud and fake. “Fat chance.” Neither makes a move to let the barrel of their paintball guns drop to one side. They fall quiet and still, appraising each other, bodies tense. Ready to start firing at a moment’s notice.
But something moans again, louder this time.
Moving on instinct, Joseph takes a step forward and pivots on his foot. Caesar does the same. He and Caesar back up against each other, shoulders and elbows brushing. “Okay, seriously, what is that?” he asks, looking over his shoulder at Caesar.
With a jerk of his head, Caesar gestures toward the next line of hay bales. “It sounded like it was coming from over there. Let’s go check it out.”
Careful of one another and whatever might be lurking in the woods, they steal down the stacked bales of hay. Joseph stops short. He shushes Caesar when they bump into each other. After a quick check to ensure the coast is clear, they turn the corner.
Messina and Loggins lay on the ground, one manager laying belly up and the other face down on the ground. Their jumpsuits are well-splattered with paint. Bright pigment stands out on their faces and gloved hands. Whoever got them was merciless. “Holy shit!” Joseph rushes over, kneeling beside Loggins. He touches two fingers against the manager’s neck.
“What happened here?” Caesar asks. He keeps both hands on his paintball gun as his eyes scan the trees.
Joseph pulls his hand away. “I don’t know.” The paint is still wet. “But it was recent.” He looks up at Caesar. “I guess it wasn’t a wolf.”
Caesar scoffs. “Of course not.”
“Well, you didn’t know,” Joseph retorts.
“Unlike you, I didn’t think it was a wolf.”
Suddenly, Loggins stirs and reaches for Joseph. Caesar whirls, training his gun on him. Loggins grips Joseph’s jumpsuit with both fists, pulling himself up as much as he is pulling Joseph closer.
“Jesus Christ, Loggins!”
“Run,” Loggins gasps. He shakes Joseph. “Run while you still can.” His eyes are wide. Fearful. “Our extra ammo….” His gaze shifts to focus on something over Joseph’s shoulder before Loggins collapses back to the ground with a dramatic exhale.
Joseph stands and turns to Caesar. “What was that all about?” Caesar shakes his head and shrugs.
“Us,” says a woman’s voice from behind them.
Both Caesar and Joseph whirl to see Suzie, the department’s admin, standing with her weapon aimed at waist level. Her white suit has a few grazes of color. She’s got two pouches at her hip, both empty.
“Us?” Joseph repeats in disbelief. “There’s only one of you.” He snorts and aims his weapon with a smirk.
Thwip.
A paintball slams into Joseph’s back. He stumbles forward, coughing like he’d been elbowed in the gut, and turns to see who fired that shot.
Lisa Lisa stands on a thick tree limb with the confident grace of an acrobat. From this distance, her white suit looks as pristine as when the arena staff loaned it to her. The paintball gun in her hand remains trained on him. “Us,” their department head says. “You lose, JoJo.”
Seconds stretch out painfully long as paintballs fly at Caesar and Joseph from two directions. They both struggle to bring their weapons up in time to defend themselves, like the air has grown thick as library paste. Joseph’s body shudders as paintballs splatter against his chest, his back, his legs. His knees buckle and he falls to the ground. Caesar reaches for him and screams his name. It sounds distorted to Joseph’s ears.
As he braces his fall, Joseph tries to bring his weapon up to shoot at Suzie’s legs. He thought he’d be making himself a harder target to hit, but death comes from above as Lisa Lisa focuses her attention on him. Meanwhile, Suzie empties her paintball hopper into Caesar’s chest. Caesar stumbles backwards under the force of her attack.
Sharp pain lessens into a dull ache once the shooting stops. Time resumes its normal flow.
Joseph groans. “What just happened?” He pushes himself up to his knees. “Did we lose?”
Kicking up a clod of grass and dirt at Joseph, Caesar says, “Yes. Without question.”
Behind them, Lisa Lisa lands on the ground with a soft thump. Joseph isn’t sure if she jumped from that height or climbed down a bit first. He’s too sore to care.
“Nice cue, Suzie,” Lisa Lisa says.
“Thanks.” Suzie skips closer, swinging on her now-empty weapon. “That was fun.” She holds up an open hand and beams.
Lisa Lisa hefts her paintball gun over one shoulder before giving Suzie a high five. “I love team building.” She surveys the rest of her department. “Come on, everyone. Let’s get back to the lodge at the start of the course.”
Loggins and Messina climb to their feet as if they weren’t lying motionless on the ground moments before. They turn, following Lisa Lisa and Suzie, leaving Joseph and Caesar standing dumbfounded.
Caesar turns to Joseph and pushes his goggles up off his head. He’s sweaty, his hair disheveled, and frowning slightly.
Joseph pulls his own gear off. “Race you back to the start?”
“You’re on,” Caesar says. A grin returns to his face. “Count of three?”
