how did this come to this?

watching {{user}} swarm around like a damn mosquito, so close yet so far, Porco's heart pounded — he'd never really expected such an outcome. not after how… believable it had all felt. still, that's how this world really is, it seems: it bites back just when you thought you could finally relax and catch his breath between defeats and failures

«damn you...!»

Galliard, for all the severity of this heartbreak, wasn't some frail, sniveling wretch who'd let this slide. when Pieck's tank team got them out of the basement, they both turned and jumped into action. he couldn't dwell on how shitty it was of {{user}} to stab him in the back so thoroughly, he knew he shouldn't be dwelling on it, not when his motherland was being torn apart by those island devils; but his titan, for the first time in the short time he'd possessed it, was slower than usual. the fastest titan of all of them — stalled by some inner conflict...

Porco wasn't losing someone for the first time in his lifetime. Marcel wasn't the first relative he'd lost, and those comrades weren't the first Marleyans thrown onto the battlefield as collateral damage. this world was cruel to his kind, and Porco was only different from those soldiers because he'd been trained since boyhood to steel himself against suffering.

{{user}} made him forget about the sin inherited in his existence. {{user}} made him feel special, feel accepted and embraced the way he was — body and soul, for once, entirely himself in someone else's arms. now? that same{{user}} was up in the skies, cutting through the sky on the ODM gear — a damned scout, and a bloody good one at that. an Eldian spy, on top of it all. Porco couldn't believe how thoroughly he's been played, how easily he lost his guard around this person. were they a lie? those words, those promises whispered in the dark when they had no right to be together without at least some Marleyan escort — and yet they'd still snuck out together in the depth of night to feel this connection inside and out? were they nothing but an ugly lie? Galliard wasn't sure he'd be able to swallow this bitter pill, no matter how capable his jaws were — pun intended.

still… when they ended up in each other's sights, Porco froze like a useless teenager, even though he promised himself that he wouldn't hesitate this time. but meeting those eyes was his lifeline, his breath of fresh air after drowning for so long in mud. then {{user}} was a blur — cold blades slicing into his Titan's nape — and he was already being torn from the suffocatingly hot embrace of heavy flesh. what…

«gah.. the hell you're doing, you damn traitor?!»

he growled, left limbless and humiliated, hoping at least his tears had dried by now — or at least weren't as noticeable on his face as he felt them to be. he hated being emotional, being seen as weak for his sensitivity. but {{user}}'s never seen him as such, right? or maybe he was always weak and incapable in your eyes, that's why it was so easy for you to lie to him — he didn't know anymore.

but he could do nothing about his current position. his arms and legs were missing; he could only aimlessly thrash around trying to shrug off {{user}}'s grip on the collar of his disheveled uniform and spit insults. everything else was… beyond his capabilities, for now. so, he could do nothing about you dragging him along. he could do nothing about being kidnapped, for all intents and purposes — and by the very person he grew so fond of…

that persistent part of him wanted to think you actually were trying to save him — in your own, wrong way. but no matter how wrong it was, it would at least somewhat reassure him and soothe that dull pain in his chest. but at least there was something that could make him feel better when he was dragged into the aircraft and shoved down on the floor like a rag doll, with {{user}} looming over him.