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He's known her since they were little, since days of elementary school, since she was just a soft face with too much of that raven hair about her head, the one that sat in the corner with the books and the pencils, scribbling through word searches and puzzles that Porco wouldn't have given a second thought. She never moved around much, always rubbing at her knee, her ‘bad knee’ he now knew - mottled with arthritis and injury, habitually, often spending lunchtimes inside when everyone else would run about the playground as much as an hour would permit them.
Porco remembers sitting with her more than anything, that same spot - the reading corner, with the cushions and the shelves - one panorama over time. He can't recall whether it was out of pity, or because he simply didn't want to go outside sometimes either, but he does remember the stories she would babble on about to him, how he would sit there for the lunch hour without saying a word, in awe, and all those imaginary questions and hypotheticals she would throw at him once the stories had ran out.
She doesn’t talk as much now, thankfully, but her words still hold the same weight to him as they had done back then. He waits on them, and if she’s speaking at a table she always seems the loudest one, in spite of how naturally soft-spoken she is.
She’s the closest he’s ever been to anyone, what that translates to practically he doesn’t know, but at this rate it feels like she could have him forever.
There’s a bench at the back of the school field, rust across it’s memorial plaque and wood tattered, far from polished. It’s where they study sometimes, if the others are busy or if the two of them feel like some quiet, in the scope of the summer sun and out of the way of most people.
Porco sits at his end, the one whose armrest is snapped in half from rust and exposure. Pieck doesn’t quite sit at hers, rather laying across the bench in its length, head resting atop her bag with her legs outstretched onto Porco’s lap. Her skirt flutters in the wind, her arms to her midriff and far from holding it still instead. The wind is noticeable today, and Porco prays it doesn't turn stronger.
Pieck seems unconcerned. He is, though, and through racing thoughts he can't help but reassure himself against the softness of the skin of her leg beneath his thumb, fingers wrapped around to hold her gently about the muscle. She's a slight pale, bar the border of a passing bruise from her latest incident with the ground he can still glimpse in the corner of his vision, unlike any tone of colour he's seen before. The crutches keep her inside a lot, he understands, more so her knee, and it doesn’t help any to get some sun on her legs. She's like cream, and if he strokes his thumb downwards she's smooth to the touch.
Pieck mews from down the bench, school uniform scratching against the unpolished wood of it, and the air around him shivers as he realises what he's doing. "That's nice."
His hands jolt away nonetheless, taking little acknowledgement of what she whispered and simply considering any comment an indication to stop.
He's halfway to cramming his hands in his pockets shakily when Pieck speaks again, bumps a leg impatiently against his thigh, and clatters the tips of her uniform shoes together in protest. "Why'd you stop?" Porco freezes, eyes flickering to her with his fingertips brushing at the beginnings of his trouser pockets. "I was enjoying that."
“Uh... I don’t know.” He shrugs. Hands are pocketed. “Hands are cold.”
It’s summer.
Pieck withdraws her legs nonetheless, half to his relief and half his dismay, seemingly convinced enough with his response and she pushes herself upright and comes to sit next to him. “I guess there’s a bit of a breeze.” She sighs as she settles. “It was nice while it lasted.”
Pieck laughs softly along her words. Porco doesn’t have the breath for something like that.
“How's the bruise?" He skips to another subject, the first thing that comes to mind, or, at least, the thing that’s been there the most recently.
"Oh, it's fine." Pieck smiles at him reassuringly, her eyes soften the same way they always do, the words feel infinite. "I put some cream on it, it's gone down a bit - it used to be this huge, purple thing, and…" She breathes a laugh. "...well, I showed you already. Wasn’t pretty."
Yes, she had, and no, it wasn't.
"Yeah." He nods. The swallow through his throat is audible. "Not pretty."
The air stays tense, and the way his hairs shiver across the back of his neck are almost an omen that he knows she knows what he’s thinking about. "I didn't mean to creep you out with the photo, or anything, I just wanted to show someone." She's doing it again, leaving him guessing whether she knows exactly what she's doing or if she's just oblivious. He couldn't bet on either. "I guess I just trust you too much, really.”
"It's fine." He cuts her off before the harbinger of an apology draws from her. He's doing it again, too. Reassuring her, holding onto what they have. He wouldn't trade her trust for the world. "I didn't mind." Despite the effect these things had on him.
In retrospect, Porco doesn't think sending him a photo of the purple blotch across her thigh was necessary, but he ponders more on just how much was in shot. All that skin, no socks or shorts or anything, just-
"We're friends, Pock." His thoughts break under a smile. "And, close… y’know." Pieck leans out of the cone of his vision, tilts to her side, and comes to rest against his own. "It's only normal. We can tell each other anything."
There's a pressure against him; it's not her, though - she's too light for that.
"Yeah."
He knows she relies on him.
Not to say it’s one-way, because he certainly relies on her too, maybe too much in certain things - like his homework, but he knows not everything is so fair for her, and that sometimes he has to disregard his own interests to consider that she relies on him.
Like, maybe turning up to her house early in the morning before school to help her out with her bag and her medication, because she doesn’t have the time for it always, and she lives solely with her father, who has his own problems of working to keep everything going, is a nuisance when he just wants to sleep in that little longer, but he wouldn’t trade it for the world.
And maybe carrying her up the science-block staircase because he’s too impatient to take the elevator or leave her to hobble up them is a nuisance caused by himself, but the younger kids don’t tend to point and laugh at them when Reiner’s following close behind.
At least he was good for something.
It’s the after-school fair today, or, at least, it was the after-school fair an hour or so ago. It had officially ended when they had packed everything up and told the parents and kids to beat it, as the oldest year of the school, but the teachers, mainly just Miss Zoë, had left the school hall open for the final hour as a reward before maintenance turned up to clean and close. They weren’t the most capable of hands, though, and with supervisors gone, Ymir had, expectedly, driven ten minutes out and back to bring back as many drinks as she could, and it had turned into the after school makeshift party.
Porco feels like going home. He’s refused any offer of a drink, arm-wrestled Ymir after she wouldn’t leave him alone, won, rematched, won again, and then lost on his third match when Historia and Ymir had combined arms, and has just been managing the baseball accuracy challenge during the fair’s full two hours, and Reiner had brought Gabi, who finally got her bullseye after how-many goes, so it’s safe to say he’s had his fair taste and wants to call it a day.
But Pieck is still here, sat on a pile of gym pads, drinking and talking with Annie and some brunette he doesn’t remember the name of, and he doesn’t like the idea of leaving her behind if she could do with a lift home too.
Not from him, of course, from Marcel. Porco couldn’t drive.
He hasn’t checked back on her in the corner of his eye for a while, stood idly against a wall on his phone, but when he does, he finds her closer than before, instead hopping carefully over to him on her crutches. He smiles at her, pocketing his phone with a curious raise of an eyebrow, and she smiles back, but with a slight less shine to it and little curiosity in return.
She hobbles up awkwardly to him; posture stiff, legs misaligned, arms hanging in the harness of her crutches. He worries she’s hurt herself again, especially when she gives him another concerned smile and huddles slightly closer to keep their conversation private.
His smile softens. “You alright?” Her eyes are a slight wider, and she hasn’t moved her bangs out of the way like she normally, habitually, does.
“Um.” There’s pink to her cheeks. “I really need the toilet.”
Porco raises an eyebrow. It felt like a lay up to a pun. Blunt. “Oh.” He takes caution just in case. “You know where it is from here, right?”
“Yeah, I do.” Pieck nods hurriedly, smiling weakly. “It’s not that… I just…” One of her legs shift. “I… um, I don’t think I’m going to make it.”
Oh.
“Oh.”
Her face seems to drop a little, and her eyes turn worried. “Mhm.” She picks herself up slightly in her crutches. “I didn’t really know who to tell, so I came to you, but...” Her voice quivers slightly, like she’s either laughing or crying beneath it. “...um, I don’t really know what to do.”
Porco sees a lot of things in the moment; her cheek tickled under the bang she still hasn’t moved, her lips part in a breath she’s taken to calm herself, her palms gripping the crutches tighter, her feet tilting to tiptoes as she pushes herself against him. Perhaps it’s the adrenaline, knowing that she relies on him.
“I can carry you.” It’s the first thing he thinks of, and perhaps the only option he has. “It‘s just down the corridor, I don’t mind.”
Pieck steps back a slight, unsure when Porco takes his hands out of his pockets. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah!” He nods hurriedly now, arms outstretched in open gesture. He couldn’t see himself doing this for anyone else. “Come on, it’s better than the alternative.”
Pieck ponders for a small moment, eyes shimmering as she thinks, but then she nods in agreement too with a swallow of spit and loosens her hold on her crutches to ready herself. “Yeah… y-yeah, I guess so, just…” She licks at her lips worriedly. Porco thinks they’re wasting time. “...don’t pick me up too quickly, okay?”
He smiles reassuringly. “I won’t.”
He doesn’t take any further affirmations from Pieck, nor does he count down to three or anything of the like to ready her, instead resting an arm around her shoulder blades, leaning down to put another behind her legs, and then bringing himself up gently to lift her from the floor as she folds delicately into his arms.
She smells of lavender, a squeak pulled from her when she settles in his hold, crutches sliding down to rest at her elbows, only inches from the floor, thankfully adjusted shorter for her height so there’s still enough room for his feet to move forward without him kicking at them.
He thinks a few people look at them, he knows Reiner does - he’d spied him leaning against a wall and pretending to drink earlier, and he still hadn’t moved, and the girl that he nearly shoves out of the way when he strides through the door certainly does too.
It does little to bother him, though, and he finds himself taking it easy for the most part, until Pieck shifts awkwardly in his arms and pushes a hand into the front of her skirt and wraps her legs around it. Maybe he could hurry a little.
Her cheeks turn pinker. “Sorry.”
He shakes his head, picking up the pace slightly now that they’ve cleared the hall with the toilets in sight down the corridor. “It’s fine.”
He half-jogs the final sprint, and then takes a precarious manoeuvre and pushes the right-hand side door open with the combined weight of the two of them. Pieck squeaks again, and the door crashes against the wall once they burst through. He doesn’t consider if anyone’s seen him bridal-carrying Pieck into the girls’ bathroom, there’s little time for it, and he drops Pieck carefully to her feet at a cubicle as she preemptively pushes herself into it, dragging her crutches with her and taking a few clumsy steps, and then swings it closed behind her. Neither of them say anything, the only noise in the bathroom being air conditioner hum and Pieck clearing her throat, and without any further verbal indication Porco forgets what he’s doing and ends up standing bodyguard at the cubicle door in his confusion.
The heat in his chest rises, embarrassment coiling, and as the door shakes as she locks it his concern peaks when her crutches clatter loudly against the floor. He listens closer for a moment, to check she hasn’t hurt herself, but then he can hear Pieck undressing herself, fabric against skin, and the horrored flush of red that cascades across him forces him to leave in an instant.
“Uh…!” He calls out, already walking backwards and gesturing behind him, as if Pieck can see him or is even interested. “I’m just gonna go stand outside!”
“O-Okay!”
He darts out, and the noise of the door breaking open is louder.
Ymir had seen him coming out of the girls’ toilet. He doesn’t remember seeing her, and she was a loud sort too and he doesn’t remember hearing her either, but somehow she saw him and now it’s the talk of the group. He supposes it’s his fault, he failed to justify himself when it was first brought up - somewhat to save having to explain Pieck’s situation per her right to privacy, and that means it only festered amongst everyone that he had snuck into the girls’ bathroom for whatever reason during the party, and was now lashing out at Ymir for exposing him.
By lunch, Pieck had justified his actions herself, reminding them of when he had bridal carried her out of the hall; Ymir hadn’t seen him do this though, conveniently, and Reiner, being Reiner, had forgotten about that and failed to bring it up the first time to defend Porco, so now the rumour was a muddy mix of Porco the pervert, or that the two of them had snuck into the bathroom together.
Neither were good.
He’s solemn, somewhat, sitting now at a wooden lunch table under the shade of trees in the centre of the yard. Pieck doesn’t seem so bothered, sat opposite with the sun crackling warmly against her back.
“Don’t be so moody.”
Porco had tried to rebuke to Ymir that he had beaten her twice in an arm wrestle. That had only made things worse. It wasn’t something to brag about. “I’m not moody.” He licks his lips. “You call a child ‘moody’. I’m not in a mood.”
Pieck smiles. He can feel it, even if it’s only in the corner of his vision as he keeps his eyes to his textbook. “Are you sure?”
“Mhm.”
“Stop frowning, then.” His brow relaxes almost immediately. Pieck chuckles softly. “And give me a smile.”
He doesn’t look up. “You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
He does now. “Treating me like a child.”
The impact of his words fizzle out quickly, and Pieck only smiles brighter at him. “I’m only thinking about you. Smile.”
The sight of her is enough. He can’t help it, and his lips flicker softly into a smile as the tightness in his chest loosens.
Pieck laughs, fingers scratching at the wood of the table. “Very good.” Her own lips flatten, pressed together, and she pushes a bang out of her eye. “I prefer you when you’re smiling.”
Porco nods. He returns to his textbook. The tightness is gone, and he almost feels light.
“I should thank you for yesterday.” The scratching turns to a rattle of fingertips. He looks back up. “I know Ymir’s giving you grief for it, but you really saved me in the moment.” She bites softly at her bottom lip, and glances instead at something in the distance. “You tend to do that a lot.”
“What?” He snorts. “By shoving painkillers down your throat at eight o’clock in the morning?”
“Yes.” She looks back to him. Her eyes are genuine. “And letting me vent to you about my bruises.”
Her skin’s back in his mind instantly, the length of her leg, the muscle, the bareness of it, the smoothness. “And having me assess them by photo?” The lack of cloth. What he couldn’t see.
Pieck staggers for a moment, and then thins her lips with soft irritation. “I thought we were over that.”
He shakes his head. “I’m only joking.” He smirks. “It’s fine.” A finger scratches at the corner of the textbook’s page, plastic paper groaning against his nail. “How many times do you think you’ve saved me before a test?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Or on any piece of homework ever?”
Porco sighs, swallowing his pride. “Yeah.” And cedes with a nod. “Yeah.”
Pieck snorts, hair brushing against her skin as she pushes another bang away, and she shuffles closer from her side as her lips part once more. “I rely on you a lot, you know.” She smiles again. “It’s nice to be close to someone as much as I am to you. Not many people have that.”
He wishes she wouldn’t say things like that with her eyes laying on him and her face warm with a smile. He’ll have a crisis.
Not to say parts of him already aren’t.
He fails to respond, and Pieck only simpers richly at his expression, face cupped in her open palm, curling her lips outwards as her typically weary eyes shimmer over with thought. It pulls any thought from him and strangles it dead. He's snared. "It doesn’t bother you." She says it matter-of-factly, and he nearly chokes out an affirmation to agree before she serves it as a question instead. "Does it?”
"No." He opens his legs slightly under the table, trousers tighter than before, and manages to cool himself slightly before he responds. He sounds indifferent, but it does little to reassure him that Pieck doesn't sense the nervous resonance that shivers through his throat beneath his nonchalance. "It's fine."
Pieck's smile seems to quiver thicker.
"Yeah."