He saw them. They didn't think he saw them but he did. The cold stares, the narrowed eyes, telling him that he would never belong, that he was alone, an outcast. Every day, the ice from their glares pierced his back and ripped through his lungs, taking with them another price of his sanity. Every day he was plagued by the knowledge that he would never be one of them. He would never belong, and never be accepted. He was a tool in the destruction of the Titans. Nothing more than that. Every word they said to him had some purpose. The small talk wasn't small talk. They analyzed everything that he said back to them, trying to figure out what was going on in his head, trying to figure out when they needed to draw their blades against him. One wrong move, and he was dead.

He knew perfectly well what it was like. He could practically hear the metallic sound of a blade being drawn, the sharp sting of pain as he was stabbed through the abdomen, looking down in shock as his hands were covered in the warm, red blood spilling from his abdomen. Falling to his knees, and trying to hold in the internal organs that had finally seen an out and were trying their very best to escape from the wretched body that they were obligated to keep alive. He had lived through this scene in his nightmares more times than he could count.