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[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

Tobias isn't brooding. He doesn't brood. He just... looks like he is.

He sits cross-legged on the ground in front of the small house they've been working to restore. It's a poor attempt at a meditative position, but it is an attempt. He tries to do that whole deep, calm breathing thing, but it doesn't come very easily. Which is ironic because he never really had trouble staying calm before. It used to be his default mode, and now he has to struggle to stay centered and...

He sighs.

This doesn't seem to be working.

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[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

They haven't yelled, haven't fought, and that's definitely a contributing factor. Tobias doesn't really know how to deal with Rachel without those random bursts of violence between them. They've both always been that way, especially with each other, and... now he's not.

Or, rather, he won't let himself be. The risks are too high. Losing her the first time had crushed him, and he had always known that if one of their fights went to far and he lost her again he'd be crushed all over. But... losing her now? He didn't think he'd survive that very long.

He pushes himself to his feet. He knows that if he doesn't he'll just start dwelling on the worst part: that he's useless now.

[theresnodoor]

He is.

Well, that's... no, that's not right. He isn't useless. Tobias is the most undeniably good person she's ever met. He's sensible and smart and able to see things she never could. But he can't fight like this and hasn't shown any desire to learn how. Like he doesn't want back in a fight, any fight, at all anymore.

Rachel can't say she's surprised by that thought, not with all the fights they had about rushing head first into things, about her being a little bit crazy, not right. But to have it so obviously present now, when his eyes aren't sharp tinted amber, without the wickedly curved beak or the razor sharp talons...

She strips quietly at the back of the house, glances back to make sure a small sound was just part of the forest and not Tobias coming back to check on her. And when she's sure, she morphs quickly.

She'd accused Tobias of staying a hawk to hide. Now, she relishes the moment when the wolf mind takes over and she can let it, leaving the human problems behind for the sake of a hunt.

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

Tobias has been thinking about that very thing. About... learning to fight. He always had the hawk's instincts. But now he doesn't have them... He barely even has human instincts anymore.

And that wouldn't be so bad, really, except that he knows he's holding Rachel back. And that's probably the hardest part. If he... could just...

He doesn't know. Something.

[theresnodoor]

It's relieving to be out of the house. No, not just out of the house - out of the mind, the body. The one that's always thinking about what happened, what's happening, what will happen. Most animals don't have a sense of past or future, and the wolf certainly doesn't care about how Tobias is coping with being human again. It cares about running, about catching a scent, chasing, attacking, and that first drop of blood...

Not that she can really relish the meal. Rachel went out to hunt for dinner for both humans in the house, not just herself. So she trots back the way she came, demorphs on the way and dresses in the back of the house, holding a rabbit by its ears. And if there's a slight hesitation before she opens the door to go inside, it could have just been to check and make sure she didn't get any blood on her clothes.

Or something.

"Tobias?"

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

The house is empty. He can feel that she's gone. He tries not to dwell on it. He tries to meditate again, but it doesn't really work. He gives up and sits down at the kitchen table.

Not to mope. Just to sit there and stare.

He hears her outside. He hears her pause.

He hears her call his name.

"Welcome back." He manages a smile.

[theresnodoor]

She wonders how hard it was for him to manage that. Not just the motion, like it would be for another human in a bad mood. She wonders if he still has to think about what muscles to move in order to make a smile form at all.

She smiles back.

"Are you hungry?" Little things have been learned: don't announce that she's brought something back, that's obvious; don't tell him what it is, he can already see it; don't comment on the hunt at all.

She's grateful to Jo, to Dean, that she knows how to skin and cut the thing open with human hands and a knife. Something he can do, something he can learn. Something she isn't shoving in his face to be cruel.

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

He's... figuring it out. Remembering how to be human. It's slow, but he's doing it. "I could eat." He actualy is hungry, but Tobias has never been the sort to express himself all that well, and being human again has only made him more taciturn.

"You want some help?" It won't be competent help, and that still grates, but it's better than feeling completely useless.

[theresnodoor]

"Sure."

She can't say no to that. Might as well slap him in the face while she's doing it.

Rachel nods to the wood-burning stove in the corner, picking up a knife as she makes her way to the table. "Could you get that going?

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

That he can handle. He's been chopping wood as a way to burn off frustration. They have a whole lot of wood. It doesn't take long to get the fire started.

He almost asks her how the hunt went, but that would violate at least three or four of their unspoken rules.

"How was your day?" he asks instead.

Look! Small talk! Or... something that looks like it if you squint hard enough.

[theresnodoor]

Except that their days revolve around each other. They have since he arrived in this world. There's not much they don't do together and there's not always an opportunity for Rachel to sneak off to morph without him noticing.

She shrugs. "I finished American Gods."

So she reads. There's a stack of books from various stores in Metropolis kept in the front room that she and Tobias pour through regularly in their boredom. She used to read a lot, back when there were parents and sisters and school to worry about, before war and morphing.

Reading about fights and adventures and wars... that's what she does now.

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

"What'd you think?" Tobias hasn't gotten to it yet. He's been reading mostly non-fiction recently. Hoping for... he doesn't know what. Some sort of future. Something to do.

His own recent reading has been on advanced physics. Which was completely useless in a shattered world like this one.

[theresnodoor]

She used to like adventure, save-the-world kind of stuff, novel series like the Chronicles of Narnia. Now she leans toward the more philosophical. Mostly because Rachel is on the lookout for something that can occupy her without making her ache for how things used to be.

"It was okay. Kind of heavy, if you're not already familiar with all the mythology stuff."

She's not really. She never cared much for mythology and she certainly isn't interested in beings of a higher power now.

A rabbit can be skin in small pieces for easy removal. Rachel really prefers to do it all in one big piece, with an uneasily satisfying ripping sound.

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

Tobias twitches at the sound. It pulls up so many deep-seated responses. Responses that aren't his anymore. Now that he's human.

"Good."

So much for small talk.

He lapses into awkward silence again.

[theresnodoor]

She shouldn't do that in front of him. She's noticed before that it makes him twitch, but not always. Or maybe sometimes she's just too focused on what she's doing to pay attention.

The hunting is the best part, the skinning is dull, but the rip is...

"How about you?" she asks after the silence has settled for a moment. Rachel doesn't look up, eyes down as she finishes up, listening to him set up the fire. "Did you finish that math thing?"

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. For all the use it'll be." Tobias shakes his head and shrugs helplessly. He can't actually voice the words 'what am I even doing here?', but the thought is there. Eating at him.

[theresnodoor]

He got dangerously close to it right there. Rachel's eyes dart to his sharply, though her head stays bent, and she stares - but only until he starts to meet her gaze.

She looks down at the rabbit until there's nothing left to look at anymore and she can get up and go to the stove.

And pretend like she's not asking the same question of herself. Not the one she's always asked - what is a soldier doing in a place that needs warriors - but more specific.

What is she doing here, right here, in this kitchen in this house.

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

The silence that stretches out between them isn't like the comfortable ones they used to share. It's tense and almost jagged, filled with things they can't say and can't ignore. It doesn't take too long before Tobias can't take the pressure anymore and he breaks the silence.

"So..."

And realizes he doesn't actually have anything to say.

[theresnodoor]

Sometimes they break the silence by breaking up the presence in the room, just walking out.

Rachel tends to like that better.

She goes a little stiff when he speaks, but with her back to him while she faces the stove, she doesn't have to worry about what he might see in her face. Like the roll of her eyes at any attempt to try and cover up what he just said, or the curl of her lip when she knows she's just going to encourage it. Because... what else are they going to do?

"Listen," she says, suddenly because she hasn't really put any thought into it, casually because it has to be said that way, "what if we went somewhere? Somewhere else. We don't have to be here, sitting between the two safe zones, there's a whole world we could check out."

Things he could see.

Like the jobs that still need doing, and the people that do them without morphing.

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

"Where do you want to go?" It's not a sarcastic question. Not a biting response to belittle her suggestion. It's genuine.

Tobias is willing to try something, anything, to get out of the strangling uselessness of the past month. And he hates knowing that he's keeping Rachel cooped up. She wasn't made for that. She's supposed to run free.

[theresnodoor]

"I don't know."

The meat sizzles when it hits the pan. She stares at it for a minute before turning around, leaning a hip against the wall and looking at the boy at the table with cool blue eyes. "Just... somewhere, I guess. Anywhere else. There's nothing here."

For them, for him. Nothing really comes or goes, nothing new happens, it's...

Stagnant.

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

Tobias sat in silence for a bit. Not because he was thinking about the suggestion, but because... it was almost comfortable. Almost what they'd used to have.

Eventually he shrugs. "You're right."

[theresnodoor]

Somewhere new. Start over. Don't try to adapt to your old place when something's changed about you, but change everything and be so wrapped up in it, there's no time to worry.

Rachel smiles at him. It feels uncomfortable, almost. It's been a while since she smiled like that.

"We could-"

Talk to Jo, find out where to go, where they might be needed. Assuming that Tobias wants to fight at all anymore. He hasn't shown any desire to learn.

Her smile falters a little. It's a question she hasn't been ready to ask him yet.

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

It's a question he hasn't been ready to ask himself yet.

But... maybe he'll be able to. Eventually.

He smiles a bit himself, just as uncomfortably as she does. "So... what? We just pack up and start walking?"

[theresnodoor]

For a second, she'd worried he'd pursue that, start another fight. Though with all the awkwardness, she's almost been craving their old fights.

His response, though... his response is better.

Rachel's smile comes back, slow and natural, and she shrugs. "Sure. Why not?"

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

Tobias actually chuckles at that. "Do we get to eat first?"