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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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[theresnodoor]

Rachel scowls at him. Sometimes it's like he makes things intentionally difficult.

(if only by asking Rachel to tell him how teenagers should act... how should she know?)

"Then what is so great that you're missing out on? What do you miss so much?"

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

Tobias shrugs. "I don't know, really. I guess I always thought..."

He doesn't know what he always thought. Only someone who'd never been a teenager thought that it would make sense and be easy and not awkward. If they'd been normal teenagers he and Rachel could have been a normal happy carefree couple without all the confusion and conflict.

Did we mention that Tobias has no idea what it means to be a teenager?

[theresnodoor]

"Tobias, look around you sometime. Look at the people we know, that we've met here. None of them have had normal childhoods. I mean-- god, you should hear some of the stories Jo's told me! And she's probably the most normal!"

She shakes her head, jaw set irritably and leans back in her chair to cross her arms over her chest. It's a defensive posture, but she is defensive. Rachel has a loose idea of what it means to be a teenager and her own issues with what the war did to her and her relationship with-- everyone.

But this?

"We were fighting almost as soon as we actually became teenagers. What are you basing what we should be on? TV? Because that's not real."

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

"I don't know," Tobias mumbles. "I just... wanted things to be simpler."

But they only get more complicated. With him. With her. With them.

[theresnodoor]

That shuts her up. Even if only for a moment.

Rachel stays leaning back, arms crossed, but she relaxes minutely. Long enough to look at him, really look. Because sitting across from her at the same table, having a conversation about life and each other and a trip they want to take, is a very real, very human, very teenage boy.

"You've been a hawk for three years," she says finally, quietly, and as gentle as Rachel is capable of being. She knows it's hard for him, she knows it hurts, and she doesn't even want to think about what it would do to her to lose her own morphing ability.

But she can reach over the table and take his hand.

"This is different... but it's simpler, too."

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

He flinches at her words, but when she touches his hand there's an almost electric shock that runs through him. He had been happy as a bird, really. It was who he was.

But... it was odd to think, but he'd missed simple things like human touch. Tobias allows his hand to turn and his fingers to wrap around hers.

"Simpler?" he repeats, more amused than anything. "At least I knew what to do before." Now... he's as lost as any teenage boy.

[theresnodoor]

Rachel isn't amused. If anything, it makes her frown again, shift uncomfortably. But she still holds tight to his hand.

"You knew how to fly," she argues, "and hunt and attack. But what about..."

me?

Rachel might not know how to date any more than he does. But for the three years they were together, she couldn't escape the very human urge to touch and show affection. Not like he could.

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

They've been together long enough for him to finish that sentence.

"Hawks don't have hormones like this," Tobias complains. It had been so much easier when being a hawk had made this something he didn't have to deal with.

[theresnodoor]

Now that gets a smirk out of her.

"Welcome to the last three years of my life," Rachel replies dryly.

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

Tobias blinks, as if this hadn't actually occurred to him before.

"How do you stand it?" he asks. The confusion, the mood swings, all of it.

[theresnodoor]

"I yell at you a lot. And then I go kill things."

It's possible that she's joking, if only because the alternative would be strangling him for not realizing this sooner.

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

He seems to consider that for a moment, then rolls his eyes at himself.

"Guess I've been pretty stupid, huh?"

[theresnodoor]

Rachel smiles and sighs and draws her hand back, but only to rest her chin in her palm and just look at him across the table. She'd been waiting for this for so long, to have him like this, permanently able to roll his eyes and smile and speak aloud. But she'd never actually thought what it would be like.

And he still manages to make her smile.

"Maybe. Or being stupid is just part of the teenage thing. I guess I haven't been any better."

[whoiwasmeant2be.livejournal.com]

He smiles back at her. For just a second it's the dopey sort of smile that suggests his brain is turned off and he's just admiring the view.

Then Tobias shakes his head. "Well, I may be stupid, but I know one thing. Whatever I end up doing, I want to do it with you."

[theresnodoor]

The words are just as dopey.

Just like Rachel's smile.

Her feet are crossed at the ankle beneath the table, pivoting back and forth on her toes, and she's aware, vaguely, that she might be blushing. At least, that would explain the heat against her fingers where they're resting against her cheek.

She doesn't love Tobias because he's human or attractive. That's why they survived.

"Me too," she agrees quietly, smiling.