whoiwasmeant2be | (no subject)

Tobias had sat perched on the couch throughout the night. He'd dozed fitfully, but had been waiting for Rachel to come out of her room.

She didn't.

Then she'd gotten up in the morning and gone about her usual routine without speaking to him. Barely looking at him.

He, of course, had watched her like... well, like a hawk. And he'd been tense because he could tell that she hadn't gotten much sleep.

And she'd left without a word.

Which had led to Tobias spending hours just perched on the couch, unable to leave since she'd closed the door behind her. And hadn't opened the door to the balcony like she usually did. Tobias decided to wait for her to come back, but the hours stretched on and on.

The hawk grew restless. Hungry. He needed to get out and hunt. He fought that need for as long as he could, but... he couldn't do it forever. He needed to leave, and the doors were closed. That meant...

Tobias shifted human. As soon as he finished some of that need went away, some of that restlessness, but it was replaced with the... oddness of not having the hawk in his head anymore. Tobias took a deep breath and moved to open the door to the balcony.

Threaded | Flat

Rachel hadn't slept. Period.

<I DON'T KNOW!>
"You don't know?"

There was an empty perch beside her bed and the door was firmly closed.

She'd trapped the hawk inside the apartment and knew it.

Just couldn't bring herself to make it any easier on him. Like she has been since he arrived.

She managed to stay in until the alarm went off, as it always does, just a little after dawn. Got up and dressed, as she always does, to go train. Opened the door and her eyes immediately went to him - for one flickering moment before she dragged them away.

She should have opened the balcony doors for him so he could eat - but why make it easier?

"Why are you still a hawk, Tobias?"
<It's who I am.>

It's not really a trap if the prisoner is holding keys the entire time.

She comes back upstairs after her workout. Business as usual. Flushed and overwarm and tired, in need of a shower. No break in the routine.

She's not angry. She's not bitter.

Rachel doesn't know what to be after what they'd said to each other.

And she opens the front door and sees him for the first time in Milliways human, when she hadn't asked him to do it, pale hand on the balcony doors.

And she stops.