Author's note: I must admit to having completely forgotten this fic until Ember Nickel (You should go read her stuff ;) ) decided to dedicate a chapter of her fic The Pursuit to me, because of Whirlwind. So I decided to reread it and see if it actually was good enough to merit that – Which I hope it is! Still, it needed some work, so if you read it now you will see many less mistakes, and hopefully it is more clear. -- TBW
Whirlwind
Tobias watched him now.
Jake had searched for him constantly after the end, after her funeral, and Tobias had stayed away, hid, until he gave up. But then Tobias had come back, and now he watched Jake. He watched him when he -- daily, like clockwork -- swam laps in his backyard pool. When he emerged, dripping, and toweled off roughly, leaving his hair static-y and sticking out indiscriminately. When he ate the breakfast he prepared for himself, no wife or servants; something simple, easy. He had never mastered anything beyond the stray Poptart, shoved into a toaster on the way to school, or a battle. He watched Jake as he climbed into his car -- he'd been given it free, Tobias had watched the ceremony -- and drove to work, vanishing into the army building. Tobias flew high above the car, not bothering to keep up. He knew where it was going and what would happen when they got there. And while Jake worked, Tobias fed the hawk; retreating into the back of its mind and letting the true bird take hold.
That was when he thought about Jake. He could never think about him when he watched him, not really. His bird's eyes were blinded by Jake as he was now, the person he'd become. Of the way his hair, grown longer through time and uncaring, how it fell into his eyes. The way his face had changed, Adam's apple billowing in his throat, jaw hardening, traces of baby fat vanishing from his cheeks. The way his eyes had darkened in a way that they never did, even during the war -- brown-black with pain, but frozen. Still. But when Jake was gone, and the hawk steered itself, performing the tiny alterations of feathers in the wind, Tobias thought. He thought about Jake, his face blurred and divided by water and raggedy strands of Tobias's own hair, looking like a hero as he lifted Tobias by his sodden shirt out of the toilet bowl. Jake as he looked at Tobias, horror dawning in his eyes, hands clenched into fists as he begged Tobias to demorph, to be human, be human. Jake, face aglow, as he ran toward Cassie, tears of relief evident in his eyes, and kissed her. Jake when he watched Rachel die. Jake at her funeral, watching Tobias lift her ashes to the sky with graven eyes.
Tobias cleaned the blood of the hawk's kill from his feathers carefully, running his hooked beak along the bristled plumes, the blood chipping off, leaving his beak colored with a fine red dust before he whipped that too away. He wasn't an animal. Or, he was, but it wasn't the same. He had claws, talons, beak, could kill, fight, die as a bird. But when it came down to it, he was human. When he extended his wings, shoulder muscles contracting to lift himself into the air, when he glided down on the wind, talons outstretched in front of him above an unsuspecting animal, when he pulled the still-warm liver from his prey and ate it, he was human. He killed to survive, and that alright for both hawk and human, because it was necessary. But if an animal were to kill for no reason, it would still be alright. Wouldn't be murder, because animals aren't capable of that. Tobias was. That was important to him.
He watched Jake as he left the army base and drove home. Tobias wondered if he appreciated the way his hair blew in the wind, flying around his face. Rachal would have. He was sure it was nothing compared to wind in feathers, falling faster than any car could ever go, but still, he could see Rachel laughing in the driver's seat of an expensive red convertible, her hair a whirlwind. She would have loved it.
He watched as Jake arrived home, fixing himself dinner. And he watched him as he crawled into bed, turning off the lights, and lay awake for hours, Tobias watching the slight movement of his chest quicken, muscles tightening as he fought himself not to cry. Tobias watched him, and he waited. He watched him, images of Jake the hero, Jake the child, Jake the leader, Jake the murderer, flashing in his head. He watched him because he loved him, because he always had, and that would never change. He watched him because he had loved her, and because he would never see her again. He waited because he was scared, but because he knew he had to do what he had planned. He watched, and he waited for Jake to give him the chance.
It came when Tobias least expected it.
He landed one day on the roof of Jake's house, talons skidding momentarily on the hot grey tiles before they caught hold. He watched as Jake emerged from the back door, dressed in swimming trunks, and caring a cool drink. He watched him take a long drink, then set it down, whipping his wet hand on the shorts before slipping them from his body, and stepping out into the expanse of long, yellowed grass that surrounded his home.
Tobias never knew why Jake did it. He knew that, as far as he had seen -- and he had seen a lot -- Jake had not morphed since the very end of the war. But now Tobias watched as he crouched, naked in the grass and became a rabbit.
Tobias knew he saw him coming. Knew he felt, with the ageless terror of small beasts, the arched shadow loom over him. He saw the dark eyes turn toward his as he descended; closing one talon around Jake's head, and squeezed.
Tobias hoped Jake knew why he did it. He hoped that, in those final seconds of life, Jake had known. Tobias left the still warm body for other predators and took to the wing, soaring far away.
There was one thing Tobias had never gotten, Jake thought, as he stared across the dry, grassy expanse, feeling the sun beat down on the bare skin of his back, the hawk eyes boring into the back of his head. There was one thing that Tobias never understood, and that was that he had always known. Jake felt the changes begin to take place, and as the very last human characteristics fell away, he smiled for the first time in what felt like forever. Someday, he hoped, Tobias would realize he was grateful.
And somewhere in his dying mind, Tobias and Rachel's faces were the last thing he saw.