7: I do not believe in love at first sight. But god damn. (Look at you.)
Two things. First, it’s a very dangerous thing to say ‘whoever I want,’ because I go straight for the niche fandoms that I love the most. Thus: Animorphs. Second! It has come to my attention that I accidentally swapped two prompts—this line is actually prompt 17, and prompt 7 got used for the Sith!Padme AU. Because I’m a fucking disaster area and my brain likes to pull switches like that on me. (Math classes suck for this exact reason.) But like the Sith!Padme AU is done? And I was halfway through this by the time I realized, so I am VERY sorry but I’m doing this.
Tobias could give you the exact moment he fell in love with Rachel, as a bruised thirteen-year-old kid in a body he barely remembered. Love at first sight was a fairy tale, but he could give every detail of the moment—it was like light being struck from a match, casting everything in a fresh glow.
Admittedly, he remembered everything about that night in the construction site, about Elfangor’s serious eyes and Visser Three’s terrible morph and the desperate giddy feeling in his chest of yes, yes, I knew it, there’s more to this world. Which made a lot more sense, in retrospect, but of course at the time he just knew that something had clicked into place. While everyone else was standing around being awestruck and wondering, Tobias had been too busy feeling a wash of relief that, oh God, he wasn’t crazy, there really was something else and it was exactly as spectacular as he had always believed it would be.
But even in that chaos, Rachel had been like a beacon.
He’d had a crush on her from the moment he arrived in town, of course, but then he could guarantee that about every boy at their school agreed with him, save the ones who were related to her. He could list five girls off the top of his head who were probably head over heels for Rachel, having a crush on her wasn’t anything special. She was clever and funny and fierce, her beautiful face was almost an afterthought.
And Tobias had needed something bright and strong to hold onto, and just being around Rachel, in the line of her sharp eyes, was a good start.
So it never did shock him, that he was in love with her.
It wasn’t her grip on his hand as they watched Elfangor die, although he was sure everyone would be shocked to hear it. That was just…Rachel, scared half to death and still with strength and ferocity to spare. She clutched his hand because it made her feel better, to steady someone else, and God Tobias had needed it. He’d almost bolted right then, run back to the Andalite’s side, because he barely had a life to live anyway and he’d felt something from Elfangor’s thoughts he’d never felt before. Some messy tangle of regret and pride and grief, all centered around a bright hard thing that made affection look like small fry. The loss of it hurt like broken glass in Tobias’ throat, sharp and bloody. And it was Rachel’s grip on his hand as he cried that kept Tobias hidden behind the wreckage, kept him sane enough to live through the night.
But it was later, that it really hit him.
They were running and, at the time, Tobias had desperately wished for wings. It was almost funny, now, but probably only to him—he’d never told the others how often he wished he could fly away, before he got a new appreciation for the dangers of wishes.
Here was something else the others never knew: he had three cracked ribs that night. There was no way, even with adrenaline pumping ice through his blood, that he would be able to outrun the Hork-Bajir on their tail. Tobias’ forgotten human body was tall, but skinny and out of shape, not strong like Cassie or fast like Jake, he was slow and hurt and shocky. And he had a moment of strange clarity, as if he could see the future as clearly as the Ellimist ever showed it to them. He would die, and it would be awful, but the others would live and that would be…good. They had people who would miss them, and he didn’t. They would live to fight the Andalite’s war, maybe save the world, and Tobias would get to rest.
And then Rachel, tall, athletic Rachel who could probably have outpaced every last one of them, even Jake, slowed, and dropped back. She was shouting, arms outstretched with a wild, ecstatic look of challenge on her face. Tobias could only catch about one word in three, but they were…vivid.
That was the moment. Tobias, tearing across the rough ground of the construction site with impossibility on his heels. Rachel, screaming curses in death’s face in order to protect the people she cared about. It was more like being struck by lightning than anything so polite as falling in love, but.
Goddamn.