(no subject)

[fickle_goddess]

Title: Twenty Facts You May or May Not Know About Ax and Tobias.
Fandom: Animorphs
Pairing: Ax/Tobias
Rating: PG
Warnings: Male/male, alien/hawkboy (sorta!), quasi-incest.
Summary: Even if Ax and Tobias are both outsiders, they're outsiders together. Request from a_white_rain, which I happily wrote.

Twenty Random Facts You May or May Not Know About Ax and Tobias."

1. Rachel was the one who threw Tobias a birthday party after his meeting with Aria. Tobias, as Ax’s shorm was the one who threw Ax a party. It wasn’t much - a cinnamon bun with a candle stuck in it, a thought-speech rendition of Happy Birthday - but the gift of a microwave was received by Ax as if it was the best birthday gift in the world.
   
   
2. The discovery --made three minutes later -- that you could buy frozen cinnamon rolls and thaw them in a microwave probably accounted for his happiness. Marco was the one who had bought the frozen treats, but it had been Tobias who had thought of them.
   
   
3. Ax went through the treats far too quickly. Tobias had to talk him out of trying to take a human job just so that he could purchase more. For the sake of secrecy, the Animorphs started supplying Ax with packets of frozen rolls every so often.
   
   
4. When Marco cracked jokes about Yeerks and oatmeal addictions, it was Tobias that suggested taking away Marco’s Playstation and seeing how well he functioned, but it was Ax that blinked at Marco around a mouthful of cinnamon bun, then demorphed to Andalite just so that he could see what effect it had on him in his natural form.
   
   
5. Tobias was the most relieved in the entire group to find out that the answer was none. He’d been the one to encourage it, after all.
   
   
6. Later that night, Ax and Tobias spoke of addiction, and Ax inquired innocently how it was possible to have an addiction to human reproduction when cinnamon buns were so clearly superior to the human thing known as ‘kissing’. Tobias didn’t bother trying not to laugh, but he also explained that for humans, the sensation of taste grows old, whereas kissing stays forever interesting.
   
   
7. When Ax countered that he and Estrid both found kissing to be not as pleasant as chocolate pellets, Tobias felt something twist in him. It was the same feeling he got whenever he saw a child being praised and cherished, or a human boy trying to pick up Rachel. He dismissed it as being jealous that even Ax could experience more affection than he did usually, and morphed to human, then reached up to press a hand against Ax’s cheek.
   
   
8. Ax had to admit that felt better than cinnamon buns tasted. Tobias replied that was how humans felt with kissing.
   
   
9. Tobias’ hand didn’t have enough fingers, and his palm was too broad. Ax curled his own, weaker hand around Tobias’ wrist as if to pull it away. Tobias waited for Ax to do so.
   
   
10. Ax didn’t. Tobias kept waiting.
    
    
11. Tobias hadn’t known before that night that it was possible to stammer in thought-speech. Ax hadn’t known how bright humans could blush.
    
    
12. Rachel was someone that Tobias couldn’t help but love. Her darkness, her love of the fight, her recklessness - none of them mattered compared to the way that she loved him. She loved him. She was his only tie to humanity and Tobias loved her for being the first person to truly care about him.
    
    
13. Ax was the outsider, the alien on a stranger planet with nobody nearby who’d understand except his nephew-shorm, a boy-fighter with no Andalite DNA in him but a heart that would have loved Elfangor as Ax had, with pride and awe. And Tobias was his shorm, and love was a given. A gift, from one outsider to another and you couldn’t tell who’d been the one to hold out his hands with love in them first, or who had been the one to return.
    
    
14. Rachel died. Tobias grieved. Ax left. Cause, consequence and consequence? Perhaps.
    
    
15. Ax came back to Earth, occasionally, but he belonged with the Andalites. Rachel was dead. Tobias didn’t consider himself as belonging to the human race anymore, but nor would he shame Elfangor’s memory by telling the Andalite world of how their prince had run from the fight. So he stayed in the wild, alone and free.
    
    
16. Then Jake came and told Tobias that he was needed. That Ax needed him. Jake had been the one responsible for Rachel’s death and now he wanted to lead the Animorphs to rescue Ax. Tobias had trusted Jake to take care of Rachel (cousin, blood, how could Jake order her to kill his brother?), and now he had to trust Jake to do whatever it took to find Ax (uncle, blood, and more importantly than all of those, shorm.)
    
    
17. Cassie wasn’t there on this mission. In a way, Tobias was glad. Cassie was the one who could read people best of all. He didn’t want her to look at him and see more than she should (he was a hawk but still a person); he didn’t want this mission to be a repeat of their last.
    
    
18. Tobias hadn’t managed to save Rachel, only mourn her. She’d died in front of his eyes, on a screen, a ship away. Tobias managed to save Ax, to hold him and stop his bleeding. They went back to the Andalite homeworld together, because Ax couldn’t be left alone to recover when he still had nightmares, and because Tobias couldn’t stand to return to Earth when the Rachel had been destroyed in that final collision.
    
    
19. Jake and Marco covered everything back on Earth, explained everything to the curious media. There was a flurry of concern about Tobias and Ax, and the cameras stayed pointed at the sky for months, waiting for the two of them to return. They never did.
    
    
20. The war was over for the both of them, and this time, it was final. Ax was no longer morph-capable. There was no reason for Tobias to stay morphed as a hawk. Menderash was a human nothlit; Tobias became an Andalite nothlit.
    
    
21. It was as close as they could get to a happy ending and just because Tobias loved Ax did not mean that he loved Rachel’s memory any the less. Ax was a warrior; he understood the concept of honor. And more than that, he loved Tobias, as one outcast to another.