Chapter Text
David Bowman often felt like people were looking at him.
Watching him and seeing him in all his oddness.
It was scary to know people were looking at you – especially when he first realised it. Late grade school, he thinks. The other kids would stare at him because he just couldn't sit still. The teachers probably stared too, but he wouldn't have realised it.
He's fairly sure he didn't even notice he was doing anything for most of those years.
And he'd tried to sit still when he realised.
Well. Stiller than he was before.
He did manage it, a little. Only a small tap of his hand, or a slightly swaying ankle were left on most school days. (Perhaps quite a lot more than that, though he couldn't tell.)
Though that didn’t carry over to home.
David's new home, for the time being, was this ship. And he was being watched constantly.
He didn't mind Hal watching him, really.
The video calls back to HQ made him antsy, as did the interviews, but it was fine.
He'd seen Frank staring at him through his peripheral vision, though.
That threw him off. Made him try to still himself when the other man was around.
He was sure Frank was not doing it out of maliciousness. Frank was not a malicious man, really. A little annoying, a little unempathetic, but not malicious.
But he clearly didn't understand Dave's need for almost constant movement.
And, in Dave's mind, at least, any annoyance at all from Frank could make the whole journey awkward.
So he confined his incessant movement to when he was alone, in his own space.