Log: Darius and Annabelle's Thanksgiving Road Trip
WHO: Darius and Annabelle WHEN: Sunday 1 December 2013, late evening WHERE: Quebec/US Boarder
Twelve hour road trip on the busiest travel day of the year. Who's bright idea was this? Oh right, his.
It was worth it to see his family. He'd had a really good holiday. And the trip over was actually kind of fun. Annabelle was there to keep him company and they had talked about all kinds of things, sometimes breaking it up with silly car games. But coming back was a little grueling. Yes, it was nice to see Annabelle, but the traffic was really bad. Darius was guessing they wouldn’t get back to St. Margaret’s until after midnight, despite their early start.
Just then, they were stuck in traffic at the border in Quebec to get back into the US. It was backed up pretty far, and Darius was guessing it would be another hour until they got to the station, then another four hours of driving until the school. Ugh.
Darius glanced over at Annabelle, who had settled down to take a nap a little while ago. She looked asleep, and he stifled a yawn of his own. He really needed to wake up. Checking his coffee cup, he found it empty and the cooler of soda as well.
Running out of ideas, Darius began to sing softly to himself.
I look at you all see the love that's there sleeping While my guitar gently weeps I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping Still my guitar gently weeps
---
Annabelle had never been good with car travel. She got sleepy really quickly so staying awake for as long as she had during their trip was a miracle for her. She did tend to doze in cars because she really did hate driving. Though it was nice to spend some time with Darius outside of the school and stuff, he was pretty cool, if not slightly quieter than a couple of her other newfound friends.
As the car rolled to a stop, Anna’s eyes fluttered open from where she’d been asleep with her face turned towards her window. She could hear something that sounded like singing and she lifted her hand to rub at her eyes. The pillow she had curled up against her lower back to keep her wing buds from touching the car seat was a little uncomfortable and she shifted, sitting forward properly again and turning her head to look at Darius, surprised to see that it had been him singing. Her lips curled upwards slightly, humming along, not confident enough to actually sing, figuring he’d probably stop once he realised she was awake.
She raked her fingers through her hair, glancing around them, just taking a couple of moments to wake up properly, stretching as best she could and letting out a soft sound as she did. Mm, stretching.
“Hey.”
---
Darius glanced over and back, instinctually keeping an eye on the road. Then realized there really wasn’t much point and looked back longer to give her a smile. Sure enough, he’d stopped singing the moment he noticed she was awake.
“Hey yourself,” he said in return. “Did I wake you up? Sorry about that.”
---
Anna shook her head, covering her mouth as she yawned and shifted again, trying to stretch in such limited space. “No, you didn’t. I think the stopping of the car did,” she smiled and rubbed the back of her neck, turning her head to look at him properly. “How’re you doing?” she asked, “You still okay?”
She would have offered to take over, but Annabelle Keely couldn’t drive. She knew she should learn, she’d always meant to, but driving required so much concentration and Anna just could never be bothered with it. Too much effort.
---
“Ready for this to be over,” he said shrugging his shoulders a little as Annabelle’s stretching reminded him of his own stiff body. “But what can you do?”
They were pretty gridlocked, and with a sigh, Darius actually turned off the car. No point in wasting gas. “We’re still in Canada,” he let her know. “This is the border traffic. Hopefully it’ll be better once we get into New York. Whenever that is. Did you get some sleep at least?”
---
Anna nodded her head, “Yeah, I did, which was good. Sorry- I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you. I just get super sleepy when I’m in a car.” Since the car was turned off, toed off her shoes and crossed her legs, lacing her fingers together and resting them in her lap. “My moms used to do long car drives to visit my grandparents before they died when I was a kid. Guess I never got out of the habit.”
She gave a sheepish smile before she bit her lower lip. “God, we’re gonna be stuck here forever, aren’t we. Serves us right, I guess. Worst day to travel.” But it had been so nice to go home for a bit, and really really nice of Darius to offer to give her a lift. She wasn’t sure she believed him when he had said it wasn’t out of his way, but then her grasp of geography was appalling.
“It’s ok,” Darius said with a wave of his hand. “No reason for us both to be awake—” The comment would have been better if hadn’t been cut off by a massive yawn. “Sorry,” he said when he was done.
“It was worth it to be able to visit home, no matter how bad the traffic. Just keep telling yourself that,” he said with a grin.
He leaned back a little in the seat, then realized how easily he could conk out just then and sat up straighter. “Last I checked, we’re out of caffiene, and I need to stay awake. That’s your job. Go.”
---
“Would repeated pokes to the face do the job?” Anna asked with a wink and a grin in his direction as she wriggled on the chair. Her butt was starting to fall asleep. What she wouldn’t do for some kind of service station where she could just get up and replenish their caffeine and sugar stash. She was craving something sweet.
She leaned forward, “Well, we could go back to playing games, or I can find some really obnoxious music on the radio. I’m willing to bet I can find a station that pretty much plays nothing but Avril Lavigne and Justin Bieber…” Her tongue touched her canine as she smirked at him. “Though that might make you beat yourself into unconsciousness on the steering wheel.”
She rubbed her palms together and when she leaned forward again, just to check that their snack bag really was empty - it was, how disappointing - it was clear to see that there was something that looked like glitter was clinging to her hair and the chair where she had been sitting. That certainly hadn’t been there when they’d started the journey.
---
Darius laughed at her teasing, then noticed something sticking to the chair and her hair. “How’d snow get in the car?” he asked, that being his best guess as to what it was. It was winter, so there was snow around, but the last rest stop was a while ago and he’d have remembered if they’d rolled the windows down. Because that would have been pretty darn cold.
“Huh. Cheap rental,” he said, reaching over to brush it off of the seat.
---
Anna lifted an eyebrow when Darius mentioned snow and she turned her head, realising that she’d ended up shedding fairy dust over the car and grimaced. As Darius went to brush it off, she stayed out of the way for a moment until she sat up and caught his wrist gently. What he’d already touched was clinging to his fingers stubbornly, glinting in reflected light from the cars around them.
She wondered if she should tell him, deciding that there were a few people that already knew anyway so what harm would it do?
“It’s not snow,” she offered sheepishly, shaking her head and as she did, more glitter - well, dust - fell from her hair. More than had certainly been there a moment or so ago. “Sorry- that’s my fault. I- I really hope they won’t charge extra to clean it out. If they do, I’ll cover it.”
---
“Um,” Darius said, more than a little distracted by the fact that Annabelle was holding his hand, sort of. He looked over at their hands, and, um, yeah, they were kind of glittery As was Annabelle, now that he noticed. Like those TV shows where the dream girl shows up in a haze of—
Wait, pull it together. Girl’s trying to tell you something. Focus.
“Um. So you have glitter dandruff?” he asked, not sure what else to say. “Like those vampire movies?”
---
Anna looked a little affronted, letting go of Darius’ wrist. “Glitter dandruff?” she asked, eyebrow arched once more. She didn’t know if she should feel offended or not, indignance sweeping through her fast before it was replaced with amusement. Even when she was big, she didn’t have a lot of room for multiple emotions. “No, not quite. I mean- um- no. It’s-”
She wet her lower lip. “It’s fairy dust,” she said finally with a lift of her shoulders, rubbing her forefinger and thumb together which seemed to just produce more that settled in the palm of her hand. “Not dandruff,” she added with a small smile in his direction to show she wasn’t offended. Not really.
---
...yeah, in retrospect, that probably wasn’t the politest thing to say. But what do you say when a girl’s got sparkles coming out of her head?
But her annoyance didn’t seem to last long, and Darius gave a sheepish grin of relief that was probably more than what the situation called for.
“Fairy dust. You’re a fairy? I didn’t know those were a thing. I mean, I knew they were a thing like in stories, but I didn’t know they were in the real world—” He was babbling a little, which he then realized and stopped speaking very suddenly.
---
Anna laughed when he babbled, stopping himself abruptly and she just nodded her head, her apparent nervousness at telling him dissipated in the face of his sort of curiosity. She rubbed her hands together, the fairy dust sort of sprinkling across her thighs because she couldn’t do much else with it save drop it out of the window. Once she’d sort of made it (produced it? exuded it? What-the-fuck-ever), it didn’t go away. Trent had it all over him after he’d given her a lift home that day.
“We’re at a school with vampires, werewolves and witches. I guess it’s not that unbelievable?” she asked, “But yes, I’m a fairy.” She bit her lower lip and looked at him again, now suddenly worried again that he’d judge her. Or something.
---
She really was very glittery. How hadn’t he noticed this before? Because he was oblivious, that’s why. Darius felt kind of dense.
Really, he was fine with her being a fairy. He didn’t really know what that meant, other than getting fairy dust in the car, which wasn’t that big of a deal. And he opened his mouth to reassure her that fairies were fine with him and they’d just borrow a vacuum cleaner for the car so it was all cool, but what came out was, “I got dead people in my head.”
And then he sat quietly looking down, completely mortified.
---
Annabelle blinked a couple of times at Darius’ blurted comment. Considering how shocked he looked at his own admission, she supposed he hadn’t meant to tell her that. She wasn’t sure how to take it at first, dead people in his head? As in ghosts? Or as in… he heard voices and they told him that they were dead people? She thought back to that time when they were with Trent in the classroom and how he’d looked so guilty when Trent had used his powers to slam the door shut.
Had he thought that was his fault? Because of the-
Well, she had seen a dragon. There were weirder things.
“Okay then,” she said with carefree lift of her shoulders. “So you have dead people inside your head. Long as they don’t tell you to burn things.” She winked at him and then turned where she was sitting a little. “So, are they random dead people or are they the people you know or…?”
---
“No no no, nothing like that,” Darius reassured her quickly. “I mean, there’s this one who—nevermind,” he changed his mind, deciding this wasn’t a good time to tell her about Halloween and the visit from the Roman soldier.
“I don’t really know much about it, or them,” he said. “They don’t talk or anything, I just get weird dreams and things. Mostly it’s this one, but there are others in there too. I should be able to control it all better with practice. And are you really ok with this, or are you just being nice because we’re stuck in a car together for another four hours?”
Because those could turn into a really awkward four hours.
---
“Are you really okay with the fact that I’m a fairy?” Annabelle challenged, turning her head to look at him properly, shifting her upper body as well so that she was facing him as best she could. She reached out and poked his cheek gently. “I’m really okay with it. It’s interesting. It must suck for you, though,” she added, “To have people in your head, as it were.”
She lifted her shoulders, “I’ve seen weirder things.” Like a dragon. “And I’m a fairy. It’s really okay.”
---
“It’s… not the best,” Darius admitted, feeling a little better that Annabelle seemed to be taking it in stride. And was, y’know, touching him and stuff. Though he really wished he was something cooler. Trent moved stuff with his brain, what was the down side of that? None that he could see.
Traffic was finally budging a little, so Darius scooted them forward another car length. Aaaaand that seemed to be it for now, so he turned the car back off. Since it seemed to be the thing to do, he turned back toward her as much as the seatbelt would allow.
“What’s it mean, to be a fairy?” he asked. “All I know about fairies is from Peter Pan.”
---
“What do you mean?” Anna asked when he queried what it meant to be a fairy. “Um, this isn’t my natural form, for one,” she offered with a shrug, “I have big wings and big pointed ears and apparently I can do magic though I’ve never been able to do much other than I did manage to stop some flowers from dying once.” She gave a soft laugh, “Mostly it’s just a bit of a nightmare.”
She wrinkled her nose, “J M Barrie, right? He caught a fairy and kept her in a jar until she died of suffocation because he hadn’t put enough air holes in it. That’s how he got our anatomy sort of right. He was wrong about us not being able to talk when we’re small though. We can, it’s just quieter.”
Looking out of the window for a moment at the traffic, the families with their children asleep in the back, Anna felt tired all over again. She was looking forward to getting back so she could stretch her legs - and her wings, since Matt had pointed out that it wouldn’t hurt to stretch them out somewhere safe.
“Also,” she added, “the dust doesn’t make you fly.”
---
She got small? And had wings? Whoa. Darius’s mind was blown.
“That’s too bad,” he said. “Making the car fly sounds like a good plan right about now.” A lame joke, but he needed a moment to take all that in. He couldn’t help but stare a little, trying to imagine how she’d look with wings and pointy ears, but his imagination wasn’t quite up to the task.
“Are we talking butterfly wings, or more like birds?” Darius asked after a moment, trying to give his imagination a little more to go on.
---
“Uh, more like dragonfly wings, I guess? Insect wings?” Annabelle tilted her head trying to work out how to describe them. She bit her lower lip and glanced at the clock, figuring it was probably too late to text one of the few people who had seen her wings to ask them for their description. They’re sort of like-” she waved a hand, “Not butterfly wings. They’re a lot like Tinkerbell’s wings in Peter Pan,” she settled on finally, “Except more fragile and with more… realistic stuff. Like a support arch. They’re really sensitive though, and fragile.”
She shrugged, “My actual form’s only about two inches tall? If that? I can fit in someone’s breast pocket of their shirt really easily.” She smiled a little, that had been the best lift she’d ever had.
---
Ok, Tinkerbell, but Annabelle. Why did they both have ‘bell’ in their names? Was that a fairy thing too? He thought he was sort of getting it, though. Also the idea of her riding around in a pocket was really cute.
“Pocket-sized Annabelle,” he grinned. “That’s pretty adorable.”
He almost asked to see, since they were stopped anyway, but wasn’t sure if that was the kind of thing you could say. Instead he asked, “How come you don’t use your natural form at school? Wouldn’t be that hard to get you a little mini desk, especially if that’s more comfortable for you. Stop by a—” yeah, making a Barbie furniture joke might not be the best plan. “—the wood shop, throw something together.”
---
“Because my dad said I wasn’t to tell anyone really what I was because of what’s happened to his kind before.” ‘His kind’, not ‘Our kind’. Anna often still thought of herself as human; she’d been raised by humans after all and she loved her mums so very much. “And it’s so tiring being that small. I’d have to get people to carry me from class to class as I can’t fly that much and I’d get trod on if I walked everywhere. Besides, can you imagine trying to get stationary that small?”
She wasn’t super strong when she was minature, she was the same comparative strength, as in she could lift twigs (small ones) but anything bigger than that she’d struggle with, such as a pencil or a pen.
She grinned, “Also, I’m not adorable. How rude.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, glamour still in place so it wasn’t pointed, or it didn’t look pointed, at least. “I’m also-” she hesitated before she added, trusting Darius with this information that she’d only shared with Trent and the headmistress previously, “I’m also allergic to Iron. That’s why my diet’s so funny.” Not that she assumed he’d noticed. “And that’s why I don’t touch the desks.”
---
Huh. I guess being a tiny fairy wasn’t that easy. One more thing that wasn’t like it was in the movies.
Heh. Annabelle was a tiny fairy. That was really cute. No matter what she said.
“Sure, sure, my mistake, you’re all fierce. Scared of you,” he said amiably, though he was grinning the whole time. Itty bitty little Annabelle. Awww…
The iron thing threw him a little, though. “Iron? What’s that got to do with what you eat?” he asked, picturing iron bars. “You mean the kind of iron that’s in food? You can’t have that?”
---
“Damn straight,” Annabelle said with a gentle punch to Darius’ upper arm before he looked confused at the mention of her iron allergy. She bit her lower lip, “Any kind of iron. I mean, I can’t have it in food and I can’t touch it.” She lifted a shoulder, thinking that her father would kill her for this, “It’s like, apart from getting shot or stabbed or whatever, my one weakness.” She touched it for a second, it burned her, she held onto it for longer or ingested it, if it was pressed against her for any period of time, it killed her. It made her sick and then she died.
She shrugged again. “So I have to take precautions. I guess it’s cool in a way? Since I have green blood? Your blood has iron in it, mine is copper based. Or so I’ve been told.”
---
“Green blood.” Darius wouldn’t have guessed that. “Like aliens.” For all those aliens Darius knew. Wait, maybe he did know aliens. He didn’t think he knew any fairies an hour ago, but turned out he was wrong.
“Is there that much iron around?” he asked, trying to imagine what it meant to have an allergy like that. Though the way she described it, it was more than an allergy. Or maybe like that peanut allergy people had where they had to carry around epi-pens. “I guess that means no meat, and those gates at the front of the school are bad, but I can’t think of much else that’s iron.”
---
“A lot of stuff has iron in it, it’s one of those metals that’s used in a ton of other things to solidify it and stuff.” And her diet was ridiculous, mostly consisted of sweet things and soups but she didn’t mind all too much. It was just the way her body was. She didn’t need the same basic food groups as other humans. Or humanoids. “The metal on the desks has iron elements, there’s iron in the frame of this car. Steel is iron, so all stuff that’s made of steel or stainless steel, I can’t touch…”
She wrinkled her nose. “It’s really fucking annoying.”
---
“Oh. Yeah, if stainless steel counts, that’s pretty much… everything,” Darius said, finally understanding her problem. Silverware—unless it was actual silver, same with jewelry, doorknobs…. whoa. Doorknobs.
“How do you go through doors if you can’t touch doorknobs?” he asked.
Ooo, motion! Darius pulled the car forward again.
---
“Sleeves,” Anna said, tugging the sleeves of her hoodie down over her hands demonstratively. “If I don’t have direct skin contact with it, then it’s not so bad, you know? I mean, it’s- it burns me if I come into contact with it, but it’s like a poison, I guess?” She sort of withdrew into herself a little. “But it means I’m really easy to kill, I suppose.”
She glanced out the window as they moved forward. “That’s why my dad said I had to keep it a secret. Everything. All of it. I’ve not done such a good job of that so far.” She gave a weak laugh, “I’m basically allergic to modern society.”
---
The traffic didn’t stop immediately this time, so Darius kept the car moving forward. Slowly, but forward.
“This is a fatal allergy?” Darius asked, sparing a worried glance for her before turning back to the road. “I was thinking you broke out in hives or something. Which would be bad enough, but it’s that serious? What do we do if you eat some by mistake? You have an epi pen or something? We call 911, but—no, wait, they wouldn’t know what to do with someone with green blood.” It hit him suddenly that non-humans couldn’t just go to the hospital. Not that it was that easy for humans either, health insurance being the train wreck it was, but at least they’d know what kind of blood to stick in you.
---
Annabelle shrugged, “I don’t know. I don’t think there’s any way of reversing it. Why do you think I’ve eaten pretty much nothing but Skittles the whole ride?” she asked, which was true, whilst there had been a slew of caffeine and sugared goods for Darius to consume, Anna had pretty much stuck to just the skittles and flavoured water. “I guess magic could do something, maybe? Or… someone contacting my dad and getting a local fairy to come and do something?”
She’d never thought of it before, now she felt a little worried. What would happen if she ended up touching or ingesting something that had iron in it? God, she’d die. “And yeah, it’s fatal. Surefire way of killing my kind.”
---
Darius had figured Annabelle just liked Skittles, not that normal food killed her dead. “Man. That’s really rough,” Darius said, feeling like he didn’t really get to complain about his anymore. Ok, maybe complain a little, it really was hard enough getting through high school. A Jane Austen character in your head was just all the more complicated. And that didn’t even get into what happened when the others started waking up.
“On the up side, you have the perfect excuse to eat candy all the time,” he said. “The staff knows, right? So we can call the infirmary and they’ll know what to do.” Which he couldn’t do right now in this traffic jam, but they’d made it a good 20 hours coming and going without her having a problem, it should be good the rest of the way, right? Right. Right…
He glanced over again, and she had this slightly worried look on her face. And fairy dust on her nose. Awww. He grinned in spite of everything, then turned back to the road.
“Hey, I think we’re making progress. I see the booths up ahead.”
---
“Yeah,” Anna reassured, “The staff knows. Relax. I’ve been alright this far. And somehow I’ve managed to live to my ripe old age already, I think I’ll be alright to get back to the school.” She reached out again and gently patted his upper arm as the car started moving again, the rumbling was good, the slow move of traffic even better. She tipped her head to the side, stretching out her neck muscles. She couldn’t wait to get back and stretch her legs, but she couldn’t stop worrying about her potential sudden death.
She would have to talk to Mrs Menides when she got back. Just to make sure she wouldn’t insta-die. She liked being alive. She had a lot still to do with her life. She was meant to live for ages.
“Awesome.” She bit her lower lip, watched the traffic moving. It was dark, but if she squinted she could see the lights of the booths. “Thank God. Once we get through the border, maybe we should stop for a bit? Get you out of the car, get some coffee down you?”
---
“Oh, we’re past coffee. Somewhere in New York there’s a burger with my name on it.” He would have said more, but talking about food considering the recent conversation seemed kind of rude.
Darius straightened up. “Ok, dig out the passports, brush off the glitter, and try to look respectable. Here we go.”