Entry tags:

annabelle, mac frazier

Mac & Anna
Road trip bonding time!
(Backdated) Tuesday, August 6, 2013; in the car!
PGish/Complete

"I think there's something I should tell you..."

Mac woke up early that morning to meet Annabelle outside the complex. He was pretty excited for this little trip they were going on. He had, in all honesty, been pretty surprised that Adam and Mercy had decided it was okay for him to go with her, but he definitely didn't complain or argue it with either of them to give them reason to think twice and say no. He met her promptly at the time she had asked him to and tossed his bags in the car when she pulled up in front of the complex. He didn't ask how she had come across it, but he did kind of gush and compliment her on the convertible. Who wouldn't? It was sort of the perfect road trip car.

They had stopped for breakfast on their way out and then they were headed to California. Mac wasn't sure how long it would take them,especially since she was the only one that could actually drive and they couldn't take it in shifts, but he kind of figured it was more about the journey than the destination anyway. Wasn't that the sort of thing people always said?

"So, random question," he said suddenly into the silence. "but...do vampires sleep?" There was the slightest moment of hesitation before he quickly added, "I mean, if you wanna talk about that stuff. it's okay if you don't. Just say so." He nodded a little with that last comment. He could understand if she didn't want to. He definitely preferred to steer clear of that conversation where his own abilities were concerned. Mac still had Adam's suggestion about telling Annabelle about the wolf hanging somewhere in the back of his mind, but he wasn't sure he should act on it just yet.



It had been a long time since Anna had taken a trip just for fun, let alone a trip with someone she considered a friend. She hadn't spent much time packing, just tossed a few changes of clothes and shoes into a bag, along with a few blood bags, and a brush. She didn't really need much else. She'd gotten use to moving around a lot and not taking much with her, and she hadn't really acquired much in the way of possessions since she'd arrived in Lawrence. Plus she was planning to return so even if she had stuff, it wasn't like she was leaving forever.

She'd chosen the car specifically for the purpose of the road trip. It was red and shiny and fast and she hadn't been able to pass it up when she'd seen it on the lot. Plus she kind of wanted to impress Mac. She hadn't, of course, paid for it. She'd simply compelled the sales people into believing it belonged to her and they'd handed her the keys. Sometimes being a vampire was awesome. Breakfast had been at a little cafe on their way out of Lawrence, and Anna actually had paid for that. She knew waitresses didn't make much money.

She was relieved when she passed the sign that said, "Now Leaving Lawrence," and it disappeared into the dust behind them. She couldn't help but smile a little at his question. She was surprised that he hadn't asked questions about vampires before now, really. Maybe wherever he came from wasn't so "normal" either and the idea didn't bother him or surprise him too much. "We sleep," she acknowledged. "Some of us more than others. We just don't actually need it as much as normal humans." Unless of course, they'd been through a torture session involving vervain, but there was really no reason to mention that. She glanced at Mac sideways. "I don't mind talking about it if you have questions. Ask away." Anna wasn't ashamed of what she was. She never had been.



He nodded slightly, "Right. That makes sense." he said, though he couldn't say he knew all that much about vampires. Then again, they were all from different worlds here so even if he'd known more about the ones in his world, he supposed it wouldn't be the same for the rest of them vampires around here.

"Really?" he asked, curious eyes staring up at her. She seemed so incredibly at peace with it all and he couldn't really imagine ever being at that point. "You seem really...comfortable with what you are. Was it always like that for you? Or...did you have to adjust and stuff?"



She couldn't help but smile at the surprise in his voice. She felt his eyes on her and she glanced at him again, nodding. "I am comfortable with it," she told him with a shrug, focusing on the road ahead again. "I guess maybe the first few weeks it was hard and...weird. But my mom was a vampire too." Her fingers curled around the steering wheel just a little tighter at the thought of her mother. God she missed her. She'd give anything for the Seal to bring her mom to Lawrence so she could see her and talk to her again.

"I think that helped a lot." She cocked her head to the side just a little. "Plus for the first couple of centuries, we traveled with our maker and I guess that made things easier too." At least back then. Now, her maker was a big part of the reason she'd needed to leave town for awhile.



"I guess it would make it easier if you had your mom with you all that time too." He nodded. He'd probably never see his mom again, or his dad and brother. He didn't think it would be safe for them, really. Maybe one day, though. Adam seemed pretty confident in his progress so far, but it seemed so far off before he would have control of his wolf.

"Your maker...was he..she..a good person?" From what little he did know of the vampire sback home, for the most part that didn't sound like the nice sort that you wanted to deal with. But he liked Anna and maybe the one that had made her wasn't so bad either. Come to think of it, the two of them really only knew surface things about each other. Maybe this road trip was what they needed to learn real things about the other.



"It definitely made it easier." If only her mom was there now. It might help her clear her mind and focus on something other than Katherine killing Jeremy. Or Jeremy period. Although having Mac there helped. She seemed to think about the youngest Gilbert less whenever he was around.

"No," Anna answered immediately, shaking her head. "No, she wasn't a good person. Katherine used people. However she wanted, to do whatever she wanted. She was manipulative and a liar." Her voice was a little harder now, her fingers tightening a bit more around the steering wheel. "Still is." She glanced at him. "If you see her, go the other way as fast as you can. You can't believe a word out of her mouth." Apparently her anger toward the other woman hadn't calmed much at all. She forced herself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly.



"Oh." Mac said dumbly and he could tell this was a sensitive subject and probably not the best one to be on for a road trip that was supposed to be a vacation away from all the crap going on lately. He could hear the way her voice changed, see her grip the steering wheel tighter. "Well, she doesn't really sound like somebody I'd want to be around anyway." he said, shrugging slightly.

As angry as the thought of Katherine seemed to make her, Anna kept herself calm enough that she was steady on the road. She obviously wasn't allowing whatever it was, specifically, that made her so angry at her maker to cloud better judgement. Mac wondered how she could keep it that under control. If he got too emotional, in any degree, he wouldn't be able to contain it. Not without Adam around. Somehow that thought hadn't really hit him until now. Now, when they were already in the car, well out of Lawrence and it was too late to turn around. Not that he really wanted to, but there was a certain, distinct feeling of fear settling in a knot in his stomach as he realized that, really, hadn't he put her in danger coming on this
trip, just the two of them?

"Anna, I...I think there's something I should tell you." he said suddenly into the silence that had fallen between them.



"She's not," Anna agreed, letting silence fall between them. After a couple of minutes had passed, she forced herself to relax again, releasing her tense grip on the wheel. She didn't want to think about Katherine anymore. Not now. She wanted to have fun and enjoy this trip with Mac.

She could almost sense a shift in the air, a shift in Mac's mood and she hoped her momentary tension hadn't scared him. But when he spoke, she could definitely tell something was going on. "Sure. I'm listening." Her eyebrows furrowed a little and she glanced at him before returning her gaze to the road.



Aside from Adam and Mercy, there were only two people in Lawrence that knew about him and what he was. Caroline and Klaus. Caroline was nice and he felt like he could trust her and, despite some of the things he'd read on the boards about Klaus, the guy had given him the choice. He'd explained everything about the hybrids he could create, answered all his questions. In the end, it had been Mac's decision not to go through with it because there were too many unknowns, the first of which was...it may not even work because the wolves from one world to the next are different and there was, really, no guarantee.

But the hybrid conversation wasn't really the point of him bringing all of this up, was it? It was to tell her, to warn her even. Mercy had known almost as soon as he'd met her, Adam knew because Mercy had told him and he probably would've sensed it anyway being an Alpha. The other two? They were told over the internet, not in person, and he didn't know them almost at all. Anna, he knew to an extent and this was in person and for some reason >> that made it all so much different.

"It's just... you've been really nice to me and you've been really honest with me and... I haven't been... completely honest about who- what I am." He wasn't even looking at her now. This was still too new for him, too awkward, too...everything. "I.. I'm a werewolf." His words were mumbled and human ears likely wouldn't have caught it, but neither of the car's occupants had human ears and he knew that.



Basically everyone in Lawrence knew Anna was a vampire. Which was still weird to her. She'd been keeping that kind of thing a secret for centuries. She wasn't convinced that being overly open about it was a great idea, but there were a lot of vampires in Lawrence. She didn't believe for a second that any of them wouldn't throw her under the bus the first chance they got if it came down to her or them. Even Caroline. It wasn't anything she had against them -- okay, so she was still pretty wary of the Originals -- it was just safer and easier to assume that she only had herself to count on. It made the inevitable disappointment a non-issue. Plus, getting too close to Caroline would be weird because she was friends
with Elena and Jeremy and she was never quite sure where she stood with either of them.

At the news that Mac hadn't been completely honest with her, she arched her eyebrows. She didn't figure she knew everything about him, considering they hadn't known each other all that long. But she blinked a couple of times at his revelation. A werewolf? She glanced at him sideways, caught off guard. Okay, she definitely hadn't seen that coming. She was, however, surprised she hadn't sensed that about him. But considering they were literally from different universes, she supposed that could account of her lack of awareness.

She was silent for a moment, not entirely sure what to say. A bite from a werewolf from her world would literally kill her. And she wasn't sure if that applied to Mac's kind of werewolf or not. Fortunately, the full moon was still a few days away and hopefully she wouldn't have to worry about it too much. "Oh." She pursed her lips, considering. "How does it work in your world? Were you born a werewolf or were you bitten?" As far as she knew, those were the only two ways a person could become a werewolf. At least from her world. She could tell he was uneasy about it, so she kept her questions casual.



Mac bit the inside of his cheek as she took that information in. They probably only sat there in silence for a few minutes, but God, it felt like it went on forever. Her response was...he wasn't sure what it was. Was she wary? Scared? Did he just ruin one of the only friendships he'd made here? Whether for what he was or lying about it, did she hate him now?

And then the question came and it really didn't make him feel any better. Except that she apparently didn't completely hate him. At least she was still talking to him. But it also meant reliving everything in his head again. Like he didn't already. He wondered if dreams were supposed to be that vivid.

"It takes more than just a bite... I mean, you practically die before the wolf takes over." he explained slowly. "Me and my girlfriend, Meg... we left the school dance and we were attacked. She died. I didn't." There wasn't really much more he wanted to say about it. He needed to keep calm. He still didn't have much control over his wolf yet. An exceptionally observant sort might have noticed the tight fist he made with his hand in his lap.

"And you'd think it ended there right? But no, that wasn't enough. I woke up in a cage in some guy's basement. And he sold me," he let out a bitter sort of chuckle with no humor to it at all. "I mean, who does that? They were testing stuff on us. I...I don't know why, really. They put drugs in our food and I could smell it, you know, but I was so hungry I didn't care. I had a lucky break and managed to
escape. I don't remember much between then and when I met Mercy at her shop." That was because he had been in his wolf form at the time. Memories of that, he had been told, would come with more time and control.



She wasn't scared. At least not exactly. Maybe a bit wary if only because she wasn't sure how a bite from a werewolf from Mac's world would do to her if it came down to it. But she didn't think that Mac would ever intentionally hurt her. But when he began talking about how he'd almost died, and how his girlfriend had, she frowned deeply, glancing at him. Anna was and always had been an exceptionally observant individual and she noticed his hand curled into a fist right away. But she said nothing yet.

It sounded like he'd been through some pretty traumatic times, and that was something she could definitely relate to. But this conversation wasn't about her. It was about him. "I'm sorry. That sounds awful." Her frown deepened. She had some ideas about why they might have been testing on him and others like him, but she didn't mention that. He was already upset, with good reason, and she didn't want to speculate and risk making it worse. "So you met Mercy and she helped you?"



He nodded, "Yeah, she was letting me work in her garage and stuff." He shrugged. "But..then these guys came back for me and...it was a whole mess," he shook his head. "She ended up having to call Adam and he was going to take me under his wing, you know? Help me until I could control the wolf." That was something he would always be in debt to the older werewolf for. He was sure he wouldn't make it without the Alpha's help.

"I don't really know what happened with everything, but the last thing I remember before I showed up here was meeting with the rest of Adam's pack. Everybody left and then someone was at the door and I was shot and then I was in Lawrence." And that, ultimately, was all there really was to know about Mac.

There was a moment of silence before he looked over at her again. "I'm sorry." he said softly. "For not saying something before."



Anna winced when he mentioned being shot and waking up in Lawrence. Did that mean he'd died back in his world before showing up here? She wasn't sure. "Mercy seems really nice." And considering she wasn't used to having werewolves be nice to vampires, it was almost a foreign concept. She supposed that was just another one of the million differences between this world and where she was from.

"Hey." She shook her head at his apology. "Don't worry about it, Mac. Believe me, I get it. If half of Lawrence didn't already know what I was when I came through to this universe, I wouldn't be going around announcing it. You never know who you can trust." She paused at her words, a tinge of sadness in her voice when she spoke again. "And sometimes the people you do trust turn out to be not so trustworthy. I don't think that's the case with Mercy or Adam, though." She looked over at him and offered him a faint smile. "They seem like good people." She was quiet for a few seconds again. "But...if anyone ever tries to mess with you here? They're gonna be dealing with me too." She didn't make it a practice to hurt or kill humans. Or anyone, really. But she was over five hundred years old, and if she had to get defensive to protect her friend...whoever was messing with him was going to be on the opposite end of a nasty surprise.




"She is," he nodded, "she's kind of like a big sister, I guess." He shrugged. He didn't know when, or if, he would ever see his family again, so some bizarre, makeshift family was good enough for him.

There was a slew of reasons he could have countered her telling him it was okay, like the fact that lying in general was wrong, or the fact that he could have hurt her and she never would have seen it coming because he never said anything, or the fact that she was pretty much the best friend he had here and what kind of friendship started off with a lie. But she said it was okay, she understood, and he was going to take that for what it was worth. "They are," he said at her comment about his friends from home, nodding a bit. That was one thing he had no doubt about. "Really?" he asked when she said she would be looking out for him. "Thanks, Anna." he smiled a little.




Anna had sensed that much about Mercy. She definitely had a big sister vibe when it came to Mac. And Adam had a big brother vibe going for him.

"I had one of those once. A pseudo big sister. A long time ago." A small smile touched her mouth. "Her name was Emily. She was a really good person." And she'd taken care of Anna for a long time after Pearl had been trapped in the tomb in Mystic Falls. She hated to think what she would have done or been like if it hadn't been for Emily for those first few years.

"Yeah, of course." She smiled faintly back at him and then focused on the road once more. She was really glad he'd agreed to come with her on this trip.



"Seems like a pretty common thing, the whole pseudo family thing. I guess sometimes we all just need to know we have at least that one person on our side."

Mac smiled again and wondered how he'd been so lucky to land such a good friend so quickly after turning up here. He decided not to question it, though because at this point, Anna was one of the first good things to happen to him here. No need to second-guess a good thing, right?



"Seems like it. Especially around Lawrence." Since Emily and her mother had died, she hadn't really had anyone in her life except for Jeremy. And that hadn't been familial. Pretty far from it, really. But Jeremy wasn't someone she wanted to think about right now.

"Okay, so. You've never been to California, but...have you ever seen the ocean?" she asked, arching her eyebrows. Because the ocean was one of the things that everyone was supposed to see at least one time in their life. Or that's what she'd heard, anyway.



He nodded a bit at her question, "Yeah, once. We took a vacation in Florida, visiting my mom's family. But I was like...eight? So..." he shrugged a little. It had definitely been awhile.

"So, I guess you've kind of done a lot of traveling over time, huh?" he asked curiously. That was one of the advantages of the...advanced ages of some supernatural people, wasn't it? All the travel and sight-seeing. Mac wondered if it all go old after awhile, though.




It had been awhile since she'd last seen the ocean, too. Over two decades. It wasn't that she hadn't missed it, because she liked the sea. But she'd been so busy trying to track down information and people that would be able to release her mom from the tomb that she hadn't really stopped to do anything fun in a long time. There was another idea she had, but she was hesitant to mention it because it almost sounded stupid in her own head. Almost.

"Yeah, I have," she agreed, nodding. "I've been all over the world. Well. Not Antarctica. I never really had much of a reason to go there." She smiled a bit. She liked snow and cold weather okay, probably better than most people, but Antarctica was a little much, even for her. "What about you? Do you want to travel?" She'd always enjoyed it, because she liked the change of pace and the different scenery. Even the different people.



He laughed slightly at her comment about Antartica. He wondered if his wolf would like it there and made note to ask Adam about that. Or how he would know things like that anyway. "Not even just for the sake of saying you've been there?"

"I dunno," Mac shrugged slightly at that question. He was only fifteen, he couldn't even drive yet, so traveling wasn't really something he'd thought of much. "Never really thought about it."




She cocked her head to the side, thinking about that. "Guess I hadn't looked at it that way." And then there hadn't been time. "Now I might have to consider it."

Anna smiled at him. Traveling wasn't something she'd thought about when she was his age either. Of course back then traveling seemed impossible between the lack of transportation options and the limited money. Those issues became null and void once she was a vampire. "Well, have you thought about Disneyland?" Her voice was casual, like she didn't want to make a big deal out of her question.



"New perspectives, it's what friends are for." He teased, grinning slightly.

Mac shrugged slightly at that question, "I dunno, I mean, my parents didn't really have the money for stuff like that, you know? So, I guess I never exactly thought of that either." He paused for a moment before jokingly saying, "I guess I just don't think much."



Anna arched an eyebrow, smirking at his comment. "Well, are you interested now?" she asked, pressing her foot down on the gas a little more. There was no reason to be driving a fast car if you weren't going to drive it fast.