Chapter Nine: Picking Up A Distant Relative
"—and then you went into an enlightening nine months' coma, woke up, and resurrected Sheila before resurrecting me. Did I get everything?" Max's mother, Christina, asked, eyebrows scrunched as she finished relaying the major events of his life.
It wasn't everything. Max left out the bit about his training with the powerful Qetsiyah on the Other Side, his plans to un-dagger a possibly insane, ripper of an Original vampire, free a definitely sociopathic siphon-witch, and that he only resurrected her to prevent himself from having the responsibility of leadership to a coven he was born to rule ——Oh, and that he could've resurrected her a long time ago, but you know, tomato-tomahto and all that jazz.
"Pretty much, yeah," Max nodded, eyes on the road as he navigated his way to his father's second home in Ohio, where he spent most of his time doing… whatever the hell he does on the lifelong journey to avoid Max.
Max said nothing, eyes ahead, as he drove into the state limits of Ohio. He could feel his mother's stare, but said nothing, choosing to ignore her persistent attempt to burn a hole in the side of his face as she obviously tried to read a son who she died before he reached the age of six. Only, now that son was closer to seventeen than he was at being sixteen.
After what felt like forever, Christina must've realized what she wanted to, because she asked the very question Max didn't feel like answering. "And your father…? Where was he during your upbringing?"
Max was silent for a moment before answering. "You can ask him yourself, Mother. We are stopping by his place on the way to Coven HQ, though, I imagine you've already figured out that answer… Haven't you?"
Silence reigned for a few moments, and Max, through a side glance, noticed that his mother held a clenching his jaw with a frown, batting back tears in her eyes. Max had to remind himself he was driving, the urge to comfort was overpoweringly overbearing. And alien, at least, to Max anyway.
With no way to comfort his mother, Max did eventually figure one way out…Or, at least, he had thought he did, anyways. "To be fair though, Father didn't need to baby me, Mother," he tried, causing her to gasp at his words. "I have a mixture of both your skin tones and hair features, but my eyes are more hazel than they are green, Mother. I was a reminder of what he lost that night, and in his shoes, with how much he felt about you, I can't confidently say I wouldn't have made the same choice."
"Oh, my— You were five, Maximus! Five! A boy… my boy… our boy…" Christina gasped, tearing up now. "And he wasn't—God! How can he do this to our son?"
"I honestly preferred the way things went after your death, Mother," Max's words caused Christina to gasp at him yet again, her gaze boring into the side of his head like nails through wood. "If I were coddled, not given the alone time I got… I would never have been able to properly process your—your death. I became stronger because of Father's decision to stay away."
"And I'll not dismiss this fact," Christina sniffled, "but when a mother dies, a father is supposed to step up. He didn't. I'll not forgive him for that."
A light feeling settled in Max's chest at his mother's words, despite himself. And, with Christina promising to be there for him now that she was back, Max and Christina had a comforting ride the rest of the way.
Upon arriving at the three story house Marcus Bennett called home, Christina and Marcus had a heatedly eventful conversation that was heard across the street, much to Marcus's surprise. They didn't break up or anything like that, but they did argue on Marcus's treatment of Max.
Christina and Max spent the rest of the ride to the Westphall HQ in Michigan, making a few memories, and even had playful banter.
Overall, the road trip was a rated 11 out of 10 for Max, which was surprising, considering Max didn't like people on most days. Still, he did enjoy himself.
Then coven head saw Christina alive and well and radiating an aura even stronger than she had before her death. Christina was officially ordered to stay at the coven headquarters — a 2-square-mile plot of sacred land that housed an entire community of witches — in the southeast of Michigan, on the edge of Barton Hills, Michigan. She would be repped more as a primary heiress to a coven of one of the Americas' most powerful witch covens, which required a lot of time and presence to prepare her for.
Max, on the other hand, managed to get the cousin of his from The Originals — the one who Kol would've possessed in Season 2. Ironically, he really did look like a live doppelganger of Isaac Lahey from Teen Wolf. The resemblance was freakishly uncanny.
Still, Max drove back home with the boy, who fixed Max with curious eyes the whole time. He was definitely older than Max — likely already 17 — but his wide puppy eyes made him seem more like a younger teen than an older one.
"What? Why do you keep staring at me like that?" Max had said, halfway fed-up, halfway amused.
"No reason. It's just…" Kaleb began, "The Council was willing to exile me completely from the coven. I would've been a coven-less witch. I… I had already begun planning to move to New Orleans, as they are always accepting new witches. But then they told me someone was willing to take me in — someone directly behind me for succession. Or, behind where I was, before my expulsion."
"What do you wanna ask, mate?" Max demanded, mildly irritated. "Go ahead, so I can drive in peace. I hate cliffhangers."
Max felt the teen's imploring gaze on the side of his face. "Why? Why take me in? I offer nothing anymore. Why take me in?"
"Simple," Max said. "If I hadn't, you'd've been dead. I saw it. Manipulated by the Original witch, possessed by one of the Original vampires, and then killed off as a vessel as that vampire return to their true body and you cross over, amounted to nothing."
This caused the kid to quiet. Silence reigned for a minute, then he spoke.
"You're a seer, then?" A statement.
"Aye," Max nodded. "And you're kin. Exiled kin is still kin. Ain't no way I'm letting some manipulative, millennia-old witch use my kin as a pit stop for her lecherous children. Fuck the bitch."
At his words, Kaleb laughed. It was a nice laugh, admittedly.
"You don't like vampires?" he asked, sounding unsure.
"Oh no, that's not it. I actually don't mind them," Max corrected. "I've got a friend or two who are vampires. Nothing against them."
"Then it's the Original family, is that what you don't like?" asked Kaleb, frowning.
"No, just the Mother. And the Father," Max admitted, distracted by the thought. "And maybe Elijah, too. From what I've seen, he's way too good at breaking his word without, you know, breaking his word. I haven't decided yet how I feel about that."
"How much can you foresee in those eyes of yours?" Kaleb asked, awed at Max's ability to see so much details of future events. After all, he's never met a seer quite like Max, and the coven had, like, three of them.
"Enough to spoil the next 300 years for myself if I chose to actively use them to their fullest potential, I've no doubt," Max smirked.
And, on the Other Side, in the backseat of the car, Kol heard it all — and his interest in the boy was growing once more…