Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed or any of the characters on the show. But I do wish that I owned Chris. I am a self admitted Chris-aholic.
A/N: This idea came to me suddenly and well here it is. It's set when Chris is like thirteen or fourteen, before Piper dies. So yeah, future fic. Enjoy!
There it was again. That disappointed why-can't-you-be-more-like-Wyatt sigh that my mother seemed to do all the time lately. She didn't get it. She didn't understand why I couldn't be like my older brother. And I don't think she ever will.
She doesn't understand that Wyatt is the twice-blessed child in the family, the one who can never make any mistakes no matter what, and me, well I'm just me. I'm not twice-blessed. I'm not all powerful. I'm not perfect. I make mistakes. And they just don't get it.
Aunt Phoebe says that I'm going through a stage. She says that I am always getting into trouble to try and get attention and that I'll eventually grow out of it. What a load of crap. If what I'm going through is a stage, then my entire life is a stage. As long as I can remember, I have always been the screw up in the Halliwell family. I've always been the son my parents are forced to pay attention to, because heaven forbid if they take their attention off of Wyatt for more than five minutes to listen to me, Wyatt just might do something even more perfect and they may miss it. I get that he's the oldest and they have a tendency to dote on the oldest but come on. Just a little attention now and then won't kill them.
Okay, maybe I over exaggerated on the fact that they completely ignore me. My father completely ignores me, but my mother doesn't or she doesn't mean to. She tries to connect with me, and take time from the almighty Wyatt to spend with me. She tries to treat us as equals but that doesn't always happen. It's obvious that we aren't in any way equal. He's more of a witch, and I'm more of the whitelighter.
Ironically, my father is the one I get my whitelighter tendencies from. Yes, the same father who ignores me and tries to pretend that I don't exist. He's the whitelighter. He's the reason I'm half angel, half witch. I'm even named after his father and yet I'm still the forgotten child. I don't understand what goes on in his head and quite frankly I don't want to.
Aunt Paige is the one who makes sure that I'm not completely forgotten at home. She lives here at the manor with her husband, Richard and their daughter Katie. Aunt Paige always asks how my day was at school, even though she teaches at magic school. Yeah, I go to magic school. It's kind of a long story and I'll explain later. Aunt Paige is the one who helps me with my potions and spells and perfecting my powers. Of course, Katie always tags along on these lessons because hey, Paige is her mother. I don't mind. Katie's cool for a seven year old. She can always make me laugh, no matter how hard I try not to let her.
Sometimes I feel that I belong more with Paige, Richard, and Katie than my own little family unit. They always seem so happy and loved and taken care of. I can't help but be jealous of Katie. She has the parents who love her and take care of her and pay attention to her. Geez, I'm really pathetic if I'm jealous of my seven year old cousin who does nothing but look up to me, me of all people. Katie chose me to be her role model and I try not to screw up in front of her. Not that it matters, I'm sure if I robbed a bank at gunpoint, she would still look up to me and ask how she can rob a bank as well.
Okay, so back to the issue with the sigh my mother gave me. I had just been sent home from magic school for setting a spider on another student. It was pretty funny until my parents found out and started to give me that lecture again. "You're a good student Chris, why do you have to pull these pranks?" My father said this, pretending to be concerned.
I rolled my eyes. How would he know if I'm a good student or not? When has he taken the time to care?
"Don't roll your eyes at your father, Chris." My mother chastised gently. I know she meant well and tried not to hold it against her. But I couldn't help but think that perfect Wyatt probably never rolled his eyes.
"Sorry," I mumbled, slouching in the overstuffed chair even more.
"Chris, how many times have I told you not to slouch?" My mother asked, hinting for me to sit up straight. I did, as best I could in an overstuffed chair and mumbled 'sorry' again. "Now why did you conjure that spider and set it on that poor girl?"
"I felt like it," Was all I said in my defense. It wouldn't matter to them if that 'poor girl' had set a spider on me first and I was just retaliating. The teacher had only seen me set the spider on the girl and none of her setting a spider on me. So of course I was the one to get into trouble.
"You felt like it?" I could hear the disappointment and anger in my father's voice.
"Leo," My mother said, quietly, placing her hand on his knee, reminding him that I was his son too. Then to me she said, "We told not to use magic against other witches."
"I know," I said quietly. Why did they insist on giving me these lectures? Why couldn't they just punish me and get it over with?
"And so, to punish you, you're going to spend all of Saturday helping Paige clean the classrooms at magic school."
"Is that all?" I tried not to sound excited. I wonder if they realize that any time spent with Aunt Paige was a blessing not a curse. And Katie would probably be there, so I could spend an entire day being the cool older cousin without any competition from Wyatt.
"For now," My father answered. "But any other mess ups and..."
"It's back to the chair for another lecture," I said for him, standing up. "Are we done here?"
My mother nodded, "Go do your homework. And try to get to bed early tonight. I'm guessing that Paige'll wake you up early tomorrow."
I nodded, and ran up the stairs. This was a turn around. My little prank at magic school turned into a golden opportunity, not a punishment as they thought it would be. Of course, I hated cleaning, but knowing Aunt Paige, she'd use magic to clean the classrooms because she hated cleaning as much as I did. So that would mean that we would have the entire day to absolutely nothing. We'd probably go the park and get ice cream, then play some game that required a lot of running to work off the ice cream. Paige was weird about eating food that would make you gain weight and always did some kind of exercise afterwards to work off the offending food.
Tomorrow was going to be great.
A/N: Should I continue this or should it just be a one shot thing? Let me know what your thoughts about it are and if I should continue. Even if you don't think it should continue, reviews are welcome and make me a very happy southern bell that lives in Colorado. Sometime, I'm gonna have to explain my pen name.
