Hope
By Mellaithwen
Rating: K+
Genre: Angst
Disclaimer: Really, it isn't mine.
Summary: Both of them want to save the world, they just have different ways of doing it. That's all.
Another one! Ever so slightly pointless...but let me know
"No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks." - Mary Wollstonecraft
Wyatt had often said why he had done all of this. And Chris numbly wondered if it was some desperate attempt to convince him, or maybe just another trick to make his brother, the martyr, feel even guiltier.
"It's all for you, Chris. I want the world to be perfect for my little brother to grow up in."
"I'm all grown up, Wyatt, and I have been for a while. So don't try on this on some twisted way of giving me the world, because it won't work."
"Why have you got to be so stubborn? Can't you see this is for the best?"
"For who? For us? What about the world Wyatt? What about the blood on your hands? What about the pain you've caused!"
Slap.
Hand met cheek, and Chris swallowed, before turning back to his brother, seeing the great Wyatt trembling with fury.
"You're so ungrateful." He hissed at the brunette, a red mass growing on the side of his face.
"You're such an asshole." He would reply angrily, walking away. Something he was seldom allowed to do without a fight. Thankfully, this was just one of those times.
Maybe giving in would be easier. How often had Wyatt decided to stray from whatever fight they were having to ask softly, to illustrate why it was important that he do this; "Join me, Chris."
Again, their most recent reunion came back to him, as he tried to forget the loss, but rather focus on Wyatt. "I can forgive you too."
No you can't. You never will.
God he was depressed nowadays.
Ever the optimist, Chris' views on the world were often mocked by his brother as they grew up, a common one occurring after a particular English lesson of Wyatt's class before the world folded on itself. The class had been given a various amount of quotes to analyze, and much to Wyatt's amusement, he got a very poignant one describing his brother.
He had walked in the door, always taking longer than his younger brother to arrive home, and had cried out "Where's the donut, Chris?" He had left then, much to Chris' confusion. It had been a Friday, and his mother had yet to go shopping so there really wasn't anything in the house to eat, especially not donut's, so why then was his brother asking such a thing. And that still didn't explain the mirth at the simple question.
Every time he had asked, his brother had laughed in his face, until finally their mother had told Wyatt firmly to stop teasing and to explain.
The oldest had stood up, facing his family dramatically, Standing as though facing a delighted audience.
"Aherm," He had cleared his throat. "The great McLandburgh Wilson once wrote," He began, his voice booming in a faked British accent to mirror that of a Shakespearian play. ""The optimist sees the donut, but the pessimist sees the hole.""And then he had stopped, unable to hold back his laughter while his brother groaned, leaving the room, leaving Piper smiling, not out of amusement at her youngest expense but more because of how much Wyatt's mocking reminded her of their youth.
Ever since, if ever Wyatt would begin a rant over how Chris had spent too much time orbing, and clearly his head was up in the clouds for being such an optimist, Chris would merely close his eyes and sigh, then look back into the blue orbs of his brother's gaze, and say; "Let me know how those holes are working out for you, Wy."
Wyatt's most recent jibe had only infuriated him further.
"Still stuck in that good versus evil morass? I'm so past that."
But Chris hadn't had the chance to retort as they usually did and he doubted Wyatt was in the mood for jokes.
So far, optimism had only led him down the trail of despair. Hope only led to disappointment when things didn't quite go to plan. Hope led to guilt and all that is bad in the world. He was left a pathological cynic, constantly being sarcastic and using a dry un-surprised when it came to looking at the World before him. But Chris wanted desperately to hang onto it, even if it meant losing everything else in the process.
He wanted to hold on to the hope that he was making a better future.
That some day he and Bianca would meet again.
That all of this wasn't for nothing. That it wasn't all in vain.
And beyond anything, hopeful denial that this was all just a horrible nightmare from which he would soon wake up from, to find himself fourteen again. The Event playing out before his very eyes, but now, more mature, he would able to stop it all. As the athame would be poised ready to kill he would lunge at the demon, and he would fall to the ground, the athame would skid across the kitchen tiles, and stop underneath the washer, as his mother would get up on shaky legs, aware of the close call, and would vanquish the demon quickly and dispose of the large ceremonial dagger. Thanking her son all of the way for saving her.
His brother would then appear, and they would talk, for hours, about nothing but simplicities of humanity, it's fames and foibles, the good and the bad, but they would never truly disagree. They were too alike.
That was something that wouldn't be different.
He would lie awake, thinking about it. He would never turn, and he would never become the evil thing that Wyatt had let himself embrace. Nor would he ever destroy things others loved, and cared for, or relish in the fear as his name was spoken in a harsh whisper. A prophet telling of the coming storm that would bring them all to their doom.
They both wanted to save the world. They just had different views on the best way to do it. For Wyatt, he knew that if he had enough power, then he could dictate, and maybe at the beginning he had only intended to be rid of those who threatened all that was good. But soon his Avatar-like twisted patronizing views morphed into something more, and the lines between good and evil were blurred and closer together, until it was impossible to discern between the two.
Chris wanted to save the world. But not just in general for the greater good he had heard so much about, and that he looked back on with cynicism. But from his brother. His wonderful big brother, whose teenage-mood swings were far too violent to be explained away by a burst in testosterone. Not to mention the small fact of him not being a teenager any more.
What saddened him was that he knew that if his family was alive, they would try and explain it away, even when faced with the harsh reality they would insist on saving the blonde haired blue eyed Witch. And Chris wanted to as well, but he could face the cruel possibility of stopping his brother. Even if he dreaded ever doing so.
At the same time he felt comforted. At least if he ever decided to turn while his family still breathed oxygen they wouldn't give up on him. They would fight for the good in everyone's heart. And pray that it would be enough to overcome what could easily –though naively- be explained away as a phase.
They didn't know yet. And he wouldn't tell them. Technically he wasn't lying. He was trying to save Wyatt, he just left out the minor detail of the circumstances resulting in his need to be saved and the small fact that he was Wyatt's younger brother. Piper and Leo's son.
He had a world to save, he didn't have time for family reunions and bake-athons with the great Piper Halliwell, or father-son chats seeing as Leo would strangely obligated to acknowledge him with a little more than constant hatred, if he ever found out the truth.
It wasn't worth the consequence that things might not turn out ok.
He would hold on to the hope that the world could fix itself. It didn't seem right that all of this responsibility should be placed on his shoulders. Why couldn't someone else deal with it? Just because. Because it had to be someone who understood. And who understood the need to preserve good than the son of a Charmed One?
Funny how Wyatt had always been regarded as the stronger one, and yet it was Chris who had denied the thought of more power over the domain of the world. It was the forgotten child, not the twice-blessed that resisted the convincing drawl of Evil's tagline. It was Chris, not Wyatt, who decided to fight for what their family had been fighting for centuries, instead of looking for another way.
No, he couldn't let go of hope. Hope that his brother was in that Tyrant somewhere, waiting to be saved. And saved, he would be. Chris was saving them all, saving the world. One demon at a time, until the final battle would commence, and that was when they would all have to choose. Have to pick sides, where there could only be one winner.
"Most people are good only so long as they believe others to be so." - Friedrich Hebbel