Panic
A/N: OKAY. SO I'M BACK. AND IT'S WITH ANOTHER ONESHOT.
I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON SOME STUFF, SOME LONGER STUFF NOT JUST LIMITED TO THE CHARMED UNIVERSE, BUT I CAME HOME TONIGHT AFTER WATCHING THE FAULT IN OUR STARS AND WAS IN WHAT I LIKE TO CALL A "FEELS MOOD" WHICH LED ME TO WATCHING SOME FAN VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE. I EVENTUALLY FOUND MY WAY TO CHARMED FAN VIDEOS WHICH LED TO WATCHING CHRIS VIDEOS AND EVENTUALLY I WAS WATCHING ONE WHICH SHOWED SNIPPETS OF THE SCENE WHERE CHRIS FADES BACK INTO EXISTENCE AFTER LEO AND PIPER RETURN FROM THE GHOSTLY PLANE.
AS I WAS WATCHING, I NOTICED SOMETHING I HADN'T BEFORE. THE EXPRESSION ON CHRIS'S FACE IS PURE PANIC AND HORROR AS HE REALISES LEO IS DYING. NOW, ANYONE WOULD THINK HE COULD CARE LESS AT THIS POINT IF LEO LIVES OR DIES BUT IT ACTUALLY STARTED ME THINKING. AFTER ALL, FOR CHRIS, THIS WAS THE MOMENT WHEN HE LOST CONTROL COMPLETELY. PIPER FOUND OUT WHO HE WAS AND HE STARTED TO LOSE SOME OF THE FOCUS AND CONTROL WE'D SEEN EARLIER ON IN THE SEASON.
SO, OF COURSE, INSPIRATION STRUCK AND I BEGAN TO WRITE. THIS TOOK ME ALL OF AN HOUR AND IT'S NOT AS LONG AS I WOULD HAVE LIKED, BUT I AM HAPPY WITH HOW IT TURNED OUT. IT'S KIND OF MY EXPLANATION OF WHY CHRIS KINDA LOST HIS CONTROL FROM THIS EPISODE ON, SLIPPING UP ABOUT THE FUTURE WITH HIS GRANDFATHER, AVOIDING PIPER, GOING NUTS AT LEO ETC.
SO, AS PER USUAL, PLEASE READ AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK. AGAIN, I'M NOT ENTIRELY HAPPY WITH THE LENGTH AND IT IS ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE "PURE THOUGHT PROCESS" (IF THAT'S EVEN WHAT THEY'RE CALLED) STORIES THAT I'VE DONE A FEW TIMES WHERE THERE'S NO ACTUAL ACTION, IT'S JUST A CHARACTER REFLECTING ON RECENT EVENTS AND FEELINGS. I HOPE YOU LIKE IT, BUT IF YOU DON'T THAT'S COOL TOO, LET ME KNOW HOW I CAN IMPROVE. THANKS
Disclaimer: I, PrincessRedfern, do NOT own Charmed or Chris Halliwell and as such do not profit from this story in any way.
No. Not now. Not like this.
That was his first thought as he watched his father, watched Leo collapse to the ground. The relief he'd felt upon reappearing in the land of the living had vanished immediately, quickly giving way to panic and fear.
This couldn't be happening. It wasn't Leo's time, not yet, that much he knew for certain. Or did he? He couldn't be too sure anymore. He'd already changed so much, almost erased himself from existence, and it was certainly possible that he'd changed enough to rewrite his father's history completely and with it, his own.
It wasn't like the movies. He couldn't immediately sense his father's growing weakness, though maybe that was just because his existence no longer hinged on his father's, just his mother's. That didn't soothe his panic any.
It should've. He'd often told himself as a child and later an adolescent, particular after another disappointment like a broken promise or a forgotten birthday, that he could care less if something happened to his father, that it would be easier, a relief almost. But in that moment, that fleeting moment when his eyes fell on Leo, laying on the ground, weakened from the Darklighter poison rushing through his system, he knew he'd been wrong. He'd been lying to himself, trying to distract from the stabbing pain he had felt each time Leo had let him down again.
There was no relief. There was no sense of a weight being lifted not from his shoulders, though they were plenty burdened by his brother and his own sense of duty. He'd always imagined that when the time came when his father was finally out of his life, for good, the weight he felt resting heavy on his chest, his heart, would be lifted. But it wasn't. There wasn't even a sense of satisfaction or finality. There was just pain. Pain and grief and panic and fear and a huge sense of loss, not just for himself, the him living and breathing and standing right then and there at the age of 22, but the other him, the tiny him living and breathing and (metaphorically) standing right then and there, existing in his mother's womb. The him that would eventually be born and have to grow up without a father, not that he'd ever really had one before, stuck in the seemingly rigid future with only a brother who, it was becoming increasingly apparent might just be destined to turn evil, and the sense that something, someone was missing.
The panic hit him hard and fast as all attention turned from his sudden burst back into existence (though he still wasn't quite sure how that worked and wasn't really all that certain he even wanted to know) to Leo. It was so sudden and so overpowering that he didn't, couldn't,even fight to conceal it from his family, the way he normally would. He just watched on, existing in what felt like his own private hell (and believe him, he had experienced hell), in a state of panic mixed with fear and pain and even a little nausea, though that could have been from the whole fading in and out of existence experience because, man, did that take it out of a guy.
Dimly, in the back of his mind, he registered that his parents were gone, taken away by his aunt so his father could be healed. Some small part of him recognised that his father would be okay, would be saved, but the rest of him was so caught up in the fear and the panic that he wasn't able to feel relief. He could feel Phoebe's eyes on him, sense the questions on the tip of her tongue, but he wasn't even close to being in the right frame of mind to even attempt to answer them.
Instead, he orbed away without a word, before she could get a sound out. He reformed back in the backroom of P3 knowing that although it would be the first place Phoebe would check, without a Whitelighter to orb her there it would take some time for her to get to him. He sank down on the couch and ran his hands through his hair, trying to rein his emotions in.
Why did he even care whether Leo lived or died? The guy was and always had been a crappy father and he certainly didn't need him in his life now that he'd been conceived. All the old emotions that he'd fought so hard to master and to stop from resurfacing both in his own past and the one he now lived in bubbled to the surface. Anger was the strongest; at himself for caring about and trusting Leo and at Leo for being such an awful, awful parent to him. There was also a fair amount of hurt and disappointment and just an overwhelming sense of brokenness.
God, it made him hate himself just that little bit more. What did it say about him that the thought of losing his terrible father sent him spiralling back to the person he'd been as a teenager? What did it say that he let Leo have such a hold over him that he was able to break him so thoroughly and wipe away his facade? He'd worked so hard over the past few months to remain detached and unemotional especially in the presence of his family and now he was right back to square one. In fact, he may have even been beyond square one, because now it wasn't just thinly veiled frustration and disapproval he was allowing himself to feel for Leo, as it had been when he'd first arrived in the past. Now it was full blown anger and hate, the magnitude of which he'd only barely managed to quash down before leaving his own godforsaken present.
His mask was gone. Though if he was being honest, the cracks had started appearing a long time ago. There was only so much a guy could take, you know, before he started to break. And Chris Halliwell was well on the way to shattering beyond repair.