Title: There is a Light That Never Goes Out
Author: Derry

Disclaimer: They are not mine, I have to say. But no profit made. Don't sue, okay?

Spoilers: Imaginary Friends, season 6, possibly the series finale

Other notes: Apologies in advance for any Charmed canon that I'm about to mess up. Blinovitch demons definitely never appeared on the show; I totally just made them up (but some Dr Who geeks might recognise the reference). Thanks to Starrylizard for the beta, but the mistakes that it contains are still down to me. Fic title was nicked from the Smiths (jus' coz).

Wyatt made his way through the passages of the Underworld under the cover of an invisibility cloaking spell. Chris always said that an "invisibility cloak" sounded like something out of Star Trek or Harry Potter. Wyatt had once told him that he was just bitter because it was a spell that he hadn't mastered yet and Chris had laughed it off, saying that he'd never needed that spell anyway.

That was true enough. Working undercover amongst demons had become more or less Chris's speciality. He didn't need any form of invisibility to move freely in the Underworld. A few minor glamours and masking spells allowed him to pass as one of the locals. The spellwork was nothing most witches with basic powers couldn't do. Chris didn't need to use anything more than that. Apparently, he was simply that good at subterfuge and deception - an aptitude that worried his older brother sometimes because, although Wyatt had never doubted that Chris was motivated by the best of intentions, the ruthless, single-minded focus with which he often carried out his undercover missions was, quite frankly, a little disturbing.

The tunnel Wyatt was following abruptly came to a dead end and he bit back a groan of frustration. It would probably take at least half an hour to double back and he knew that time was running out. He had felt the seconds ticking by from the moment he arrived back in his own time - felt the grains of sand sliding through the glass and his brother slipping away with them. He knew that he'd been supposed to arrive back in this time period at exactly the same moment that he'd been taken from. He remembered the exact wording of the spell that had been cast to send him back from the past. But it seemed that somehow the brief instant that he had lost had been a crucial one. The second he had returned, he had been hit by an overwhelming foreboding.

He had known before he left that his brother had been planning to go down to the Underworld, just a quick reconnaissance to some areas that Chris already knew well. The Blinovitch clan that he was investigating were believed to be very much a lower level variety of demons. Blue scaly skin, glowing red eyes, about five feet tall and believed to have the power to alter the perception of time for others, but not able to travel in time themselves - beyond that, not much was known about them. Wyatt briefly wondered if the trip to past that he thought he remembered just getting back from was actually an illusion caused by a Blinovitch attack, but immediately decided it was irrelevant anyway. Whether he'd actually gone back in time or not, it didn't change the fact that he knew that his brother was now in deadly danger. Wyatt felt it like a vice slowly tightening around his throat. He had to get to Chris now.

The shield of invisibility had held flawlessly. None of the demons that he had passed while down in the Underworld had even momentarily suspected his presence, but Wyatt's unfamiliarity with the geography was what really held him back. He had only been down there a few times in his entire life and never alone. The first time that he could remember had been not long after he had turned eighteen, accompanied by his Aunt Paige. Chris had made his first journey to the Underworld only a few weeks later (which Wyatt still thought was ridiculously unfair) and had been completely fascinated by the place from that time onwards. Apparently deciding that it was easier to ask forgiveness after the fact, Chris had begun making solo trips without telling anyone. And the unbelievable thing was that he'd essentially gotten away with it in the end. Although there had been several long shouting matches with both of their parents to begin with, they'd eventually become strangely tolerant of his dangerous "research interest" and they now no longer objected, as long as Chris always let someone know exactly where he was heading. This time, that 'someone' had been Wyatt.

In some ways it was really ironic because, even though he was almost two years older than his brother and possessed much stronger magical powers to defend himself with, their parents had never been at all comfortable with Wyatt going down there himself. On the few occasions that he'd gone to the Underworld, they had demanded that he immediately report back to them, describing every single detail of his time there, and the anxiety in their eyes as he did so had been almost painful to watch. The last time he'd gone with Chris, their parents had actually sat them both down before they set off and given them a long list of precautions which had left Wyatt with the humiliating suspicion that they expected his little brother to hold his hand or something. After that he'd decided it just wasn't worth the hassle. He didn't find the Underworld that interesting anyway, and he could find more than enough trouble to occupy himself with all the demons and other Evil forces that decided to make their way Topside.

But for some totally unfathomable reason, their mother and father and both of their aunts had always just trusted that Chris would be able to handle anything in the Underworld on his own. Such dangerous, stupid naivety! And Wyatt hoped and prayed that there wouldn't be a price to pay for it, as he trekked trough yet another unfamiliar tunnel. He was suddenly hit by a certainty that he was getting much closer. He couldn't see any outwards signs, couldn't hear his brother's voice or anything else that might signify his presence, but Wyatt knew that the end of his search was only moments away. It did nothing to prepare him for the scene awaiting him around the next corner.

It was a darkened cavern, not much visible in the flickering torchlight. But Chris was there, chained down and surrounded by strange instruments of torture, both physical and magical. He wasn't moving. There was blood everywhere. And the small blue creatures that filled the rest of the cavern were chattering and laughing, the chamber echoing with their shrill, gleeful babbling.

Wyatt wasn't entirely sure what happened next. A surge of raw power flooded through him and suddenly there were a lot of burning, screaming, exploding, blue-skinned demons. The next thing he was aware of was carrying his brother in his arms and then he was orbing them out of there. He didn't even consciously choose the destination, but he wasn't surprised to find himself standing upstairs in their childhood home. Even after being invaded by demons time after time, it somehow still represented safety and security, the most instinctive place to retreat to.

He was suddenly struck by the stillness of their surroundings. He couldn't hear any sound or movement from the attic above nor from downstairs. His own heart was thundering in his chest and he was gasping for air. Chris felt like deadweight in his arms, there was no muscle tone whatsoever and his skin was cold and pale. He was barely breathing and with each shallow, wet-sounding breath, Wyatt felt a faint creaking under his hands, like bone on bone, as if the ends of broken ribs were moving against each other. In the sunlight that streamed through the windows, he could now clearly see every one of the ragged, charred, bloody gashes that littered his brother's body from head to toe. Staggering into the nearest room, their parents' bedroom, Wyatt set his brother down on the bed as gently as he could. It terrified him that Chris still showed absolutely no reaction to the jostling. This was bad. It was so very, very bad - but he could fix it. He'd been healing near fatal injuries since he was two. He knew he could fix it even though his hands were shaking as he stretched them out over his brother.

And then Chris stopped breathing altogether.

"No! Don't you dare!"

Another wave of fury swept through him. The little bastard wasn't going to die on him. Not now.

Their father had told them time and time again that it was love that provided the trigger for healing. Fortunately, Wyatt's powers seemed to understand that love and anger often go hand in hand, because Chris almost immediately took a strangled-sounding breath and Wyatt started to feel the wounds healing under his hands. Chris still didn't stir, but his breaths became slower, deeper and easier, even while Wyatt's own breathing remained ragged and he felt a choking sensation. It was only then that he became aware of the tears. As he felt the last of Chris's wounds heal, Wyatt drew a deep breath, leaned back from where he knelt by the side of the bed and brought one arm up to wipe across his eyes.

He was startled by an anguished cry from behind him and barely had time to register the voice shouting his brother's name, before a hand landed heavily on his shoulder to drag him backwards. His father displaced him, kneeling by the bedside, one hand going to the side of Chris's face and the other to his still ripped and bloody shirt, whispering an agonised litany of "no, no, no." Wyatt was rocked backwards, literally and figuratively, as he realised that although he'd healed the actual wounds, he hadn't gotten rid of the blood and dirt and Chris was still motionless and unresponsive. He still looked half-way through Death's door.

"He's gonna be fine, Dad. I promise!" Wyatt blurted. His brain had started to feel like it was going numb, but that was one fact he was sure of. He knew that Chris had been healed. He'd felt it through the flow of power from his hands. The little twerp was just taking his own sweet time about waking up, that's all. Their father turned to stare at him in disbelief, some dark spectre in the shadows of his eyes which Wyatt didn't recognise, but then it cleared and his head dropped with a relieved sob. Wyatt breathed a sigh of his own, before his father looked up again and he was caught in a gaze of a different intensity, one that he instinctively leaned away from.

A grip of steel landed on his shoulder and ensured that he couldn't escape. "What happened, Wyatt?"

Wyatt managed to shrug his other shoulder and gestured helplessly towards Chris. "I don't know. Blinovitch demons. Somewhere in the Underworld. I just found him. I don't know what they did to him."

"Did you cover your tracks?" When there was no response, their father's voice hardened. "Wyatt! Could they follow you here?"

The eyes that bored into him were flooded with fear and pain, but he also saw a spike of accusation. Wyatt pulled free of his father's grasp, staggered to his feet and took a few faltering steps backwards - their gazes remained locked, probably welded together with the heat of the anger that Wyatt suddenly felt burning through him. Pure desperate fear rang through his father's voice, as he shouted Wyatt's name one more time, but Wyatt was already gone.

This time, the sensation of orbing felt like a cauldron boiling over and then he was back in that blood-stained cavern again, demonic screams of utter terror filling his ears. No demon who dared to still be in that place of torture would ever set foot in his childhood home. None of them would ever lift a finger against his family or anyone else ever again. No demon, not a single one, would be left standing when he left there. The ranks of the Blinovitch clan would never, ever recover from what he meted out that day. The terrified, clamorous wailing rose in both pitch and volume as Wyatt raised his hands. The rage that coursed through him did not know the meaning of the word mercy.

Choking smoke. The stench of blood. Deafening screams. Scorching heat. Blinding light.

Darkness. Silence.