Notes: Originally a Tumblr RP with rebelliouscupid, who writes Parker Halliwell. Title comes from a line in Evanescence's "Snow White Queen"
This is pretty much all just angst, pain, Chris absolutely hating himself and refusing to let Parker help or comfort him, and more pain. He's only in his early twenties and doesn't deserve any of this. Someone give him a hug, please.
Also, there's discussion of heavily squicky fridge horror regarding the previous fic (and yes, there is 100% basis in canon for the implications). And Chris and Parker are both overdramatic Halliwells who sometimes just need to stop and think but Chris is... Not In a Good Psychological State right now and isn't thinking clearly.
I'm Losing My Mind and You Just Stand There and Stare as My World Divides
"Hey, um, are you... okay?" Parker asks. "You seem upset."
No, he's not in the slightest bit fine—but Chris is reluctant to tell her why: he doesn't want anything to happen to her or the others. Still…
"No, Parker, I'm… I'm not okay." Chris glances down, images that he'd rather forget flashing through his mind. He's unable to look at his cousin as a wave of nausea washes over him so strongly that for a second he thinks he's going to be sick.
"I… I shouldn't even be here right now. She'll—"
He stops, exhales sharply to try and calm down, maybe explain—and prevent Parker from doing anything stupid that will get her killed.
"This demon, she, uh…" He still can't bring himself to look at his cousin. "She's claimed me, said she'll kill all of you if I disobey her, that I belong to her." Chris swallows past another rise of nausea, curls in on himself and pours all his self-loathing into his next words: "I let her turn me into her pet witch whore to keep her from going after and killing you, Wyatt, Mel, the cousins, everyone." Finally, he looks up at Parker.
"She owns me. I didn't have any other choice."
Immediately, rage begins burning its way through Parker. Some demonic bitch had fucked with her cousin, had hurt him. Her first reaction was to start shouting, but she kept enough of a handle on her emotions that she knew that screaming wouldn't solve anything and would probably just upset Chris more.
Pet witch whore. Oh, God, Chris. She feels sick to her stomach as she realizes exactly what that meant for Chris. Stepping forward, she hesitantly reaches forward to try and comfort him before she abruptly stops. The last thing she wants to do is force her cousin to have someone else touching him when he doesn't want it, even if it is just to hug him.
Finally, she manages to get words out, barely repressing her anger and disgust for the bitch who'd attacked her cousin, "She doesn't own you. She doesn't get to own you, cause you're a fucking person and people aren't owned."
Pacing back and forth, she's barely controlling the urge to throw something. This isn't right, none of it is, because this is Chris. He's the smart, sarcastic responsible one who doesn't look way too close to tears and waves of self-hatred rolling off him. She isn't a powerful empath, but it is way too strong and she can't bear to think of what that meant for the intensity of his emotions.
Chris shakes his head, closes his eyes as he lets out a rattling breath. "She does," he insists—and his green eyes are helpless when he opens them and looks at his cousin again. "You don't understand, Parker, she was going to burn all of you if I didn't submit to her. I… gods…"
Feeling sick again, he leans forward on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees, and runs his hands down his face. "I had to stop her from threatening to murder you and the others or have one of you take my place by getting her to focus on me, by seducing her, and I…" Goddess, he wants to throw up but there's nothing in his stomach.
"I'm hers—her pet, her little witchlighter, her slut. I have no other choice, Parker."
Parker can feel her nails digging into her palms hard enough to hurt, but it's still doing a shit job of grounding her. She's practically shaking from fury, because a demonic bitch had fucked with Chris and his head and she feels helpless to do anything about it. What's worse is that he believes the shit she put in her head.
"No, she doesn't, Chris. She may think she does, but she doesn't get to own you, like you're some fucking dog. And she's not going to touch you again," she promises. Parker approaches her cousin again, hovering uncertainly near the couch. She repeats again, "She's not going to touch you again. Not as long as I'm around."
There's something weird about being the protective one for once, but she doesn't care. Chewing on her bottom lip, she finally asks, "Can I hug you? But only if you want me to, or whatever, cause, y'know, just, um, yeah."
He flinches at her promise, then her asking if she can hug him and mutely shakes his head. He's not ready for any other physical contact, even if it's a concerned hug from his cousin.
"It's not that simple," he says, frustration that she's not getting it seeping into his tone. "She doesn't know I'm here. I'm the only thing keeping her from attacking and killing the others or an innocent—I have to go back before she finds out I'm gone."
Chris rakes his hands through his hair, avoids Parker's gaze again. "I sold myself to her to protect you, Parker." Admitting it to her just adds to the self-loathing and shame swirling around inside him. "I gave her what she wanted, willingly turned into her whore so she wouldn't kill you. If you try to vanquish her she'll just murder you to teach me a lesson. Don't you get it?" He lifts his head to look at her, green eyes flaring with intensity. "She's not going to let me go just because you say so. I belong to her, and there's nothing you can do about it."
Parker pretends that seeing him flinch, at her, doesn't hurt. Guilt floods her systems at his words and that's a little harder to hide. Biting her lip, she slides down to the floor, sitting a few inches away from her cousin's legs.
Scrutinizing Chris, she's silent for a minute. Her voice is quiet when she finally asks, "If it was me, would you accept that? If a demon attacked me and fucked with my head until I agreed to stay, to protect you and Peyton and P.J. and everyone else, what would you do? If I actually believed that it's anyway okay or that fighting would only make it worse, would you let me go back?"
She's uncharacteristically still as she looks at Chris. "If you tell me that you would do what you're asking me to do, to let it go, to let you go back to a demon who hurt you and psychologically fucked with your head, then— Actually, no, fuck that, I still wouldn't let you go back, because no one deserves that shit."
"No, but…" Chris stops, remains silent for a long minute that seems to stretch out into hours.
"I'm sorry," he finally says.
Before she can stop him, he fades into orbs and is gone a second later.
"Chris, don't you fucking dare—"
She's too late, only able to watch as her idiot cousin orbs off to who knows where. Are you out of your damn mind, Chris? Tilting her head back, she yells, "Christopher Perry Halliwell, get your ass back here!"
Screw the polite thing when her cousin is being this much of an idiot.
Chris can hear Parker calling for him, but he puts her on mute: He can't deal with her anger at him right now, can't face her after admitting to her what he's done.
When Chris doesn't come back, she buries her face in her hands and resists the urge to scream. Some days, she truly hates her older cousin's stubbornness. Looking up, she scrambles for her phone, dialing his number quickly. If he doesn't answer me, I'm beaming down to the Underworld to find him. Like Hell am I leaving this shit alone.
When his phone rings, Chris quickly pulls it out of his pocket and answers so no one else will hear it. He already knows who's on the other side of the line before she can even say anything.
"Parker, what part of I have no choice and there's nothing you can do to save me don't you understand?" he hisses, shame and self-loathing spilling over into irritation at least partly born of fear that if she continues to push this she's only going to end up killed. "If you come after me she'll kill you and make me watch while you bleed to death in front of me."
"And what part of like hell am I leaving you alone to do with this did you not get?" Parker retorts, shaking with relief that he'd actually answered the damn phone. "Chris, you can't honestly believe that I can just let you do this? That's not how our family works.
"And I can protect myself. Chris, please," she's begging at this point, "don't just run off and try to handle this yourself. I can help and there's no guarantee that she won't kill you, too. And I'm not letting you go by yourself. If you don't get your ass back here, I'm beaming down there and not leaving without you, got that?"
"Too late," he says with a sigh, sliding down to the floor with his back against the nearest cavern wall. "You can't help me, Parker, accept it." He brings his knees close to his chest, keeps a wary eye out for any other demons.
"And she won't kill me." Chris's short laugh is bitter, humorless. "I'm the son of a Charmed One and an Elder—she'll kill anyone who so much as looks at me so she doesn't have to share me with another demon." He pinches his eyes shut for a moment, opens them again. "Parker, I gave myself to her. I… I had to seduce her to draw her attention from you, had to…"
He stops, draws in a shaky breath, knows Parker can hear the self-loathing and whatever the hell else it is in his voice but doesn't care. "I'm her good little pet"—it's almost a croon on the word 'good'—"her witchling, her filthy slut, her fucking whore and… God, Parker… some twisted fucked-up part of me likes hearing her scream, knowing I make her lose control. …"
He hadn't quite meant to say that last bit, but once he does he's silent, waiting for and half-dreading his cousin's reaction.
Parker resists the immediate urge to make a smartass comment about knowing too much about Chris's sex life. (Why was she always the one to get way too many details though?) Chewing on her bottom lip, she closes her eyes, fear for Chris and anger at the demon making her even more anxious.
"Not a chance, Chris. I'm not walking away from this and leaving you alone to deal with it. And that doesn't make it okay. Chris, making a deal with a demon threatening lives isn't a binding contract. And you shouldn't have done that, shouldn't have to have done that, and I am so sorry—" Guilt catches in her throat and she pauses for a minute.
Taking a deep breath, she continues stubbornly, "This isn't your fault and you can't blame this on yourself. You didn't ask for this and she's a demon that likes playing mind games. And c'mon, Chris, everyone has a twisted side. Demons are better at pulling them out of people, but everyone has them. And if that's fucked up, then you really don't want to hear about some of the guys I've slept with."
Pushing herself up, she paces back and forth as she says, "So you can either come back here and we can figure this out so that no one dies and you're not some demonic bitch's psychologically messed up pet," she spits out the last word like it was acid on her tongue, "or I can beam down there and track you down myself. But either way, I'm not going to just 'accept that I can't help you,' cause that's bullshit, Chris."
"It is my fault," he says after a long moment. "I knew what I was getting into, Parker—and you can't help me. Beam down here to track me, she'll find you and kill you. Take me back with you, she'll notice I'm gone, track me down, and then kill you." He rests his head back against the cavern wall, exhales shakily. "I can't escape from her, Parker; I never will. There's no sense in running when she'll just find me again, and I—"
He stops, a low groan in his throat. "…I like it," he admits, and hates himself for it. "My body wants her touching me; I need her praising me and… Goddess, sometimes it's like she needs me to want her as much as she wants me, needs me to willingly stay with her and—" He swallows nervously, dreading Parker's reaction at what he says next: "It's like she treats me more as her lover than her whore."
Silent, Parker tries to figure out how the hell a demonic bitch got her claws deep enough into Chris without none of them noticing before. It's worrying how she can't figure it out. "Chris, that's Stockholm Syndrome. Treating you better than she would a whore while threatening your family's lives if you leave doesn't make her a better person."
Her voice isn't nearly as strong as she wishes it would be as she pleads, "Chris, come home. This isn't okay. And even if you do stay, what's to stop her from turning around and killing us all just to keep you from having anything to go back to? Or killing you if she gets pissed off? However strong she is, she isn't a match for our family and somewhere, you know that. Mom and the Aunts took on the Source three times and won. This demon chick? Not even a footnote compared to that. Besides, who's to say she'd kill me? A lot of different things she could do and killing me would be pointless, just a dead witch. So will you please stop being so stubborn and let me help you?"
"I can't," he says, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. "If she won't kill you, Parker, she'll just do to you what she did to me. And she won't kill me, not if—"
Chris cuts himself off there, not wanting to finish that sentence. He can't finish that sentence, not when the nausea returns so strongly that for a few seconds he really does think he's going to vomit. Don't make me say it, Parker, please don't. He wouldn't be able to face anyone else in his family again, let alone the Elders if they ever found out.
"Then let her try," Parker fires back. Probably not the best thing to say, but whatever this demon would do, it couldn't compare to the self-loathing in her cousin's voice and the fact that there was nothing she could do about it. "And she won't kill, if what? If you stay with her, let her continue to psychologically torture you?"
She can't help the fear in her voice. Her mind runs wild, describing worse and worse scenarios for what was going on. Slumping against the wall, her voice cracks as she begs, "Please, just come home and let me help you, Chris, please."
"Don't make me say it, Parker. I can't say it, I can't, I can't…" He swallows, shudders in revulsion. "I wouldn't be able to look at you, Wyatt, Mom, Dad, the others. The… the Elders would try to clip my wings if they ever found out."
A snarl is ripped from her throat before she can even think about it. "Like hell they will. If they even think about it, I'll make damn sure they don't walk away from that breathing."
There's a sick feeling in her stomach as she processes the first part of his sentence. Sliding down the wall, her voice does a 180 she asks softly, "Chris… what did she do to you? What are you talking about?"
He's silent for a minute that seems to stretch into eternity while his mind is racing over what to tell her without saying anything directly. When he finally does speak into the cell phone, his voice is barely audible.
"Parker, she doesn't use protection." He feels sick and ashamed telling his cousin even that much. "And I've… she's… My body—I… I can't help it, can't stop…"
"I don't…" Chewing on her bottom lip, she asks quietly, "Chris, what are you trying to tell me? I don't understand."
"I… I might have… She might be…" He breaks off again, bites back another wave of nausea. "Parker, please don't make me say it. I can't say it—I don't even know if it's true but— Don't. Please."
"You don't have to tell me," she says. "I don't understand, but you don't have to. Just… Please don't leave, come home. We can fix this, but you have to come home."
A dark, bitter laugh escapes him at that. "You can't fix this," he says. And Goddess, he doesn't want to tell her, but… "Parker… if you really don't understand…" Again, silence as he tries to find the words and fight back another wave of nausea. "…there's a… possibility she's…" No, he still can't say it—even though he apparently has to spell it out for his cousin.
She flinches when he laughs. Shaking her head stubbornly, her fingers tighten around the phone as she says, "I don't believe that. There's always a way to fix it. Chris, either come back or I'm beaming down there to find you."
"Parker, I can't. And there's no way of fixing this." He closes his eyes, sighs, lets out another short, quiet dark laugh. "Not unless you know anyone who'd be willing to potentially kill a possible unborn half-demon child."
Parker is frozen and silent. She finally says with deceptive calm, "She is not getting away with this. And I don't care if you kill me for it, I'm not sitting by."
She beams away, her entire mind focused only on making the demon bitch pay.