Title: Seeing and Recognizing the Whitelighter
Canon: Charmed
Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed.
Genre: Drama/Supernatural
Characters: Chris, Victor, etc…
Pairing: Chris/Bianca, Piper/Leo, and Victor/Patti mentions…
Timeline: Au around Chris-Crossed.
Summary: Victor Bennett does not hang around the magical gossip. But the moment he sees the havoc-causing whitelighter, he knows it is in the genes. A little incident with the sneezles catches Phoebe a hint of wonder.
He was completely normal, 100 percent. There was no magic in his veins like there was in his daughters' and he spent his time on work or worrying about what the girls were up to. Yes, Victor Bennett was a plain old mortal who had fallen in love with a Halliwell woman and never got his heart back.
He mused on his past as he did with all of his free time and looked at some of the pictures of his blond and blue-eyed grandson on one of the side tables to the left of the couch. The television was turned on to a news channel but he heard none of it. He'd loved Patti Halliwell, still did if he admitted it to himself.
Penny, her mother, had effectively 'chased him away.' He closed his eyes, shook his head, and wished again that he'd never let her do something like that. Penny had been somewhat of the tyrant even in their marriage, and he sighed as he reminded himself that the magic had bound the Halliwell family together for generations. The walls weren't about to open now.
The night sky is dark with the stars invisible with the city lights. Helicopter flies by his flat in San Francisco and he tells himself that he'll go visit his grandchild in the morning. Wyatt's growing up and he hardly sees the young boy hardly a year old.
And he curses himself for leaving that Manor once upon a time.
And he closes his eyes and tells himself that there is no one in his flat with him. Victor Bennett is 100 percent normal. And he tastes the salty wet of lies on his tongue as he sleeps to a picture of his dead ex wife.
Phoebe Halliwell finishes the old photo album. Its purple frame is only slightly lighter than it had been originally. Unconsciously, her hand slips down the cover to feel the leathery texture of the well-worn cover. The photo album isn't very old, but it's full to bursting with some of the better pictures taken of the original three Charmed sisters. It feels sort of like the Book of Shadows, its texture touched by generations of the witches' lines and a few of the enemies'.
Shadows from her past buzz around in her mind and she pulls the blanket around her and sets the album down on the table as a chill brushes through the open window in the attack. She doesn't have time to put her hands to her face as an attack of the sneezles comes to her with great force.
Achoo.
Achoo.
Achoo, achoo, achoo, achoo.
She gets her hands against her face and holds her breath. A shudder makes its way up her spine as Phoebe holds her breath in an attempt to stop the sternutations running through her. The middle daughter in the house could not even gasp as suddenly there were arms touching her, hands on her shoulder.
She jumps up and prepares a good kick but fakes with a punch. With a gasp she realizes, only as the young man falters back, that it's not an attack. It was their witch/white lighter from the future.
"Oh, Chris, I'm so sorry!" she jumps up
"It's okay, it's okay," he says quickly. He's rubbing is jaw now from the impact. He's taught me well, Phoebe thinks, almost as much as Cole did. And then she shuts those thoughts down because anything related to her ex is sore.
She's up and ready to help, but what can she really do? "I'm sorry. It's jus that you scared me and-" She quickly falls into a tangent before he cuts it off.
"It's nothing, Phoebe, really. I got away from most of the brunt of it. It's okay." He assures. And then he orbs away before she can say anything against it.
She's a little shocked to be honest, and lays the quilt on the couch to leave for bed. She yawns. Before she's fully to the door, it hits her that she no longer has the need for convulsing the air from her lungs. Phoebe feels no breeze and turns to the window. He must have closed it when I got a case of the sneezles, she thinks before leaving for a nap.
And she flinches when she finally opens her hand from a fist. Her knuckles are burning.
Phoebe Halliwell closes the door behind her as she makes her way down the staircase. And behind her, the violet shade closes on the window, blocking out most of the lights from across the street. But no one alive is in the attic.Its Friday. Nearly 5pm and P3 is full. The night club toasts to a birthday and a group of friends dance to the music. The band Fighting The Man finishes a last song and then cleans up their stuff. Their gig is over for the night but its likely they will stick around for some fun. They're welcome to it, but, Phoebe muses, it's already getting packed.
Karaoke is going to start, and that's never found in the beginning. It's embarressing for the first few people. The first few songs are always kinda iffy while it's fun later on. She's dressed in a long navy blue dress and sits at the bar, dateless, but still managing to have fun. Paige is next to her and they're chatting about one of the guys who just winked at the youngest Halliwell sister. Paige, Phoebe knows, is a wild child. Much like I was, she muses, before Grams died and we got our inheritance.
Honestly, the seer hopes Paige will have some fun. She's been kinda anti-male and super-witch lately. I actually saw her making a joke around Chris that the young man understood, she thinks back.
Speaking of Chris, Phoebe moves her head to across the bar where the brunette young man is frowning off into space with a light beer in his hands. Paige had actually tried to get him drunk to spill what he was thinking, but he apparently had a very big intake level before he could be declared drunk.
Piper comes over with a drink in her hand and the apron begins to slip from her person as she unknots it with one hand like a professional. She's smirking.
"Do I want to know what that's for?" Paige asks speculatively as she gives a small smirk of her own. The smirk turns evil, and the glint in her eyes manipulative.
"Well, I went to talk to Chris about that little incident last night," she begins and Phoebe rolls her eyes. Honestly, she's the one that should be sorry. She flexes her fingers again and winces from the pain still present in the bones. "And since he wasn't going to tell me anything more than 'just checking on a charge' I twisted his fingers." The tone of her voice is light like that of the club and Phoebe thinks, I wonder if it's a spell, because the whole club seems to be happy and their anger at Chris for keeping certain secrets has all but faded away for a moment.
Phoebe's grinning at him now as he comes over. His face is as blank as ever but there is a tilt to his shoulder as he strides over with defined steps. Those in his way seem to part for him without even noticing him. Looks like Chris has an admirer, she muses as one lively looking blonde turns from a conversation to admire his backside and view his profile with a little hint of lust in her eyes. Damn, he's a charmer, she thinks, and doesn't even ask herself why she doesn't see him that way. Pheobe tries not to wonder how old he really is. He wouldn't tell them anyways.
He steps slightly in between Phoebe and Paige and glares at Piper. "Why, exactly, am I doing this?" he asks her.
"Because Im letting you stay in the back room and you have a guitar already?" Piper retorts mockingly.
The cheer around the club goes round as a server advertises that the karaoke is going to start up in a few minutes and Chris lets out a small groan. "I hate you," he says, but its not that menacing really. He's like a teenager ordered around by his mother, she thinks as she looks from Chris to Piper with a smile.
"You outmanouvered the manipulator?" Paige asks, a pleased grin for her sister moves on to the white lighter/witch mockingly. The tall man pushes himself gently and mumbles something suspiciously like 'the student has still surpased the teacher' before moving with his lanky form towards the stage.
"What was that, young man?" Piper asks, and Paige keeps a snort from coming out of her mouth. Chris rolls his eyes at the older sister and strides confidently up, pulling his guitar with him. It's only when he gets to the stool does Pheobe see it. It's a dark brown of lacquered cherry with the right number of strings. I don't know why I thought it would be different, she thinks. A crink in her eyebrows appears for a second, but I guess he could have gotten it here.
Phoebe is about to turn to her older sister and mockingly bug her about how easy that sounded coming from her, but she's distracted by another large man coming towards them. "Hey dad!" she greets. He gets to them and pulls her and Piper into a hug, and then Paige, who seems shocked for a moment before shrugging and going with the flow. "Hey Victor."
"Hey girls." He smiles at each of them, and Phoebe admires how well he actually gets along with Paige. Piper begins to tell them how she got Chris to do this and gets giggles from Phoebe and Paige.
"Who is Chris?" Victor asks, his head titled slightly, and Pheobe only realizes now that he has no idea what's been going on in the magical side of things. Piper quickly feels him in and Victor is still frowning at him. "And you trust him?" he asks incredulously. Suddenly they feel as if they're little children being scolded for talking to someone they don't know. 'Stranger danger' they were always told in school.
Before they can say anything though, Adair, P3's female music DJ steps on stage to introduce the use of Karaoke/Personal Singing to the night club visitors. There is a small cheer and then a quick explanation. Basically, it's time for the traditional set of Karaoke and a few songs by people who sing from memory, and then some without a use of a television.
The first song, played by one 'Christopher, just Chris' is going to be a single. He's going to sing a song and play his guitar but there is not going to be anything else. They don't know exactly what it is he is playing, but it's going to be slow. Most of the lights turn off and the stage lights dim. A few people sit and a few people stand, taking a partner along with them.
The young man on the stool is half way in the dark alone in the middle of the stage.
"That's quite a shinner" Victor says aloud to himself. Phoebe looks at him. What? She wants to ask, but is distracted by the use of the music.
The tune begins. It's promising but Phoebe doesn't recognize it. She can tell no one else does either.
"The strands in your eyes
That color them wonderful"
He has a wonderful voice, Phoebe concludes to herself, surprised despite herself. It occurs to her and her sisters that they really know nothing about their new angel watcher.
"Stop me and steal my breath
Emeralds from mountains"
Itappears that they are not the only ones not to recognize the song, but many couples are enjoying it already. The lyrics, though, seem sad, as if they're longing for something no one else can see, something in a whole different world. Maybe he is, Phoebe thinks to herself.
"Thrust towards the sky
Never revealing their depth"
She has her head against her hand as she watches the young man sing as if his heart lies in his words. His eyes are closed and his head is tilted to the side. Usually his face is blank and they cannot tell differently with the light so dark around him, and people blocking part of their view.
"Tell me that we belong together
Dress it up with the trappings of love"
Wow, Victor thinks to himself. He doesn't know who Chris is but knows he is close somewhat to the girls, or at least in the world he has no clue about. He is somewhat in awe that a young man he can see vaguely has the guts to go and sit up on stage and sing so calmly; his fingers even seemed to float over the dark guitar as if he was totally alone.
"I'll be captivated,
I'll hang from your lips"
His breath seems to catch in his lungs for a moment when he sees her. The clothing is kind of dark and gothic, the makeup something to make parents scream. She looks young, maybe only a few years of adulthood accounted for. Her hair is a dirty red with a couple highlights of near-black. She's not Caucasian, he notices. She's about average height. She's beautiful.
But that's not what he was really looking at.
The crowd around her didn't affect her. People passed through her randomly. She wasn't quite solid. The woman had a translucent effect to her. The mirror balls around the club flickered around slightly and made no change to her. But Victor could see the singer singing occasionally.
And he was staring right at her. Victor denied himself the knowledge, told himself that it was nothing-that the young man was just looking around at the people dancing to his tune. But he could not lie long. The mirror balls flickered and a few pieces of light shone down on the wounded young man.
"Instead of the gallows
Of heartache that hang from above"
The lady moved now, across the room. The singer's eyes followed her movement, though Victor only knew this ebcause he too could see her and he was paying careful attention to the small flourescant cascades of feedback from the lights to the rounded ball, and down the man his daughter's knew.
He didn't hear much more of the music after that. Instead he was staring after the ghost no one else could see and trying to make himself breathe.
"Geeze, if I knew he sung that well I would have got him up earlier. The whole point of this was to embarress him," she said as the song ended.
When he caught up with himself, the lights were back on for a moment as the young man bowed his head seemingly emabarressed at the display as people clapped and whooped for another to do so well. Chris made his way to Piper and her sisters.
"There. I did it. And you can't make me do it again." He said to the club owner with a pleased tilt to his lips but a defenite pink in his cheeks that told them how shy he was with this.
Tossing her head to the side, Piper made her way to one of the servers who needed help and left her sisters to the meet-and-greet. Paige was staring at the fellow witch/white lighter trying to ask with her eyes why he didn't tell them. Phoebe knew he wouldn't let himself look at her and get wrapped around another 'future consequences' rant.
A suitor has already picked Paige out to the dance floor, and Phoebe is soon visited by a man of her own before they can be introduced. He hasn't said a word yet. Victor is just staring at the young man that the girls seem wrapped around. He wonders where Leo is but reminds himself that Wyatt's probably with him right now.
Chris has brown eyes and clear skin. But beneath the glamour there are a few light scars, a dark bruise that looks like the remains of a good punch, a small pair of burns on his neck that seem to be healing. But most of all there are blue eyes.
Why do you hide them? He wants to ask. Are you who I think you are? What are you doing here? Are you okay? Victor wants to ask a whole lot of questions but hides them beneath his mask of short kindness. His disbelief is to great. If he asks any of them he's afraid what else will come out.
So instead when the girls are gone he stares hard at the young man. "Do they…?" he begins to ask before letting it fade away.
"No," Chris says. It's soft and quiet, but that's only the sound. The tone is sad and pained, filled with old hurts, regrets and other things he cannot pick up. But Victor knows the conviction behind it.
"So," he begins with a grin of his own, a pride in his eyes, "Is it really Chris?" He asks, sharing some kind of secret.
The young man rolls his eyes with a grin, slowly making a round of eyes around them. No one is listening or there to hear anything he needs to keep hidden. This is someone special though. Victor, he reminds himself of the name, he wont tell anyone. "Christopher Victor," he says with a small smirk slipping into his tone for only a second.
"Is it bad?" Victor winces inside. If this young man that looks so much like Piper and Patti is in the past, it better be.
"Yeah," Chris breathes out. It's not really a full word, but a breath. Victor looks down at his own light beer, "and you know I can't say anything," he hears.
"But you'll be careful?" Victor asks, concerned, more concerned than Piper has been to him in this time.
He laughs slightly under his breath and just looks up at him with a come, on, sliding across his face. Victor rolls his eyes with a sigh. Figures.
"But really though, be careful." Victor urges, now serious.
"Am I ever anything but?" he asks back playfully, something Victor recognizes as both Piper's and Prue's.
"I sure hope so," Victor says, with the same tone. A long look passes between them.
Chris turns to his bottle; it's almost empty so he downs the rest. It's tasteless to him. He nods his head. "Have a good night," his lips twitch as if about to add something to it but he holds it down. Victor nods back and raises his glass as a polite goodnight.
The young man leaves slowly, a guitar in his hands and he doesn't look back. His stride his forward; he is full pf pride and protection for his family, love surpressed so that he might stop something. But still, there is something so heavy on his shoulders, and he wonders where Wyatt is, where their mother is. Victor wonders but tries to keep it off his mind. He worries too much as it is.
As his grandson leaves the club, Victor notices how he follows the ghost out of the view of the normal people. And he is so proud.
End of part 3/3. END I tell you. don't ask for more.
Okay, It took me forever to do this piece. I had it all planned out but it turned out differently. I didn't do to good of a job with splitting Victor's and Phoebe's views but I think it is sort of able to split it. 'kay? Ok. Good.