A/N: Hey everyone! I'm re-writing my old story, "Can't Get Enough," and this is it! I hope you guys enjoy. =)
Summary: Demons start targeting Chris for reasons unknown. Old secrets resurface and nobody is who they say they are. Nothing is real anymore and the Halliwells aren't ready for what's coming. But they won't have a choice when it concerns one of their very own.
Warnings: Cursing, sex, violence, gore, drama, lots of drama, and insanity.
Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed or anything Charmed related.
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"Fuck you!"
Piper Halliwell raced down the stairs upon hearing obscenity shouted in her house and she knew exactly whose mouth it came out of. She flung herself around the corner just in time to see her middle child throw a punch at her oldest.
She threw her hands up in surprise, in an attempt to freeze them but remembered that she didn't have the power to freeze good witches. What was even more surprising was that Wyatt didn't orb away or use any magic at all to dodge the punch. He simple stood there and allowed Chris's fist to connect with his jaw. Wyatt's head snapped to the side at an alarming angle while Chris stood there breathing hard with a bruise forming nicely on his knuckles.
"HEY!" Piper shouted, running down the last few steps and placing herself between her two boys just to make sure Chris wouldn't attack Wyatt again and that Wyatt wouldn't change his mind and retaliate. "Christopher Perry Halliwell, what are you doing?" Piper screeched in his face, seeing some of her own spit land on Chris's pale cheeks.
"Mom," Wyatt's voice came out as a whisper. "It's nothing, I deserved it."
Before Piper could say anything Chris interjected, "You're damn right you deserved it! You pretentious asshole!"
"HEY!" Piper shouted again, turning angrily on her younger son.
Chris was a mess. His usual bed head hair was even more unruly than usual. The bags under his eyes, that most teenagers possessed, seemed to have grown darker in the past day since Piper had last seen them. His clothes were rumpled and covered in soot. There were bruises forming along his jaw line, just like there was now a bruise on Wyatt's jaw. His chest was heaving and his balled up fists were shaking in rage, like he wanted nothing more than to jump Wyatt and choke him.
"I don't know what's going on but I will not have violence in this household! And if I hear one more obscenity coming out your mouth Christopher I will permanently strip you of your powers! Do I make myself clear?"
Chris's jade eyes bore into his mother's chocolate brown ones and she could see some of the rage disappear but only some. Chris grit his teeth, threw Wyatt a look that could stop demons in their tracks and orbed away.
Piper sighed angrily, closing her eyes and counting to three before turning to her oldest. Wyatt stood there with a strange calmness about him that was eerie for someone who had just gotten punched. Through the calmness though Piper could see the shame and the sadness her oldest was trying so hard to keep quiet from the world. Something she had noticed in the past couple of weeks and something that only brought on her own sadness every time she saw it.
Unlike Chris's disheveled appearance, Wyatt remained spotless minus the purpling bruise on his jaw. His curly hair remained intact and there were only small bags under his baby blue eyes. His clothes, a black t-shirt and loose jeans, looked grungy but typical of a teenager his age.
"So," Piper started with a motherly warning in her tone. "Are you going to tell me what happened?"
Wyatt sighed, barely audible, and pinched the bridge of his nose slightly; something he did when he was frustrated by something. "It's nothing, just one of those stupid fights."
"That sure didn't look like just one of those stupid fights. You must've done something to make your brother that angry."
Wyatt's face softened with regret and he opened his mouth… only to say the opposite of what Piper wanted to hear, "I said something stupid and you know Chris- touchy, touchy. That's all."
Piper was about ask Wyatt to elaborate when he added quickly, "I have a class soon Mom. I gotta go." He leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek affectionately. "Just… don't punish Chris too badly." Without waiting for his mother's response Wyatt orbed away.
Piper threw her hands up in exasperation and let out a long sigh. "Chris!" She yelled to the ceiling. "Wyatt's gone, you can come back now!"
No familiar jingling greeted the oldest Halliwell's ears and there was no blue and white lights descending from the heavens either. Chris was ignoring her. She yelled his name one more time just as the front door swung open.
"What did Chris do this time?" A high-pitched voice asked curiously from the doorway. Piper turned to see her youngest child stepping into the foyer and closing the door behind her.
"Nothing you need to worry about Melinda," Piper said. Melinda blinked at her mother before shrugging and walking over to kiss her on the cheek in greeting.
"How was school?" Piper asked as she started walking to the kitchen to make her daughter a snack.
"Fine," Melinda answered curtly. She sat down at the counter as her mother went about making food. "Prue broke up with her boyfriend," She added as an after thought.
Piper stopped rummaging through the cupboards to stare at her daughter. "Her boyfriend?" She echoed.
"Yeah. Remember Darren?"
Piper paused in remembrance before asking, "Short blond hair, green eyes?"
Melinda nodded, taking her cell phone out of her pocket to answer the text she just received.
"He was a nice boy, why did Prudence break up with him?" Piper inquired, placing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in front of Melinda.
Melinda scowled. "She read his mind and found out he was thinking about dumping her for Amanda Devito so she dumped him first. He was a jerk anyways."
"She knows better than to use her powers on people," Piper reprimanded even though the person she wanted to give this lecture to wasn't there at the moment.
Melinda just shrugged in answer before pocketing her phone and grabbing the sandwich. She took a bite before asking, "So where did Chris go?"
Piper pinched her nose, feeling a headache coming on as she thought about the situation from earlier. "I don't know, he's not answering my calls."
"Want me to call him?"
Piper gazed at her daughter. "You're not part white-lighter Melinda-"
She interrupted with a roll of her eyes, "I mean with my phone Mom. We do have these things nowadays." After a beat she added, "And I don't need to be part white-lighter to call him magically anyways."
Piper just waved at her and Melinda took her phone back out of her pocket and dialed her brother's number. She placed the phone to her ear and waited for Chris to pick up. He answered on the third ring.
"Melinda, tell Mom I just need some time to cool off and she can punish me as soon as I get back home, but I'm not going back till Wyatt's gone," Chris said as soon as he answered her call.
"Wyatt's not here Chris," She said in confusion and she heard her brother breathe a sigh of relief on the other line.
"Okay, well I'll be back later. I'm at Trey's house right now-"
Melinda cut him off, "Yeah okay, sure."
Chris picked up on her disbelief and laughed a bit. "Alright I'm smoking with Jordan right now, don't tell Mom."
"Okay, be home before dinner," Melinda smiled.
"Okay, see you later."
They both hung up at the same time and Melinda lifted her gaze to her mother's own questioning one.
"He's at Trey's right now," She answered her stare. "He said he just needs to cool off for a bit but you can punish him when he gets home."
Piper grumbled under her breath about disobedient children before walking out of the kitchen. Melinda smiled at her mother's retreating back before going back to finish her peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
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Chris sat on the swing Jordan still had attached to her tree. His cigarette was held low and smoke wafted up through the air to settle in his face. He probably would've noticed it if he hadn't been too busy kissing his girlfriend. Jordan was bent down and her long, chocolate brown hair shielded their kiss from pedestrians walking by. Chris's free hand was tangled in her brown locks as he pulled her closer to deepen the kiss. She tasted of nicotine and coffee. She moaned into his mouth as the kiss became more intimate and just when Chris was about to lose himself in it she pulled back, her hair tickling his nose.
He was about to protest but she merely smiled and said, "Your cigarette." Chris looked down to see it was burning up quickly. The kiss must have had been longer than he thought. He raised it to his lips and took a long drag on it. His whole body relaxed and he lightly blew smoke into Jordan's face. Most people would've been disgusted by it but because she smoked too so she didn't mind as much. She grabbed the cigarette and took her own drag before blowing smoke into Chris's face in retaliation. She smiled playfully at him and threw the cigarette to the ground and crushed it with the tip of her boot.
He grabbed her by the hand and dragged her over to sit on his lap. The old tree creaked in protest but it held their combined weight on the swing. She leaned against his chest and said, "Remind me to pick that up later."
"Alright," He said. They sat comfortably together as Chris lightly swung them back and forth. The only sounds heard were the tree creaking and the traffic of the outside world. It was a nice autumn evening and the air was crisp with freshly fallen leaves and mowed grass. It wasn't too cold either, it was just right.
"So what happened?" Jordan asked, turning her head slightly so that her cobalt blue eyes were locked with Chris's green ones.
Chris held back the sigh that was threatening to escape his lips and answered, "Nothing important."
Jordan let out a bark of disbelief and a teasing grin adorned her round face. "C'mon Chris you only ever come here unannounced when something is upsetting you and lately that something has been your family. So just tell me already, you know how impatient I am."
Chris leaned further down, burying his face into her silky hair and smiled into it. His girlfriend was the nosiest person, even more so than his mom and aunts. He lifted his mouth slightly to speak coherently. "It's nothing, just had another fight with Wyatt."
"About hunting?" Jordan inquired. Chris nodded.
Jordan let out a sigh and without warning hopped off Chris's lap and taking her warmth with her. Chris reached for her hand to pull her back down but she instead grasped his to haul him to his feet. He allowed her to drag him off the only slightly comfortable swing and into her house through the glass doors that led to the backyard. She closed them silently behind her and waved at him in indication to follow her. He expected Jordan to lead him to her bedroom but instead she led him to the living room.
He liked Jordan's house, more so than his own even though it was much smaller compared to the manor. It always contained over-stuffed furniture that made the air a little stuffy but not unbearable. It was always a mess too but it didn't look out of place. It made it feel very homey and lived in. He loved when he went to her house rather than her coming to his. His was too neat, with his neat freak of a mother always cleaning shit, and it looked alien and uninviting.
Jordan crossed the room and decided to sit on a couch that looked like it had once been neon orange until someone had personally burned most of the orange off to leave a mixture of brown and dark orange left. She patted the cushion next to hers and Chris grudgingly sat next to her, knowing what would come next.
"Do you want to have sex?"
Okay he wasn't expecting that.
He stumbled over his words and was making odd noises instead of answering her question. Jordan sat there with an eyebrow raised as if the question asked wasn't totally out of the blue or anything. Her chocolate brown hair had cascaded over her shoulders and rested on her breasts. Her defiant blue eyes were looking bored and amused at the same time and her pink, plush lips were quivering as if she was trying very hard not to laugh. Her freckles stood out against the starkness of her pale face and made her appear younger than she was. She was tiny too with a height of 5'4'' compared to Chris's 5'8'' but he never thought of her as shorter than him. Her personality made her seem 7 feet tall.
Finally Chris blubbered, "What?"
Jordan's mouth lifted into a smirk and she reiterated, "Do you want to have sex?"
Chris decided to proceed with caution. His years of dating teenage girls had helped him come to grips with the fact that all girls were tricky and fucking nuts. "Why are you offering me sex?"
"Because I want to help you feel better." She shrugged nonchalantly.
Chris blurted out, "You never want to have sex though!" His face turned red as soon as the words came out of his mouth and he tried his best not to look embarrassed.
Jordan's face remained bored and uninterested for a long ten seconds before she burst out in laughter, doubling over from her laughing fit. Chris tried to get angry about her laughing at him but all he could feel was reddening embarrassment that was making its way to his ears. He was about to say something but she beat him to it, "You're a fucking idiot."
"Huh?" Chris said.
Jordan was hastily wiping away the tears from her eyes and was trying to seize control of her slowly dying laughter. Once she composed herself, she grinned and said, "I like to have sex Chris. I just didn't tell you cause then that would be all you wanted to do."
Chris look puzzled by the piece of new information Jordan gave him. "So all those times when we decided to do it and you would sigh and say, "Oh whatever," you actually wanted to do it?"
Jordan paused in consideration before nodding her head and saying, "Yeah pretty much."
"Girls are fucking nuts," He mumbled, a little bit miffed.
Jordan grinned devishly, "I wouldn't say nuts… more like devious."
Chris shook his head in exasperation but couldn't help but let a small smile slip onto his face. Jordan shifted closer to him, placing a hand on his thigh and let the question that hadn't been answered in the first place hang between them.
Chris was tempted, so fucking tempted just to say yes but he was still in such an awful mood that he couldn't bring himself to say it. So instead of saying the words his manhood was desperately screaming at him to say he said the words his battered soul urged him to speak. "Nah, not today."
Jordan's eyes flashed disappointment for a quick second before replacing it with sympathy. She leaned forward to give him a fleeting kiss and have her hand linger on his cheek, "Okay… but do you want to tell me what happened?"
Chris locked his gazes with her and could see nothing but concern and love in his girlfriend's eyes. It hadn't always been like this between them though. At first things had been fine and perfectly suitable for a high school relationship and they were happy to be together… but they weren't in love. They both figured that they would never truly fall in love with one another but they enjoyed each other's company enough to be together for a while.
Chris was the first to fall. He had realized that his feelings for her had begun to change somewhere around the ending of their first five months together. And he realized it had developed into love when they had been at the park together goofing off. She had fallen off the swing and he had run to her side to help her up but instead she kicked his legs out and he toppled down next to her. She had crawled on top of him while he was still stunned and kissed him like there was no tomorrow. After they had finished their make out session she admitted that she twisted her ankle when she fell and Chris had burst out into laughter that didn't subside for quite a while and in his fit of laughter he had realized he loved Jordan. That he had fallen in love with a girl he had no intention of falling for in the first place and it didn't feel wrong like he thought it would. It felt right and he felt good.
Being in love looked good on him. He had visibly brightened and even his not so observant father noticed his change and just flashed him a knowing smile from time to time.
He had never felt so sure of himself than he had in those couple months of acknowledging his new feelings. Then came the day he told Jordan how he felt and he expected her to be happy, to be elated that one of them had finally said it but instead she had looked at him with sadness, a sadness that she didn't want to explain. That week remains a blur to him; he can't remember what happened that week even if his life depended on it. The only thing he knew was that he lost a significant amount of weight in the span of a week. Then one night around midnight or so Jordan had called him and told him she felt the same. He never asked her what had changed her mind or why she hadn't accepted it in the first place. He didn't want to know why he was just glad it was real and that they were finally real. They weren't just that high school couple that would eventually break up after a couple of months of dating, they were in love. And maybe one day in the future they would break it off but at that moment it seemed like there was no end and no future, there was just the moment. That beautiful fucking moment of just being with her.
Then came the day when he told her. The big secret, the one he was absolutely told not to share with any of his friends and especially his girlfriend. The secret that could destroy his family in one fatal swoop and he didn't even test-drive it. He didn't use a Truth Spell or anything of the sort. He didn't want to use magic on Jordan; he couldn't so he just told her about himself and his family. After he had finished explaining everything she kind of just looked at him as if really seeing him for the first time. She didn't call him crazy and she didn't accept him. She just sort of nodded her head and reached for a cigarette. He thought that she didn't believe him so he orbed right there in front of her and he remembers how her cigarette had dropped out of her mouth and hit the floor with a dull thud. He remembers the way she said, "Dear god," and he remembers the way she had stayed still for a good half and hour just staring at him with wide, blue eyes before slapping on an uneasy smile and saying, "Who would've thought that the rebellious teenage girl would be dating an angel? I feel like this is already a bad, romance novel." He had laughed at that and she had laughed too but for weeks after that she had looked at him with cautious eyes and uncertainty. It put a strain on their relationship and even though things were a bit shaky she never breathed a word about his secret to anyone and she never asked about it either. Never wondered about his powers or questioned them, she seemed to want to forget the whole thing entirely. And he let her. He didn't push her or force his magic on her. He let her pretend it never happened and she had completely taken him by surprise when a couple of months later she asked about magic. A weight had seemed to lift off his chest, a weight he hadn't noticed before, and their relationship had exceeded all expectations. She had finally accepted all of him and was still there. Throughout everything she had never left him. And now here she was concerned about his fight with Wyatt over demon hunting.
He looked at her thoughtfully and let a small smile slip. He shook his head once and said, "It's stupid and I overreacted a bit."
Jordan blinked. "But I've been told that only girls overreact about things. Has your gender been wrong this entire time?"
"Shut up," Chris laughed and Jordan smirked. She kissed him lightly and asked, "Are you sure everything's okay though?"
Chris kissed her in response.
"CHRIS!"
Chris pulled sharply away from Jordan as he heard the frantic cry of his name. His mother had been calling for him for the past hour, despite Melinda's efforts, but he had put her on mute. This call came from Melinda herself and he could tell it wasn't his mother trying to trick him to come home through Melinda. Melinda was in trouble. She was frightened.
"I gotta go," Chris said quickly to Jordan. She looked confused for a moment before nodding her head in understanding. There was no time to kiss Jordan goodbye. He let the blue and white lights engulf him and send him towards his sister's crying voice.
When Chris rematerialized small hands immediately shoved him to the floor. He heard the sound of a fireball whizzing above where he had been moments before. He looked up to two demons walking menacingly forward with fireballs in each hand. He flung his hand forward and the demons flew into a cabinet with a mangled cry.
He turned towards the person who had pushed him to the ground. His jade eyes met wild brown ones. Melinda was sitting there shaking from head to toe. The end of her hair was singed and soot coated her face. Her jeans were caked with blood but he wasn't sure if it was hers or the demons. She looked like a trapped and terrified animal and it nearly broke him seeing his younger sister like this.
He was about to ask her where the demons came from but Melinda spoke first.
"Chris, m-mom." She pointed a shaking finger to the slumped figure on the floor. Chris's heart stopped.
His mother was lying in a heap in the middle of the floor. She was unmoving with several daggers protruding from her stomach and legs. Blood dripped down the sides of her clothes, staining them.
"MOM!" Chris shouted, springing to his feet. A fireball barely missed him as he stood. The demons he had sent flying were up again, grunting and looking more menacing than before. One of them was holding an athame with weird inscriptions carved into the blade. He smiled and showed off his sharp teeth.
"She'll be dead soon," One of them cackled.
Rage and fear filled Chris up. His stomach churned and he wanted to retch but he stood his ground and snarled, "I'll fucking kill you first!" His rage won out against his fear as it coiled in his veins, like searing metal. Electricity bounced around in the tips of his fingers and with a furious shout it ignited. Lighting sprung from his fingertips and shot towards the one who had made the comment. His eyes grew wide and he ducked but not soon enough. It hit him in the shoulder and he screamed. Blood gushed out of charcoaled skin and pain-filled screeches pierced the air.
Chris stared amazedly at his hands and saw Melinda looking at him with the same expression. Chris looked up quickly, trying to focus on the battle rather than him developing a new power; a new draining power. He felt depleted.
His energy was tapped. Whatever weird burst he had before left him drained afterwards. He felt like passing out.
"Chris!" He barely heard the frantic cry in his light-headed state and only had time to widen his eyes in terror before the athame plunged into his abdomen. He heard Melinda's scream as if he were at a distance. He gazed down at his white t-shirt that was now turning a brilliant shade of red. He tried to say something but only the taste of iron came. He coughed and blood spattered the demons hand. The demon was still gripping the athame tightly and a wide, sadistic smile was on its face. With a jerk of his hand, the demon twisted the athame inside Chris's gut. Chris screamed and desperately flung out his hand. It sent the demon flying but only backwards a few feet.
Chris fell to his knees and saw Melinda running towards him crying out his name over and over. She was cupping his face and talking but the words came out in gibberish to him. Fresh tears were falling from her eyes and she kept talking. It looked like she was asking something but Chris couldn't make it out. If only she would slow down. If only he wasn't so dizzy. If only his vocal cords were working. If only he weren't in so much pain. If only.
The demon he had flung was behind Melinda now, with a fireball in his hand. His eyes wild, just like Melinda's had been minutes ago. Chris opened his mouth to warn Melinda but only more blood came out. He tried to raise his hand, to save Melinda but he couldn't. Tears were falling from his own eyes now as he tried desperately to raise his hand. He had to. He had to save his sister.
The demon raised its hand, ready to send the fireball at Melinda and just as it was about to release it, it burst into flames with a cry. Melinda whipped around at the sound and stared at the newcomer.
Wyatt stood there, breathing heavily, fury making his usual cerulean orbs look red. The other demon was nowhere in site, probably had run off after Chris had injured it. Wyatt ran forward, speaking quickly with Melinda but Chris heard no words. He fell to the ground and lay there as the world darkened. He tried to breathe but only choked on his own blood. Even though he was dying a horrible death he somehow felt peaceful. He felt at ease with his thoughts even if the physical pain was tormenting. He just wanted it to end. It was the one real thought he had grasped onto and didn't let go. He just wanted it to end and that thought had comforted him for some strange reason. Because either way, whether Wyatt saved him or he died, it was going to end. And that helped him ignore the pain while his senses dulled and the world darkened.
Chris gasped. He sat straight up, coughing hard. Blood splattered the floor in small droplets while he tried to breathe again. His vision was swimming but slowly came into focus as his coughs receded.
He looked up to Wyatt who stared at him with intense worry and a bit of guilt. Anger filled him at the sight of his older brother but he quickly pushed it back down. Now was not the time to be angry.
"Mom," Chris breathed, looking over to the spot his mother had been. She was no longer there and his heart dropped.
"I'm right here honey," A soft voice spoke. Chris snapped his head towards the sound of it and saw his mother sitting next to him without a scratch. The bloody daggers laid a few feet away. Chris felt sick looking at them. He saw his mother lying on the ground with those daggers sticking out of her like a magic act gone wrong. He didn't want to think about it.
Tears sprung into Chris's eyes and he angrily wiped at them. He didn't want to cry in front of his family. He had already done it in front of Melinda; he didn't need to show them his weakness anymore. He had to be strong.
"You're okay," Chris said lamely and Piper nodded with a small smile but it turned sad when she said, "We almost lost you."
"What?"
Chris could've sworn he only out of it for a minute. Had it been longer than that? Had the stab from the demon been more fatal than he assumed? Sure it had hurt like fucking hell but he didn't think it had been a fatal hit.
"It took a long time for Wyatt to heal you… w-we thought you were dead," Melinda stuttered from behind Piper. She had been hiding behind her mother to conceal her tears and shaking. Chris crawled closer to Melinda, not trusting himself to stand up, and pulled her in tight for a hug. Melinda responded to it by wrapping her own, skinny arms tightly around his neck. She cried into his blood-soaked shirt and he let her stay like that for a minute or so before pulling away to wipe at her tears. "I'm okay, I'm not going anywhere." He flashed her a reassuring smile and she nodded in response, her lips still drawn into a quivering frown.
"What happened?" Chris turned around at Wyatt's question directed towards their mother. Not a hair was out of place on Wyatt, there was blood on his hands but it wasn't his own. It either belonged to one of the demons, Piper, Melinda, or Chris.
"I was in the attic looking for something when the demons shimmered in. They took my by surprise and one threw a bunch of daggers at me. I was too surprise to freeze them," Piper explained growing angrier with each word. "I blacked out when Melinda came running in."
Wyatt turned towards Melinda in expectation. Melinda hastily wiped away her tears and tried to calm her shaking voice. "One hit me with a fireball when I came running in. I went down for a second and the other one threw one but it missed, singed my hair a bit though. I froze them quickly and called out for Chris."
"He… he shot lighting out of his hands," Melinda said.
Piper and Wyatt turned towards Chris in shock and Chris shrugged nonchalantly.
"What?" He finally asked, annoyed by their stares.
"That's an elder power," Wyatt stated. Chris only rolled his eyes and said, "Well I was conceived when Dad was an elder so naturally I would gain an elder power eventually. No need to act so surprised by it Wy. You're not the only one with good powers."
Wyatt sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked as if he wanted to say something to that but Melinda spoke up, "When the demon stabbed Chris the athame glowed."
Chris looked at Melinda. "It glowed?" She nodded her head and bit her lower lip, a nervous habit she always had.
"What does that mean?" Chris asked Piper. His mother blanched at the news and after a few moments of silence said, "I don't know."
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A/N: I hope you enjoyed. =)