Title: Alone, In the Woods
Author: KatiKat
Disclaimer: I own nothing and this is just for fun.
Fandom: Charmed
Genre: Gen, future!fic
Warnings: None
Characters: Chris, Wyatt
Words: 2500
Summary: Chris is all alone, until Wyatt finds him.
Notes: My big thank you to my darling Tai for the beta:)
Notes2: I really had to write something Charmed related again. So I started typing without any idea or plot at all and this came out.
The woods are quiet around the cottage, only the chirping of birds and the whisper of leaves in the summer breeze break the silence. It's early morning, the sun only now climbs over the horizon and the forest is still veiled in a curtain of mist.
Chris loves the silence, loves the solitude. He doesn't remember the last time he talked, really talked to another person. The nearest town is many miles away and not even the hikers go this far into the mountains. Chris has built this cabin himself, using his own two hands and as little magic as possible. He doesn't want anybody to find him, especially not his family. He is not exactly afraid of them, more like unsure. He doesn't want them to see what he has become.
The water boils in the pot on the wood stove. Chris pours it into his cup and soon, the small cabin is filled with the rich aroma of hot coffee. The box is almost empty and Chris reminds himself that he must go shopping soon. He hates it though. The magical cloak he needs to use drains him of energy and leaves him empty for days. And then there are the people who tear him apart with their thoughts and emotions without even knowing it.
Chris encircles the chipped cup with both hands. It's hot and the morning is warm but he still shivers. He looks down at his hands and follows the black-blue veins that stand out starkly to where they disappear under the cuffs of his plain flannel shirt. The veins look like an ugly tattoo that rises from under his skin. They don't hurt much anymore, these small reminders of that fateful day that lies years in the past now.
The incident is still more vivid in his memory than he likes. He remembers clearly the moment when the Demon Lord took him hostage and used his body as a vessel for his own incorporeal form. It should have been a day like any other in the school of magic but one spell gone wrong was enough to tear down the barrier between the human world and the Underworld. The screeching sound that filled the halls of the school as the demons rushed out of the tear in reality still haunts him in his sleep. The demons that lost their physical form when they were banished used the children as shells, pouring into them... And the most powerful of them, their Lord, chose the most powerful child around - Chris.
Chris shudders again and the hot coffee almost splashes onto his hands. The Demon Lord pushed him aside in his own body, tore the synapses in his brain wide open to use all the power a Halliwell could supply... But Chris was - is - still grateful. Grateful that Wyatt wasn't there, that Chris' older brother decided to play hooky and ditch school for the day, saying that the summoning spells that they should have learned in class that day were boring. Chris was grateful that the Demon Lord entered him and Wyatt escaped unscathed.
The teachers, the Masters, locked the school down. None of the demons escaped. The lesser demons were easy to banish and exorcise, a couple of Chris' classmates died anyway though. He never found out how many. He never asked. He felt them die, all of them and their deaths battered his torn mind even more for they enraged the Demon Lord that possessed Chris. Yes, the others were easy to get rid off. But Chris...
They caught him, the teachers and the Charmed ones, they imprisoned him, chained him to the wall with silver chains that burned his body and left scars that never healed no matter how much Leo tried to erase them. They investigated and poured over old, dust covered tomes in the school's library to find out how to exorcise a being as powerful as the Demon Lord. But there was nothing, no way to get rid of the demon without damaging the vessel that contained him. And then, the Demon Lord broke loose and they ran out of time.
And Chris was there, the whole time, listening to his parents and aunts talking about what they would do, what concoctions they would use, what spells. He listened as they listed the possible damage each of them might cause - brain damage, heart damage, the complete eradication of magical powers were just some of them. Chris was so scared, so terribly frightened.
In the end, they rid him of the Demon Lord but the price was high and not even Leo with his mighty healing powers could heal what they had done. Chris didn't blame them - he still doesn't - because he knew they didn't have a choice but...
His hands shake so badly that the coffee scalds his fingers and tears him out of his reverie - out of his nightmare. He rakes his fingers through his hair to calm down, messing it up even more. He knows that he must look disheveled but there are no mirrors in the cabin... Chris saw his own reflection only once after they banished the demon. What he saw made him cringe with horror - skin black and blue with stark veins, eyes yellow, hair that silvered with fear. Chris knows he looks like a monster from a bad horror movie and he doesn't have to see more.
Opening the plain door, Chris steps onto the small porch in front of the house and sits down on the steps that lead down to a tiny clearing where the grass still glitters with morning dew. He sips his coffee, then closes his eyes and turns his face into the sun. Maybe he could go down to the creek today and talk with the water nymph again. She seemed lonely enough to welcome even the company of someone like him.
There is a rustle in the trees and his head snaps around so quickly that he almost suffers whiplash. There, in the shadows among the trees, a figure stands motionless. Chris' heart freezes in his chest for the span of two heartbeats, then it runs wild because he recognizes the person, he would recognize him anywhere because there has never been anyone Chris felt closer to, no-one Chris misses more in his self-appointed seclusion.
"Wyatt..." he croaks quietly, his voice not used to talking anymore.
The blond man steps into the clearing, tall and proud, but his steps are strangely hesitant. He comes closer and Chris notices how much he changed in the span of merely a couple of years. His shoulders are broader, he's gotten taller too. But it's his eyes… they tell a tale of pain and suffering. They look... broken.
Wyatt stops in front of Chris who thinks of fleeing but can't move. "Hey, little brother," Wyatt says softly, as if afraid of spooking a wild animal. Maybe he is afraid of Chris simply orbing away, disappearing once again.
Chris holds the cup so tightly that he is surprised it hasn't broken yet. He lowers his gaze to the small ripples that mar the surface of the black liquid in his cup. "Hey," he answers but it's barely audible.
Wyatt shuffles his booted feet and stuffs his hands into the front pockets of his black jeans as if he doesn't know what to do with them. "You are hard to find these days," he remarks trying for small talk.
Chris still doesn't look at him but shrugs. "How did you find me then?" He needs to know because obviously, he slipped up somewhere.
This time it's Wyatt who shrugs. "After scrying for you for years, I figured we were going at it the wrong way," he explains. "It was obvious you were shielding yourself somehow so instead of scrying for you, I tried to scry for places where there was nothing at all, no life. For places that were cloaked."
The younger man nods. "There must have been dozens of them," he mumbles.
Wyatt chuckles. "You have no idea. Three hundred and twenty-seven to be exact. I tried them all, one after the other. It took me months but... here I am."
"Here you are," Chris agrees, still not looking up. An uncomfortable silence settles over them. In the end, Chris clears his throat. "Does mum... Did you tell anybody else?"
Wyatt shakes his head. "No. Nobody knows. I thought... I thought I would come alone. To visit," he adds quickly. "I'm not... I'm not here to take you back or to try and convince you to return home with me," he assures his brother and this time, Chris does raise his head. Wyatt waves his hand. "I know that you have some... problems. I've spent the past few years learning how to shield myself, my mind and my thoughts. So they wouldn't hurt you."
Chris blinks in surprise because he hadn't even realized that he couldn't hear or feel his brother. He tries to reach out towards Wyatt but he finds only an impenetrable wall. Chris releases a breath he didn't realize he was holding and relaxes minutely. It's been so long since he spent any time at all in the company of another human being without getting a splitting headache.
"Thank you," Chris whispers, touched.
Wyatt nods.
Chris turns the cup in his hands. "How are the others?" he asks. He does worry about his family even though he ran away from them.
Wyatt smiles. "Mum and dad are good. They miss you something fierce but they are good. The others too. Auntie Paige is pregnant again, would you believe it? I think she wants to flood the world with little Halliwells."
Chris smiles softly, his heart aching. They fall silent again. Wyatt shuffles his feet again and then moves towards his little brother slowly, giving Chris the time to get away or tell him to stop. But Chris doesn't move. He has been aching to be touched forever now. And so, when Wyatt sits down carefully next to him on the step and lifts his arm to lay it around his brother's shoulders, Chris leans into him but only slightly because he still expects pain to hit him any moment now. But all he feels is slight tingle in the places where his brother is touching him and so he lets himself relax completely, breathing out deeply. He closes his eyes and rests his head on Wyatt's shoulder and he feels the tense muscles in his older brother's arm loosen.
"We miss you," Wyatt whispers into Chris' hair and brings him closer as if he wants to hold on and never let go. "I miss you. We never gave up on finding you. When you disappeared..." Wyatt's voice breaks and for a moment he is unable to continue.
Chris lifts one hand, rests it on the older man's knee and squeezes. "I had to. They were all looking at me like I was some kind of a freak," he whispers. "They were afraid that some part of the demon was still in me, that I could be still dangerous. I heard them; I heard their thoughts, the teachers', our parents' and aunts'. They, none of them, knew what to do with me. And they felt guilty about what happened to me, what they had to do to exorcise the demon."
Wyatt takes Chris' hand in his, turns it over and pushes the sleeve up his brother's forearm. The burns caused by the silver manacles stand out, stark and silver, on his pale skin. The magic burns ran so deep that Leo couldn't heal them which only added to his guilt.
"They wouldn't let me see you," Wyatt says. "Nobody ever told me what they did to you. But I heard you scream, all the way to our house."
Yes, Chris remembers screaming and yelling so loud and so long that his throat never really recovered. "The Demon Lord nestled in my mind. They had to rip it open completely to get him out, then stop my heart to force him to let go. Obviously, they got my heart going again but the damage to my shields was irreparable. I took it all in, their thoughts, their emotions, their powers. It felt like my mind was one big sponge sucking everything in." He sighs. "I asked them to let me go but they refused. The Charmed ones were convinced that they would find a way to heal me. And maybe they would have but I would have gone mad first."
Wyatt nods. "It took some time for me to realize that." He laughs but his laughter is full of self-depreciation. "At first, I thought you left because of me. Because of what I did."
Chris pulls away, frowning in confusion. "Huh? What are you talking about?" He doesn't understand.
The older man shrugs. "You know, if I went to school that day, the Demon Lord wouldn't have..."
Chris raises his hand. "Stop. How could you have thought that? I didn't blame you. I never blamed you. If anything, I was happy that you weren't there. That it was me." He smacks his brother in the chest with the back of his hand. "How could you have thought something so stupid?"
Wyatt shrugs again, looking sheepish. "Hey, I never claimed to be a genius, little brother."
"Yeah, that's for sure," Chris mutters. They both smirk and Wyatt grips his brother's shoulder tightly.
Then the blond man grows serious again. "How are you doing, Chris? Honestly," he adds.
Taking a deep breath, Chris looks in the distance. "Honestly? As good as one might expect," he says. "I gather herbs and sell them to some magic shops and earn enough to get by. I don't need much, the peace and quiet are enough. At the beginning, it was really rough," he admits. "The migraines almost drove me crazy. But I found out that meditation helps a lot. And I learned to stay away from people. Though shopping trips still set me back for days." He turns back to his brother. "I can't go back, Wyatt. At least not yet. If ever. More than two people at once and I turn into a babbling idiot."
Wyatt looks sad but there is understanding in his eyes. "I won't force you to come with me. And I won't tell anybody where you are," he promises. "Just... don't run away again. Don't run away from me," he begs. "I miss my idiot of a brother," he adds and they both chuckle.
Chris looks at him searchingly. He needs to be sure that Wyatt means it, that he won't tell anybody where Chris is. He would hate to leave the cabin that he had started to consider his home. "I won't run," he promises. "And maybe... maybe you can visit me? When you have the time?" Chris hates how desperate he sounds. But he misses his family so much.
Wyatt swallows hard and nods.
They sit there for hours, soaking up each other's company and talking. They talk about their family mostly, about their cousins and aunts, about their parents, about what's happening in the magic school. They lean into each other, Wyatt offering and Chris welcoming the physical contact they've missed the most.
And they both think that maybe, one day...
The End