Author's Notes: Hi all. I have some (slightly) bad news. This story is gonna have to come to a halt, because I managed to write it to a point where I can put it on pause until my life gets under control. I just got a boyfriend a while ago and he's kind of time consuming, plus I'm at 17 credits (4 classes) for my university, and I work about 16-20 hours a week. I just...don't have time to continue it. But like I said, I managed to write it to a point where it'll be a good, hopefully suspenseful pause until I can figure everything out. There's about...4 more chapters? I think, that I need to post. So keep an eye out :) Please bear with me through this, since it's all for you!!


Chris awoke with a start. His immediate reaction was to look to the side to see if Wyatt was there, but as with each and every night he checked, his brother's bed was gone, and in its place was a gaping hole, like something was missing.

Well, something was missing, Chris thought: his brother.

He looked down at the covers of his bed for a moment before rolling over and pulling them over his head. It had been just about a month since Wyatt had moved out, but it sometimes still felt like his brother was in the next bed over, rolling around in his sleep. Their room seemed so much emptier without all of Wyatt's things; seemed so much quieter without his snores; but worst of all, it just felt awkward without him there. Chris and Wyatt had shared a room Chris' entire life. He wasn't sure how in the world he was supposed to feel about it, even now.

At first he had felt angry, like Wyatt was abandoning him, abandoning their family.

I want a chance to be out on my own, Chris, Wyatt would tell him in his defense. I want to try and do things for myself, you know? I'm just an orb away, and you know you're always welcome.

Chris had only orbed over to Wyatt's place on one occasion, and that had been when a demon had attacked the house and they needed his help in vanquishing it. In a way, he felt guilty about that. And the first time that he had gone over to his brother's apartment on a personal call had been weird for him. He hid it well, thankfully, but going there had served as a solidification of the fact that Wyatt was gone, that he was living somewhere else. It was hard.

All of these thoughts swirled around in his head as he lay there under the covers, feeling as if he were in a heated cocoon. He wasn't sure why he felt like hiding was going to make it any better, because he knew it wasn't. He wasn't stupid. A little obstinate, maybe, but not stupid.

But for what seemed like the umpteenth time that month, Chris was having a hard time falling asleep, and he knew that it was because he didn't have his brother sleeping in the bed beside him.

-----------------------------------

When Chris woke up the next morning his face was buried in the side of his pillow and he was lying on his stomach. There was a dull pain throbbing in the small of his back that made him realize how badly he had tensed up during the night. He slowly shifted around on his bed until he was lying on his back with his body twisted in his covers. He lay there for a few minutes before he actually moved again, and when he did it was only to kick the covers off of his bed and onto the hardwood floor beneath him.

Chris turned his head to look over at the spot where Wyatt's bed had once been not too long ago. He couldn't count how many times he had looked over there, whether it was in the morning when he woke up or at night when he went to bed…and that didn't include the numerous times that he did it in the middle of the night while tossing and turning.

His mom had told him that it was going to take some getting used to, having shared the story of when she first told his aunts to go live with their respective boyfriends of the time. Part of him wondered, though, if she could understand what he was feeling. There clearly were a lot of things that he wouldn't be able to comprehend when it came to her feelings, but that…well, that was sort of beside the point for him. Surely she understood where he was coming from with his sibling point of view, and even above that, on a magical level.

He and Wyatt may have not always gotten along, but his brother was an important person in his life. Even if it wasn't to the same level as Wyatt was in their parents' lives. Wyatt was the only one who knew about Landon—was the only person that Chris could really trust with that fact (even if he had stumbled upon it)—and that put him on a separate level than anyone else in the rest of his family. And Wyatt, true to his word, never treated him differently because of it. That didn't mean that he didn't pick on him because of it, but Chris couldn't expect him not to. They were brothers, after all.

Still, there was something to be said about waking up and being able to throw his pillow at his brother to wake him up, or throwing his pants at him when Wyatt forgot that he wasn't wearing underwear. That kind of time was when Chris would have been happy to not share a room with him. But there were plenty of others that he missed.

He knew he had to get up at some point. With his aunt Paige's birthday in less than a week and his mother's birthday just a few days after that, he had some shopping to do. Like with every year, they were going to celebrate his aunt's birthday at her house and then his mom's at the manor, so he was going to have to hide their presents at Landon's house. At least this year he didn't have to ask one of his friends to keep his gifts at their house, like he usually did. He was hesitant to do that after one of them not too long ago had managed to break the glass punch bowl that he had bought for his mother. That damn store hadn't let him return it, either, even when it hadn't been his fault…

It being a Monday, when Chris went downstairs for breakfast after showering, he didn't expect to see anyone around. Mel had a part time job during the summer that kept her busy at all random times of the day, depending on her shift, and his mother would be at the restaurant, while his dad would be at Magic School, working on things around the campus, as he usually was. Chris himself had a part time job of his own working at his mother's restaurant as a waiter, and he only worked when she needed him or when he needed money. He wasn't scheduled to work until that Friday, the day before his aunt Paige's birthday. Having just worked the past three days straight with eight-hour shifts on each of them, he was glad to have the time off.

Once finished with breakfast, Chris called Landon up to make sure that he was still coming by to pick him up so that they could go shopping for his mom's and aunt's gifts. Landon almost always had Mondays off, and the two of them had sort of adopted it as their day together; it was the one day that they could always count on them both having it off.

Sometimes it was difficult for him to think that they had been together for about two months. But really, what was most difficult for him to believe was that he had managed to keep it a secret from his family for all of this time. It wasn't that he was ashamed of Landon; if anything, he should have been proud, because Landon had a good job, had his own place and was pretty mature. Overall, he was a good boyfriend.

That in itself was the problem, however: he was a boyfriend, not a girlfriend. Chris wasn't really sure how the rest of his family was going to react to the fact that he was dating a guy and not a girl. Sure, when he was younger and in middle school, he had 'dated' girls. But looking back on that, it had really been nothing more than writing notes of 'Do you like me? Check yes or no!' and spending time together at lunch. He had never done anything like that with Landon, and likewise, Chris did things with him that he had never done with those girls. He couldn't even picture himself making out with anyone at that age, let alone on a couch or in a bedroom.

Things changed, though. There was no denying the fact that he liked Landon. Chris didn't think himself incapable of liking girls, but he had yet to meet one that fit exactly what it was he was looking for. Plus, being with a guy was easier, he thought; he knew how Landon generally thought and vice versa. He knew that he could expect Landon to express himself freely, just like he knew that he could. Things were comfortable and fun, and it was sort of like they were just really good friends. Except they were friends that got more physical than most did.

Chris snorted at that thought when grabbed his keys from the basket by the front door. He had never thought himself the type to do something right under his parents' noses, but it wasn't like it was something illegal or harmful. He was just dating someone. Things would come out in their own time.

No pun intended, he added as an afterthought.

As Landon only lived a little ways away, it didn't take long for him to show up in front of the manor. When he pulled up Chris headed down the stairs and slipped inside, giving the older one a kiss as a greeting.

"Hey, you," Landon said with a grin. "Ready to go get those gifts?"

"About as ready as I'll ever be," Chris said with a chuckle. "Aunt Paige is really hard to shop for. She's been collecting these little glass figurines lately, though. There's a good place in Bodega Bay my mom goes to go get things like that every now and then. But that's like, forty miles from here."

"We can go there if you want. Or there's that little collectors shop in the district that we could go to. I got my mom one of those crystal cats from there for Christmas last year. Pretty good prices…"

Chris snorted. "It's closer, too. That's probably better."

"Tell you what. We can go to Bodega Bay if you don't find anything you like at that store, all right?" Landon shifted the car into gear and then started to head out, eyes turning to the road.

"Nah, it's okay. There's plenty of places downtown…I may want to get my mom some cooking equipment instead. Aunt Paige, though…" God, Chris thought, why was it so hard to shop for her? He should have just asked Henry Jr. what he was getting her. "What is it with older women and getting figurines and collectibles?"

"Maybe it's a genetic thing."

"Well," Chris snorted, "it's something."

Landon and Chris talked back and forth and even bickered a bit on their way to the shopping district. It was nice to the younger one to know that the worst problem he was likely going to have that day was difficulty finding a parking spot. With a lack of demon attacks over the past week or so he had finally been able to relax. Contrary to popular belief among his family, Chris wasn't always looking for demons to vanquish. Realizing how suppressed his real wants were had made him open himself up a little bit more.

The two walked somewhat close together while on the sidewalk, but neither Chris nor Landon made any move to hold one another's hands. Though they had no problem being physical with one another (that anti-inhibition spell had been good for something), hand-holding just didn't do much for them.

That didn't stop Chris from tugging on Landon's hand from time to time as they walked from store to store. Most of the places they wandered into didn't really have anything that he was looking for, but it was nice to just browse and see if something didn't catch his eye. They went inside a clothing store, a music store and a few other places, but nothing seemed especially unique. Chris hated buying generic gifts for his family because they meant much more to him than just a t-shirt or a bouquet of flowers. He knew Wyatt kept the pocket knife Chris had given him for that very reason, just like he knew that Mel would never get rid of her stuffed giraffe for just the same reason. They were thoughtful gifts, things he prided himself on.

By the time they got to the antique collectibles store, Landon was beginning to drag a little. In all honesty, it wasn't hard for Chris to understand why; they had been shopping for nearly two hours, and so far, nothing had tickled his fancy in quite the right way.

"Tell you what," Chris said as they stepped inside the store, "we'll go have some lunch after this place if I can't find anything. You've been a good sport."

"I'm gonna want more than lunch for this," Landon teased.

"Yeah, well, we'll see about that."

Chris gripped the other's shoulder and pushed at him with a grin on his face. Landon stumbled a little and nearly collided with one of the nearby displays of random items. There was a distinct scent of furniture polish and bronze in the air, both of which the younger one didn't much care for. He didn't like bronze things much period, but in an antique store, it was kind of hard to avoid them. They seemed to be everywhere—baby's old shoes, bowls, small baseball gloves…all sorts of things.

"This place seems more like the spot people come to throw their old junk away." The dark haired witch moved further into the quiet building, wandering over toward a collection of cat figurines and old McDonalds toys. "Don't think Aunt Paige wants something that some kid probably threw up on…"

Landon stepped up beside his boyfriend and picked up one of the old toys. It had been electronic at one point, but it had no battery life left, as was visible by the screws in the back that held the battery in. He shook it. "You sure? This looks pretty badass…she might love it. You never know."

Chris snorted, but more in amusement than anything. "God, no. But if you want it so bad, why don't you get it?"

"I think I might just!"

That warranted a laugh, and Chris reached out, snatching the toy from Landon's hands to look over it. "It's like five bucks. You might as well, if you like it so much." A playful grin appeared on his face.

"Yeah, yeah. You go look at gift ideas. I'm gonna stay here and see if I can't find some more things from my childhood. Who knew twenty some odd year-old toys were considered antiques?"

Chris left Landon to look at the toys while he made his way over to the other side of the store, where a lot of pictures, furniture and a few decorative items were strewn about. He didn't have enough money for furniture—not that he would buy it, anyway—and the pictures all were of things he knew wouldn't fly so well as a gift. Who wanted a crying clown portrait?

It wasn't until he stepped in front of a glass case that something caught his eye. It was like a flash, and he heard something suddenly, too. For a moment he stood there, completely still, wondering what it had been. Chris knew better than to shrug off these random events because he knew everything happened for a reason. When nothing followed, he decided to look back into the glass display again, noticing an interesting old, dark leather glasses carrying case that his aunt Paige might have liked. Just as he raised his hand to catch someone's attention he heard something again, a voice, and it sounded agonized, yet irritated:

"Stupid witch!"

Chris' eyes darted around him as he searched for anything—or anyone—that could have made the noise. But there was nothing…no one.

He blinked slowly, knitting his brow in confusion. What was going on?