You guys! Thank you all so much for the great reviews! I'm sorry that I don't update as much as I'd like, but I want this story to be written just so!
A/N at my school, Alas Babylon is required reading in junior year. I'm only a sophomore, but I read the book last year, and loved it. If you havn't read it, it is a MUST READ!
Also, I don't think I mentioned this before, But Chris and Victor live in Colorado. Why? Cause I said so:)
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Chris reopened his English book, trying to finish his lesson. The book contained ten classic works of literature, and currently his class was reading Alas, Babylon. The majority of his class despised the assignment, but Chris, however, thoroughly enjoyed it. His bedroom was lined with bookcases, each shelf stacked his hard covers and paper backs, fiction and biographies. He read constantly, as reading was one of the few things he could do without any difficulty. He had joined his high schools Forensics Squad last year almost as an act of defiance. His teachers and Grandpa wanted to coddle him, try and keep him from doing anything that he wouldn't be able to do, to make him feel normal. But it had only an adverse effect.
When he'd approached Mr. A. About joining the team, he'd, of course, told Chris it wouldn't be a good idea. He could memorize his piece without any problem, but actually performing it? That was a whole different matter. Chris's speech wasn't perfect. His words often slurred, and he had a tendency to mumble, or shout. But he wanted to prove he could do it. He'd never been too interested in acting, but his school didn't offer debate, so this was the most 'rebellious' activity he could find.
Ms. Menoz, however, thought it was a wonderful idea. Twice a week after Chris recieved his cutting from Mr. A (A humorous Solo, in which his coach felt any 'unintended problems' would go un noticed) Ms. Menoz coached Chris on his articulation of his piece. She taught him to remember the feel of the words as he spoke them in the correct pitch and volume. He worked on it constantly, practicing at the wall in his room. It was less then a month till the first competition, yet Chris had felt ready to perform. And he was. His first tournament, he took fifth in HS, and by the time the season had ended, he had two state qualifications. ( it rather annoyed Victor and his teachers, though, that even though he could perform his selection with perfect fluency, his normal speech always, sounded as though he hadn't practiced at all!) This year, he had both a Humorous Solo, and a prose.
Heaving a sigh he couldn't hear, Chris closed his book, set it aside, and stood up. He paused on his way out the door, just long enough to gaze at the phonograph on his wall. He smiled.
He still kept the promise he made to himself 11 years ago. His mother occupied a great deal of his musings. He wondered constantly what she looked like now. What did she do for a living? Was she still married to his father? Did she ever have an other children?
The possibility of Chris having siblings made him feel odd. He'd love to spoil and tease a little sister. Maybe he even had an older sibling to talk to and argue with. Yet, he'd been raised as a single child, by a single parent. He didn't know how he felt about sharing his life with a large family...
He'd always pondered so much over the details of his parents life. He'd dreamed of meeting them, of seeing thier faces, feeling thier embrace, hearing thier voices...
The last one was a lost cause, of course. After..everything...happened, the first time he'd actually broken down, when it finally hit him, was knowing he'd never hear his mother's voice. Maybe she sang. She would probably be upset, if her youngest child couldn't hear her gift...
Because Chris had never given up hope that she was out there, thinking about him, trying to find him. He'd learned enough about magic and demons over the years to know that it was very possible to block one person from another. Potions, spells, curses...
But he was getting closer, he could feel it...
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Chris worked quietly at the kitchen counter, dicing potatoes. He loved to cook, and was pretty damn good at it too. He was the only guy to take Home Ec, and his teacher liked to brag about how he put all the girls to shame. He enjoyed the class, you didn't have to hear to cook. Though it did give him quite a bit of trouble at school...
Chris had never been really popular. He had friends, but easily twice as many enemies. It wasn't surprising really. A small, scrawny child never got a lot of positive feedback from his peers. But you get a small scrawny kid who displays behaviors that have wrongly classified him as gay for six years? And you've got a child going through Hell.
Chris had never really got along with people, especially groups and teams. For some reason he didn't understand, he was rather introverted, ever since he could remember. He had always felt uncomfortable when forced to be with others, even people he knew really well. It got so bad around the time he started Middle School, that he'd had an anxiety attack in the middle of social studies.
But he liked the way he was, and there wouldn't be any problem with him being a bit of a loner, if it wasn't for the fact that any difference, no matter how small, is a red flag to other children.
Not only was he more introverted thne other boys in school, but he was also, and he used the term very lightly, more emotional. His grandpa had used the term "delicate" to his third-grade teacher, which at the moment, Chris had found mortifying. Until he realized that there where a lot worse ways to say "delicate" then he thought.
In Elementary, it was sissy, wimp, girl, petty names like such. But when kids got older, they learned new names, ones with more bite. Fag, gay, bastard, he-she, bitch...
It would have hurt a lot more, he believed, if he'd ever stopped to consider what they where saying. So what if he like to cook, and didn't play football, and could usually be found in the library? It didn't make him gay. It just made all the other kids morons.
Sighing, Chris tipped the cutting board, carefully spilling the pile of potatoes into the boiling water, wondering what an older sibling would have done, hearing the names Chris's peers still shot at him in the halls...
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Victor leaned against the counter seperating the kitchen from the dining room, lost in his own thoughts.
He loved watching Chris cook (and his stomach didn't complain either!) But it always, ALWAYS reminded him of Piper...
...Piper.
Chris looked SO much like his mother, it was frightening. His thick, dark hair, thin frame, thier faces had a mirror image to them. All except for his eyes. They where Leo's, without a doubt.
Even the way he acted was his mother through and through. Fast temper, sarcastic wit, stubbornness, and an independent streak that was both a blessing and a hindering curse.
He couldn't believe how tall Chris had grown to be, how fierce his determination was, when Victor could remember the first time he had ever held him.
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
"Oh, don't you Hello me, Phoebe! You know who I came to see!" Victor laughed, all the while hugging his youngest tightly. "Now, where is that grandson of mine!"
"Piper's got him, upstairs, I think," she answered vaguely, leading Victor into the living room. And at that very moment, Piper came downstairs, holding a tiny bundle in her arms.
"Hi Dad!" she greeted her father merrily, capturing him in an awkward one-armed hug.
"Hello Piper, sweetie. How you doing?" he asked, trying to get a peek at the baby in her arms.
"Oh, pretty good, I guess. Tired, though. I swear, the baby hasn't slept for more then twenty minutes at a time since we brought him home!"
"Yeah, but that's what babies DO, isn't it? Now, let me get a look at him!" he chuckled, his patience running out.
Piper smirked slightly, and carefully shifted the baby in her arms, revealing his face.
Victors heart melted. Good God, where all babies that small? Sure, he was only a month old...but he was so little! There where tufts of dark, downy hair peeking out from below a light blue cap, and he had a tiny freackle t the bridge of his nose..
...Just like the first Chris...
Victor had been heartbroken when he'd heard about what happened, after knowing all the Hell Chris had gone through in his life...but now, looking down at the infant in Pipers arms, he knew that his death wasn't in vain, he wasn't forgotten...he was right there!
Christopher chose that moment to wake up in a crying fit. He opened his jade yes a tiny crack and, apparently displeased about his current surrounding, loudly demanded attention. He screeched shrilly, his little face turning scarlet.
Startled, Victor jumped back slightly, as he really wasn't used to babies!
Piper rolled her eyes, then closed them briefly, as though she was about to loose her temper...
"It's Ok, baby, you're Ok, you don't need to cry, I know you're there!" she said, bouncing Chris a little in her arms. He didn't quiet down one bit!
"Here, Piper. Let me take him?" Victor requested, startling himself as well as the childs' mother.
"What do you know about babies?" she asked, even as she was handing her youngest child over to Victor.
Victor carefully accepted the swaddled child, and gently layed him on his shouler. Pulling down the blanket, he put his hand lightly on Chris's back, rubbing in soft circles.
"Hey, Chris, it's OK, I gotcha, you don't need to cry," Victor whispered in Chris's ear. He swayed back and forth a bit, and to everyones astonishment, Chris's wailing quieted to a fuss, then merely a hiccup as he nested against his grandpa.
"Well, I'll be damned," Piper announced, looking at her father and child with a glint in her chocolate eyes...
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Victor should have seen the read flag that first day. All afternoon, Chris was passed between Victor and Leo, who showed up a couple of hours later.
"Hey, how's my little guy?" Leo smiled down at his baby. There was a pride, a love in his eyes that Victor didn't see in Pipers...If only he'd seen it then...
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
"Grandpa?Hey, kitchen to Grandpa?"
"Wh-huh?" Victor blinked a few times, finding himself back n the apartment kitchen.
"Damn Grandpa, I though I was hard of hearing!" Chris laughed, adding salt to the potatoes. "I asked you if you'd get the roast out of the ice box, and per-heat the oven."
"Uh, yeah, sure," Victor replied, and did as was requested. He stole one more glanc at Chris, and sighed.
If only he'd seen that day...
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
It was past ten o'clock. Dinner had been ate, the dishes where washed, and Chris was getting ready for bed.
He was in his bedroom, rubbing a towel through his damp hair, which was nearly black now. It was unusually cold out, even for January, so he'd rummaged through the hall closet, pulling out a rather ragged looking quilt for his bed. He didn't care that it was worn and frayed, though.It was warm in the winter months, and that's what mattered.
Chris had long ago given up ,most of his materialistic notions. For a good part of his childhood, money wasn't exactly flowing in. He had to make do with Goodwill and the sale rack at Target, but he never really thought he looked that bad. Grandpa had atught him to be grateful that at least he HAD clothes on his back.
Pulling a sweatshirt and flannel pants out of his dresser, he finished drying his hair and got dressed. He headed over to the rack on the back of his bedroom door, to hang up his towel, though paused long enough to notice how much dust had accumulated in his Mothers photograph.
He raised one hand up, to wipe away the flecks of dust...
But something happened...
Chris suddenly had the overwhelming feeling that he was going to throw up. The entire room was spinning madly, and there was a rushing in his ears.
Then, he saw people, a lot of people. They where all blurry, in black-and-white, like an old TV set.
God, now I've gone color blind! Chris as shocked that he was able to get a coherent thought in, what with these images, flashing in rapid-fire succession in front of him.
A woman, 3 women,
A tall blonde man, his long hair curling into ringlets, a small baby on his lap.
A gaggle of girls, running around, laughing,
A man, his face craggy, smiling, his eyes shining as he watched them...
And a house. A huge, beautiful Victorian, with large, branching oaks set all around it, shielding it from the world.
He saw rain por around it, sun beaming down upon it's residents, winds beating against the trees, scraping against the siding, a rare flurry of snow...
And a baby. Small, dark haired, curled up in his crib, fast asleep...
Suddenly, Chris found himself sprawled on the floor, drenched in a cold sweat.
All those people, all those scenes, what the fuck...?
All those pictures, it seemed like he was there, with them, for years just watching them, but it had been less then thirty seconds!
That woman...
That baby...
Mom.
Chris reached up to brush his sweat soaked bang out of his eyes. Less than a second, he'd seen her face for less than a second, but he knew, he felt it in the pit of his stomach...that was her...
That house, the sprawling Victorian...she lived there...
Chris took several deep, steady breathes. The woman..the house...
Home.
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! leo! I watched tonoght for the first time in weeks, and LEO! Excuse me, I'm in mourning...
You know what would make me feel better? You know, besides Chris and Leo coming back to whack Billie with lead bats...?
Reviews!