Title: Reason to Live
Author: Wicked R
Disclaimers: characters and the universe belongs to the WB.
Genre: Angst/Romance, h/c, classical sickfic.
Rating: R.
Summary/Set: Charmed season 5, after Witches in Tights. Cole comes to the witches' rescue and endangers himself.
Pairing: L/Piper, C/Phoebe.
Thanks to Kati and my husband Tommy for their ideas on potions and clothing, and for their understanding when I ramble on about Cole.
The sisters watched with surprise as the beast, that appeared in the form of a wolf with the wings of a griffin and a serpent's tail, issued such hot fire from its mouth that it consumed one of the crystals that held him captured on the round carpet in the middle of the attic. Phoebe was ducking out the way of the perilous flame just in time. Piper tried to blow the demon up, although that didn't work when they first saw the creature either. Her magical abilities only made the beast shudder and retaliate a hundred times stronger. Its tail went fluttering towards her, collided into her side, making a gash that ripped through her brown shirt and deep into her flesh. The oldest of the current charmed ones cried out in anguish, writhing in a ball on the wooden floor, which was quickly becoming stained with her blood.
Leo called out her name, his voice laced with concern for his wounded wife, "you, bastard, how dare you hurt her," he attacked it throwing at it everything he could put his hands on, hoping he could make a path for himself to reach Piper and heal her while her two sisters fought off the demon.
Phoebe leaped into the air and managed to kick at the creature's head, "Paige! Try to get another crystal. We need to be able to say the spell!"
Her younger sister couldn't see another spare crystal anywhere, but she hoped there would be one in the attic. In that case, she called out commanding it into her hands, "crystal!"
The demon, understanding what Phoebe suggested, swung his tail towards Paige.
Just then, Cole shimmered in, immediately throwing a fire ball at the beast's tail. It didn't even slow it down, but it compromised its aim, and the tail turned over one of the bookcases at the wall instead. Cole followed it up with another fireball, Phoebe with another leap and kick. The crystal materialised in Paige's hand and she also managed to put it in place, momentarily trapping the beast again. Leo reached Piper and Phoebe picked up the piece of paper with the spell. With Piper still unconscious, they would have to hold hands, but the beast will not wait until they do. Deep down, she knew it will never work. She reached for Piper's hand, but Paige was further away. As the beast incinerated their spare crystal, Cole continued throwing fireballs at him. The beast ignored him, not being affected much and flared a massive energy ball towards Paige. Cole blocked its way, the energy ball hitting him in the stomach. He staggered backwards, wincing and grunting painfully.
Paige reached her sisters and started chanting. The beast, slightly alarmed this time, flamed out.
While Leo and Phoebe concentrated on Piper, Paige looked up at her ex brother in law who saved her from the energy ball. Being hit by a force like that would've killed her, but not the powerful demon Cole had become in the Wasteland. Nonetheless, Cole looked pale and he clutched his hand to his stomach, panting.
"Cole?" Paige started towards the half demon, "are you all right?"
Although he had lots of information on him he could tell them about the beast that just attacked them, he didn't want them to see him weak. They didn't want his help anyway. He could keep watch over them from a distance, as he always did. He hoped Leo would eventually deliver the right info to them, or their Book of Shadows will tell them what to do. He nodded towards Paige and was determined to shimmer out before he fainted in front of them from the pain or the exhaustion. Receiving an energy ball was like your energy being sapped away by another power, and although he was one of the most powerful demons to date now, Marchosias, because that was the name of the beast that attacked them as they called him in the underworld, had certainly picked up more powers in his five thousand years existence, than Cole ever could. He thought of shimmering and he imagined the way to his penthouse. That was how shimmering worked, by the mind's eye. He dematerialised, but felt very dizzy and missed the window, bumping into the attic's wall and re materialising at the other side of the room, followed by another crashing sound as he turned over a little table when he fell to the floor.
Paige scrunched her face in bewilderment. She knew very well, too well in fact, how uncomfortable it could be when she missed her aim when orbing, but she never saw Cole do anything even remotely similar. She walked over to him to find him struggling to sit up, his hand still clutching at his abdomen. "Let me see," she sat down on her heels next to him.
Cole groaned and looked up at Paige with cloudy eyes.
"Come on," Paige touched his hand and he loosened his grip to allow her to unbutton his scorched shirt at the bottom. "Eee…Leo?" She called when she heard her white lighter helping Piper up, "could you come here a minute? I can't see much other than some slight scorch marks here, but he seems to be in pretty bad shape."
"Go," Piper agreed, reassuring her husband that she was completely healed, "we'll look in the book with Phoebe."
Leo joined Paige, looking a bit puzzled himself by the state Cole was in, but offering a half hearted explanation nevertheless, "looked like a considerable energy ball to me. He'll be better once her rests and gets his energy back."
"Or we could try to heal him together," Paige offered, still conscious of Cole's efforts to protect them despite his demonic heritage, "we did it before."
"No!" Cole refused immediately, "that was before I was to the Wasteland. My powers would hurt you, the electric charge that would go off could kill you."
"Besides," Leo held his own premises, "we heal wounds, not extreme exhaustion caused by energy balls. Let's just take him to the sofa," he put his hand on Cole's shoulder and orbed him over.
"I never seen anything like that monster in the book before, and I've looked through it more than a few times," Phoebe complained, "it's useless," she looked up waiting for the force above that sometimes opened the book at the right page at the right time to help them again.
Since a few seconds had past and nothing happened, Piper concluded, "honey, maybe you should check with the Elde…"
"No need," Cole intercepted, "I can tell you all about him. His name is Marchosias, he is a mighty marquis, belongs to the Order of Dominations. He was one of the main Generals of the Source for over a thousand years. Very powerful demon when he is in the form you have just seen him. He is strong in battle, gives true answers to all questions, and is extremely faithful to the exorcist."
"Huh?" Piper raised her eyebrows, "are you also delirious or something?" she asked, referring to the unintelligible words that came out Cole's mouth.
"No, that's all true," Cole insisted, "although you're right. That is probably not gonna help you in any way. All that happened three thousand years ago and it played great part in the Jews loosing Israel to the Babylonians, " noticing the strange looks everybody cast him he continued differently, "that's what they teach in demon schools anyway…just so you see I'm not delirious, uh, something that is useful for you, yes, there is a potion in the Grimoire that if you throw at him, it commands him to assume human form. Once he is in that form, you can easily kill him, he will have no powers whatsoever."
"And just how is that useful to us?" Phoebe doubted, "we don't use the Grimoire."
"Well, I just happen to remember most of the ingredients, good witches you are, you can probably guess or make up the rest. Give me a pen and paper."
"Did you recently use the Grimoire?" Phoebe insisted, thinking of the ramifications of Cole touching that book.
"There are plenty of exempts hanging about."
"How come he has a human form that makes him so vulnerable?" Paige handed him a writing pad and a felt tip.
"He's half human," Cole started scribbling on the piece of paper.
"So we're vanquishing a half human," Paige stated the obvious.
Cole shrugged, "at least you can see now that I wasn't the worst looking half demon out there by far when I was in the Balthazar form…ready. I think that's correct. Only a couple of ingredients missing."
"One more thing I'd like to know," Phoebe took the piece of paper that Cole held out, "how come you arrived at the right moment? Are you spying on us?"
"I would call it watching over you instead."
"That can't be the potion. It's too easy. What about the missing ingredients?" Phoebe took a look at Cole's scribbles and made out some lines that she read up loud so that everybody could hear it, "ebony bark, saffron, tubeworm. Boil it on an open fire in chicken blood and stir it only with a silver spoon?" Her intonation spoke of incredulity.
"Yes. The werewolf quality of the creature requires silver to defeat it," Cole assured her. I told you there are ingredients missing, but you can make them up. Like something that symbolises evil."
"Blackbird feather cut in six pieces will do?" Paige had shown what a first-class witch she had become.
"Yes. And you'll need something that destabilizes his serpent."
"Will snake poison do?" Piper retorted in her usual direct way.
"And you also just happen to know about this potion?" Phoebe was still distrustful.
"No. I did my homework. There were reports about him escaping from confinement in the Underworld."
"You go down the Underworld," Phoebe stated with a judgemental voice, "the reformed alcoholic's trip to the pub," he shook her head, "we'll do that potion then," she followed her sisters already on their way descending to the kitchen.
"You're welcome," Cole grunted quietly after her and he bent over, embracing himself as if in pain. With Phoebe gone, there was much less reason for pretences, besides, he couldn't take it anymore.
Leo walked over to him and crouched down in front of the sofa, more surprised, than worried. However, from where he was now, he could see the half demon's features creased in an expression that quite clearly spoke of pain, with his eyes closed and his teeth grit together. He was also sopping wet with sweat, "what's wrong?" Leo addressed him sympathetically.
"It hurts," was the weak reply he could make out and that reinforced Leo in taking a caring attitude towards Cole, despite all the questions that stood open regarding his recent behaviour and existence.
"Get some rest," Leo touched Cole's shoulders gently and lightly pushed him down till his head contacted with the decorative pillow at one side of the sofa, "let me get your pulse," the doctor he once was awoken in him. If he couldn't help him as a white lighter, he had to try another way.
Shutting his eyes again, Cole nodded and tried to relax. He didn't protest no matter what Leo was doing to him, strengthening the white lighter's assumptions that he was feeling poorer than he let on. Although Leo wasn't sure of demon anatomy, he could almost undoubtedly deduce that Cole's fast weak pulse and accelerated respiratory rate was far from normal. He could see no real sign of any wounds on him, which under the circumstances, wasn't likely to be a good thing. On the other hand, he could feel the stomach muscles become rigid under his fingers, "these seem like cramps to me," Leo was confused, "this isn't right."
Cole got himself together to verbalize and came out with, "it doesn't matter. I know how to handle this."
"This being what?"
"Are you certain you wanna understand?"
"Hell! Yes. You look unwell. Sooner or later that's gonna affect the sisters and that means me."
"Well…I know this feeling from when I was a child. No time after that was I hit in the stomach by a fireball more powerful than mines cause I was stronger than most demons I know. It will pass, just have to wait it out."
"Anything I can do?"
"Well…they used to hand me anti-spasmodic drugs. They make it easier," Cole rubbed his belly feeling worse than he had before.
"Wait. I have an idea," Leo orbed out, but came back a few seconds later with a towel dipped into hot water and a bucket and put the towel on Cole's tummy, "might help as well," he tried and orbed out again. This time he stayed away for a longer time and arrived back with a needle, "muscle relaxant," he explained.
Cole looked at him strangely, "where do have that from? You not stealing?"
"You know me. Not your everyday white lighter," Leo administered the medication and sat down by the sofa to keep an eye on his companion.