Thanks for the reviews! Sorry for the long wait . . . blame Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, spawning new story ideas! Usually I would at least have a long chapter to make up for the time, but the outline for this chapter didn't have much, since it's mostly made up of a memory. I realize that the story is Drama/Angst, and there hasn't really been so much full on angst so far. Well, (smirks mischievously) starting next chapter, the angst will dominate, so expect much darker chapters from here on out. Enjoy the chapter!
An ear piercing scream sounded throughout the Halliwell Manor, causing all of its current occupants to race or orb to the source of the yell. A stampede of feet and chiming of orbs could be heard as Piper, Phoebe, and Chris arrived at the ajar door of the bathroom.
"Paige, is it a demon?" Piper shouted, hands in an offensive position, ready to blow whatever the threat was up.
Paige's head poked through the door, looking confused. "Demon? What demon?"
"The demon you were just screaming your head off about!" Chris clarified impatiently, feeling irritated. Her scream had scared them all to death.
"Oh. Sorry, guys, I wasn't screaming about a demon."
Piper let out an annoyed groan. "So, you made the pregnant lady, who should be resting run up here to your ear splitting call? You know better than that Paige! You know that we never scream like that unless there is a demon in the house!"
Phoebe nodded in agreement with Piper, glaring at her younger sister. She was just in the middle of drinking her daily morning coffee when the scream had surprised her so much that she spilled the brown liquid on her favorite pajamas, staining the fabric and leaving Phoebe soaked and smelling like caffeine.
"So what was it?" Chris asked, sounding sleepy now.
Blushing, Paige looked as if she didn't want to tell. "Nothing," she muttered.
"Now, Paige, tell us why I spilled my coffee because of your non-demon related screaming." Phoebe snapped.
Paige frowned but murmured reluctantly, "I saw a zit on my face." She raised her voice, sounding irritated, "I thought I was past that phase! I thought that I couldn't even get pimples anymore!"
"I get them sometimes when I'm pregnant because of the hormones," Piper commented thoughtfully before narrowing her eyes suspiciously at Paige, "Wait . . . you're not pregnant, are you?"
"What? No!" Paige said indignantly, looking hurt that Piper even suggested that.
Chris, who was getting very tired of this conversation, voiced the solution to Paige's problem. "Just use cover up."
Paige rounded on Chris, scrutinizing him. "Yeah, well, I'm getting these stress pimples because of you, you know, Mr. I-Have-Amnesia! So don't try to cover up for yourself!"
Chris blinked as that last comment gave him a strange feeling of déjà vu . . .
"Chris, will you cover for me?"
"What?" Chris asked, frowning slightly at his brother, "Again?"
Wyatt nodded impatiently. "Yeah. Listen, I'm going to leave when everyone is asleep, but I need you to cover if they find out I'm out of bed, okay? Can you do that?"
"What am I supposed to say? 'Oh, sorry Mom, but Wyatt decided to sleep walk out of the house to . . . wherever you're going'!" Chris snapped angrily. Frankly, he was getting tired of doing this. Of course, they were brothers; it was their job to look out for each other, but this was going way too far! Wyatt has been sneaking out several times a week, to who knows where!
Chris felt like he should say something to Mom, but wasn't very inclined to tattling. He's noticed a definite change in his brother recently, ever since his father –Chris scowled at the thought of his neglectful parent –continued to pound the importance of Wyatt's Twice-Blessed status into his head at every chance he got. Dear old Dad obviously wasn't around enough to realize that Wyatt's a freaking teenager . . . and teenagers will rebel when someone tries to control every aspect of them.
Sometimes Chris worried about his brother, how he was sneaking out late and everything. But he'd always had the utmost trust in his brother, and he knew Wyatt wasn't stupid enough to get himself into deep trouble.
At least, that's what he told himself.
"You don't need to worry about where I'm going," Wyatt replied coolly, "And I'll be back before you know it; you probably won't even need to cover for me. You never needed to before."
Chris reluctantly agreed.
Later that night, long past midnight, Chris awoke with a start, his whitelighter senses tingling all over. Well, that or his connection with his brother. Either way, Chris knew something was wrong. Quickly, he glanced over at his bedside table, noting the bright green numbers blaring "2:00".
Chris swiftly threw his covers unceremoniously off him and crept outside of his room in his boxers, carefully making his way along the corridor and down the stairs, cautious to skip the squeaky steps. He let his instinct lead the way, and he found Wyatt leaning heavily on the living room couch, looking sick to his stomach.
As he approached his brother, he distinctly heard Wyatt mumbling something under his breath, and felt very faint magic ripple through the air.
Sick . . . sick feelings I w –wish to omit
Cease and des . . . desist before I vomit
But the magic faded, and Chris could tell from the persistent green tinge in Wyatt's complexion that the spell didn't work.
"Wyatt?" Chris asked tentatively, tapping his shoulder gently. "You okay?"
His brother responded by turning around and throwing up all over Chris's shirt. Scrunching up his nose in disgust, Chris felt himself wanting to retch, but instead compromised and gagged on the vomit in his throat. He finally got a good look at Wyatt, and Chris's eyes widened when he saw his brother's eyes distant and unfocused. He began muttering incoherent words to himself, and Chris could have sworn that he smelled alcohol on Wyatt's breath.
"Wyatt?" Chris asked cautiously, "Are you drunk?"
"Why –why'd you say a thing like that?" Wyatt asked, looking positively ill, before puking again, this time on the carpet.
Quickly, Chris muttered a cleaning spell that he had made up a long time ago when he was little. At the time, he'd used it when he spilled apple juice all over the table, though. Unfortunately, it didn't work on Chris's shirt, and he was left with the disgusting scent of vomit.
"It sounds like you used that sobering spell a lot, Wyatt," Chris accused, "Is this where you've been going to all these nights?"
Wyatt glared at him heatedly, confirming Chris's suspicions. "God, Wyatt, you can't just go off partying all night? What the hell am I supposed to do with you?" But in truth, Chris felt a little betrayed. Wyatt was supposed to be his big brother, his role model, his example. He couldn't help but wonder when the roles had been reversed and Chris had to be the responsible one.
But at the end of the day, Wyatt was still Chris's brother, and he needed Chris's help. So, he would help, no matter how irritated he was about Wyatt puking all over his shirt.
"C'mon, Wyatt, we'd better get you upstairs," Chris muttered, putting Wyatt's arm over his shoulder and supporting him, praying that Wyatt didn't puke on the way up, therefore alerting the adults. He severely wished that he could just orb them up to the room, but the loud chimes would also wake up Mom and his Aunts.
So, they had to slowly and carefully make their way up the stairs, which was pretty hard, considering the fact that really, only one of them was doing the walking. Wyatt was more leaning on Chris and trying not to throw up. Well, Chris was glad that he at least could hold it in for a while; although, Chris figured he probably smells strongly of beer now. He was looking forward to a long shower in the morning. As for Wyatt . . . he was pretty sure his brother was going to have a massive hangover in a few hours, if not now.
Luckily, they made it to their room without anything eventful happening. Chris dumped Wyatt onto his respective bed, and crept out into the bathroom, intent on trying to get the puke off his shirt.
Turning on the faucet, knowing that going to the bathroom in the middle of the night wouldn't arouse any suspicions, and hopefully no investigations. Scrunching up his nose in disgust, Chris attempted to wash vomit off his shirt with hand soap. He worked on it for a while, intently scrubbing the cotton with his fingers. Unfortunately, Chris didn't hear the door open.
"Chris?"
Closing his eyes, he groaned inwardly. Could this night get any worse?
Mom stood at the door, arms crossed sternly. "What are you doing?"
"Uh . . . laundry?" Chris offered lamely.
Not surprisingly, Mom didn't look very convinced by this. "Christopher Perry Halliwell! Tell the truth! Do I need to use the Truth Spell on you?"
Cringing openly, Chris shook his head. "My shirt got dirty, so I was cleaning it." Well, at least that was the half truth.
"In the middle of the night?" Mom asked skeptically, arching an eyebrow. "That's a little fishy, Chris." She stepped closer to her son, suspicion deepening in her eyes at every step she took. Her eyes widened, and Chris realized with a pang that she had smelled the alcohol that had apparently rubbed off on Chris.
"Christopher . . ." she said in a deadly voice usually only reserved for particularly nasty demons, "Have you been drinking?"
"No!" Chris said truthfully, shaking his head vigorously.
Mom pointed her finger at the hall. "Go to bed, now. We'll talk about this tomorrow." She was positively fuming, and Chris knew his mother was trying very hard to resist from blowing up at him. Meekly, Chris quickly made his way back to his room, full intent on yelling at Wyatt for getting him involved in his mess.
When Chris woke up the next morning, he was surprised to find Wyatt already out of bed. He had hoped to catch him and figure out what they were going to do about this. After all, it was Wyatt's fault that Chris was in trouble now.
He sensed for his brother and detected his aura somewhere downstairs, which is where he headed, looking both ways before he moved, making sure he couldn't see his mother. But when he arrived downstairs, he saw that his mother and aunts were all sitting in the living room silently. Knowing that this was possibly about him, Chris retreated back upstairs and orbed to the kitchen, where he hoped his brother was.
Once he appeared, he found his youngest cousin Penelope orbing a couple feet towards him. Chris rolled his eyes; Pen had been practicing orbing at every chance she got ever since Aunt Paige started allowing her to, although Chris and Wyatt had secretly helped her learn when she was little and his Aunt wasn't home.
"You're in BIG trouble Chris!" she squealed, the six-year-old's brown pigtails bouncing up and down while Chris made shushing sounds and wild hand motions, trying to keep his little cousin quiet. It didn't work though; with a groan, Chris heard footsteps coming from the living room, and sure enough, his mother and aunts were here.
"Shit."
Mom crossed her arms and pointed to the living room. After shooting an angry glare at Wyatt, who was sitting at the table, perfectly sober and without a hangover, eating pancakes calmly and watching this exchange, Chris reluctantly trudged over to the forebodingly looking living room coach, his feet heavy.
By then, nearly the entire Halliwell family was in the living room, although the kids tended to stay off to the side, wisely anticipating and avoiding Hurricane Piper.
"Christopher Perry Halliwell." Mom started off sternly, "You came home yesterday, smelling like alcohol. Were you out partying or something?"
Chris really did not know what to say. He didn't really want to rat Wyatt out, but at the same time, did he really want to take the fall for him when he'd done nothing wrong? So instead, he decided to remain silent.
"I'll take that as a yes," Mom practically snarled, causing Chris to flinch. She'd never sounded this mad before; at least, not at him, not even when he'd blown up the toaster. . . "You are in trouble. Sneaking off in the middle of the night is not only dangerous, but it sets a bad example for your younger cousins. Aren't you going to say anything? Are you even ashamed?"
Finally, Chris couldn't take it any more. The way his Mom was looking at him . . . it made his insides squirm with guilt, even when he didn't do anything. He had to tell the truth. "It wasn't me, Mom, it was Wyatt," he said, inclining his head at his older brother, "He came home late, drunk and partied out, and when I tried to help him back upstairs, he puked all over me, so I was trying to wash it out."
Mom listened to this with narrowed eyes, staring at him intensely, trying to figure out if Chris was lying or not.
Wyatt scoffed from the corner where he was currently leaning against the wall. "Please, Chris, blame everything on me, why don't you?"
Whirling around to face his brother, Chris's mouth dropped incredulously. He was actually going to let Chris take the fall for him? "Wha –no –you . . ."
Smirking, Wyatt said, "Don't try to cover up for yourself."
Chris blinked, snapping out of the memory. Paige was staring at him closely, eyebrows furrowed in worry.
"Are you okay, Chris?" she asked, concerned.
"What? Yeah, fine," Chris muttered, "Uh, I've got to go." He maneuvered his way around the sisters and walked off.
Phoebe frowned as she felt a ripple of emotions coming from Chris –pain. Deciding to investigate this, she excused herself and followed the whitelighter, catching him in the foyer. She had a feeling that this concerned whatever Chris had found out in his vision quest.
"Chris, wait!" she called. He turned around tiredly. "Listen, I can tell whatever you found out from the vision quest is hurting you . . . why don't you want to talk about it? It'll make you feel better."
He stared at her blankly, his face completely devoid of emotions. "He's here," he informed hoarsely at last, "Wyatt's here."
Phoebe's eyes widened as she absorbed this. "Wait . . . Wyatt? As in future, evil Wyatt?"
"Yeah, that Wyatt." Chris confirmed.
"Oh my god . . . what do we do?" she murmured, mostly to herself.
Chris sighed exhaustedly, "I don't know. You're the Charmed Ones; you figure it out."
He made a move to orb out, but Phoebe gripped his shoulder tightly, stopping him. "We know you're Good, you know. You don't have to cover up for your identity."
Chris stared at her with hesitant eyes, making her think that Chris was about to tell her before he said instead with sad eyes, "Yes, I do," and orbed out.
