All That Matters

Chapter 03 - My Morning Nap Raged Out of Control

Disclaimer: All disclaimers apply

Chris ran down the hall and skidded to a halt outside of his Chem class. He took a second to brush his hair out of his eyes, then opened the door and walked in.

Mr O'Shannon arched one salt-and-pepper eyebrow at him. "Nice to see you could join us, Master Halliwell," he said, drawing sniggers from the back row. Chris smirked at him.

"Nice to see you too, Con," he replied, walking to his usual desk and sitting down.

Chris had discovered in his freshman year - during a detention, but that was beside the point - that Mr Connor O'Shannon, aged forty-five next September, was - behind the stern mask, sarcastic remarks, and burly, six foot frame - actually a very nice guy, with a fondness of cartoon animals, a love of debating and arguing, a talent for writing, and strangely - or not, depending on where you were standing - a belief in magic, even without physical proof.

By the end of the detention the two had struck up a firm friendship.

Chris had made it a point during his freshman year to get as many detentions as he possibly could, simply so he could continue to see Con - as he was told he could call him - and argue about the existence of - you guessed it - magic. That was because he didn't have Con for any of his classes until the next year.

And ever since, Chris had been able to get away with anything in O'Shannon's class.

O'Shannon narrowed his eyes slightly. "And where exactly have you been, Master Chris?" Chris eyes fell on the picture of a snoozing Garfield on O'Shannon's tie and cocked his head slightly to one side.

"My morning nap raged out of control, sir," he said innocently. It was common knowledge that Chris spent a great deal of time hanging out with his friends on the skateboard ramp, cat-napping. Of course, it wasn't common knowledge why he took so many cat-naps - due to lack of sleep from demon-hunting at night - but everyone just took it for granted. O'Shannon grinned.

"'Garfield: This is your life' Special," he observed, before turning and writing 2,7,7,8 Tetra-ethyl, 4,6 Di-propyl Nonane on the board. "Chris, this is your punishment. I want no-one but Chris to do this. Chris, you are to draw this Alkane on the board. Right now." Chris stared at him.

"What?" he asked incredulously. Con narrowed his eyes slightly: he was serious. Chris sighed, got to his feet, and walked over to the holo-board. He grabbed the sensor pen and began to draw. Nine Cs in a row, all joined by a line. A line out of each end, and then lines out of the top and bottom of each C. He numbered each C from 1 to 9, and wrote an H at the end of all the lines except the Cs numbered 2, 4,6, 7, and 8. Then he stopped.

"Mono, ethyl, Methyl, Bi, ethyl, Ethyl," he mumbled under his breath, before going on. He wrote in the correct number of Cs and Hs, circled it neatly, bowed to Con and the rest of the class, and went back to his seat. Con walked over and inspected his work.

"Could you have written any smaller, Christopher?" he asked, squinting at the minute handwriting on the board. Chris smirked.

"I could've, Con, but then I would've needed a magnifying glass," he said, the smirk still playing on his lips as the teacher turned round. Con smirked in return, and he had just opened his mouth to say something when the bell rang.

"Everyone do pages five hundred and seventy-eight through five hundred and ninety - "

The whole class groaned.

" - And no groaning or I'll make you do an extra ten - "

The groaning stopped.

" - And Master Christopher Halliwell to, in addition, study pages five-seventy through seventy-seven and do an essay on the differences between Alkanes, Alkenes, Alkynes, and Alcohols, their various names up to Dec, and the uses of one of each of them, to be handed to me on Monday, no excuses."

Chris groaned.

"Ah, god, Con, you're killin' me! An extra essay…that's sure as Hell gonna screw up my weekend…" he grumbled.

Con raised his eyebrows. "Well you'd better get a move on and do it tonight, hadn't you?" he said with a wink. Chris sighed, scribbled down his homework in his book, and headed for the door. "Oh, and Chris, one more thing…" the teacher began.

"What?"

"Where were you for forty-odd minutes?"

Chris stopped and glanced round. "I told you, my morning nap raged out of control," he said casually, with a faint shrug. Well, it was hardly like he could say that he had nearly had his hand ripped off by a four-foot-tall mutant-troll-jackal-eagle freak with sharp teeth, one of which he had in his pocket. It was…well…a little personal. To say the least. So he fell back on a phrase his aunt Phoebe used quite a lot to explain her erratic attendance at work.

"I had a…family emergency."

Con arched an eyebrow. "A family emergency."

"That's right," Chris said with a nod. Con sighed.

"If you insist, Chris."

"I do, Connor."

The old man narrowed his eyes slightly. "Get out of here, you impertinent young toad, before I give you a Saturday. That would really but a crimp in your style." Chris smirked.

"Yes, Sir," he murmured as he walked out the door. He paused for a moment outside the classroom just in time to catch Con muttering something that can't quite be announced on prime-time, shook his head, then headed for his locker. As he neared it, he began TK'ing the dial to the correct combo. Chris had grown accustomed to putting the lock on his locker on backwards, so that when he TK'd the lock, no one would notice. He stopped in front of his locker just as the last tumbler clicked into place, and he pulled the body of the lock down. The locker door swung open, and he threw his books in, putting a tiny bit of TK into it to make it really satisfying. He sighed.

"Geez, someone's pissed," a familiar voice from his left commented. He glanced up and saw a lithe, tanned 17-year-old boy with bright blue eyes and electric purple and acid yellow spiked hair leaning against the locker beside his. He felt his eyes widen in shock.

"Um, yeah…Todd, what did you do to your hair?" Chris asked slowly. His friend grinned.

"You like it?" he asked, stepping away from the locker and spinning around to show Chris the back of his head, which was lime-green with orange stripes. Turning around the right way, he bowed his head, giving Chris a view of the electric pink swirl on the crown of his head. "I got it done last night," he enthused, adding with a cheerful grin, "Isn't it great?"

"So, do you like Todd's 'do?" A girl's voice asked before he had a chance to answer. Chris glanced at her.

"You know what, Tash? I actually do. I mean, once you get over the shock of seeing so many different colours on the one head, it's not too bad. Sure, it's a bit wilder than he usually has it, but still…"

Tash looked disgusted. "You were my last hope, Chris. You and Jack are the only ones he will listen to, and yet both of you have gone and said that his hair is fine, even - dare I say it - great!" She shook her head in distaste. "I'm surrounded by idiots." And with that parting remark, she spun on her heel and strode off down the corridor, her dark blonde ponytail swinging as she walked. Both Chris and Todd watched her go.

"Unbelievable," Todd said, shaking his head, adding in an awed tone, "And I'm related to her…Jesus, what the Hell went wrong? I mean, we're twins for god's sake! Fraternal, sure, but still, we're s'posed to stick up for one another, not rag on each other's 'dos." Chris gave a wry grin.

"Yeah, I know what you mean…" His thoughts turned to Wyatt's remark about his face almost a quarter of an hour ago, and he snorted. "My face…" he grumbled under his breath, before glancing at Todd, who had an amused expression on his face. "What?"

"Dude, you need a shrink," his friend said with a smirk before turning and opening his own locker. "Oh, and by the way," he added, his voice now muffled by the locker door, "three guesses what we've got up next, and the first two don't count." Chris groaned.

"Begins with R, E, and S?" he asked grimly, grabbing his books from his locker and slamming the door shut, not entirely by physical means. Todd shut his own locker door with considerably less force and nodded.

"Yep. Sorry." He knew his friend was touchy about religion, especially when it got to parts about burning witches and stuff. Chris always said he was just angry that so many innocent people had been brutally murdered simply because they used herbs and plants to heal, and Todd had to agree.

Chris sighed and leaned his forehead against the door of his locker.

"Could this day get any worse?" he asked morosely.