Heh, I gave up sleep for this. Sorry about the small errors, but I think I might be clinically dead… Wait, no, there's the pulse.
Don't Look Under the Bed
"Maybe… Maybe it's his power?" Chris suggested hoarsely, slumped on the parlour's sofa. He had a moist washcloth on his head and it was trickling down the side of his face. He scrubbed angrily at the water with his sleeve and another bead rolled down to take its predecessor's place. He swiped it off his head and threw it down onto the end table next to him with a splat. Stupid thing. He knew his mother was trying to help, but still. Now he was all wet. But, to be fair, he was starting to feel better.
"His power is making people faint?" Piper asked sceptically, leaning against the sunroom's doorframe and watching Kaden. The child was sitting on the floor of the sunroom, watching some cartoon or the other intently. Wyatt was sitting in his playpen, also watching through the mesh that was the side. Quite subdued, actually, she noticed. Normally he would be blinking the channel all over the place. She watched him every second when he was placed in front of the TV — the dragon incident had damn near killed her last time. Figuratively and literally. But Wyatt didn't appear to be interfering with the TV today.
It made sense, therefore, that Kaden somehow had a strange, enervating power on magical beings and it was extant right now in the sunroom. His presence in the room was keeping Wyatt almost like a normal kid for once. She wasn't worried — from experience she knew that it took the full force of the kid's odd gaze to knock you on your ass. And the kid was looking at nowhere near her son. He had eyes for nothing but the TV. It couldn't be healthy but if it kept his eyes occupied then she was damned if she was going to argue. At least until they could figure out what it was exactly that he did with them.
"No, like… Maybe he can shut down power? Or suppress power?"
"I've never heard of a power like that…" Piper said doubtfully. "And if that's true, why did you end up worse off than me?"
"I got double the dose. Power drained from baby me and… me," Chris explained, pushing damp hair off his forehead and watching as the water from the washcloth pooled on a magazine.
"Well, in that case we should really keep him away from you until we can work something out," Piper said, turning and looking at Chris. "Did I tell you that you could take your washcloth off?" She demanded, looking to where the cloth was seeping water around a coaster.
"Look, I'm fine. Right now I'm more worried about seeing how or even if this factorises into the Wyatt situation, okay?"
Piper looked at the witch-whitelighter sadly as he pushed himself up from the couch, wobbled slightly, and then made for the stairs and probably the attic. She hated that she'd failed so much in raising him that every time he showed weakness or began to open up he atavistically became neurotic again, concerned about nothing but his mission. She could only guess what he had been through to turn him into that.
She sighed and snagged the baby monitor from atop the TV with its counterpart and gripped it tightly in one hand, using the other to clutch the banister as she braved the stairs. Climbing these had become such a freaking chore recently, and before she was at the top she was already more out of breath than she would have liked to have been.
And kind of faint. She hoped nothing was wrong with baby Chris inside her. Her knuckles whitened on the banister and she turned, sitting on one of the steps until the dizziness passed. She looked up and found Kaden on the half landing, looking directly at her and immediately a wave of weakness washed over her.
"Sweetie… What do you want?"
Kaden just looked at her, his grey eyes glinting slightly and unnaturally brown. Piper tried to stare him down but Kaden just stood there solemnly, gazing unnervingly back at her.
"Are you hungry? Thirsty?"
Kaden nodded and dropped his gaze to the stair carpet and Piper was able to drag herself back up again and make her way downstairs. She'd call Paige down and have her check the Book of Shadows for something on Kaden later.
Don't Look Under the Bed
Paige sat down heavily on her mascara again, chewing on a nail in thought. She found if faintly ridiculous that she was able to sit down on her mascara but pushed the thought to one side. She had to get out of here so she could find Phoebe and then the demons. Or so the demons could find her and… She shook her head, climbing to her feet and orbing out.
The lights seemed harsh and a furbelow for such dust and darkness but she vanished into their comforting lull. Orbing had been weird as first — perhaps something to do with her separate atoms breaking up or something — but now it came as naturally to her as did breathing, and was peaceful and actually kinda serene.
She was jarred out of that painfully in a flash of sparks as she hit something very solid and was thrown back. The orbs were killed around her, extinguished quickly and she looked up, shaking her head. The barrier between the light and the darkness under here was so little a way away and she got up, marching determinedly towards it.
The tassels of her comforter trailed down onto the floor and seemed to be vibrating oddly. She reached out tentatively for one — thinking that perhaps if she climbed up onto her bed then she might be able to make herself heard and found — and got a shock that blasted her back down on her butt again. She cursed fluently and got up, brushing off the back of her skirt.
"Chris? Leo?" She tried, looking up at the looming slats above her. She waited but nothing happened. Defeated she sat down once again and tried to plan her next move.
Don't Look Under the Bed
Kaden was sitting at the kitchen table, gripping a glass of juice carefully in both hands. He brought it to his lips and drank before setting it down on the very centre of one of the coasters.
Piper was routing around in one of the cupboards, craning on tiptoe to reach the top shelf of the cupboard. Her fingertips were just brushing air and she stretched even further, willing there to be something there for Kaden to eat. She was ashamed at the lack of stock in her kitchen. What with everything going on recently she hadn't even had the time to think about going shopping. She eyed the grocery list stuck to the fridge with a magnet guiltily. The rule was that if you came close to using something up then you wrote it on the list. Someone had stapled another sheet of notebook onto the bottom and had continued to add things to the list.
Suddenly her fingers found a box and she pulled it out, dragging it to the edge and letting it fall into her arms. It was a box of Saltines and, judging by the use by date, they had been bought when she was pregnant with Wyatt. She snorted with disgust and tossed them into the trash. The lid flapped open, engulfed the crackers, and swung shut again.
So far all she had found was half a box of cornflakes; a jar of instant coffee; four slices of bread; some decidedly furry cheese; a carton of orange juice; – which was barely full and she had given Kaden the entire contents – a shrivelled apple; some frozen salmon; two bottles of mineral water; a wrinkled tomato and some very, very basic baking ingredients. The flour had had weevils in and she had fed the bin that as well.
Of course the potion cabinet was full to bursting but she was incredibly dubious as to whether Kaden would snack on wolfsbane, aconite and powdered cockroach wings. She looked at her pitiful spoils – even out of flour to whip up some cookies – and was at a loss. There was no milk for the cornflakes, no butter for the bread and she doubted Kaden would eat salmon even if she could be bothered to go to the trouble of cooking it.
And it turned out that the cookies she had made the other day needed to be hidden better, because the entire contents of the Tupperware container had disappeared mysteriously overnight. So she didn't have anything to give him. At all. Except for the puddle that had become her ice cream on the table in the foyer and that didn't look appetising even to her, and she was pregnant…
She sighed and leaned on the island, before snagging the baby monitor from the counter and making for the stairs again. She could always pay Paige back later for raiding her half-sister's 'secret' goodie tin.
Don't Look Under the Bed
Chris had read the passage on Fuoco demons about eight times now, and it wasn't wielding any new information. Vanquishing spell, basic bio, how to ID them… He rubbed his eyes and closed the book, then opened it again. Maybe he could find some information on Kaden or his power… But he didn't know where to look. He didn't know what the power was called, or if he should look up Kaden specifically, — perhaps he was a demon? — or whether he should look up magical effects…
He had just closed the Book for the second time and was running a hand over the triquetera on the cover, flicking away imaginary pieces of lint from his heritage, when he heard his mother shriek.
He was running across the attic and was barrelling down the stairs to the first floor hallway, calling her name within twenty seconds.
"Mom?" He opened her bedroom door, looked in her bathroom and in the nursery and found it empty. He crossed to the bathroom, which was just as empty as her bedroom and crossed through using the door on the other side to look in Phoebe's room. Except for the dust that was still only just settling from the fight that morning and splinters of jagged door, that was empty as well. He poked his head into the spare soon-to-be-nursery room and found it empty. The guest bedroom was empty and he jogged through Paige's door last. He expected to see his aunt sitting on her bed where he had assumed she'd been for most of the afternoon, but her room was empty.
All of the rooms up here were empty. But he had heard Piper shriek from down here… Confused he was about to leave the room when he heard a faint noise in his head. It was the tiniest of whispers and he had to fight hard to hear it, but it was there. He stepped backwards out of the room and the voice was completely gone. He re-entered Paige's room and the voice was back and he even shut the window against the noise of Prescott Street to define it better. It was so faint but he swore someone was calling his name…
"Mom?" He asked uncertainly, cocking his head to try and hear it. The noise got slightly louder and he dropped onto his hands and knees, listening hard. The noise was louder at floor level and he smiled. Someone was yelling his name at the top of their lungs. Two people, actually.
There was a sudden cry from the floor and Chris yelped and jumped, knocking into Paige's bedside table and scattering its contents across the floor and under the bed.
Wyatt's baby monitor was discarded on the floor next to him.
Don't Look Under the Bed
"CHRIS! CHRIS!"
"Piper, I already yelled my head off and it didn't work," Paige said, exhausted just by watching Piper pace and yell.
"He's going to hear me. I'm his mother. Plus he's got to have heard me shriek and come looking for me."
Paige rolled her eyes and looked down at her nails. She'd picked the cuticles to shreds and they were really starting to hurt.
Suddenly thunderous footsteps announced someone's arrival in the room. Paige had already been through this phenomenon and didn't even look up, but Piper filled her lungs and hollered louder.
"CHRIS! I'M UNDER HERE!"
"You do know that he's, like, huge and you probably just sound like a squeak?"
"I'm shouting for his whitelighter half," Piper snapped, glaring at Paige. "CHRIS!"
"He's not coming," Paige told her in a singsong voice, wishing her sister would stop exerting herself for the sake of her nephew.
"CHRIS! HELP!"
There was suddenly a loud crash and objects came tumbling down around Piper. A pot of night cream nearly flattened her when she discovered that it was too heavy to freeze and she threw herself out of the way just in time, covering her head with her hand until the cavalcade of the contents of the surface of Paige's nightstand stopped. The footfalls started again and Piper looked up in desperation, yelling for her son one last time before all went quiet.
Don't Look Under the Bed
"Hey, Wyatt. What's up?" Chris asked, walking into the sunroom and comforting the crying toddler, lifting him out of his playpen and gently bouncing him up and down. "Are you hungry? Please let it be hungry…"
Gradually, the twice-blessed child stopped crying and his eyelids drooped and he began to fall asleep on Chris's shoulder. Chris patted his brother's head awkwardly, stroking the blond hair and making more comforting noises. This was so weird…
Once Wyatt was fully asleep Chris tried to shift him to lie him down, but the child stirred and started whimpering, curling his fingers stubbornly around Chris's collar. The witch-whitelighter sighed and looked to the ceiling, softly calling for his father.
He tried again, slightly louder this time and Leo orbed tentatively into view. Chris smiled at him absently, gesturing to his sleeping brother. Leo moved over to him and gently took Wyatt from Chris without disturbing him and, supporting the child's head, lay him down in his playpen to sleep.
"I could have done that," Chris said, looking down at his sleeping brother.
"Yeah…"
"I could!" Chris said indignantly.
"Then why did you need me?" Leo asked smugly, also looking down at Wyatt.
"I… I needed you investigate something. It's weird, but I think Mom and Aunt Phoebe and Aunt Paige are in the same place… I can hear at least two people calling me, but only when I'm standing in Aunt Paige's bedroom."
"Do we have guests?" Leo asked, looking towards the doorway.
Chris looked up and saw Kaden standing there, looking at his shoes. "Oh, it's Kaden. He's the innocent of the week. Leo, Kaden, Kaden, this I Leo. Okay? He's gotta go back of upstairs now but you can watch some more TV, yeah?"
Kaden perched on the edge of a wicker armchair again as Leo left and Chris collapsed into the couch, putting his feet up on the coffee table and wishing he had a hat to pull over his eyes. He'd see what Leo had turned up in a minute but for now he just wanted to rest because he was feeling so sleepy and shaky and…
Chris opened his eyes to find Kaden staring at him, the child's eyes glazed over green. Chris scrambled up from the sofa. Maybe he'd go help Leo after all.
Don't Look Under the Bed
Stony Angel: - Thank you, honey! Look, I'm thanking you two times in one night. And hopefully, Chapter Fourteen is going to be out tomorrow. Thank you so much!
mizunderstood writer I had most of this written, but then I was too lazy to polish it and finish it, so that's why it took so long. Sigh. I've really got to get out of this habit. But I've updated two fics today, and another one is looking good for tomorrow, so be happy? Please? Heh. Thank you so much for reviewing.
chattypandagurl: - Heh. Soon, or two months later? Wince. I really was bad with this one, huh? Thank you so much for reviewing.
Claddagh Ring: - Heh, thank you. Four exams down, sixteen more to go… Yay…
Sable: - I think I put one in the prologue, did I not? Grumble. It's been so hard to remember — it was so long ago…
Joskers: - I try, I really do. I can't help it, though. I'm sorry. But thanks for reviewing!
As Always: - God, the kid is freaky. You're right. He kinda scares me, and I'm writing him. But then again, I don't particularly like little kids anyway. But yeah. Thanks for reviewing!
Aldrea7: - HEH! IT'S YOU! I remember you. You were here the other day at the bus stop waiting to be picked up by an orange elephant… 'Thanks for reviewing!' I cry as you thunder off into the distance…