Hiiii!
First I want to thank all those who send flowers to my family... but no, the rumours of my early dead were just that, rumours.
Now being serious, I'm really sorry for this delay... ok, two months is a delay, this is more in the lines of uh... I'm sure there's a correct word to end this sentence, i just don't know which one TT
The thing is that I lost my beta (not her fault at all, just things that happen) and live, jobs and those small little nuisances got un the way... so I all but forgot about the fic... not forgot per se but... hum... well... I should have thought for a great excuse XP
The thing is that i had this chapter written for year... months... and yesterday I just woke up decided to post it.
So here it goes... please, be kind, for it's not been beta-tested and it may have more in common with sweddish than english.
Thanks for all the reviews, and I'm reeeaaaaally sorry TT
Big round cookie for everyone... and tea... and sweets... and uh... a coke?
"You're
my son?" She asked.
He nodded.
"Mine and Leo's, am I
carrying you right now?"
Another nod.
Oh, god.
Piper thought. This is reeeeaaaaaaaaaaal, or I'm having worst
hangover ever.
The witch let go of Chris, recoiling a bit and
sitting down in a irony thing she couldn't identify: it was wet, but
so was she.
Chris stood still, the more he told himsef that she would need a little time to get over it, the more it downed on him what had happened.
She knew.
They all
knew.
Leo knew.
What was he supposed to do now?
The Play dead/ Jump off the bridge advices that echoed in his head sounded pretty neat for a few seconds.
Remember Piper?
The oldest Charmed One?
With a serious subtlelty problem?
Married... ex-married to an angel?
Mother of the twice blessed?
Sister of Phoebe, Paige and the late Prue?
Also mother of the twice pissed off?
Yeah, the one that's sitting in the highest tower of the Golden Gate?
The pregnant... oh! Yes, I see that you know who I'm talking about... well... she won't be in this chapter, neither Chris will.
Now... those who closed the browser... that was very bad mannered!
Lots of important things can happen to the other two sisters and the other two Chris'... yep! Two Chris' for those who stayed.
Who probably won't be in the chapter, again, is Leo.
Probably.
It depends on what happens in the P3. I mean, if the witches and half-witches there are resting or playing chess, we may skip their current doings and go back to Piper and Chris. Or to Leo.
Let's see.
Paige and Phoebe were sitting in one of the couches, resting their heads and trying to make Leo appear for the thousand time. But the elder was nowhere to be seen.
"Leooooo! Can you please, please, please insert swearing words here come down this very moment before I kick your brain out of your head?"
And Phoebe was getting tired of it.
"He's probably in elderland." Said teen Chris, sitting in a table a few seats away. He and his tiny self were doing an experiment on human behaviour.
They were playing chess one against the other.
Which was fine because they'd both agreed that there was not a most suitable candidate to play against in the room than Chris Perry. And the truth was that, for the first time in both kids live, they were really enjoying it. At least the game was lasting a bit more than fifteen movements (which was kid Chris' record) or six movements (which was teen Chris' one).
"How would you know?" the empath asked, adjusting a bag of ice in her head.
"He's always there." The kid pointed out, moving a figure and trying a very complicated movement that probably has some russian name like the Tovarisch movement or the Potemkin overture... or something like that.
Kid Chris knows it's name, and so does teen Chris, but I'm afraid that, unless them, I know as much about chess as I know about nuclear phisics.
"Should we head back?" Paige asked, changing the subject. Leo seemed to be a big taboo in all Chris' ages.
"Not yet." Teen Chris recognised the movement his younger self was using mainly because he'd used it quite a lot not so long ago and moved the... the one with the crown at the top is the queen or the king?... well, he moved it several squares down.
Kid Chris used that word he'd recently learnt from his dad, but did so in a low voice that passed unnoticed to his aunts. His olders self just couldn't care less.
"We'll need a little more time to tell Piper the truth..." he explained at his aunts questioning look.
"Yeah... we looked pretty disturbed" the youngest Chris agreed, moving the tower to secure the king.
"You two really enjoy playing Gollum, do you?" Phoebe asked not very nicely. The ice was melting and her patience was melting with it.
But none of the present Chris' cared about her tone. They just smiled, mischeviously.
"Aaaaah, my precioussssssss... we're doomed, my treasure..." sissed kid Chris, rising both feet in the chair and curling upon himself.
"Show off..." Paige said, laughing. The kid was pretty good at it.
"Show off? Show off? The hobbit doesn't like us, my precioussss, but we know better. " Teen Chris continued, curling too. "...yes we know better than that... Plus when the mother finds about us, she's going to freak out, my love... yesss, she will freak and we will need time to adjust... Gollum! Gollum!"
The youngest Charmed laughed out loud at his nephews impersonation.
"You can bet she's gonna freak." the witch said, turning her sister, but Phoebe wasn't listening, she was watching teen Chris. Paige loked at him too, remembering Piper's earlier outburst.
The young half witch looked back, his face a bundle of unexistant expressions, if they'd expected some reaction after Pipers harsh words te night before, they got none. Somehow, he reminded the empath of Piper. Her sister had have that same look of "everything's just fine and shinny" lately.
Chris rised both eyebrows, silently questioning their looks and smiled a smile as cheerful as a drown kitten.
"You'll have to take it easy on her for a while, she'll probably have it difficult to come to terms..." Phoebe said when it was obvious that Chris was not going to disolve himself in tears. The teenager nodded.
"You're right... at last I hope she sees the bright side of it." The teenager said, while making some probably very smart attack with his tower. When he noticed that everyone was looking at him, wondering what he'd mean, he went on. "Well the bright side as in you're not losing a nephew but gaining a son."
That remark took the attention away from Chris' current emotional state, which was it's original intention, and brought laughs that echoed through the empty club.
Or it wasn't that empty?
As the laughs bounced through the walls and ceiling, across the stage and behind the tables, some shadows in the corner failed to move.
Yes, the club was empty but for them.
So let's let them there for a little while and get our asses back to the Golden Gate.
There's two elders there but no witches.
"My gown is golden." says one elder.
"Mine is more golden." Answers the other one.
"Damn! What are tose mad guys with golden robes doing in the top of the tower again?" says a random taxi driver.
What? Taxi drivers are magical beings!
And we jump again, out of there and right into the manor where everything looks just the same it looked when they left.
Not that everything is the same, of course. Or at least that's what Piper would say. She, by the way, is seatting in the kitchen table with a cup of tea in her hands and her son no where to be seen.
Chris, nowhere to be seen
She wasn't over it yet.
She suspected that it would take her some weeks to get over it, probably a year. Only that we know that she won't have that much time, don't we?
Chris was upstairs, he'd asked her if he could take a shower and she'd answered that yes, of course he could. Did he wanted a towel? She could give him a towel, but of course, silly her, he already knew where the towels where, did he? Ha – ha - ha Yes of course, he'd seen her putting them in the closet at the top of the stairs a hundred time the past months ha – ha - ha. Did they put the towels in the same place in the future? No, of course he couldn't answer that question, ha – ha – ha, how silly of her not to know that knowing where the towels closet was going to be in a few years could change the whole history in even worse ways, yes ha-ha-ha she understood. Future consequences. Ha-ha-ha. No she was fine, thanks. Ha – ha – ha...
Piper dropped her head in the table.
THONK.
She did it again.
THONK.
And again.
THONK.
And again.
THONK.
That felt good. The table was solid, reliable. You would always know where you were standing with a table.
Wood, legs, maybe a mantlepiece, perhaps a couple of drawers.
There's no way you would wake up one day and discover that your table was pretending to be your bed. Or your fridge, or your car. Or your whitelighter.
No, she'd never bought it if her table had pretended to be her whitelighter.
The door opened and Chris entered with a couple of Leo spare trousers, a shirt and a towel in his head.
"Do you want some tea? Cookies? I can make panckakes..." the witch asked, feeling the uncomprehensible need to feed him.
"Nah... I'm cool, thanks er... hu... thanks, Piper"
"You welcome."
He sat in front of her, looking transfixed at the amazing box of cereals in the marble. Piper stood still, taking sips of her tea and thinking of a good thing to say.
Should she be hugging him? Well, that would feel... weird to say the least.
"I'll take some tea." Chris said after a while, fearing that the silence was going to steal his tongue and hide it somewhere far away.
He did so and took a small sip.
"It's good."
"It's darjeeling." Piper felt the need to explain.
"I know."
"It's my favorite."
"I know."
"Do you want some sugar?"
"No, thank you I like the tea without sugar."
"Oh."
"But thanks."
"You welcome."
"I have cookies."
"I'm not hungry."
"Oh... yes."
Chris took another sip.
"Is good."
"It's darjeeling."
"I know."
"This is getting stupid"
"I know."
By the way, I remember I said that Piper and Chris wouldn0t be in this chapter.
I was lying.
"Who knows about it?"
Chris told her, and Piper wasn't happy.
"So basically you told everyone but me?"
"I didn't told anyone!" he argued. "They found out thanks to your spell and the damn SoulShadow..."
"Yeah... about that... sorry."
Chris shrugged.
"You've apologised like a hundred times already... drop it. I should have thought you'd do it. Nevertheless I'd like to take a look at it, if you don't mind... maybe we can know how to stop this charade before it blows up in our faces."
The witch nodded, looking around for the notebook. It was in the marble, among the few papers that her sisters had been able to save from the attic destruction.
While she looked through the pages Chris sorted the papers restlessly.
He'd been right, he should have never let her... let them know. Now everything was uneasy between him and Piper.
Yesterday she slapped you, throw you out of the manor, tried to kill you and finnally cursed you... I think that UNEASY is an advance in your late relations. Chris cursed his little Victor voice and grabbed a random piece of paper, it was a spell.
He read it.
He read it again.
He checked the back of the paper, looking for some other writing.
"And do it schlok?" he asked Piper. "What's a schlok?"
The witch grabbed the spell and read it.
She read it again.
She checked the back of the paper, looking for some other writing.
"This spell is awful!" she exclaimed, fuming and throwing it to the floor where it slipped under the kitchens cabinet. "And the spell it's not here." Piper put the notebok back to it's place and fumed. "I hate when Phoebe and Paige... when your aunts move things out of their place."
"I know..." he said, evenly.
The witch looked at him with a mild surprise and smiled.
"Sure you do... and you and Wyatt probably do the same, don't you? I bet your bedroom is as messy as hell... even worse."
Piper watched amused how Chris blushed a deep shade of red.
"Not that bad!"
"Sure."
"Really! Our bedroom is not that bad!..." he exclaimed, and then added to himself At least, not Wyatt's part of the room.
"Our? You two sleep in the same room?" the witch asked, wondering if he was about to finnally open up a little bit. "Does that means that your aunts are still living with us in the manor?"
"Oh no! They live in their own places." Chris explained, and he had to be really tired to be talking that openly about the future. Piper couldn't help but to go on.
"Then?"
"You moved Wyatt into my room when the triplets were born..." he explained.
Piper's heart skipped a beat.
"Triplets? Like in 'four of them'? Four?"
"Yeah... they fit barely in the house, but we got used to the space pretty fast."
"Uh..."
"With you having the twins a year later..."
"Twins!..." Piper gave a second thought at it. "You're lying!"
"Got you!" Chris exclaimed, trying unsuccesfully to hide a laugh.
"You... you... you cheater! Will I have more children, then?" Piper was not one to give up.
"Sure, for the time I turn ten you already have a football team at home!"
"You're lying."
"Then don't ask me."
"Ok... no more questions." She surrendered for the moment.
"In fact is my turn..." said Chris, grabbing the box of cereals and eating a handful of them before continuing. Once it was obvious that Piper was not going to go all mad at him, he'd rediscover his stomach and found it empty.
"Your turn for what?"
"For the questions... What happened? What's all the spell about exactly?"
Come to think of it... the zoo may not have been a good place to run to. Leo thought as yet another beaver flyed across the air in his general direction. The elder barely stopped it in mid air before the poor thing smashed itself into the ground.
"C'mon, Chris... just don't do this, let's talk!" he exclaimed, retreating a little bit more into his hidden spot.
"Talk? You wanna talk?" Chris' yelled from the distance he'd managed to keep between them. "Sure... come here! Let's talk."
It was a trap, he'd fallen for it the first time and got impaled by a weathercock. It'd hurt, no matter how dead he was.
Chris hadn't added anything else, so the elder tried again to talk some sense in him. He'd stopped trying to do so face to face when Chris had thrown him a bear a few minutes ago, so now he was shouting at his son from behind a small hut of junk.
"I just want to make you understand! You're in the past! I'm Leo, I'm no shapeshifter!" Leo waited for an answer but got none, he just hoped it meant something good. "You came to the past! You wanted to save Wyatt! Chris, listen to me... you came here to stop the future, to save your brother..."
"I don't want to save Wyatt, dad... I want him dead." Chris voice sounded just behind him and before he could even think of orbing, a new pain exploded in his head and the elder fell to the ground.
"Did it hurt, daddy?"
Leo opened his eyes and watched his son through a courtain of red pain. Chris was holding a big fork, it's spikes wet with his own blood. The kid smiling face was a nightmare of madness.
"I told you! I'm the real Leo, I'm your father. Listen to me..."
Chris kneeled down, and Leo forgot all about his smile when he looked at his empty eyes. There was nothing there, no soul, until the boy reached his height and looked him in the eyes too. Then Leo saw something, and it wasn't the horrifying madness he'd been fearing. It was mirth.
"Oh, but dad... I believe you."
The back of the fork came down again and cracked Leo's skull so hard that, for a second, he thoght that he'd died. He hadn't, and he found so when Chris kicked him in the side and his voice filled the air around him.
"C'mon, Leo... this is such a merry reunion, don't fall asleep so fast. I learnt a new couple of tricks lately, some things that weren't in the book of shadows... I want you to see what I've learnt, dad. I want to make you proud. Will you be proud, daddy?"
"Proud of what?" Leo looked up at his son, wondering what he was going to do. More worried than afraid.
"Hush now, Leo... I'm trying to remember..." Chris eyes were slightly lost and he was holding a sharp knive. "How was it?"
Taking advantage of the half witch absentmindness, Leo began to orb away, heading to some place where he'd be able to think of a way to stop his son without hurting him, before someone got hurt. He didn't made it nowhere for the moment he'd start disappearing, a tk wave throw his body overhead the small hut and right into the cocodriles pit.
Leo fell into the dark, cold, dirty water and swallowed some of that dark, cold, dirty and nauseating liquid also called water.
The elder got to the surface again in time to see a really big cocodrile approaching him with a hungry stare. The angel throwed at him the elder equivalent to a try to bite me and you'll end your days like a handbag glare and the huge lizard decided that, for once, he would go for a low cal diet and turned around.
When Leo tried again to orb, he couldn't.
"I hope you don't mind, daddy..." Chris voice came from the top of the pit, high and clear, even happy. "I just blocked all orbing activity around here for a while... I thought it would be better, just so aunt Paige or some elder won't interrupt us."
"You can't block elders from orbing." The man stated, his body already healing his pains. "It's not possible."
Chris laughed again and Leo suddenly remembered the protection stones the half whitelighter had shown them yesterday.
The boy talked before he could ask the question.
"But you can, Leo... you can... you just have to be willing to do a sacrifice big enough... willing to spill enough blood."
The elder had arrived to the artificial lake shore and was looking for a way to climb up. The cocodriles were keeping themselves occupied with other things, like trying that new taste called veggie food they'd just grown interest in.
"That's dark magic..."
"Very clever..."
"But you can't... you don't... who taught you?"
"Lord Voldemort..." the crazy witch laughed at his father dumbfounded expression before exclaiming."Got you!"
With a nonchalant jump, he came down, closer to Leo.
"I was lying... In fact I just found some dark books in some dark places... I'm not an expert if that's what worries you, just think of it as a hobby. Something I do when I'm not hunting demons."
"Dark magic and demons hunting? Sounds like a live of fun..." Leo was trying to win time, to find a way out that didn't involve lightning the half witch.
"I used to play chess with grandpa but then he died and... you know, dark magic was a good new option."
"Victor's dead?"
The thing, the really worrying thing, though Leo while his body was violently thrown outside of the cocodriles fossa, was that there was no way to guess which were te right answers or the right questions. Victor, for a start, looked like the wrong subject.
The elder crashed into the ground with a sickening noise of broken bones and knew that he was not going to be able to stand for a while. Chris orbed right next to him.
"Did I hurt you, daddy?"
"I thought... I though that you'd stop orbing."
"Oh... I did... I stopped your orbing but kept mine." The half witch sat down with his legs crossed and pocked (touched with his finger 'point-point-point') the elders ribs. That hurt too.
"That's a hell of a spell..." Leo said, trying to recoil, but every movement throwed waves of pain through his body.
"Dad... you can be so short sometimes..." the young man said in a condescendent tone.
"I'm not following you..."
"Sighs... i was hoping to see the surprise in your eyes when you realised by yourself... but that's not going to happen, so... think of it, what's the main element in dark magic?" the half whitelighter smiled complacent at him, like if he was talking to a extremly slow kid, and when Leo failed to inmediately respond he pinched him again, hard enough to force a shriek. "You know the aswer, Leo... I know you do."
"B- Blood."
"Great!" Chris applauded cheerfully. "And how powerfull does a spell that can trap elders have to be?"
A new pinch, now in his back. It hurted the same.
"V- Ve- very..."
"Very powerful, neat! You're doing very good. Now, a new question... which is the most powerful blood?"
Leo did not waited for the pinch to answer now.
"Holy... holy blood."
"And the last one... which is the holiest blood ever? Which are the avatars of goodness that carry such kindness through their veins?"
"Whi... whitelighters." The truth of the answer carried him away. "You've spilled a whitelighters blood! Are you an idiot?"
"Well... I'm doing so now... ain't I? And be careful dad, or I may stop this game and start again with the previous one. I liked your flying version."
"I don't mean that... I mean... you can't..." Leo put himself up and into his elbows, spitting blood. "Whitelighter's blood is sacred, using it to dark magic you're cursing his soul, you're endangering the whitelighter's mere existance."
Chris shrugged, getting up. "At least you can't say I'm that selfish."
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, let's put it this way..." the witch said, out of his sight. "I kind of carry my own magical supplements with me."
Leo looked up from his position, trying and managing to stand in his knees but not getting any further. Chris had rolled up a blood soaked sleeve and was showing him his forearm brutally slashed. He closed his eyes in disgust but couldn't close his ears to Chris laughs.
"C'mon father... it's a mix of a charmed one and a whitelighter's blood. You can say what you want about me, but can't say I'm not ressourceful."
Still unable to look, Leo finnally stood up ignoring the soaring pain in his ribs.
"Chris... I... I..." what was there to say? I'm sorry I was such a lousy father didn't seem to fit there, nor I'm sorry your maniac brother made you suffer so much you lost your mind. And definetly You're grounded was out of question. "Chris."
But then, where to start?
Maybe by looking at him.
Still revolted by the blood, Leo looked again at his son, afraid of what he would see... and, truth to be told even at expenses of the drama sense of the moment, at first he saw nothing. That is until he looked down and found Chris curled in a ball in the ground.
"Chris?" Leo said for third time, but his psichotic son did not reacted. He just stood there, all wrapped around himself and with his eyes transfixed in his bloody, and still bleeding, arm. Leo bent down out of worry and grabbed the boys wrist, in what could have been one of the most stupids and painful moments in his live after death.
It wasn't. That is, Chris did not decide that such an offence should be rewarded with an unpleasant new way of causing pain.
Probably because he wasn't all there.
And the small part that was there was looking hopelessly at his own arm.
"It hurts." He said while removing his arm of the elder's touch, but then he just put it back slowly. "Can you heal it, daddy?"
And his voice wasn't that of the mad boy he'd been trying to sooth, neither it was that of his kid self. It was pleading and full of sorrow, not childish but begging, soacked in pity and dispair.
Leo did as he was told and cured his son, wondering how the sweet overexited kid had turnedinto this... into... did Chris actual state had a name? He was crazy. Was he treatable...? but then again, he'd meet his older version, their own Chris and all in all, allowed by the little prespective that having had such a close reunion with the half witch eighteen's self could give him, Leo was able to assure that his oldest version of Chris wasn't that much crazy after all. With a remarked stress on the that much
"Are you feeling better?" he asked, fearing a new outburst. But Chris had grown quiet and was simply rocketing, looking still at the blood in his arm and tapping his head with the other hand. "Chris?"
"Make them stop, daddy... make them stop..."
"Make who stop what?"
"They won't stop they keep talking... they yell and they are begging. They want me to do something! And they are all here."
Leo looked around. They were still alone.
"Where? Where are... oh my god, stop that!" Leo grabbed the young man shoulders and stopped him, for the moment he'd turn around, the kid had begin hitting his head to the ground so fiercly that he had blood all over his face.
"They're here..." the half witch grabbed a handfull of hairs and pulled them fiercly. "They're here and they won't shut up! They keep yelling and complaining... they keep... STOP WHINNING, DAMN IT!" The elder was unable to restrain his son as he backed away holding his head still. "Stop you prissy stupid souls, DIE, DIE RIGHT AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE! I can't! I can't do it! I CAN NOT DO IT!"
"Take it easy! C'mon buddy, calm down!" Leo tried to grab the crying half witch by the shoulders, to pull him into an embrace and sooth him enough to heal the wound. "Ssssht! It's okay... It's okay, i'm here... I'm here..." Leo let his elder powers flow through his veins and to the gash in the boy's head and Chris steadied himself, looking at the golden soft beam that was easing his pain.
"You're here." He said, rasing a hand and touching Leo's one, the source of the glow.
"Yes, buddy, I'm here... I'm here..."
"Here... you're back... it's time..." Pulling the hand back the young man touched the gash in his forehead. "Hurts..."
"It will stop."
"No, it won't... it will keep hurting forever... but that's good. Pain's good. Pain brings me back when I'm lost in the voices, when the drown me..."
"We'll fight the voices..." The elder wondered what he was talking about, and nearly let go of him, startled, when Chris caressed his face with his blood stained hand.
"They're gone now... pain scares them away." With tremblous movements Chris kept touching his father's face.
"I don't understand you, Chris..." Leo smelled and felt the blood his son was leaving in his skin and had to supress a nausea. The half witch was nearly healed now.
"You will... " pushing himself away with unexpected force, the half witch stood on his knees and looked at his father with a new smile.
"Holy Blood, heir of the powers three,
Out of your bounds I set you free,
Good or evil, feel the same,
Blood of Halliwells, heed your name.
Pain and sorrow, fire and ice,
Through my will you will arise,
Boil the skin and burn the bone,
merry and peace he shall feel none"
To
descrive the pain Leo felt right to that moment would've been up to
impossible for someone who hasn't felt it.
I could say that he
felt a thousand small needles puncturating his sking and scartching
his skull, slowly perforing it's way to his braing where they
burned like fire.
I could say that it was like if someone had grabbed his head and was repeteadly smashing into a ground full of broken glass.
I could say that Prometeus would have been sorry for him, that he would have refused to change their situations.
I could say that it was like beeing hit in the head by a train, without dying, so you'd have to feel each and every single of it's wheels pass over your skull.
I could use all the metaphors I want and yet not be able to make you understand how he felt right in that moment, when his son finished his spell and all hell broke loose in leo's head.
Fortunately, it didn't last long.
"Holy Blood, heir of the powers three,
back to your bounds I must put thee,
for this evilness you must shame,
Blood of Halliwells, heed your name.
Retreat your power,
Stop this deed,
The angry lower,
Of pain get rid."
"What the hell?"
The elder heard his son curse right in front of him and opened the eyes, feeling sore and dumb. The pain was gone, yet he left his both hands clasped around his head out of fear that it may break if he let go. A blurry Chris was standing in front of him, looking around in confusion, or so Leo thought, and his blue sweater was now half dark purple with blood.
"Who did that?" yelled the maniac half witch. "Wyatt? Wy, is it you?"
Not fully aware of what he was doing, Leo took the opportunity to back away, looking around too, searching for the origin of the voice. But Chris was not going to made it that easy for him, as he found when he was levitated six feet up of the ground and dropped.
"Where do you think that you're going, Leo?"
He didn't had the aim to protest or to try to talk some sense in him. In fact he barely managed to stop his powers from setting free in auto preservation. Chris had slashed his forearm again and was begining a new incantation while the elder found himself unable to do anything but to watch at the kid as he spilled the red liquid again all over his father.
"Holy blood, heir of the..."
A blue blur crossed leo's vision and Chris was thrown a good ten feet in the air and several more to the side, landing in the cocodriles pit again. The lizard scrambled away from him like cocroaches.
"Damnit... that was a darn unpleasant spell... how are you?"
Leo looked from the spot where his son had been three seconds ago to the spot where Chris was standing now. Only that this Chris had longer hair and a shadow of a beard wanna be. And his eyes were... well, they simply were there.
"Chris? What...? How? Did you changed? How did you...? What?"
"Those are a lot of questions and we don't have time to..." he did not finished the sentence, or if he did, it was while flying fast right into the small hut behind which Leo had hide a few minutes ago.
"Who the hell was that moron?" Psicho Chris had thrown himself up from the fossa and landed more or less smoothly in the ground."And why did he looked like me but with a horrible hairstyle?"
"Would you all please stop going at my hair?" Chris stood a little shakily in the hutt mess he'd caused while landing. "And you... I will call you the Lekter version, if you don't mind,... you, stop being such a jackass."
Psico witch glared at the demon, startled.
"What? Now, listen to me, you horribly old and worn shapeshifted version of me. I was doing something really important here... family bonding... and you just came and broke the spell, so now I have to do it again." Ignoring, or more probably, fogetting about his still bleeding left forearm Chris decided to have a go to his right one and tried to cut it with a broken piece of glass.
But the glass flyed away at a gesture of the oldest Chris.
"Hey! That will leave a mark, you idiot! And what does worn means? I'm young and pretty, you lunatic from hell!"
Psico Chris waved his hand at the shapeshifter demon, the shapeshifter demon, that is, adult Chris, waved his, and both waves collided and disappeared in mid air.
Psico Chris did it again, adult Chris stopped it.
And two more times Psico Chris tried it, and twice the adult half witch protected himself.
Finnally the younger man stopped.
"Who are you?" he asked, the shadow of a suspicions growing in his face.
"I'm you. An older version of you."
"That's crazy talk. What do you think that I am? A loony?"
"Me? Noooo... how could I think that of you... please... such an example of a straight mind..." stated the oldest half witch.
"What are you suggesting?"
From the ground, Leo heard Chris snorting.
"I'm suggesting nothing, I'm saying it, you are CRAZY."
"No I'm not."
"You're too."
"I'm not."
"Yes."
"No."
"CRRRRRAAAAAZZZZZZY!"
"Shut up!"
The, indeed, crazy witch tried to tk again the annoying git, but the alluded blocked him again.
"Make me, you loner."
"I'm NOT crazy."
Now the snort was a dry laugh, yet the elder saw something else. Even while he was making fun of himself, of the younger Chris, there was a horrified look in his eyes. His hands where trembling and some of the words he was ushering so nonchalantly seemed to be carving it's way into the young man soul.
"Yes, you are! You're so out of your mind that you've lost track of it. You're so crazy you scared the hell out of Mike Myers. Your madness is worth a quilted room and a couple of lobotomies!" The horror was still there, but now it was mixing. Mixing with anger and some weird shame. "You wouldn't recognize common sense if it bited your butt. Reality is a lie someone told you long ago and you can't remember. If life was a movie, you'd be the guy with the sac in the head and a butcher's knife in your hand! And that's just half how crazy you're!"
Looking at his adult son, Leo wondered how the guy had fooled them all in the past when it was so easy to read his emotions in his manners, in his face and in his eyes. Something hit his side and forced him to look back at the other version, Psico Chris had both hands in his ears, trying to cover his other self words, or maybe trying to stop his own inner voices, it was hard to guess. He wasn't yelling but repeating some mantra in a low even voice that Leo could not understand.
The elder was hit again, and yet one more time before he understood those were tk waves coming from the youngest half witch who looked close to have a fit... what the hell did Chris think that he was doing?
"Chris..." the elder tried to warn him. "Chris, I don't think you should..."
"Shut up, Leo!"
"Shut up, Leo!"
Well, at least both version of his son were able to agree in something.
"My head, hurts." Chris' childish complain stopped him from insisting further.
"What are you talking about, you whinny boy?" but even when asking, adult Chris was already raising a hand to his temple. "Damn... damn damn damn damn... not nowwwwww..."
"My head hurts!" the younger version was again curled in a ball. "SHUT UP! SHUT UP! HUUUURTS! IT'S NOT... IT'S NOT MY FAULT, IT'S NOT... PLEAAAAAASE!"
Leo turned to the version of his son who was less inclined to skin him alive for an answer, but did not asked the question. Chris was looking at his younger self with a stern look on his face, cheeks blushed and watery eyes. The elder thought, at first, that watching his own state at such a younger age was breaking whatever wall he'd builded around himself. But Chris' hand was still in his temple, massaging it slowly and his lips were a thin line of determination that blocked all moans he was willing to let go.
"MAKE IT STOP!"
The wave got both, Leo and Chris, by surprise by it's viciousness and throwed them right back into the cocodriles pit. At this moment the creatures had decided to cooperate and where trying to make a lizard castle and emigrate. They'd heard that in the hippos cage you could have a fine live.
The elder managed to grab Chris in middair and stop his fall at expenses of himself, it wasn't that bad because they fell in the water.
That is, is that was really water.
As both resurfaced, Leo spit what he'd swallowed and praied to whatever higher being was listening that cocodriles did not make they depositions in the water.
He helped Chris help him move to the shore and both stood there for a second, trying to regain their breath.
"What the hell are you doing, Leo? What's this shit?" Chris complained, still massaging his forehead. "Why haven't you blasted his ass? You're an elder and I know that you can beat the hell out of me now, so you should be able to beat the hell out of that whinning me."
"I... I can't do that." He spitted a little bit more. "I could really hurt you."
"So now you care about hurting me? How touching."
"Hey, I never touched you!" complained he elder feeling like crap.
"No, I swear... that would just have been too much... aunt Phoebe? Well, she's young and beauty, I can bare that... but you? I'd cut my own throat..."
"What are you...?"
The halfwitch decided it wasn't the right moment for certain discussion, there would never be a right moment for that discussion, so he just ignored Leo and went on.
"Plus I have one word for you, Leo..." Chris rised a finger. "Valha--- daaaaaaammmmmmnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!" not finishing the word, the young man bent down, pressing his palms over his eyes. "Sssssssssstoooopppp thhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaat!"
"Chris, what's it? What happens?"
The alluded shook his head in negation. "Stay aside, it will pass.. it will pass... it's just that all this messing with my head is opening old wou- uuuuuurgh! Would you pleeeeaaaaase stun me unconscious? Not me me, I mean Lekter me."
"Chris, I can't do that!"
"You did! Damnit, Leo, you broke my arm yesterday, now can you break my skull today?"
Realization dawned on Leo like a bucket of cold water. He'd lied. He'd said he'd never touched him, but he had. And not one but two to say the least.
"I'm... I'm sorry. I didn't... I'... "
"Oh! Damn it! Leo! Forget about it, I don't care! I kidnapped Wyatt you got angry, if you'd kidnapped Wyatt I'd boiled you alive! Now, go – and – knock – him – OUT! You have my permission. I won't be angry at you, I won't complain and i swear there will be no traumas!"
"Chris, i can't... i'm sorry... i just... I just went and had waffles with you, i can't go now and electrocute you!"
"Waffles? I blackmailed you into waffles?"
"You did not blackmailed me into waffles. You were hungry."
"And you gave me waffles? Do you have the least idea of what effect waffles have on me?"
"I do now..."
One of the cocodriles, the one that had managed to climb all the way out of the pit and leave behind those crazy hairless apes found himself wondering when he'd learnt to fly before falling between a couple of the aforementioned bald apes. He scurried away into the water just in time to avoid the voice full of madness of the third ape.
Cocodriles had been good at mad hairless apes since one of them decided that it was a good idea to strip all his clothes, wear a piece of panther's fur and cross the jungle from tree to tree yelling at the top of his lungs. How the man ever managed to hunt with such a unsubtle method of approach was completly out of their comprehension, thought.
The thing is that cocodriles had in their genes a sixth sense for levels of madness... the tree jumping guy wold have been a model of strightmindness in comparision to the mood changing guy that was talking from the top of the pit.
Cocodriles does not laugh, therefore that one was not able to distinguish the fact that psico Chris was not talking but laughing.
"Leo.. you should really, relly, really, get over your parental problems and leave me unconscious." Adult Chris stated grimly.
"I can't do that! " Leo complained hoplessly, he was already feeling guilty enough. "And why did you began mocking him?"
"I had a plan..." the half witch confessed looking at himself. Psico version had changed laughs for cries and was holding his head again. "Damn... looking at it from outside... I did was all that crazy..."
"You look better now... if that's from any help."
"It's not..."
"You were going to tell me about your plan."
"No I wasn't... I was going to tell you how little do I wan't to approach him and how glad would I be if you could go upthere and beat the crap out of me."
"Sorry."
"Hey, you two!" Psico Chris yelled from upside. "What's this? Why does he gets family bonding and I don't?"
"You're hearing him, Leo... he's asking for some BDSM..."
Leo looked at him mortified.
"Okay, okay... I get it, you can bail on me but not beat me. Charming."
"Holy Blood, heir of the powers three,
Out of your bounds I set you free,
..."
Both turned their head to look up. Psico Chris was drawing some figures in the air with his blood.
"Not again... damn!"
"We'll have to talk about that later, you can't..." Leo heard himself saying in a rather annoying fatherly voice. Chris, look was darker than any his mad self had thrown at him.
"Don't you dare throw me a sermon, Leo..."
"I..."
"You nothing... and now if you don't mind I must go a traumatise myself a little further." Chris turned to his psico self waving a hand. "Hey you! Crazy outcasted of the Manson family!"
"...Good or evil, feel the same,
Blood of Halliwells, heed your name."
Lekter Chris shot himself an outraged look but answered nothing, going on with his current affaires.
"Set my enemies on fire"
"Yes, you... Damn Sadako wanna be! How are things going in your head? Is it crowded?"
"put their heads up in a... in a.. in a sp- spi-" the half witch stuttered in rage. "...spike,..."
Adult Chris frowned and leo could only guess that he'd recognised the spell.
"Tell me... have you seen Wyatt lately? Is he doing well? When are you exactly going to kill him?"
Psicho half witch broke the casting in an outraged growl.
"I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP!"
"You know what's the differences between us? The main ones? Do you mummy's boy?"
With a venomous yell, the Chris directed both hands against his older self with such a hatred that ground left way, rising a thick cloud of dust that vanished to reveal an empty crater.
Leo who for a second had thought Chris dead, looked around, half in relief half wonderment... where the hell was... An orbing dingling hastly followed by a dry THUD made him look up.
Chris was there. Both were. Only that Adult Chris was grabbing an unconscious Psico him.
"The differences..." he was saying. "are age, experience and being bethroted to an assassin that insisted in teaching me some tips, you moron." Carefully getting a safe grip of himself, the half witch orbed back. "See? It wasn't that hard..."
"Then why didn't you do it from the begining?"
"Because I amuse myself in seeing someone beating the crap out of you, Leo."
"Even your not so balanced version called me dad every now and then."
Chris looked at him straight in the eye with a expressionless face but said nothing of it and the elder found himself feeling grateful for that absence of an answer
"We must head back, Leo, because mum was worried sick and I can wake up at any moment. Plus I could do with some aspirins right now."
Here it is for now... not that much of a big cliffie... but there''s more to come ASAP.
By the way, I may need a beta (but without the 'may') , so if someone reads this and thinks he/she'd have the time and the will I'd grateful forever and ever and ever...
