Neurotic


Summary: "My name's not Chris Perry," Chris said, as if it was the hardest thing he'd ever had to say. "It's Christopher." He paused, almost reluctantly. "Christopher Halliwell."

Disclaimer: Charmed and Chris don't belong to me, doo dah, doo dah, I'm not making any money from this, oh, dah doo dah day.


Chapter The Tenth


"You've done well so far."

Paul looked up, a sneer openly on his face as he looked up at his supervisor. "What, I threw a potion, snarked a bit to my mom and gave my older brother his fiancée's head? I really don't think you can do those things well."

The demon shuffled. "I've got your next assignment," he said, instead.

Paul rolled his eyes. "Well, whoopee." It was clear that he'd inherited Chris' sense of when to use sarcasm. Also known as- at any opportunity possible. "Go on then. Do spill. I'm absolutely riveted as to what big brother could possibly want me to do."

"You know he does not appreciate your insubordinate behaviour," the demon said, quite pompously in Paul's opinion.

"Correction," Paul said, a little grumpily as he leant back against the cliff wall. "Wyatt enjoys my little attempts at subversion. You're the only one who gets pissy that I'm not a subservient whelp."

"You are a whelp," the demon snapped back. "Barely a teen in human standards. Why, if you were my offspring – perish the thought – you would still be considered a pup."

Paul started to nod, and then froze. "Pup? Dear god, you are descended from a pug. I was kidding." He pretended to stare in astonishment, his brown eyes twinkling with disdain.

"Anyway," the demon said, drawing itself up a little, blood-red eyes narrowing with distaste for Paul, "as I was saying, you're to implement step three."

"No, not step three! Anything but step three!" Paul exclaimed mock-theatrically, pressing the back of one hand to his forehead. The demon looked confused. Paul dropped his hand and looked at the demon resignedly. "Missed out on the class where you got a sense of humour, huh?"

The demon just scowled.

Paul gave up, and sighed. "What does Lord Wyatt want me to do?"

The demon told him.

Paul stared for a second. The demon smirked, enjoying seeing the youngest Halliwell boy caught off guard. "He wants me to what?"

The demon told him again, smirking wider.

"Bloody hell," Paul said. For a third time, he squinted at the demon. "Are you sure he really just wants me to pick an argument with Chris?"

"That is what he said," the demon said.

"Huh," Paul said, as the demon continued to look smug. The demon shimmered away, leaving Paul alone to contemplate the sea and his next order.

Instead of orbing away at that exact time to execute the plan, Paul settled down onto one of the larger rocks, and stared out at the sea. "Wyatt, man, what the hell are you planning?" He asked the sea, his brown eyes distant, and – perhaps – a hint of discontent on his young face.


"Yippy-ki-ay!"

Paige looked askance at Phoebe as the diminutive clairvoyant witch jumped in the air triumphantly. Phoebe realised her sister wasn't joining in with her jubilation, and turned to stare at her accusingly.

"It was cool, wasn't it?" Phoebe eventually asked, toeing the ground with her fluffy pink boots and pouting, just a little bit.

Paige relented her stony expression a little. "Yeah. We did kick demon ass pretty well, if I do say so myself."

"Three groups of demons with the power of two, wasn't it?" Phoebe recalled, a look of smug happiness on her face.

"All thanks to Chris' Map," Paige reminded, smiling as Phoebe's jubilant look faded.

"Yeah," Phoebe said. "Where is Chris, anyway?"

"With Piper, going through our address books," Paige explained.

Phoebe squinted. "That could take a while."

"You don't say," Paige said, flatly. "Wanna orb up and see?"

"Aw, can't a girl take a little time to bask?" Phoebe questioned, looking around the gore-splattered cavern with a pleased look.

"You wanna bask up there where there aren't multitudes of demons where we will need the power of three?"

Phoebe nodded, and let Paige orb her back to the house.

They reappeared to the sound of a very lively discussion.

"You can't put the Elders on there, Chris, Leo would flip!" Piper said, elbowing Chris aside a little. Chris was standing with his arms akimbo, attempting to glare her down. It wasn't working.

"I don't care about Leo," Chris snapped back. At Piper's look, he amended his statement. "I don't care about Leo flipping, we have to look at every angle. I, for example, am severely doubtful whether Phoebe's fourth grade boyfriend will be the one who betrays us and turns Wyatt, but he still got added to the column, and so- I think- the Elders should be added." Stubbornness radiated from every pore, from his flashing green eyes to his jutted chin. "Starting with Gideon!"

Piper gasped and looked outraged as Chris bent down and scrawled Gideon's name largely on one of the columns of the paper they were bent over.

"Ooh, for that, you're going on, mister!" Piper retorted, scrawling Chris' name to a column.

"Piper, do you even get this new Map?" Chris questioned, shaking his head, exasperation splayed on his face.

"Yes, I do!" Piper retorted heatedly, glaring up as fiercely as she could considering Chris towered a good half a foot over her.

"Then why did you put my name on the list for ME to investigate?" Chris semi-yelled.

Piper stopped, and stared, her mouth hanging open.

"You'll catch flies," Chris added absent-mindedly as she stood there. Piper made a small grunt of annoyance as she turned to stare at the new "Map" of "friends" they were creating.

"Huh, I did put you on your own column," Piper said, her eyebrows raised. "Jeez."

"I think you've been hanging around your dad too much," Chris said, as he assiduously put more Elder's names on one of the columns, this time in neater handwriting.

Piper's eyes narrowed. "I think that's your fault," she accused. "Why ever did you get the stupid idea of sending my dad around to spy on the Book of Shadows for you?"

"Worked, didn't it?" Chris said.

"Well that's debatable," Piper said, and then she noticed Paige and Phoebe standing in the hallway, giggling at the two of them. "Whaaat?" Piper asked, dragging out the syllable. "What's so funny?"

"You put Chris on Chris' column!" Paige managed to snort out, collapsing on Phoebe's shoulder, giggling. Phoebe looked amused herself.

Piper slumped grouchily into a chair. "It's obviously get at Piper day," she said airily. "What can you do?" She smiled, and then winced in pain.

"What's wrong?" Chris was instantly at her side, bending down on his knees and looking up at her in concern.

Piper wrinkled her nose at the concern on his face. "Nothing. This baby's just like his brother, is all, aiming his kicks at my kidneys instead of outwards."

Something dark flickered over Chris' face, which the young half-Witch, half-Whitelighter tried to hide. Piper frowned.

"Hey, Halliwell baby, stop being so nasty to your mom."

Piper resisted the sudden urge to giggle, and then realised the baby had stopped hitting her. "Hey, it worked!"

"You doubted it?" Chris pretended to be suave for a second, before a grin flashed across his face before he could stop himself. He then started, as if he realised what he was doing, and forced his face into a more neutral expression.

Coming over as Chris stood up, Paige furrowed her brow. "Why d'you do that?"

Chris blinked, confused. "Do what?"

"Force yourself to stop smiling."

Completely unexpected, the statement hit Chris hard. He looked away, frowning as he contemplated his answer, and then looked back. All three of them were looking at him now. "Smiling isn't something you do often in my future. It's considered... well-" He looked away again awkwardly. "Wyatt outlawed it. He considered it rude. Of course, he could smile, and his minions. But-"

Piper stared at him, screwing up her nose. "I'm having a talk with that youngster as soon as he's old enough."

Chris laughed, and looked over to toddler Wyatt, playing with a soft book. "Wyatt, sometime in the future you might be a very naughty boy and outlaw smiling. Well you're not to do it, you hear me? Else you're grounded!"

"Well, maybe being grounded forever was what turned him," Piper grouched, sliding up in the chair again and trying to get comfortable.

"He outlawed farting, too," Chris offered, a wry twist to the corner of his mouth.

Piper grinned. "That's my boy."

Chris rolled his eyes. "How did the vanquish go, guys?"

"Girls," Phoebe interrupted sweetly as he backed away and stood by the new Map again. "I resent the misogynistic prejudice brought on by that overtly masculine generic term."

Chris squinted uncertainly at her.

"Psychology major," Piper said. "What can you do?"

"Get a dictionary," Chris grouched.

"Wouldn't help, would it."

Chris opened his mouth to retort, and then whirled around – hands outstretched – when he recognised the voice.

"Paul!"

"In the flesh," Paul said, walking out from the kitchen, smirking as Paige and Phoebe skidded over to Piper to protect her. "Relax. I'm hardly going to harm my own mother before she gives birth to me. Which, as you may have already guessed, won't happen for some time yet."

"Then why are you here?" Chris flung out bitterly. "Come to deliver another message?"

"Gee, aren't you getting defensive," Paul drawled lazily, leaning against the banister, looking at them huddled together with a small laugh on his face. "Then again, defence was all you were ever good at you. And look where it's got you. Stuck in the past with the Charmed ones. I mean, what a joke!"

"A joke?" Chris' voice rose incredulously. "And look at you, lap-dog for your big brother! And I'm the joke?"

"Ah, yes, big brother…" Paul's gaze drifted over to where toddler Wyatt was watching him. A blue sphere instantly blazed around the golden-haired child. "He sends his regards. He said he rather enjoyed killing Bianca, seeing as she was a traitor, and that you – as a worse traitor – might be even more fun to off."

"More fun to off?" Chris laughed. "I think you've been watching too many movies where the British guy is the villain."

"What, from your film collection?" Paul's eyes darkened. "Do not believe I would touch anything of yours without extreme coercion from Wyatt. I would not dare to be so close to a disgusting creature like you."

"If I'm a creature, than Wyatt's a monster," Chris returned evenly.

"Perhaps," Paul conceded. "But Wyatt never left me to die."

Chris' cheeks instantly coloured. "If I'd known you were there-" he snapped out.

"Oh please!" Paul scoffed. "You saw the both of us! You were there! He killed your mom and then he went for me! And you went for her and she was already dead! You knew she was already dead!"

"Paul-" Chris' eyes went dead. "I couldn't see." He looked wretched. "It was a miracle that I even found her… It was so dark… blackness everywhere."

"Ridiculous!" Paul scoffed. "It was just you being inept-"

"It was Wyatt, Paul. It was Wyatt who- who killed my mom and went for you." Chris stepped forwards tentatively, truth shining on his face. "You couldn't see either. Remember? It was the blackest it had ever been. He let you hear what you wanted to hear. Easier to believe that I was evil rather than your beloved oldest brother-"

"No!" Paul stepped backwards, jerking his body backwards, outrage on his face. "It was you it was always you!"

Fury on his face, Paul pushed himself forwards and pushed Chris, who staggered backwards and fell against the wall. An audible crack was heard as Paul, anger on his face, orbed out.

From his position, slumped on the floor against the wall, Chris gingerly held his arm and stared into the space that Paul had been.


"You son of a bitch! You arrogant, pig-headed, son of a bitch! Show yourself now! Damn you!" Paul clenched his fist and smashed it into the cliff, and winced as blood started to run freely from the grazes.

Before him, the supervising demon shimmered in, looking at him confusedly.

"Not you!" Paul clenched one fist and extended it. Blue fire extended forth from his hand, and the demon screamed as Paul vanquished it. "Damn it! I want you and you know it!"

Glowering, with both fists clenched, Paul exhaled hard as another figure shimmered in. Black eyes peered forth from behind lanky, blond hair.

"Wyatt!" Paul stepped forwards. Wyatt, looking almost bored, gestured with one hand, and Paul jerked to a standstill. His eyes narrowed. "It was you, you bastard."

"Of course it was," Wyatt said amicably. "The only way I could have Piper's powers was if Chris truly let the both of you go. To make him think you were dead was the only way."

"So Chris has thought I was dead for the last eight years?" Paul demanded incredulously. "He didn't just abandon me?" Paul shook his head, his dark hair falling around his face. "You son of a bitch."

"Aw, now you're insulting mom," Wyatt said, sounding almost amused.

"Look, stop playing silly buggers and get your substantial ass here right now!" Paul said. "I'm tired of communication by demon, and by these half-baked projections. I can't deal with the power of three on my own, and I can't turn Chris on my own, and you know it."

Wyatt stared flatly at him. "You're being petulant. You know I hate it when you're petulant."

Paul sighed. "Just come, all right?"

Suspicious, the illusory Wyatt stepped closer to Paul, scanning his youngest brother's face for any sign of duplicity. Finding none, he nodded slowly. "If you can not turn Chris in the next three weeks, then yes-" Wyatt's lips curled. "I will come to the past. But before this extreme measure, there is one more thing I would like you to do."

Paul's eyes narrowed.

"Chris thinks both you and mom died on that day eight years ago," Wyatt said. "You and I know quite the opposite."

Paul's face froze, and he looked at Wyatt incredulously. "You mean-" he said, in shock.

"Yes, Paul," Wyatt said, gloating. "I'm going to release mom out of the stasis I put her in eight years ago. It should be enough to tip Chris over the edge, and we can have the power of three again."

Paul swallowed, almost overwhelmed by the look on his brother's face. Power corrupts, a voice from his past whispered into his mind, and absolute power corrupts absolutely…

"Yes," Wyatt said, misinterpreting Paul's look, "with the power of three, in our control, nobody will be able to stand in our way!"