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 Sixteenth
"Yenene!"
Paul spoke the word out confidently, knowing she would only come forth from a brusque command rather than the tentative "Ye-uh-neeennee?" that really wanted to come forth. Or the "…." silence that he'd much rather prefer. He always had been more of a cowardly lion than anything else – he supposed it was because he'd grown up around Chris and Wyatt, and had had them to protect him for a long time.
"Child, you're scared of me! How delicious!"
The hissing voice slid out of the dark tunnel. It felt like sandpaper on his skin. A faint hint of acid and soap hung on the air.
"Guess you can smell my fear," Paul said, with a flippancy he did not feel.
"Naw, I can just see your expression."
Paul frowned, and cast around. He couldn't see anything…
"Down here!" The voice squeaked imperatively. Paul lowered his gaze and almost burst out laughing. The woman was, like, half Paul's height! This was the frightful potion mistress Yenene?
"That's a very uncharitable thought you're having, Mr. Halliwell," Yenene said to him. Her lips were large and plump, and her face was sagged and wrinkled like that of a rhino's behind. "That one too," she said, eyes narrowed shrewdly.
Paul folded his arms and glared at her. "Wyatt didn't say anything about you being telepathic."
Yenene actually chuckled at that. Her laugh was low and raspy, and reminded Paul of a machine gun's rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. It was not comforting. "Follow me," she commanded curtly. An eerie light fell about her feet as she walked, and Paul reluctantly followed into that great maw of a tunnel. "No, I'm not telepathic, boy. I am, however, old. Older than you can comprehend."
"Older than a million billion years?" Paul asked, his curiosity temporarily surmounting his fear.
"Hm. Maybe a little younger than that. Follow along."
I am following, Paul wanted to retort, but he hadn't said anything that childish in a while, and then it was to Chris, and he didn't want to think about that because it hurt too much. They walked in silence down a length of the tunnel, but silence only in regard to the words that left their lips, for sounds followed them as they walked. Their footsteps resounded to a roar as they padded down the rocky tunnel, and Paul could almost swear he could hear a high-pitched laugh, spinning dizzily into the air…
"Whoa, day-dreamer, we're here," Yenene said, and Paul lifted his head angrily into the air, confusion on his face. They were in a bulbous room, littered with equipment, but it had not been the fact that they'd arrived that had startled him, but the words. They seemed familiar, like something that called to him from his childhood that he could not remember… A warm face, smiling at him, deep-brown knowing eyes, and snow- there was something about snow…
He shook it away. He had no time for this.
"So we are," Paul said, conversationally, as if his mind had been nowhere but there.
"I'll need some of your blood," Yenene said, and it was all the warning he got when she darted forwards and slashed through his arm to the skin beneath.
"Hey!" He said angrily as she lifted a glass vial to his arm and unfussily started to collect his blood as it fell.
"You are of the family, are you not?" She asked piercingly as she patted him on the arm and shuffled her bulk away to a cauldron brewing in the corner.
"Yes," he said, glaring at her darkly. "I just prefer a little warning before I'm sliced open."
"And when have you ever had that?" Yenene queried with a laugh as she fussed over the cauldron. She reached over for a small flask and filled it was a black liquid. She walked over to Paul and handed it to him.
He looked at it coolly. The potion was so black it almost made his eyes slide away, and the paleness of his skin made it stand out all the more. "What do you require for this?"
"Oh, Lord Wyatt has already given me enough payment," Yenene crowed. "I shall provide you with more tomorrow. It must be administered daily to increase the strength of its power. Mix it into something strong. Black coffee is the best. It will hide the taste."
Paul bobbed his head in thanks, and orbed away.
He hovered outside the manor for a second. Inside the kitchen, he could see Paige picking up a plate of sandwiches and carrying them through to the kitchen. Other than that, it was deserted. The girls must have a guest. Good. This was his chance.
He solidified quickly in the kitchen, and nudged the door shut as he ran to the counter. It would be a good warning system for when anyone came to the kitchen, and they would assume the wind blew it shut.
Paul scanned over the cups of tea already made on the tray, and quickly picked out the one Piper would use. It was a large one, and the only one with unsweetened, very bitter organic caffeine-free coffee. Wyatt knew Piper well, her habits when she was pregnant and when she was not. With a quick recheck to make sure no one was around, he drank a mouthful of the coffee, pulled a face at the taste, and poured in the potion. It bubbled a little, but that would be mistaken for heat…
The door edged open a little, and Paul orbed away. His task was complete. Now all he had to do was sit back and wait for the side effects…
"All right." Piper's voice was tired as she shuffled on the seat, trying to get comfortable. Any and all explanations had been delayed until the retrieval of lunch. Pippa and Paige had made everyone drinks, and now Pippa was handing out sandwiches while Paige went to fetch the drinks.
Paige bounced back into the room, struggling under the weight of the tray, and Chris stepped up from his perch on the edge of the couch to help her. Paige smiled at his chivalry.
"Nice to know not all things die out in the future," Paige quipped as she smiled at Chris and started to hand out the hot drinks.
"Paige, did you really have to make my coffee this bitter?" Piper complained after sipping at her brew.
"You asked for it," Paige said, delivering the last sweetened coffee to Dan and taking her own Iced Tea onto the couch, sitting next to Pippa.
"Why don't we start with how I know about demons," Dan said softly, his eyes taking in the complexity of the room. "I think it might be the least complicated thing going on."
There were head nods and various murmurs of agreement around the room.
"Well, you remember that day I left?" Dan said. Piper and Pippa both nodded. Dan's eyes unfocussed a little at that, and he set his tea and plate of sandwiches aside to continue. "A genie appeared before me, told me that you wanted me to have peace. He gave me the option to remember or not, and I decided to remember. The whole idea of forgetting a whole day… It goes against everything I believe in, I guess. But I was- I was angry. I was angry you'd lied, and I was just- angry over everything. That's why I left, and my pride wouldn't let me return, and for that I'm sorry."
"The genie- I knew I shouldn't have trusted it," Piper murmured softly. She looked at him with eyes touched with warmth and not a little pain. "I should have told you, you're right. But-"
"I understand. It would have been hard, and I probably wouldn't have accepted it had you told me. God knows I didn't the first time," Dan said, with a small shrug. "I've spent the last few years trying to come to terms with it, and I think now I can. You live with this world all the time, and I can't just hide myself away from it."
"But that's the point. That's what we're here for," Piper said, with a voice tinged with acceptance of her role in the world. "We're here to make the world safe so innocents like you don't have to suffer."
"And aren't you innocent to? Did you do anything to deserve this?" Dan said.
"Yeah," Pippa said dryly. "We didn't keep Phoebe's curiosity on a leash."
Paige and Chris smirked.
"Okay, now you owe me some explanations," Dan said easily.
"I don't know where to start," Piper said helplessly.
"How about from when I left?"
"Okay." Piper sounded a little unsure. "I'll try and keep this short. Phoebe married a half-demon – Cole – who became the source of all evil. She became the Queen of the Underworld, but eventually vanquished him to rejoin us. Prue died at the hands of a demon that almost killed me too. We found Paige, who's the result of mom's affair with her Whitelighter Sam. I married Leo, we had Wyatt a couple of years ago. I'm pregnant again – yeap, by Leo. Chris Perry-" Chris waved at that "-came from the future to warn us that Wyatt is going to be turned evil sometime in the next four weeks. Leo became an Elder and he's not around much. We met Paul, who's apparently my sixteen year old third son, who is a very cheery evil-doer, and then Pippa – she's my future self – fell out of a portal the other day, having almost died by Wyatt's hand. Well, Wyatt's sword. Oh, and my dad and Leo and Pippa all know who Chris really is, and they're being all secretive about it. Anything else?"
Dan was looking as if he'd just schmucked into something very large and painful. He was mouthing something to himself, and then he shook his head very hard, and blinked at her very fast, four times.
"Are you all right?" Paige asked, leaning forwards, concerned.
"I think he's trying to take everything in," Chris said. "Just because he knows about magic doesn't mean he knows."
Paige pursed her lips curiously, and waved her hands in front of his face. She leant back with a grin. "You stunned him! Atta girl! Or maybe you froze him…"
"I'm not frozen," Dan said snappishly. He glanced at Paige apologetically, and then his eyes widened. He pointed at Piper. "She can freeze me?"
"Not freeze like ice freeze. She can freeze time," Paige said helpfully.
Dan's eyebrows shot up, and then he edged a look at her. He flushed, brilliantly. "Unfortunately, that explains some things." He did not elaborate. Chris pulled a face that said he'd rather be anywhere else but where he was. Paige's nose wrinkled too. "Do you—all have powers? I mean, you said you had supernatural powers to fight off demons and warlocks, but-" His voice faltered a little. "I had no idea as to the extent of the those powers…"
"Well, Piper can blow things up and freeze time," Paige said, taking over the role of 'explainer.' "Phoebe has premonitions – visions of the future – and she's empathic, and can levitate. I'm half Whitelighter so I can orb, heal people for a millisecond and I can bring things to me at my command. A sort of telekinesis."
Dan's nod was slower this time, and he didn't blink quite so much.
"And from what we can tell, Chris can orb, and he has telekinesis too," Paige added.
"Like you," Dan said.
Paige wrinkled her nose. "No, not like me. I'm much cooler."
Chris wrinkled his nose, and lifted his hand to reach over and smack her when a jet of fire flew from his hand. He fell off the couch in surprise, and Paige twisted, panic on her face as she picked up a discarded sweater and started to beat at the small fire that Chris had suddenly started. Everyone moved quickly away to look at the scorch marks.
"Okay, not like you, he can set things on fire as well," Dan said, remarkably composedly considering.
"Not until just now," Chris said, staring at his hands in some confusion. He looked up worriedly, his gaze locking with Pippa's. He sat with a thud on the chair, eyes wide as he stared at his open hands. His voice was trembling as he asked the question that was on most of their minds. His face shone with a sudden vulnerability that touched them all to the quick as he voiced the words. "Isn't-" He swallowed. "Isn't fire-throwing an evil power?"
