Steven & the Mighty Wind
Meanwhile, on the second floor...
"Get out of my bed, pervert!" Paige shouted.
It took Steve a moment to figure out just where he was, when he was, what was happening, and of course, why it was happening. "Oh God! Aunt Paige…"
"Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my room?"
"I thought it was my room!" said Steve… "I mean, it is my room! No, that sounded bad. I mean, it will be my room someday."
"Like Hell it will be!" said Paige. "Your future room is a large, densely populated cell with big iron bars, a community toilet, and itchy, generic toilet paper!"
"See… so not necessary 'cause this isn't what it looks like!"
"It LOOKS like there's a half-naked psychopath in my room!"
"Ya' know, Aunt Paige, you really shouldn't say things like that about the mentally ill. Studies have shown that…"
"GET OUT!" Paige shouted, sending Steve tumbling onto the floor, terrified beyond reason.
Steve scrambled to get to his feet and began to slowly backtrack, holding his hands up in surrender. However, being in only his boxers, the gesture did little to improve his situation.
"Seriously, Aunt Paige…"
"Aunt Paige?" she shot back. "Is every demon who enters this house from now on going to claim that he just HAPPENS to be yet ANOTHER nephew from the future? That trick is getting old!"
"But see… This is different! I can explain."
"Oh yeah? You've got ten seconds."
"Ooh… See, I'm gonna need more like 30, do you think you could…"
Paige had had enough. "Book!" she called out, summoning the nearest non-lethal weapon.
"Oh, see, you really don't need to… OW!" Steve yelped as the book smacked him in the forehead. "Watch it lady! You're gonna seriously hurt somebody with…"
"Book!" Paige called out again, summoning another book from the shelf.
"OW!" Steve hollered as the book collided with his shoulder, pushing him further backwards. "If you could just calm down…"
"Book!"
"HELP!" Steve howled, completely oblivious to the fact that all he had to do was turn around and book it (pun very much intended) out the door. However, genuinely wanting to reason with aunt, coupled with the most traumatic waking experience of his life thus far, had blinded him to all other options. "Somebody! Please?"
"Book! Book! BOOK!" Paige commanded, propelling 3 books rapidly in Steve's direction.
"Oomph! Ouch! OW!" Steve hollered, as three different books slammed him in his head, his knee, and his… well, you know. "Seriously, I promise you'll laugh when I tell you how this all happened."
Paige paused for a moment, looking in the direction of a thick, black, leather-bound, unabridged dictionary sitting on top of her desk.
Steve quickly realized what she was planning to do. "Okay now, that's just cruel!" he said, knowing his words, by that point, were useless.
"Dictionary!" Paige commanded, a gleam in her eyes.
"Oh, God, No! NO!"
To both Paige and Steve's surprise, he caught the gigantic book. "A-HA!" he said, triumphantly.
Refusing to be defeated, Paige decided to up the stakes a bit.
Steve studied his aunt, trying to guess what she might be thinking. "Say, uh... w-, w-, what'cha lookin' at over there?" She was still looking at the bookshelf, but she wasn't throwing any books. It was then that he realized; she wasn't looking at the books at all, but at the tall, sturdy, wooden bookshelf itself.
Steve's eyes doubled in size. "You wouldn't!" he said, gulping loudly.
"Wouldn't I?" she asked smugly.
"NOOOOOOoooooo…"
Back downstairs...
Chris, Jared, and Lee ran from the kitchen toward the sound of their boob of a brother's cries. Piper followed them anxiously, a million questions racing through her mind.
"Steven? Who is Steven? Why's he here? Do we not like him?"
"Depends on when you ask me," griped Chris. "It changes by the hour."
Piper tried to work in a few more questions. "So then, he's Phoebe or Paige's kid right?"
She was met with no response, the others automatically shifting into chaos mode.
"Hello?" grunted Piper. "Why is nobody answering me?"
The three brothers arrived in just enough time to witness their tall, lanky brother, in nothing but his boxer shorts, flying over the stairway railing from high above. His arms were wrapped around what appeared to be a very large book.
Meanwhile, Piper started to hop, hoping to get a glimpse of what was happening, unable to see over the broad shoulders of her three tall sons.
Chris quickly turned back to look at Piper. "Mom, can you freeze him?" Chris asked hurriedly.
Before Piper had a chance to see what Chris was even talking about, Jared stepped out in front of the others. He quickly raised his outspread arms upward in front of himself. His palms were facing upward, as if to lift an invisible cloud. As he did so, the air from all corners of the main hall came swiftly into focus and then flew straight up, catching Steve in midair. To all onlookers it seemed as though Steve had lightly bounced on an invisible trampoline.
Jared grinned from ear to ear, thrilled that he had followed his instincts. "I'm doing it!" he resounded. "Chris! Are you seeing this? Look, I'm doing it!" he shouted, feeling like he would burst from the excitement. His smile was so wide that his face literally ached. Finally! he thought to himself. I have finally earned my place as the son of a Charmed One!
Up above, Steve had tucked himself into a fetal position. His eyelids were glued shut, protecting his eyes from the powerful winds rushing from below. He gripped the dictionary as though his life depended on it. He still wasn't entirely sure what was going on; everything was happening so fast.
Jared, feeling more confident than ever, focused his attention on lowering Steve gently to the ground, dictionary and all. Even his own jaw dropped to see that the winds were following his command. His mind was about to explode. "YES!" he shouted.
Lee called out to Jared like a crazed sports fan! "Woo-HOO!" he shouted and clapped his hands together "Jared, man, you are my new hero!"
Chris looked over at Lee, still beaming in Jared's direction. He felt a sharp pang of disappointed in himself for not being the first of the bunch to cheer Jared on. Lee was the family cheerleader; that was never going to change. But Chris hated to think that he, himself, might have contributed to Jared's self-doubt in any way.
Jared couldn't wait to see the look on Chris' face. He turned his head back, just knowing that he would see pride and encouragement in Chris' eyes. Instead, he glimpsed the look of disappointment that Chris was feeling towards himself. Jared misread the look, believing it be an expression of Chris' lack of faith in his abilities.
The look of dejection on Jared's face made Chris feel like cow dung. He knew how embarrassed his brother felt about the coffee maker incident. He also knew how badly he wanted to prove himself to his family. There was also the fact that Jared was someone who had the remarkable gift of being able to make pretty much anyone and everyone feel like a hero, simply by looking them in the eye. No one could put their finger on exactly what it was about him that inspired this feeling in others. At that moment, however, it truly didn't matter, as the wounded look in Jared's eyes made him feel like anything but a hero, even if he was the 'man who saved the world'.
Chris called to Jared, hoping it wasn't too late to offer encouragement. "Come on, Jare. You've got this!"
It was too late; Jared's deep-rooted insecurities had already begun to take hold of him and it was becoming harder and harder for him to stay in control. He began to feel foolish for even attempting to break Steve's fall. He could've just let his mother freeze him. In fact, maybe it would've been easier on everybody to just let Steve handle the situation using his own powers. As these dark thoughts grew in strength, the steadiness of the enchanted winds became more and more uneven.
Steve could feel himself starting to wobble a bit. "Jared?... 'Peaches'?... Buddy?…" he called out nervously, "You're doing just fine… Now just lower Bubby down to the ground, nice and slow!"
The more anyone tried to encourage him, the more Jared's confidence fizzled. With the last of his concentration, he tried to seamlessly still the unraveling currents, as Steve was now at least in safe falling distance to the ground. As he finally forced himself let go, Jared's arms tensed and his hands spasmed, sending Steve speeding backwards toward the wall, instead of back up in the air.
Piper shrieked as Steve slammed against the hard, flat surface. To her amazement, Steve's body shattered like a human-shaped crystal and spread like thousands of glowing, blue and white marbles rolling weightlessly along the wall. The orbs gradually started to regroup back down on the floor in the silhouette of a human body. The bright lights eventually faded, leaving in their place a very confused Steven Halliwell, staring blankly up at the ceiling. His boxer shorts nowhere to be found.
Piper looked at Chris, who was glaring in Steve's direction. "Um… Is he…?"
"He'll live," Chris huffed angrily as he turned and stomped toward the living room.
Lee put a hand on Jared's sunken shoulder, knowing how much his wind-wielding brother despised himself at the moment. "He'll be fine," Lee added, addressing his mother, though the words were primarily for Jared's benefit.
Jared wanted to shirk Lee's hand off of his shoulder and run and hide, but his guilt, shame, embarrassment, and self-doubt rendered him unable to do anything more than stand still and breathe. His only comfort was that, due to the nature of the situation, it would take Steve a moment before he recovered enough to start teasing him. It wasn't much of a comfort, but it was a comfort nonetheless.
Chris returned from the living room carrying a thinly woven throw blanket, which he threw forcefully down at Steve, clearly irritated.
"Cover yourself up, you ape! Your mother's in the room!" Chris griped.
Steve scrunched his rubbery face into a surprised frown, painfully disoriented. "Dude, even if that were true, Mom saw me before I ever saw myself! So I don't see the big deal."
"Actually, genius… No, she didn't!" returned Chris, gesturing toward their mother.
Steve flinched and then looked in Piper's direction. "Mommy?" Steve said, his wry humor rising into place. He still hadn't quite figured out how he had gotten himself belly-up on the floor of the main hall.
"Oh my God…" Piper whined to herself, and shook her head. "I just know I'm going to wake up physically restrained and heavily medicated on a big white bed, in a big white building, next to a bunch of men in big white coats… any minute now."
Steve suddenly gasped in horror, as he looked straight up to see Paige glaring down at him from the second story banister. Suddenly, Steve's memory came rushing back at the speed of light.
"Chris!", Steve pleaded, wrapping his arms around his brother's ankles. "Hide me! Hide me!"
"What's your problem?" asked Chris with gritted teeth.
"Aunt gone wild!" Steve whimpered forcefully!
"Okay!" shouted a distraught Paige as she marched her way down the stairs "Somebody start telling me what the HELL is going on… and start with the pervert on the floor!"
Chris looked down at the clownish young man hugging his ankles, burying his head in his own armpit. "Well?" Chris asked, enjoying watching Steve squirm.
"I was sleep stalking… I mean… WALKING… WALKING… I was SLEEP-WALKING!"
"Chris?" said Paige, noticing her nephew for the first time. There was a look of suspicion on her face. "But you were…"
"Long story", interrupted Piper, sending all eyes questioningly back at her. "What? I didn't say I knew the story… I just know that it's long."
Paige looked from Chris and Steve over to Jared and Lee, and then finally back to Piper. "Since when do we host Fraternity breakfasts?" she asked.
Piper just shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes.
Chris looked back down at Steve, shaking his head like a disappointed parent. "Steve, what are you doing here? We agreed we would only come three at a time."
Piper was sure she misheard Chris. "I'm sorry, what?"
"And," continued Chris, "if you tell me you sleepwalked into a time portal I'm gonna…"
"Steve, what's the last thing you remember?" Lee interrupted, before Chris' frustration became anything more than that.
Steve, still hugging Chris' ankles, pulled his head out of his armpit. "What do I remember? I'll tell you what I remember!" he quipped and looked up at Paige. "I remember a crazy lady throwing every single book on Oprah's reading list at me!"
"Ouch" said Lee, sympathetically.
"…in hardback!" Steve loudly added.
"Double ouch!"
Paige spoke up in her defense. "What do you mean, crazy lady? You were in my bed! You're lucky I didn't throw the whole bed at you!"
Chris began to chuckle as Steve buried his head back in his armpit. "I can't believe you got in bed with your own aunt!" he cackled.
This wild topic of conversation was even bizarre enough to snap Jared out of his dark trance. He called over to Chris. "Is it still an Oedipus complex if it's your aunt and not your Mom?" he asked, in mock curiosity.
"No!" snapped Steve before Chris could respond. "But I'm pretty sure you're still a pervert for asking!"
Lee chimed in. "You guys! No Freud in the house. Dad's rule!"
"Really?" asked Piper, surprised such a rule even existed and wondering how it came to be. Once again, her question went unanswered.
"By the way" continued Steve, sliding the fallen dictionary across the hall in Jared's direction. "Do me a favor!" he said with a devilish grin on his face and a wicked gleam in his eyes. "Look up the word 'help' first, just to see how your definition clearly differs from Mister Webster's. Then follow that by looking up hurt, harm, hurl, hurricane, hellacious, horror, havoc… and… Gosh, I just know there's one that I'm forgetting…. Oh yeah… HEART FAILURE!"
Chris' looked warily in Jared's direction, hoping to God he'd been able to take Steve's mock accusation as the joke it was intended to be. Chris felt like he was helplessly watching a ship slowly sink as the life was drained from Jared's smile.
Steve was usually a wiz with his comedic timing, but the stress of his encounter with Paige, his unplanned trip over the upstairs railing, and the shattering and regrouping of his essence had rendered him temporarily clueless.
"They're all in the same section." Steve continued. "You shouldn't have any trouble."
Under other circumstances Jared would have doubled over in unbridled laughter. In his heart of hearts he knew that Steve was just teasing him and wasn't mocking him at all. Nor was he anywhere near angry with him. Heck, nobody knew if Steve was even capable of genuine anger. Annoyed? On rare occasions, yes. But as for a public display of genuine anger, he had yet to be caught in the act.
Jared looked calmly at Steve and began to speak with a sincerity that would've reduced Stalin, Hitler, and Castro to weepy, blubbering messes.
"I just wanted to help" Jared said earnestly. "I just… I thought I could do it."
Steve felt like he'd missed the pivotal scene of a complex murder mystery. In other words, he was hopelessly lost.
"I don't know what made me think I could do it" Jared continued, his voice on the edge of breaking. "I just… I just thought I could."
Though Jared was still speaking to Steve, he turned to look into Chris' eyes. "I'm so… so sorry…"
Chris could almost feel Jared words ripping him open.
Still looking at Chris as he spoke "I promise it won't happen again."
Jared turned, letting Lee's hand just fall, rather than removing it. Jared seemed to glide lifelessly as he walked out of the room. All who watched were left behind in a heavy stillness. They felt like a funeral congregation without a ghost to mourn.
Steve felt like he'd just drowned a sack of helpless kittens, and he wasn't even sure why. Since when did Jared take him seriously? Heck, since when did ANYONE take him seriously?
Just seconds after Jared disappeared out of the room, Piper, thinking her heart was about to break, turned to go after him. She had no idea what she was going to say to him when she caught up to him, but there was no way she was going to let that look sit on her son's face, whether she knew him or not.
Chris bent down until he was only inches away from Steve's spellbound face. Chris, sat for a moment, as still as a statue, giving Steve plenty of time to process an older brother's protective fury blazing in his bottomless well of his own eyes. When the moment passed, Chris stood back up and sighed heavily. He was still noticeably angry, but no longer filled with violent rage.
Steve was fairly confident that he wouldn't be eating his own orbs in his cereal, but there was no way he was going to be the first one to speak.
"Steve, just how many trips does your foot make to your mouth in a days time?" Chris asked bluntly. "Just a ballpark figure."
"Say huh?" Steve responded, clearly caught off guard. "Is this a trick question?"
"I just think you should get a discount rate with all that traveling it's been doing lately." Chris responded. "Just sayin' is all." he concluded. Without taking the time to blink, Chris turned briskly around and stomped out of the room, making sure Steve could hear every… single… step.
"Now it's Lee's turn," Steve thought to himself. "It's the innocent looking ones you gotta look out for."
Lee stepped with an eerie smoothness directly towards his brother. With no clear expression on his face and no distinguishable mood in his body language, Lee knelt down directly in front of Steve, as close as Chris had been when serving Steve the 'death stare.' Appearing completely relaxed, Lee reached forward and pinched Steve's nose between his index and middle finger. He then showed Steve his backside of his fist, his thumb sticking out just a bit.
"Steve," Lee said flatly, "I've got your nose."
Steve forced a clipped, awkward chuckle from his belly. "Lee," he said, "I'm 21 years old… That trick doesn't exactly work anymore, if you know what I mean."
Without saying a word, Lee smiled politely, stood up, spun around, and trailed off to find the others.
Steve started to feel tense and uneasy. "Lee!" Steve called anxiously… "That's not funny man!"
Without turning around or slowing his pace, Lee held his fist high above his head and continued on his way.
"Lee-Lee!" Steve hollered. "Lee? Dude! Come back here!"
"Michael Paisley Halliwell, you come back here!" Steve he yelled before finally giving up.
Lee was gone..
Paige, far beyond amused by everything she had just witness, glanced down at the clownish young man peering out from under the throw blanket. She wasn't sure whether or not to laugh at him, punch him, or feel sorry for him. She just stood there looking at him, amazed that anyone like Steve could ever be born into her family.
Feeling like a criminal on trial, Steve glanced sheepishly up at his aunt.
"What?" he said, defensively. "He took my nose!"