[Friday, February 14, 2020]

Chris expected that Friday, Valentine's Day, to pass uneventfully. For his brother, who had just started dating a girl in his class, there were big plans. Chris sat on Wyatt's bed, one leg crossed over the other, leaned back against the palms of his hands, as his brother tore through his closet for something suitable to wear.

"I don't see what the big deal is," Chris remarked, ducking a pair of pants that went flying past his head. "You're barely even dating her. What is this, your first date with Emma?"

Wyatt moved from the closet to his dresser, yanking open the top drawer and sifting through folded shirts. "This'll be our fourth date," he corrected imperiously.

Chris rolled his eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry, fourth date. In that case, I can't believe you haven't proposed yet." Wyatt scooped up a shirt, bunched it into a wad, and hurled it at his brother. Chris, laughing, caught the fabric before it could whack him in the face. Letting it drop to the floor beside him, he flopped back against the mattress and stared up at the ceiling. "I don't even see why it matters what you wear. You're going to a movie. You'll be sitting in the dark."

"And dinner," Wyatt added. He came up for air holding a blue and white, striped, short-sleeve, button-down shirt. Turning around, he held it up to his chest to model it for his brother. "What do you think?"

Chris rubbed his fingers along his chin, pretending to ponder the question. "Hm… makes you look like a nerd."

With a scoffed, "Gee, thanks," Wyatt turned back to the drawer.

"A handsome nerd," Chris added helpfully.

Wyatt stuffed the shirt back into his drawer and instead withdrew a black one, also long sleeves, with a collar and just a couple buttons down the front. His eyes pleaded too desperately for Chris to keep teasing him. Giving in with a magnanimous, put-upon sigh, the younger boy affirmed, "Better."

Wyatt released a relieved breath and kneed the drawer shut, coming over to drop the shirt beside Chris on the bed. Chris flipped himself sideways, propping up an elbow and resting his cheek on his palm to watch Wyatt march back to the dresser for pants. "Jeans," he suggested to his brother. "It's casual but not too casual."

Wyatt dug a pair of dark gray jeans out of the bottom drawer. Discarding the sweatpants he currently wore, he shimmied into the jeans. After that, he cast off his t-shirt and came over to tug the black shirt over his head. He spun to face Chris, spreading his arms wide for assessment.

Wyatt rarely acted this self-conscious; what sort of brother would Chris be if he passed up the opportunity to get one last dig in? "Your hair's"—he waved his hand vaguely around his head—"a bit of a mess."

Groaning deep in his throat, Wyatt reached up to pat down his hair, snatching up a metal-toothed comb on his way over to the mirror hanging on the back of his bedroom door. Chris snickered as Wyatt attacked his wavy hair with fingers and the comb.

"I got her a bracelet," Wyatt said as the comb snagged on a knot.

Chris sat up on his elbows. "You don't think that's a bit much for a fourth date?" he asked.

Wyatt peered at him through the mirror. "I don't know," he admitted. "I tried to ask Uncle Coop, but he's booked solid the whole weekend."

Coop was never really off the clock, but Valentine's Day was often especially busy for older newly-weds, which was Coop's specialty. Wyatt had once asked Coop to work a bit of magic on a date for him several months back, but Coop had happily informed him that he didn't work with teen love and couldn't bend the rules by operating outside his assigned demographic, not even for family. He hadn't seemed all that apologetic about it, all things considered. Teen love got too messy for his taste, he had once admitted.

Chris shrugged, flopping back down. "I'm sure it's fine," he assured. "It's Valentine's Day. Big gestures are sort of the whole point."

Wyatt nodded, seeming to strengthen his resolve as he did so. "Yeah," he agreed, "Yeah, you're right." He fixed the extra fold in his collar and set down the comb on top of his dresser. From beside it, he retrieved a small box with the bracelet tucked inside. It wasn't much, a sterling silver piece that had cost him twenty bucks and would probably turn Emma's wrist green, but it was the thought that counted. He hoped.

Glancing at the clock on his bedside table, his eyes grew wide. "I'm gonna be late!" he exclaimed, stuffing his feet into unlaced sneakers and grabbing his wallet to shove into his back pocket.

When he rushed out of the room, he brushed right past someone standing in the doorway without even noticing. The girl, about Chris's age, had dark brown hair that fell to the middle of her back and vibrant green eyes that glittered with mirth. Her arms were crossed, neon green nails drumming along her bicep as she leaned casually against the threshold, watching Wyatt disappear down the stairs.

"That boy's a mess," she tutted.

Chris jerked up to stare at her. "Who are you?" he demanded, eyes narrowed. When she only smirked, rolling her spine off the wall to step into the room, Chris scrambled to his feet.

"Re-lax," she snorted, waving the back of her hand in his direction. "Your brother's a lot like my sister Melinda: a bit of a dork, but does just fine with the boys." She paused for a moment, considering as she deliberately tapped one painted finger against her bottom lip, then added, "Girls, in his case." With a teasing smirk, she said, "I'm sure he has you to thank for that." Tilting her head back out the door, she hollered, "You're welcome! Siblings, am I right?"

"Huh?" Chris said dumbly, until his brain caught up with the rest of the conversation, and his thoughts, along with her overly-familiar appearance, had blocks of recognition tinkling into place. "Wait, you're not another me, are you?" She seemed not to hear him, but Chris was talking mostly to himself anyhow, certain of the conclusion he had drawn. "I'm a girl?"

Turning back to face him, the girl raised an eyebrow, lips quirked. "You don't look like one to me, but I guess that's your call."

"Ugh, no," Chris replied, wrinkling his nose almost without realizing it. "I meant—" But already most of her body had disappeared into the background, revealing the threshold and wall behind her and leaving only a pair of glowing eyes reflecting the fan light overhead.

Chris spun around to face the bed. He ran two frustrated hands through his hair, then paused in that position, gripping tightly and beginning to tug his hair upward until the locks were taut enough to send tiny, shooting pinpricks of pain into his forehead and eyebrows. The sensation helped focus him. "Will new ones keep appearing forever?" he groaned at the ceiling. "There's only so many voices I can have in my head before I lose my mind!"

"Uh… Chris?" The voice made him jump back around. Prue, who had been walking to her room, had overheard and followed the exasperated growl to stop in the doorway, looking concerned. "Everything, uh, okay?" The shock pink locks of hair framing her face still made Chris pause for a second before responding.

"It's fine," he grunted, but regretted his brusqueness immediately when he saw her face fall.

"Right," she muttered, looking away and turning to leave.

Wincing, Chris reached out a hand. "Wait," he said. She glanced back at him, and he ran his palm against the back of his neck. "Sorry. I… it's my new power. It can be kind of a lot to handle."

Prue offered him a sympathetic shrug. "Sometimes, when I get too many premonitions, meditation helps." She tried to hide her eagerness to offer advice behind a mask of casual indifference, but Chris saw the way her eyes grew wide in her earnestness.

He didn't think meditation would help in this instance—he needed to get less in touch with his subconscious, not more—but he thanked Prue regardless to avoid hurting her feelings. She smiled at him, offering a chipper, "Sure thing!" and skipped back to her room.

Chris spent the rest of that evening paging through a book in his room, half curious to hear how Wyatt's date had gone. In his mind, if Wyatt wasn't prepared to tell Emma about his magical heritage, then the relationship wasn't serious enough to matter. But he also knew that Wyatt wasn't as hung up on magic as he was. Or perhaps he simply wasn't as hung up on honesty.

Sure, he eagerly awaited the day he could wield Excalibur. And sure, he hunted demons in the Underworld with most of his spare time. But the secrecy inherent to this lifestyle seemed not to impact his social life in the slightest.

Wyatt had many good friends but none exceptionally close. He didn't seem to mind this. Chris, who had fewer friends but developed deeper connections, struggled often with keeping so large a portion of his life hidden from them. It had been a great relief to finally tell Dwight the truth. The lies never seemed to bother Wyatt at all.

So although Chris would not have felt he could develop a serious relationship with a mortal girl who didn't know the truth, he knew Wyatt took this date seriously.

When his brother arrived home later that night, Chris heard him climb the stairs—the creaking floorboards—and met him in the hallway.

"So?" He spoke softly, assuming Prue and their parents had already gone to bed. "How'd it go?"

Wyatt had taken off his sneakers, carrying them by the laces in one hand, so he could tiptoe across the hallway without waking anybody. He looked up when he heard Chris's voice and offered his little brother a dopey smile. With a half-shrug, he said, "She liked the bracelet." He sidled past Chris and stopped, turning around, in front of his bedroom door. "She thought the movie was pretty lame, but she liked the bracelet, so…" His voice trailed off.

Thinking about what had been on his mind earlier that night, Chris asked, "So you think you'll end up telling her about magic one day?" He followed Wyatt into his room, watching as he dumped his wallet onto the dresser.

Wyatt tugged his shirt back over his head and stepped out of his pants so he was standing before his brother in only his boxers. "Oh, Chris," he sighed, shaking his head. "Not everything has to be that serious. Emma and I are having fun." He sauntered over to Chris, swinging an arm around his shoulder. "You know what that is, don't you? Fun?" he teased.

Chris ducked out from under the arm, but Wyatt didn't seem too bothered. "Right now things are great as they are," he said. "If anything else changes—well, that'll be a long way off. No reason to think about that now."

Chris shook his head. He couldn't fathom entering into a relationship without the thought even being on his mind! "I couldn't do that," he said. He couldn't quite pinpoint the emotion this triggered in him. Remorse, perhaps? Envy?

Wyatt finished yanking a sweatshirt over his head and grimaced at Chris, his eyes warm with sympathy. "I know you can't," he sighed. Chris let himself get shooed out of his brother's room and shuffled back to his own.

Before Chris even opened his eyes in the abyss, he was met with an uproar so loud it made his ears ring. "—some naïve little girl who doesn't know a thing about the real world!"

"Little! We're the same age, bozo!"

There, between Merlin's and Ian's wedges, the abyss had once again shifted to allow a new space to shimmer into existence. And it seemed Merlin was not overly fond of his new neighbor. The girl Chris had met earlier that evening stood toe-to-toe with Merlin now, with him on his side of the wedge line and her on the other, hands on hips as she towered over him with all of the two-and-a-half inches she had on him. He looked all the shorter for the way he slouched in front of her, arms crossed defiantly.

"Age doesn't matter," Merlin sneered at the girl. "You clearly have zero life experience."

"Right," the girl snorted. "Coming from the powerless nobody who's never even vanquished a demon. I'm sure I care very much what you have to say."

Chris glanced around the abyss. It seemed the others had come crawling out of the woodwork to meet this newcomer. Perry had propped his shoulder against one of the stone walls in Sir Christopher's domain as he watched the teenagers' argument unfold. His lips were quirked in an expression of indulgent entertainment.

The knight himself had stepped closer to the bickering duo, clad in his full suit of armor, his helmet tucked under one arm. He looked affronted at the idea that anyone would yell at a woman, even one who was merely a version of himself.

Beside Sir Christopher's domain, and the girl's neighbor on her other side, was Ian, who sat on top of the table of his school bus home with his legs swinging back and forth beneath him as he watched the shouting match with rapt attention.

Mutt stood closest to Chris, having been loitering near the center when Chris arrived. He tilted his head to the side and grinned at Chris with his missing front tooth. "Didn't think there'd be a girl one," he said.

Ignoring this, Chris tried to catch Perry's eye. Aside from the thirty-something-year-old Sir Christopher, he was the oldest here, and even including the knight Chris was pretty certain Perry was the most mature of the bunch. (Perhaps it was the fact that Chris associated knights with fantasy and young adult fiction, but he found something a bit juvenile about Sir Christopher that he couldn't quite put his finger on.) Surely, then, it was Perry's responsibility to reign everybody in.

But when their gazes met, Perry merely quirked an eyebrow, very clearly conveying, Your mind, your problem.

Releasing a loud, frustrated groan, Chris stormed forward across the abyss and into the new wedge, his feet sinking into plush carpet as he progressed. "Enough!" he shouted over their raised voices. Merlin looked ready to continue in spite of Chris, but the girl, in confusion, turned to identify the new voice.

"Oh," she said, folding her arms, "You."

"Yeah, me," Chris snapped. "Can you two cut it out? I don't need a migraine over here." As if to prove his point, he pressed two knuckles into his temple, kneading gently. "I assume you're Chris?" he said dully to the girl.

"That's Krissy. With a 'K,'" the girl corrected snobbishly.

From behind her, Merlin rolled his eyes. "And I guess it matters that it's spelled with a 'K' for all the times anyone says your name." She turned to glare at him, and he curled his lip in a sneer. "Very helpful."

"All right, Merlin, shut it," Chris interjected. "Krissy, thanks a heap for joining this circus, but maybe get acquainted with your own room?"

Merlin narrowed his eyes at the use of his nickname and rounded instead on Chris. At the same time that Krissy snapped, "You think I don't know my own room?" Merlin hissed, "There is no way I'm living next to a freak like her."

As if I had any control over where their wedges pop up, Chris thought. Aloud, he pointed out, "We're pretty much all 'freaks.'" He hesitated long enough to shoot a look backward at Sir Christopher. Honestly, he had no idea what that guy's deal was. Could he be a witch as well as a knight? Regardless, he doubted Merlin would prefer bunking with him.

"Look," Chris sighed, holding a peace-keeping hand out toward each of them. "We can't do anything about the… living arrangements. But just… try to avoid each other." He winced. Even to him the idea sounded stupid. Avoid each other? When their spaces literally shared a perimeter?

Scowling, Krissy stomped deeper into her wedge. For however different the two teens were, they shared a lot more similarities than the rest of them. Like Merlin, in place of Wyatt Krissy seemed to have a sister. Also like Merlin, Krissy's wedge took the form of a normal bedroom, though hers looked an awful lot like Prue's room rather than Wyatt's, with the same carpeting and a similar layout to her sister's. The bed sat in the same spot, as did the desk. Even the dresser sat only a few feet over from where Prue's was positioned.

The major difference between her space and Merlin's was the unnatural glow filtering in through the window, though even in this they weren't terribly different. Not far off from Merlin's cinnamon orange hue was Krissy's deep red. Chris wondered if pointing out these parallels would help build bridges between the two or rile them up further. He decided not to risk mentioning it.

Someone sidled up behind Chris. "Nicely done," Perry murmured into his ear.

Chris turned to glower at him. "Thanks for the help," he grumbled.

Perry smirked. "Anytime," he sang cheerily, waving a finger in Chris's face. Disgusted, Chris swatted it away. The two watched as Ian, emboldened now that the yelling had stopped, inched over to greet his new neighbor. Krissy seemed much more willing to meet the ten-year-old than her contemporary. She knelt on one knee to shake his hand and offered him a warm smile that he eagerly returned.

Mutt, conversely, seemed to lose interest in the girl the moment the drama had ended. Kicking his feet against the ground, he wandered back to his playground with his hands stuffed into his pockets.

While Chris and Perry continued to banter, Krissy invited Ian to sit down on her bed. He folded his legs up underneath him, tilting his head to look at her. She sat down beside him, curling one leg beneath her body while the other dangled over the edge of the mattress. She angled herself to face him, then asked, "So you're really adopted?"

He offered a nod along with half a shrug. "Mamă and Tată are Roma," he explained. "So's my sister." Unfurling his body, he tucked his knees under his chin. His arms wrapped around his shins as he stared across the room. His parents had always taught him to be proud of his magical heritage, but he couldn't help but feel… different, an outcast in his own family.

Sure, his two younger brothers, also adopted, were, like him, witches who had been separated from their first families during the first stage of the Exposure, and his sister Rhoda never made any of them feel less than for having joined the family years after birth. But to Ian it would always be an unscalable chasm between them. Plus, neither of his brothers displayed as much power as Ian did. Their biological families had not come from ancient covens with ties back to Salem as Ian's did. It was lonely, having these abilities.

"Mamă's been teaching me what she can about being a witch," he told Krissy with another hitch of his shoulders, "But I'm not that good at controlling all that stuff." It was a deep source of shame for him. Xander, two years younger, never lost control of his dream-walking anymore. Benji didn't have an active power altogether, so he didn't have to worry about accidentally leading probes to their doorstep. Ian was the reason the family had to stay on the move.

Krissy reached across the space between them to drape her arm across his shoulder and tug him into a gentle sideways hug. "Hey, kid, that's okay," she assured him. "Controlling magic is tough. I still lose control sometimes."

From behind her, a voice sneered, "That's why you all need to be locked up. "You can't control yourselves." Krissy turned to glare at Merlin over her shoulder. He had planted his feet in the middle of his room, looking ready for a fight with his fists clenched at his sides.

"And you're eavesdropping," she snapped. But she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of letting him rile her. Turning deliberately back to face Ian, she ignored his presence completely. "So how long have you been in this place?" she asked the boy.

Ian granted her a lopsided smile. "That's not really how it works here," he said. He glanced around, his gaze flitting from Sir Christopher's stone back wall to Mutt's wide open playground, as if searching for an answer that would satisfy her. "I guess there's sort of time because we have before and after. But not really."

Krissy shook her head, brow furrowed. Her hand dropped from his shoulder to plant itself between them on the mattress. Before she could ask for an explanation—one Ian didn't feel qualified to provide—he continued, "When I came, Mutt and Perry were already here." He gestured toward the playground tunnel and the small, dimly-lit office beside it.

"And then he came." The boy nodded toward Merlin over Krissy's shoulder. "And then Sir Christopher."

"The knight," Krissy remarked dryly. Grinning, Ian nodded. Krissy shook her head again. "Man is this place weird."

Ian's fingers inched across the space between them until they landed on top of her hand. She looked down. "Don't worry," he advised sagely, "You get used to it."

When Chris faded into dreams some time later, he found himself slumped in a chair in his kitchen, arms crossed on the tabletop and chin propped on the backs of his hands. Layered strands of shoulder-length hair had jumped out of their hair tie and fallen over his eyes, but he was too lazy to brush them back. He watched his older sister at the stove, carefully feeding ingredients into a foul-smelling brew. The liquid bubbled up to meet each added bite, gurgling loudly in the pot.

The two sisters certainly looked related, both with light eyes, dark hair, and heart-shaped faces. The greatest difference between them was that Melinda kept her hair in a short bob while her sister wore hers more like their mother, untamed down her back.

After dropping in the last bit of dandelion root, the older teen lowered the flame, then dusted her hands and checked the Book of Shadows on the counter beside her. "You know," she said without looking up, "This would go a lot faster if you'd actually help." She ran her finger down the list of ingredients as she spoke, stopping when she landed on the next step.

"But, Melinda," Chris said sweetly, "You're the best brewer I know. I'd only get in your way."

Melinda snorted. "Right," she replied. "Thanks ever so, sister dear."

Chris grinned. "Anytime," he chirped. When Melinda turned back to the pot to stir twice in a counter-clockwise motion, Chris piped up, "You know, stirring clockwise will make it thicken faster."

Melinda glanced over her shoulder with a good-natured scowl. "No backseat brewing," she complained.

Chris sat up, raising his hands in surrender. "Sorry," he said. Melinda turned back to the brew just in time to shut the flame before the concoction boiled over. The sound of popping bubbles slowed, then stopped, as the brew subsided.

"Now it says, 'Let it rest twenty minutes to congeal into a healing paste,'" Melinda recited. She tapped her stirring rod against the rim of the pot to wick away lingering droplets, then set it down on the counter. "Looking good so far."

"It's not like it matters," Chris pointed out somewhat grumpily. "We can brew all the healing salve in the world; Mom still won't let us hunt demons ourselves."

"Maybe not you," Melinda sniffed, shutting the Book and turning to lean against the counter, "But I'm turning eighteen in a few months—"

"Nine months," Chris retorted.

Ignoring this, Melinda plowed on, "Which means I'll be an adult. She'll have no choice."

"Yeah," Chris snorted. "I'm sure Mom will see it that way."

"Oh, boo you," Melinda said, waving her sister's negativity away. "Why are you even here if you don't think this will work?" She plucked up a dish towel to wipe her hands clean.

Chris flashed a wide grin, leaning back and interlocking his fingers behind his head. "I wanted to be here to see the look on Mom's face when you make your case." He tipped his chair up to wobble on its two hind legs, balancing in that position effortlessly.

Glaring, Melinda snapped the towel in Chris's direction. He closed his eyes, tilted his head toward the ceiling, and laughed.

That Sunday was the first in several weeks that Chris didn't meet up with Katie and Lea to practice Katie's powers. It felt a bit strange, like he had forgotten something lingering in the back of his mind. Instead, he orbed to Jake's house. The boy's mother had once again left him home alone while she picked up a weekend shift at the grocery store. Chris felt torn about this. On the one hand, it was a mother neglecting her son by leaving him for hours unattended, but on the other hand her absence provided relief from the risk of her volatile temper. And it certainly helped Chris that he didn't have to invent excuses every time he came by.

He took Jake to Donny's Pizza for brunch. Then, they wandered together into a couple of nearby stores, one a comic book shop and one a place that sold electronics. Jake didn't seem all that interested in the comics, though he did glance at a few with superheroes on the cover. In the electronics shop, Jake lingered near the video games, rummaging through some shelves for handheld game players.

"All my friends have Nintendo Switch," he told Chris. "There's tons of stuff you can play on it."

On their way back, they stopped by the park briefly, but Jake didn't see any of his friends there. Back at his home, Jake dragged out a box of Monopoly from the back of his closet. They set up on the floor in the living room, pushing the recliner up against the wall to give them space to spread out on their stomachs. At Chris's insistence, Jake picked his token first, the dog, though he glanced nervously at Chris to make sure he didn't mind.

They played for a couple of hours, pausing once for a snack, and could have continued for longer if Jake had not noticed the clock hanging on the wall behind Chris. The boy had been about to roll the dice, but he quietly set them down on the board. His legs, which had been kicking the air behind him, dropped to the ground as he clambered up onto his knees.

"It's, uh, almost dinnertime." He wouldn't look Chris in the eye.

Chris frowned. "Do you want to break for dinner, then? I can order us something to eat if you want."

But Jake shook his head, picking at the carpet under his knees. "No, uh, Mommy's coming home soon. You probably should…" He trailed off uncomfortably.

Chris winced. Since his first few visits, he had tried to conceal his dislike for the woman, for Jake's sake. But it appeared he hadn't done so very effectively. "Jake…" he started.

"It's, it's better if you go," the boy insisted. "I don't know if Mommy will be mad."

Chris reached up to clasp Jake's shoulder. Tensing, the boy looked up to meet his eyes. "I can stay," Chris said, "Really. It doesn't bother me."

The rigidity in Jake's posture eased a bit, his shoulders relaxing, but he still shook his head. "No. Mommy might not like it. It's better," he repeated. Leaning forward on his knees, he started to collect the property cards into a pile.

Sighing, Chris gathered up the paper money and folded the board to fit into the box. Once everything was cleared away, they climbed to their feet and dragged the recliner back into place. It left deep pockmarks indented in the carpet. Jake tucked the game under his arm.

"Well, I had a fun time," Chris offered.

Jake smiled. "Me, too," he admitted shyly.

Chris drummed his fingers once against his thigh, trying to think of something to keep him here a bit longer. "You sure I can't pick up something for you to eat before I go?"

"No, thank you." Sometimes, his mother ended up bringing things home from work, ready-made dishes or microwaveable meals. If he had eaten before then, she felt like her efforts were wasted. Jake hated to hurt her feelings like that.

"All right," Chris sighed. "Well, I'll come back soon." When Jake nodded and twitched his fingers in a little wave, Chris orbed back home.

He arrived at the manor at almost the same time as Prue and Piper, who had gone to the salon to re-dye Prue's hair. They had done a decent job. If he looked closely, he could pick out the two strips on either side of her face, which were now a slightly different shade of brown from the rest of her hair, but if he hadn't known where to look he likely would have missed it entirely.

Chris would have said something encouraging—"nice hair"—but when he passed her on his way upstairs, Prue merely ducked her head without glancing up, clearly preferring to disappear.

It was an hour later that Carmen ended up slinking through the front door, dumping her purse on the floor in the entryway. She had missed the bus, forced to walk home instead. She also had not remembered to bring anything back for dinner. But Jake could see the frustration that tightened the muscles in her face, the exhausted sinking of her eyes, so when she asked if he'd eaten he assured her he had.

"Then isn't it close to your bedtime?" she demanded, staring longingly at the cabinet where she stored a bottle of liquor.

It was not close, not really, but Jake shuffled down the hallway and spent the rest of the evening in his room, his stomach rumbling.

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