18Twenty-Four.
Chapter One
His birthday had never been something that he had ever, ever, looked forward to. To be honest, he was fairly sure that it was cursed. Any why not, he had died on his birthday at the same time as he had been born. In the universal scheme of karma, that he had to do something to give you some bad energy that would not leave.
And considering how his birthdays had turned out up to now, he had no reason to disprove that theory was true.
He had heard from one of his aunts that his first birthday party had needed to be canceled, the rational at the time had been that there had been things that he needed to do and it wasn't like he would remember it. Which was true, he didn't remember it he had just been a baby after all, but surely that wasn't the point in the end.
They always lived with the threat of demons or warlocks or something else coming up and attacking them and as long as Chris Halliwell had been alive he could never remember any of his cousin's first birthdays being cancelled. Wyatt's certainly hadn't been, after all when it came to King Arthur everything was special and perfect and such a landmark couldn't go unremarked on.
Chris sighed and reached for a plate on the draining board and plunged it in to the warm, soapy water. That really wasn't the issue and he knew that it was petty. He had basically gotten over his issues with Wyatt a long, long time ago. They weren't as close as maybe some people thought that they should be but he didn't hate his brother, Chris didn't think he was ever going to be capable of that. And the issue wasn't with his birthdays and how they always sucked, they were just sort of related.
No, the issue was his parents and him.
Chris knew that factually his parents did love him, if they did not then they would have put him up for adoption a very long time ago. His Mother always made sure that he was feed and made sure that he always had clean clothes to wear. When he was young and he would have nightmares, she would always come running and hold him tight to her, stroking his hair and singing a lullaby to him until all of his fears had gone and she wouldn't let him go until he had fallen back to sleep.
His Dad always made a point to all his children that he loved them, that they were all as important as one another. It was honestly kinda obvious that he was terrified that he would spend too much time with one of his children and the other two would grew to resent him for it, there were no special Wyatt and Dad days, or Chris and Dad days or Melinda and Dad days. When they spent time with their dad, it was all of them as a whole.
Ironically, it kinda had the opposite effect of what his Dad had wanted. All of them loved him, but both Wyatt and Melinda probably perferred their Mother and when Chris had been younger he would have said that he was the same. Now days, things were just too complicated for him to say if he had any fondess for either parent. Love, yes. But being a Halliwell meant that love was basically just another word for duty.
You had to love your family, you just didn't have a choice.
So yes, he loved his parents. He just didn't like them very much. And why should he, they clearly didn't actually like him.
The conclusion had been drawn a year ago, one year exactly give or take a few hours either side, on his twenty-third birthday. It had started out abnormally, in that there had not been a massive call around in the morning to let everyone know that due to unforseen events that the party had to be cancelled. And yes, he could count the number of times his birth was actually celebrated by the whole family on one hand and still have fingers left.
Everyone was at the manor, Mom had cooked up a storm and as usual she had made all of his favourites. It had been a great day, probably the best party that he had ever had. There had been dancing and talking and, when the little ones had been put to bed, drinking and it had been amazing with not even the whiff of a demon to spoil it.
But, of course it couldn't last. His birthday was cursed, after all. They were still up at midnight when the old clock in the hallway chimed midnight and everyone who had been present let out a cheer and Chris had been smiling when he had turned, but the smile died when he caught glance of his Mother looking at him, with naked disappointment in her eyes.
And in that moment, everything clicked into horrifying place and he wanted to scream.
It wasn't his birthday, his birthdays were always cancelled or something got in the way that always spoilled them and lead to them being cancelled on the day. This wasn't any different, not at all.
Because it wasn't his birthday, it was a welcome back party. For the other him, the him that had come back from that dark future to save his brother and had died when he was born. His Mother was disappointed that he hadn't magically come back, his soul overtaking his body and his mind overwritting his own, she was sad that he hadn't been forced out of his own life.
His dad was much the same, he was better at hiding it then his mom was but he could still catch glances of it in his eyes. The same eyes that Chris had. Why was the son he had raised for the past twenty-three years still here? Why hadn't the stranger from the past who he had treated like shit come back so he could make it up to him as well.
Chris knew about his other self, of course. He had for a very long time in point of fact, all of them did. It was a story that they had all been told when they were kids, edited at some points of course as at the time they had only told him that the other him had only come back to save Wyatt from something and not that he had been turned evil.
At the time, Chris had been proud. He was a hero and Wyatt had needed him to save him, it didn't matter what timeline they were in Wyatt never needed to be saved by anyone. So, it was great to think that just once some version of him had needed him. Even if it was just only the once and that it wasn't really him or Wyatt.
And there was the rub, it wasn't really him or Wyatt. That was the core point which divided him from his parents. Those versions of himself and his brother weren't really them in Chris's mind, they were versions of them of course but they weren't them surely that was why the other him had come back in the first place, so that neither of them would ever have to be them.
When he got older, they of course learned more and more of the true story of what had actually happened and he didn't blame his Mother or his Dad for how they had looked at him at the time, he thought it was understandable that they were sad whenever they thought about Chris Perry. After all, he never existed. He had sacrificed his life and existence for a better, brighter future.
But it didn't stop at missing, they wanted him back. Which fine, understandable. But it wasn't just wanting him back, they wanted him back in place of the son they had actually spent the time to raise. And the food and the clothing and all that meant nothing, they were just making sure that the other him had a look after body to come back to.
But it hadn't happened, had it? There was no other soul, that soul had never existed in this timeline. There was just him and so he hadn't even been granted the mercy of oblivion, he just had to keep going with the knowledge that all the time this his parents had spent rasing him wasn't because they loved him. They were just biding their time.
"You know, I only have so much glasswear angel." His Aunt's voice called from behind him and Chris glanced back at her before looked down at the glass he had been cleaning, only to see that it had been covered in a thick coating of ice. Damn, it had been a very long time since his Cryokinesis had gone out of control because he was upset.
"Sorry Aunt Phoebe." Chris muttered, focusing his Thermokinesis through the glass to melt the ice. Once it was all gone, he washed the glass again and put it on to the side. A small and gentle hand came to rest on his shoulder while another came up to rest on his face, turning him to face her.
"It's your birthday, you shouldn't be doing the washing up." His aunt spoke, a hand coming up to move an errant lock of hair behind his ear. Chris closed his eyes and savoured the touch, just for a moment before he turned back to the sink.
"I don't mind." He honestly didn't, it was a task that he could do and it kept his mind busy. Most of the time, anyway. And if there was any time that he needed to be distracted, then it was today.
His aunt sighed and Chris felt guilty, it was hard for him to say no to her. It was kinda ironic, apprently Past Phoebe hadn't been all that fond of his other life but in this one, Phoebe had never been anything but loving to him. Once, Chris might have admitted to perferring his Aunt Paige but when it was clear that she had been waiting for the other him, well, that had set that bridge on fire.
"You know, your Mom called. She was asking about you." Okay, anger needed to be kept under control. No throwing glases into the wall with telekinesis, no blowing the electrical sockets and no orbing. "Apprently, you have't been around to pick up the present that she got for you. She's been waiting all day for you to swing by."
Chris withdrew his hands from the washing up bowl and dried them on the nearest flannel, turning to face his favourite auntie. "Well, it's late. I will head other to the manor tommorrow." A big difference between the other him and himself, he was a really shit liar. He was not going to go to the manor tommorrow, nor the day after, he wasn't going to the manor for as long as he could. He hadn't gone to the manor in a year.
"Chris, angel, look at me." His Aunt stepped closer to him and Chris could feel her nudging him, Chris had been an Empath since he was six years old and it had been Phoebe who had taught him how to deal with that. It had also been his aunt who had taught him how to send emotions, not just recive them from other people.
He let the walls fall, and in a moment he was consumed with warmth and love through the empathic link and Chris smiled, sending much the same back. Aunt Phoebe smiled at him. "Chris, I know it's been hard for you. But please, you need to believe me when I tell you that your Mom and your Dad do love you, and they miss you a lot."
Chris frowned, and the walls slammed shut once again. Turning his back so he wouldn't have to see the hurt look on his aunt's face. "Maybe they do, but not as much as they miss him. After all, it's only been a year since I've actually seen them. The other me's got twenty-four years worth of a head start. Hey, maybe she just wants to see if I've been taken over yet."
His aunt sighed and knew that she wasn't going to win this one. "All right, all right." It was silent for a moment, the only noise coming from the living room where his cousins were screaming about something or other. Five girls meant that it wasn't a house that had a lot of peace, he knew that he and Wyatt and Henry JR used to take the piss out of how Aunt Phoebe used to be so baby crazy.
But at least she loved all her kids because they were her kids, and didn't want better versions of them. She might have seen a vision of PJ before she had her but she had never wanted PJ to be anything other than herself, whoever that was. And PJ wasn't held up high on a stand, and her kids were special and perfect just as they were in her eyes, Chris had seen that again and again.
Chris, he had found himsellf thinking back over his entire life, and he had found himself thinking about all those times he had acted different to his other self. He was more willing to let things go than his other self had been, he was more quick to be open with his feelings, demon hunting wasn't exactly something he was thrilled with doing and it didn't take much to pry him away from the Book of Shadows if you wanted to do so.
Even looking back at things that by logic alone should have made his parents happy, did not seem to because it meant that he was different. It meant that he wasn't the other version of himself. He could cook, and if he said so himself he was damn good at it, whereas the other him apprently did not even know what mutton was. He had been more open with his affection when it had come to Dad, he had hugged him every day but of course the other Chris wouldn't have done that.
Maybe he should have just been calling him Leo all this time and orbing out every time he walked into the room, maybe that would have actually made his Dad love him more than he did. God, all of this sucked.
"So, what have you got planned for tommorrow?" His aunt asked.
"PJ, Kat and Tamora and I were just going to hang." He knew a lot of his friends teased that he was closer to his female cousins rather than say his brother but that was the way it had always been, and while Aunt Paige was more distant in his affections these days that did not mean that he still didn't love his twin cousins with everything that he had.
He was about to say something else, when a squirm in his stomach started. He had cooked a lot of food today, and he had eaten quiet his fair share. He reached up and rested his hand on his stomach, when the squirm in his stomach became a stabbing pain and he screamed as he fell to his knees, a pounding headache formed in his head.
He could hear his aunt screaming at him, screaming for help but Chris could not see her. The entire kitchen had gone dark, the whole world was spinning and he felt like he was to be sick. Then he actually was sick and he could hear his auntie screaming again, he didn't understand what was happening, he was fine. There had been nothing wrong with him, it had to be magical. It had to be-
No, it couldn't be.
God, please no.
I want to stay. I want to stay.
Please Mommy, please let me stay.
Please-
End of Chapter One
Ooof, it's been a while since I've written a Charmed fic and when I do I just go right for the gut, sounds like me tbh.
I'll leave you with this cliffhanger for now.
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With warmest regards,
DiscordantSymphony
