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Paint-by-numbers life
by Nicola
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: incest
"Another letter," Wyatt said distastefully. His voice was cold and carefully controlled. The sound translated as a dull pain at the nape of Chris's neck; tension that spiralled slowly down his spine.
Chris stared at the off-white pages spread across the table in front of him. They were filled with Leo’s laborious handwriting; platitudes and poor excuses shaped by cliché and reiteration seeping from the ink. He'd received the same letter a thousand times.
"It's from Dad," Chris replied, trying and failing to sound as if he didn’t care.
"Ahh," Wyatt pronounced. "Our father who art in heaven." He began circling the table, lazily predatory. His fingers skimmed the tabletop, shifting the pages of the letter. As he passed behind Chris, his fingers caught briefly in his hair, before tracing the line of his shoulder across the surface of the skin.
"He doesn't write to me anymore," Wyatt was saying. "I guess I'm a lost cause."
"I thought they were all about the lost causes," Chris murmured, directing his comment outside the room. He lifted a page of the letter, reading Leo’s poor, meaningless prose over again.
"Oh, little brother," Wyatt said (Chris could hear the amusement tinting his voice). "Your faith astounds me."
Wyatt's slow circle of the room had reached Chris once again, and this time he slowed behind him. Wyatt's hand steadied on his shoulder and did not move. Chris tried to read the letter; he tried to ignore the slow heat emanating from his brother’s touch. The words in front of him dissolved, finally, as his senses unravelled.
Blink.
Chris stares down at the sleeping baby as his vision refocuses. The morning air is cool and fresh, as the open window allows the barest hint of breeze into the baby's nursery. He can hear the faint clatter of Piper preparing breakfast; the indistinct clash of voices as the sisters argue over nothing at all.
Chris knows why he likes it so much here; why it is he lingers unhelpfully in this pocket of past life. It is not order to see his mother every day (bright and full of life; alive with hope and love for a son that isn't him) — although he values that, too. It is the simplicity of these moments that he craves so desperately. The colours here are sharp and precise (sky-blue; grass-green), and his feelings are similarly exact.
He can look at the baby in the crib — perfect, innocent, undamaged — and know that he is good. It is unquestionable. Piper is pure and beautiful; it is inconceivable that she be anything but good. The demons that appear (and are swiftly vanquished) are evil. Phoebe, Paige, Leo — good. Valkyries, banshees, darklighters — bad.
Chris reaches down to touch Wyatt. The baby stirs in his crib, but does not wake. Chris’s fingers shake slightly, so that the line he traces across Wyatt's shoulder shivers uncontrollably. Memories—thoughts of the future (not memories at all; a skewed reality he must change)—swirl through his mind with smoke and shadows. His hand is chased away from the crib by a sudden burst of sunshine, and the memories dissolve.
Blink.
Wyatt made these appearances to assert his control; fading in and out of Chris's life at will. Like a toddler in the sandbox, kicking down his sandcastle. He liked to remind Chris of all the ways he was still his big brother. Chris's very existence was a mere favour, to be snatched away should Wyatt will it so.
Chris thought at first that the rush of heat and light must be a glamour, or perhaps his eyes playing tricks on him. Then he realized the pages of the letter were burning; bright streaks of fire that curled into the powdered black of charcoal.
The heat grew, and Wyatt's hands were all over him. Chris strained upward from his sitting position, twisting around so that he could look into Wyatt’s perfect, angelic face.
Blink.
Chris can still feel the fire tugging at the edge of his consciousness as Leo enters the nursery.
"I didn't know you were here," Leo says shortly. His voice is a conflicted mess of sentiment; in spite of everything, he still cannot bring himself to trust Chris entirely. Chris supposes a normal father-son relationship was probably never on the cards.
"How is he?" Leo continues, nodding towards the baby.
"He's good," Chris says loudly, willing it so.
Leo's smile is spontaneous and unbroken: his son is content and the world is in order. Chris stares. It unnerves him; in Leo he can't help but see the echo of Wyatt (his Wyatt; the Wyatt who haunts his tainted, imperfect future). Feeling his hands begin to shake once more, Chris turns away.
Blink.
Wyatt hissed slowly, like fire extinguishing, and it was smoke that Chris breathed as he kissed him. Pain that had found its way to the depths of his spine fractured into sparks of pure pleasure. Darkness clouded into his mind as Wyatt pushed and Chris fell.
December 2004
Muse music: 'Novocaine for the soul' by the Eels
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