Chapter Text
Future boy is lying to him, Leo’s certain of it. And yes, maybe it’s condescending of him to call Chris future boy when he’s a whitelighter and could very well be forty years old, but something about him seems very… young. Whenever Leo senses him, the whitelighter part of his brain is expecting a child or an adolescent, not a snarky, fully-grown timetraveller. For some reason, Leo places Chris in the category of do not trust with adult tasks, may run with scissors if left unsupervised. It’s ridiculous. Especially since Chris is the most infuriatingly independent person Leo has ever met. So, Leo ignores the feeling, because it has to be wrong.
(And no, Leo does not develop a habit of grabbing Chris proprietarily when they have to orb somewhere, like a father grabbing his wayward child before they cross the road. That would be insane.)
The boy is also beautiful. This is a fact (though it can be hard to tell when he’s scowling and sighing and eye-rolling every five minutes). It’s also one of the many things about Chris that irritates Leo, after he returns from Valhalla. Bright green eyes, long lashes, and an upturned nose – Chris’s face is distinctly… pretty and also familiar, in a way that catches Leo off guard sometimes. Like, sometimes the kid will scoff or quirk an eyebrow, and Leo will have the strangest case of deja vu, which is promptly overridden by irritation when Chris says something unnecessarily sarcastic.
Chris has the kind of face that entices girls like a flower lures butterflies in spring. Heads turn when he walks past. At P3, the braver girls (and, come to think of it, more than a few guys) muster up the courage to make a move - some timid, others bold, striding right into his personal space, a few daringly skating their fingers across his arm or his chest, tugging at the collar of his shirt. Usually, Chris takes it with a warm but tired smile and lets them down gently — “Sorry, you’re gorgeous, but I’m not available.” Sometimes, on days when Chris’s face is drawn and his shoulders are tight, he flinches away from the attention and quickly escapes into the back room. Once, when Leo definitely isn’t stalking Chris to try and find out what he’s up to, he sees a manicured hand curl around Chris’s hip, sending a shudder through the young man’s slight frame, visible from all the way across the room. Leo is halfway out of the shadows to intervene when Chris shakes the hand off and vanishes into the crowd.
On a different night, Leo pops down for a drink with Paige, Phoebe and Darryl. He’s on his way to get another round when he glimpses a tall, muscled man crowding Chris against the bar. He’s only a couple of inches taller than Chris, but he’s much broader – in the shadow of the man’s larger frame, Chris looks frighteningly small. Leo watches as the whitelighter’s face blushes pink and he tries to reject the man politely. Unfortunately, the behemoth doesn’t seem to be taking no for an answer. Leo’s gut twists into a knot and he begins edging his way through the crowd faster. As he gets closer, he starts catching snippets of their conversation.
“—ome on, just have a drink with me.”
“Nah, I’m good. I mean thanks, I’m flattered, really. But I have a girlfriend.”
“Really? If you have a girlfriend then what are you doing in a club on a Friday night, alone?” the guy asks, reaching up to caress the side of Chris’s face, causing the young man to shrink further back into the bar.
An unexpected surge of anger flares to life in Leo’s chest. He pushes his way through the last of the crowd and shoves the man away from a startled Chris.
“He said no,” Leo shouts over the music.
The man scowls, icy gaze flitting between Leo and Chris for a moment, sizing them up. After a few seconds he seems to come to the conclusion that two against one is too much trouble, even for someone built like a brick shit house, so he rolls his eyes and stalks off.
Leo watches him disappear into the throng of dancers, making a mental note to point him out to the bouncer later, before turning to check on Chris, who’s staring at Leo like he just sprouted wings.
“Are you okay?” Leo asks, voice barely audible over the din.
Chris is pale, glassy-eyed, breathing heavily. The club’s pulsing lights paint harsh shadows across the angles of his face, making him appear thin and drawn. Is it just the light? Has the kid been sleeping?
“You didn’t have to…” Chris starts, looking dazed. He shakes his head and stumbles away from the bar, unsteady on his feet. “I could have handled it.”
“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t have to handle it,” Leo says, watching the shaken whitelighter with mounting concern. He glances over his shoulder to the table where Phoebe is watching them with wide eyes. He turns back to Chris and asks, “Do you want to come sit with us?”
Chris blinks at him, taken aback by the offer. After a moment of confused silence, he shakes his head slowly. “Thanks man, but I should probably just—“ he gestures vaguely to the back of the club, “go to bed.”
And the thing is, in any other circumstance this would probably be a good call, but the idea of letting Chris go sets Leo on edge. The whitelighter’s bed is in the back room of P3, which is still in the club, isolated and alone. Unsafe. The thought of Chris being unprotected right now sends an unexpected jolt of panic through Leo’s body.
“Chris, please.”
This prompts Chris to tilt his head, narrowing his eyes and oh, there’s that deja vu again.
“You’re being weird,” Chris says, disturbed. “Almost like—“ He stops himself and glances away, leaving Leo feeling like he’s standing on the precipice - on the cusp of learning something important.
“Like what, Chris?” he dares to ask.
Chris avoids his gaze and sighs quietly. “Fine, I’ll come sit with you. For a little while.”
Thank god. Trying not to let his relief show on his face, Leo leads him back to the table and spends the rest of the evening glancing in Chris’s direction every so often, checking he’s still there.
As Leo watches the way Chris’s hands shake intermittently around his glass, the way he squishes himself into the corner of their booth, so Leo and Phoebe bracket him on either side, a terrible thought occurs to him. Every loving parent thinks their child is beautiful and it’s wonderful when the world agrees - right until it isn’t. Leo wonders if Chris’s parents were ever afraid for him, when they noticed the way people would watch him, the wandering eyes, the wandering hands. He’s never asked how Chris died, so young and beautiful. He hopes it wasn’t because someone wouldn’t take no for an answer.