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He is so tired of losing people. Of the feeling of horror and powerlessness every single time. He should be there right now to hold Peyton while she sobs, to calm down Melinda as she rages, to sit with Sebastian as the guilt overpowers him about the fights that he never apologized for, the things he never said, the loss that will be overwhelming him.
Chris closes his eyes and presses back into the wall even more, as if it would swallow him up. Sebastian was the only one of them who hadn’t lost a parent. Chris had hoped that he would never have to feel it, had begged silently at night to whatever had taken the Elders’ place that he would never have see it. He should have been used to not getting what he wanted at this point.
Tilting the bottle back, he relishes in the burn as it goes down his throat. Instead, he’s hiding in some dark corner of their newest hideout, numb and hoping that if he gets drunk enough, he’ll stop seeing Derek every time he closes his eyes. It’s not working yet, it’s never worked before, but there’s grief and guilt clawing at him, and he can’t face it. Not yet. Not when this is another person, another friend, another family member, dead at Wyatt’s hands after buying them time to run.
Chris is so tired of running.
He sits for a while, something that could be anywhere from minutes to hours. He lets himself go numb, drapes his arms across his knees and hopes that eventually he’ll fade away. He can still feel the weight of the bottle in his hand when soft footsteps approach him. He wishes he couldn’t, wishes that he’d managed to completely disassociate away from his body. It was a rare thing and almost always heralded a turn for the worst, but sometimes, it was easier than facing the brutal reality of this new world his brother created.
She settles in front of him, and Chris hopes that if he keeps his eyes closed and doesn’t acknowledge her, she’ll leave him to his misery. It has never once worked on her, but sometimes, denial is easier to deal with than confronting the agonizing reality.
Deceivingly gentle hands take away the bottle, and he still refuses to open his eyes. He hears her sigh as she asks, “Chris?”
She takes his hands in her own, and he bites his lip to keep the sob from slipping out between his lips. His hands are shaking again.
Tangling their fingers together, her grip is tight but not painful. She repeats his name, “Chris? Baby, can you look at me?”
She sounds drained, and he can’t help but feel the same. Opening his eyes, he just looks at her. She looks as tired as he thought. He can see the weariness in her eyes. She has a bandage wrapped around her forearm and butterfly stitches above her eyebrow. She lets go of one of his hands to cup his face, lightly running her fingers across the scrape on his cheekbone. He’d skipped getting his wounds checked over to lick them in private instead.
Bianca doesn’t comment on it, just tugs him closer to her to start looking over his injuries. He’s tipsy enough to let her, the both of them sitting in silence. He isn’t sure where she found a first aid kit, but he knows better than to question her by now.
It’s only when she finishes, skilled fingers smoothing out the edges of a bandage over his forearm that she speaks. “Peyton’s comforting Sebastian. She was the only one who seemed to be getting through to him.”
“She shouldn’t have to.” Despite his intention, the words sound desperate instead of angry.
Bianca stills, brown eyes piercing him. She tilts her head, voice quiet. “No. She shouldn’t. But there are a lot of things none of us should have to do.”
Chris flexes his hands, jaw trembling. He can’t look at her as he grits out, “Derek should have- He didn’t need-” Stopping, he breathes for a minute, guilt churning in his stomach so much that he feels sick. Looking back up at Bianca, he finishes, “Derek didn’t deserve to die like that.”
He deserved to die an old man in his bed with Sebastian by his side, going in peace. Not- not whatever the hell just happened, giving Sebastian one last look of fond love as he sacrificed himself to give Chris and DJ time to drag Sebastian out screaming. They hadn’t needed to say anything when Chris finally managed to orb them back. Sebastian’s broken sobs, DJ’s haunted expression, Bianca’s grim look, said it all.
“No,” Bianca says. “He didn’t.”
He knows what she’s thinking, when do we ever get what we deserve? She says it often, in the dead of night, pouring over ancient magical texts like it will give them the answers they need. Normally, it’s accompanied with a wry smile after he says something she finds particularly optimistic about the future, but sometimes it’s just quiet after another bloody battle and she’s counting the dead again.
He’s thankful that she doesn’t say it out loud now.
“Do you think he was there?” he asks.
He knows that she knows what he’s talking about. He knows that she doubts the accuracy of Peyton’s premonition, that the odds of it - all of them, the ones left alive and the ones already dead, happy and irritating each other like family does - ever happening are so low. He doesn’t know how it could happen, not with over half of them dead, but he clings to it regardless. Bianca, however, could never quite obscure the disbelief in her eyes whenever he spoke about it. Her childhood had stamped out any notion of redemption or resurrection young, and the idea of saving the world was a fantasy unmoored from their harsh reality. Yet, she never points out the impossibility, and he can’t help but love her for it. Without hope, what’s the point of fighting? The possibility of having his brother back, his cousins, his family… It keeps him going too many nights for him to really be able to judge if it’s even possible, much less plausible.
She’s silent for a moment, searching his eyes for... something. He doesn’t know what, and he is too tired to try and figure it out.
Finally, she says, “I don’t know. You know how premonitions work, they’re-”
“I know.”
Once again, they fall silent. Distantly, Chris can hear people talking and moving around. It’s never really quiet here, too many witches and Whitelighters and mortals and whoever else survived the beginning of Wyatt’s reign in whatever place this is. He knows that someone explained it when they first got here, but Chris doesn’t remember if it was a pocket realm, a plane, or just a really well-hidden building. He doesn’t think the technicalities matter anymore. With so much constantly at stake, very few things that mattered still do.
“Do you think that they ever regret it?” Chris asks abruptly.
Bianca raises one eyebrow and waits. When he doesn’t elaborate, she asks, “Regret what?”
“Sacrificing themselves.” He’s so tired. “How many times has it happened? Because good people can’t bear to watch an innocent die, so instead they do it themselves, and it keeps happening! Maybe Wyatt has a point-”
“No,” Bianca snarls, jerking forward to grab his face in her hands.
She is not someone easy to read, even to him, and he doubts that she ever will be. It’s why she was the best of the Phoenix before she was the last of the Phoenix, and she is still the best spy there is, even after being exposed in the middle of Wyatt’s inner council. He’s envied it more times than he can count, her ease at hiding herself with eyes and mouth and body undecipherable.
But the fear shines in her eyes now, desperation in hands that slide to cup the back of his neck, the exhaustion in the slow breath she releases as she presses their foreheads together.
Bianca breathes, and he closes his eyes as he brings one hand to her wrist, gently wrapping his hand around it as he presses his forehead back to hers. They are both silent, and Chris takes the moment to hear and feel her breathing, feel her pulse beat at a steady tempo, feel her alive and here with him.
When she speaks again, her voice is quiet.
“He’s wrong. About everything, but especially about this.”
Chris opens his eyes, looking into Bianca’s as she lets out another breath. She’s struggling for words, struggling to explain the beliefs in the world that he grew up with that were so vastly different from the ones that her own childhood has instilled.
“They loved us. If you could save Mel or DJ, even if you’d die doing it, would you hesitate?”
Abruptly, he remembers what happened when Wyatt learned that one of his favorite assassins had become a spy. It’s easy to forget with all the bloodshed they’ve seen, but it remains one of the only times he’s ever seen her break, gasping sobs as she shook apart in his arms with blood still on her hands.
“B-”
She continues like he never said anything, voice fierce. “Derek would have died a thousand times over for Sebastian, without hesitation. All he ever wanted was for him to be safe, and for another day, he is because of Derek. That doesn’t make it fair, doesn’t make it right, but it does make it that he’d do it over again for damn sure.”
Chris leans forward, capturing her lips in a kiss. She grips the back of his neck with her free hand but keeps the kiss gentle.
When they break it, he rests his forehead against hers again.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”
She shakes her head.
“Don’t. You’re not the first person to question this mission, you won’t be the last. Trust me, sometimes it feels easier to roll over and obey, but it isn’t. It’s just numbing yourself to everything around you, and all that’s good for is getting yourself killed.”
Chris can’t help but think about his earlier desire to disassociate from everything, embrace the numbness. As much as the relief of the emptiness appeals to him, it always loses its luster when he considers the risks. Before his older brother became a tyrant over magic and mortal alike, he’d say that with their loss, it was alright to take that time to grieve deaths and recover from injuries. Now, he knows better.
Before his death, his grandfather told him about Prue’s funeral. His mother and aunts never spoke about the funeral itself, just meeting Paige. Even then, he knew it was because of the grief for their sister; it was easier to focus on anything else about the event than the reason they’d all been present that day.
Victor had told him in a far away voice about Phoebe’s premonition, an innocent that had to be saved. He never faulted Paige for it, but he didn’t hide the anger on his daughters’ behalf on not being allowed to rest even for one day to mourn. The demon attack followed almost immediately, destroying even their mourning place moments after the end of the service.
It was the same with his mother’s funeral, Chris is sure, but he’s never let himself think about that. Even now, it’s too easy of a way for him to break, and he isn’t sure if he’ll ever be able to fix all the pieces that day splintered. Victor warned him that magic doesn’t give you that time to grieve, something like despair in his eyes, and Chris wonders what he’d think of this world that Wyatt had created.
His mother had a few hours, half a day, to grieve for her eldest sister. Now, they’re unable to let their guard down long enough to recover or bury bodies without risking themselves and those fighting on their side. Even now, he is hypervigilant of the lack of immediate sound, senses the closest person a hallway away at most, had heard Bianca’s approach when he desired nothing more than to sink into numb apathy.
The base is protected, magically cloaked from almost all of even its inhabitants, but that means nothing anymore. They’re never safe enough, and they have the added grief of raids and attacks to prove it. It’s an impossible situation. They’re not safe enough to grieve, but they’re not safe enough to numb the pain either, so instead they all lock it away to just be a sharp pain whenever someone crosses their mind, enough to remind them that they loved them but quick enough that they can bury the emotions again.
If any other empath besides Peyton, who had never been able to access the depths of her power before her parents died and took her chance to learn with them, was still around, the intensity of the emotions and the depths of repression would have likely driven them insane. Luckily for them, they were all dead, so everyone else got to continue with questionable coping mechanisms without driving any of their few allies mad. Despite himself, Chris snorts at the thought, dropping his head onto Bianca’s shoulder.
“Our coping mechanisms are so fucked.”
Bianca lets out a laugh and rakes her fingers through his hair. “No shit, none of us reacted normally to anything in the first place, and then the world blew up. It’d be more surprising if we did.”
They sit there for a moment, together and alive. It’s such a low standard, both of them beaten to hell and back, but it’s one more person alive and breathing and with him. He wraps his arms around her waist, pulling Bianca against him. She lets out a puff of breath against the side of his face as she comes willingly, straddling his lap.
He presses a kiss where her shoulder meets her neck and lifts his head to look at her. Chris runs his fingers over the bandage on her forearm, eyebrows furrowed. He doesn’t remember what happened to cause it. That’s the thing with fights, he can barely remember the source of his own injuries anymore, much less the source of someone like Bianca’s.
“I love you.”
Bianca’s smile is a combination of sad and fond.
“I know.”
She presses their foreheads together.
“I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Despite himself, Chris is caught off-guard at the promise. She’s never offered something like that to him before. An assassin turned spy turned whatever she is now should know better to make promises that she may not be able to keep, not when Wyatt sends more of his demons after them every day, determined to crush not only them but what they stand for: a threat to his reign, the hushed whispers of defiant witches and demons and mortals who refused to bend before Wyatt’s power.
“You can’t make that promise.”
“If Wyatt wants me dead, he’ll have to do it himself, not one of his demons. Besides, I’ve fought him before, and I’m the one who walked away, wasn’t I?”
Chris makes a sound halfway between a huff and a laugh. Her escape had been a bloody one, but he appreciates the attempt anyway. The reminder is still uncomfortable though. He taps her arm gently.
“Not one of his demons, hmm? What happened?”
“Knife. Guard called for back-up when we weren’t looking, and his friends showed up just in time to see me knock him unconscious.” She furrows her eyebrows as she peers in his eyes. “You haven’t debriefed yet, have you?”
Chris shakes his head. “I know I need to. They were more prepared than usual or knew we were coming, but-”
I’d have to explain what happened to Derek. Chris’s voice catches in his throat, and he clears it after a moment to try and finish his sentence. Despite himself, he still can’t.
Bianca nods understandingly. “I incapacitated the first guard, but they somehow knew we were there. I’m not sure how yet, but it’s something we’ll have to investigate later. Either way, six more guards showed one, and one of them caught me with a knife. It wasn’t poisoned, but one of their other knives were. I passed it on to some of the researchers, and they’re trying to see if they can find a match without actually using the poison. It stung though, and it’ll be a pain for the next few days.”
“I’m sure you’ve dealt worse,” he says wryly.
Bianca snorts and doesn’t bother responding to his statement. Their fights were long past, and any wounds Bianca caused him have since scarred over. They’re not even any of the bad ones, which is another example of Bianca’s self-denied soft spot, but that’s a joke for a different day.
“I managed to dispatch the rest of the guards without much more trouble but got thrown after the explosion, which is where I got this,” she gestures to her forehead. “But I made it out pretty good in comparison.”
He glances at his arm that Bianca had wrapped.
“Not all of us are as tough as you. We ended up running into a couple of demons, each of us took one. Mine threw an energy ball at me and caught me in the arm, along with a couple other places. You already know about the explosion.”
Bianca nods, leaning over to grab the abandoned liquor bottle to take a swallow. Once she finishes, she hands it back to him. He takes the silent permission to take a drink. It still burns going down, but he doesn’t lose himself in it this time. He’s never been one to like alcohol that much anyways, not like some of the others at least. More than one person had been caught or killed because they were too drunk to fight, and no matter his emotions, Chris refuses to go out like that.
“You should still go get your injuries checked out.” Bianca pushes some of her loose hair behind her ear. “Just to make sure that you didn’t manage to start internally bleeding or something when we weren’t looking.”
Chris scoffs, and Bianca gives him a disapproving look. She sighs, disapproving look melting away as she admits softly, “Sebastian’s there.”
He can hear the unspoken request and he wants to deny it. But he knows too well what losing a parent feels like, the grief and despair and guilt overwhelming you until it’s like trying to breathe underwater. Sebastian had been one of the people that kept his head above water when all he could see was his mother’s blood on his hands. Now it’s Chris’s turn to keep him from drowning in that same grief.
He finally nods, and Bianca smiles. It’s not a happy smile but relief that he isn’t continuing to drown himself in guilt and melancholy.
He leans forward again, one hand sliding up to the back of her neck as he presses their foreheads together. The tension doesn’t ease out of Bianca’s body; she’s too well-trained to ever completely relax. She does, however, let her eyes drop closed as she half cups his face and half wraps her hand around the side of his neck. Her touch is feather-light as she brushes the tips of her fingertips to feel his pulse.
One more minute. and then we’ll go rejoin them. It’s a familiar promise to himself, as if one minute can somehow reset the world before he has to finish what they all began. He can’t help but feel selfish as he breathes her in. So many people had lost their loved ones. Almost his entire family was gone. Why did he get to be here with her when so many were dead? It was a thought that he only indulged on his worst days, but he couldn’t today. Not when Sebastian’s screams still rang in his ears as he tried to get to his father.
All too soon, Chris’s self-imposed minute is up. He pulled away from Bianca, and she let him go easily. She rises to her feet with hard-earned grace that few could ever hope to match, offering him a hand. Back pressed against the concrete wall, it takes him a few seconds to accept it. She pulls him up. and he follows easily, even as his entire body aches in protest. Once he’s standing, he wraps her in an embrace, lips pressed against her hair.
“Thank you.” His words are quiet enough that he knows only she’ll be able to hear. Nothing has truly changed, the guilt and self-loathing thick in his throat. Too many are dead, and more will die before they’re through. There is no guarantee for tomorrow, for them or for anyone else that they love. But they’re still fighting, because it has to have a purpose. Because eventually, something will change and the balance will tip back again, and if they have anything to say about it, they’ll be there together.
For today, however, they have to comfort their friend as he grieves for a father lost far too early and too cruelly.
She doesn’t say anything in response but gently breaks the embrace after another moment. She nods towards the hall, but they both know that she means the infirmary. Squeezing her hand, he finally lets go as they walk back towards the open halls.