i am the heir of nothing in particular. [ psl ]

[chriscross]

WHO Chris Halliwell (chriscross) and Andy Trudeau (oneminuteoftruth).
WHAT Andy Trudeau died a while ago. He came back as a whitelighter and, six years later, was assigned a charge more important than any others so far: the newborn Chris Halliwell. Fast forward about sixteen years and Chris is about to find out that the Elders think he's going to be trouble for remembering a time that no longer exists.
WHEN 2021.
WHERE San Francisco, CA, USA. Somewhere in there.
WHY Because Leo really needs to lern2dad.

If it was one thing people didn't expect from Chris Halliwell, it was patience. Of course the kid was loud, obnoxious and gutsy as all get out, but most people didn't think he was the sort to be able to sit back and observe before flying off the handle when something had him agitated. Most people also didn't get close to the weird kid with too many issues and not enough willingness to get along with other kids his age. That was their loss.

Chris had been waiting for a while, really, to make sure that he was seeing what he thought he had been seeing. Out shopping, hanging out with his few friends, even just walking to and from the bus stop (Piper didn't appreciate it when her boys orbed back and forth unless they were going to be late for some reason). There was always this particular face in the crowd and, while it didn't seem demonic in nature, Chris had a particular feeling about the guy trying to stalk him for some unknown and possibly nonmagical reason. What was his problem?

Today, Chris had enough. He had just been volunteered to grab something that his little sister apparently needed that evening or she would just DIE, but then there was that guy again. Black haired, bit gaunt but not in the unhealthy way, something about him just bugging Chris by merely existing. Taking a turn, Chris waited for the man to catch up and rounded on him.

"What's your deal?" he demanded. That he might be in danger never crossed his mind. A demon or a warlock would have made their move by now, and Chris was more than capable of fending off a mortal. "You ready stop stalking me yet, or should I call the cops?"

Comments

[oneminuteoftruth]

Having been around Chris as long as he had been, Andy knew that Chris had more patience than one might think and add that with the fact that he was too smart for his own good, he knew that this meeting was only a matter of time. It didn't help that the Elders had been breathing down his neck for the last year or so to be proactive in keeping an eye on his charge, so Andy had pulled himself from the crowds a couple of times to let Chris catch on to the fact that he had a follower and let him do the rest of the work.

There wasn't really much in the way of surprise at being caught, instead he reacted with a bit of a smile, some pride at Chris putting the pieces together like he knew he would and faster than he had expected. That wasn't bad though since they needed to get this out of the way. "I'm gonna have to say no to both of those," he answered at first before shoving his hands in his pockets and looking totally okay with this situation. "You and I both know you're smart enough to figure out why I'm hanging around you, kid, so how about we get to the point instead of me trying to draw this out. I'm your whitelighter."

[chriscross]

The words were simple enough, but Chris felt his hackles rising anyway. His shoulders tensed and he frowned, crossing his arms to close out the man who presumed he could protect him. It had been an idea in the back of his mind for a little while yet not one Chris entertained for long because it was ridiculous. He didn't need a whitelighter for a variety of reasons and there were plenty of other people, directly related to him even, who could have used one more than Chris.

"I don't know if you've noticed or not," he said, the heavy insult in his tone holding off the sharp edge, "but I don't need a whitelighter. We've got enough in my family, including myself. Since you're just the messenger, I'll let you go with a warning. Just make sure the Elders get it through their heads they should be wasting their resources somewhere else, yeah?"

The guy himself didn't seem too bad. Chris couldn't come to accept him for that position for obvious reasons, but he was going to feel a little bit bad sending him back Up There with his tail between his legs when he was done here. Having someone breathing down his neck and trying to meddle in his affairs was not what Chris needed, especially with his secret trips down to the Underworld of late to finish a few things that his other self had started in another lifetime.

[oneminuteoftruth]

Prickly was definitely the response he was expecting from Chris, thought he was only slightly surprised that he hasn't made with the telekinesis and tossed him on his ass. The night was young and there was always a chance that Chris would get annoyed enough to do it when he realizes that Andy wasn't going to back off. Whitelighter he may be, but a pacifist he was not and he was definitely prepped to brawl with Chris to get him to realize that he needed to be there, even if said brawl was only the verbal kind.

"No can do, kid," he said in a tone very reminiscent of 'sorry but not sorry' that made it obvious that he wasn't planning on heading back to the Elders with his tail between his legs anytime soon. It was his job to keep an eye on Chris no matter how much the witchlighter didn't want it and made it difficult to do with his trips down to the Underworld. "I'm here to keep an eye on you and you telling me no isn't going to stop me. The Elders sent me to make sure you're kept safe and keep an eye out for something involving a future whitelighter coming back and poking around his family to save the future."

[chriscross]

"What?" snapped Chris. It was more of a reaction than an outright question, but it felt like this whitelighter had just put a gigantic spotlight right on his head pointing out his secrets for all the world to see. Did the Elders know he remembered being someone who no longer existed? Heck, did this whitelighter understand the actual significance of what he was saying right now? Maybe he was just messing with Chris, using buzzwords to get at him, but all Chris could process right now was that the Elders didn't want another repeat of his antics from years past and had sent someone to make sure of it. "That's none of their business. It's in the past—future, alternate future—whatever. What do you know about that?"

This was really not the way for a whitelighter to endear himself to his new charge. Chris wasn't sure if he appreciated the unexpected tactic or still just wanted the guy to get the hell away from him. It was probably the latter. His restraint was only going to last so long before Chris burst and either pushed the guy around or made like a leaf and orbed out.

[oneminuteoftruth]

"What I know is this: there was a whitelighter that came back from the future named Chris Perry. Never met him myself, but I knew of him and anybody who could piss off Leo like he could wasn't such a bad guy in my book. Then we heard Up There that this kid was actually a Halliwell that was here to keep his big brother from turning evil. Now that? That was somebody to really be impressed by and respect," Andy started to explain. It wasn't him making anything up, but instead him telling the truth. He had thought highly of the future whitelighter from what he heard around the whitelighter water cooler and definitely when he had finally gotten the chance to speak to Leo about him.

"Then this great kid gets killed by an Elder and the other Elders realized that this is their fault, so they try doing something as an apology for his death. They send me in not only to keep an eye on you, but to be there for you if you started to gain the memories of your alternate future self." Once Andy's finished, he just watches him to see how he'll react. He's hoping for something positive, but he's not holding his breath. After all these years of watching over him, Andy knows that he's not the optimistic sort. Chris definitely took after Piper in that regard and that thought causes a pang of sadness that usually came up at the thought of the Halliwell sisters.

[chriscross]

What a mouthful to praise Chris for something he may not have even done in the first place. It was becoming increasingly difficult to tell where he started and the previous version began, or even if there was a line in the first place or he was really two halves merged into one. It was something Chris didn't have the answer to, nor did he feel safe discussing it with anyone. This was his own burden to bear, the personal gain throwback to resetting the entire world twenty years back in order to make a difference. Now this whitelighter was saying the Elders suspected all along and had kept someone on his account the whole time just in case?

The fact that the whitelighter seemed genuinely impressed by the whole debacle was throwing him off. It took Chris several moments just to grasp at what to say next because he hadn't been expecting such a response, had no reason to expect it. His family this time was much better than they had been, truly happy and making use of the chance they had been given to set things right; that didn't mean Chris wasn't affected by the drastic differences in another lifetime.

Eventually, Chris found something to grasp onto. "You mean the Elders feel guilty, so they made you babysit so they could write the whole incident off?" he inferred. Never had he known the Elders to show true remorse for their decisions, not the sane ones and definitely not Gideon. It simply wasn't their style to second-guess themselves. Then again, if anyone had a way of irritating or angering people into uncharacteristic behavior, it was Chris P. Halliwell. All of that aside... "They're too late, anyway. They've been too late this whole time. Okay? You get that?"

[oneminuteoftruth]

For a moment there, Andy thought the praise might have been too much to handle, but that thought passed as quickly as it arrived. He had watched Chris grown up into the teenager standing in front of him and he knew that what he said was only a momentary pause before returning back to his usual self and he was proven right when Chris finally found the words he was looking for. Andy had to keep himself from smiling at his reaction to all of this. It wasn't a surprise and he knew there were definitely issues Chris had when it came to the Elders.

"They might have hired me for the job, but there wasn't anything saying I had to accept it. If I didn't like it or thought there was anything wrong with it, I would have told them right where they could shove that job of theirs," Andy said. While this might have been just clean up to the Elders, it was something far more to Andy and if he hadn't been their first choice, he would have been fighting for the spot. This was Piper's son, of course he would watch over him and keep him safe. "Too late for you or the other Chris? Because from where I'm standing, there are a couple ways that could be answered."

[chriscross]

Chris paused for another moment, this time in thought rather than surprised. Although there weren't that many whitelighters whose strong spirits leaned them toward going against the Elders' wishes, there were some free thinkers that didn't agree with a lot of their policies and did what they could through subversion. Chris liked those whitelighters well enough, but hadn't had a whole lot of contact with them either way, possibly because the Elders had been keeping an eye on him for a scary amount of time. Since he was born? Really?

"We're the same person," Chris said, staring up defiantly at the whitelighter as if challenging him to try and disagree. That much, Chris knew. Whether there was a separation or not between the memories of who he was then and the knowledge of who he was now, that was another issue entirely. "It's been that way from the start. Which is why this whole assigning me a whitelighter thing? Not necessary. Just go back up there and tell them it didn't work out."

[oneminuteoftruth]

"Same person, different lives," Andy countered. He may not know the specifics of what the other Chris went through, but he knew enough to know that it wasn't much like how things went this time around and knew that there was probably enough of a difference for them to be different in some big ways. Not that it mattered much to Andy. Either way, Chris was still Chris and he was going to look out for him whether he wanted it or not. "It's not too late for you."

"I told you before, kid. I'm not heading back just because you think you don't need anybody." There's a tone in his voice almost as if challenging Chris to try arguing with him some more. He's going to stand his ground and show Chris that he's not going to leave just because he says so. "Your parents don't know you remember, neither do your aunts. You won't tell your brother for obvious reasons and you're not going to tell anybody else for that matter. I'm the only person who knows that you remember that other life and if you think that I'm just going to leave you to carry that alone, then you're in for a surprise."

[chriscross]

"Don't even start with the whitelighter pep talks," Chris said dismissively. He really didn't want to hear it, really had not expected his evening to go this way even after imagining a multitude of different endings to confronting his stalker. Getting the peace and happiness and everyone has a chance talk from a stranger was not Chris's idea of fun, nor was it getting either of them anywhere. "My dad gives me enough of those and he's not even a whitelighter anymore." Hell, even Wyatt was starting to catch on. At least that was funny in a horribly morbid kind of way.

With a flagrant scoff, Chris shook his head and turned away. "You don't get to decide if I carry it alone or not. I don't even know who you are and, frankly, I don't really care. What makes you think I'd spill any of that to a stranger who wouldn't even understand half of what I was saying? It's been a nice chat, but I really have to go before Mel sends the cavalry after me."

That was that. Chris was going to leave whether the whitelighter liked it or not, although he felt a bit deflated over the fact that orbing away was out of the question. Just hoofing it down the sidewalk didn't really have the same kind of flare. If this whitelighter was even half as smart as he was trying to sound, he wouldn't try to keep hounding Chris.

[oneminuteoftruth]

"That wasn't what I was going for, but I get where you're coming from." He has been a whitelighter for around twenty-two years now. It'd be more of a surprise if the pep talks hadn't caught on by that point, but that really wasn't the point right now. This wasn't doing anything to help Chris actually want him to stick around.

Once Chris turned around, Andy knew the conversation was over and listened to what he had to say. There was nothing he could say to Chris that would convince him otherwise for now, so he decided to bow out for now. He didn't orb away, but instead turned away and walked off, disappearing down the next corner. Andy was still going to keep watch on Chris, but he was going to have to keep his distance like before and wait until Chris was ready to talk to him once more. Hopefully, it would go better then.

[chriscross]

Whether they were both ready for it or not, Chris found himself running into his whitelighter again only a few weeks later. Near to the entire menagerie of Halliwell children had gone out to the local superstore in order to prepare for a birthday party: P.J. was turning thirteen soon and so obviously they would have to go all out. Eight kids to their two chaperones of Paige and Henry was a bit of a handful, but at least they were behaving as far as magical outbursts went. After a bit of wandering, the older kids split from most of the younger ones to cover more ground (mostly all Piper's kids, really) and it was there that Chris saw an irritatingly familiar face.

Being the one most taken after Piper in terms of hobbies, Chris had been assigned to finding the food they would be serving. The cake was going to be left to his mom, but Chris had a good idea of what a bunch of ten year olds might want and was on his way there when he stopped dead, stared for a moment, then slunk into the aisle to give the apparently-browsing whitelighter a gigantic stink-eye. "Is this some kind of joke?" he asked.

[oneminuteoftruth]

For once, Andy wasn't following Chris around to see how he was dealing with things. Instead, he had been indulging in the normal life he was unable to have when he had still been alive. Since Chris hadn't needed a lot of watching until recently, Andy had taken advantage of the situation he was in to get a job (a low paying menial thing since he was dead), get an apartment, and live like a normal person until he was needed to look after his charge.

So when Chris stumbled upon him, Andy was actually out shopping for himself, currently trying to decide between which type of bread to go with for sandwiches to make for the week. He may be dead, but he was still going to enjoy the little things like food. Looking over to Chris, Andy seemed surprised to see him and wasn't afraid to show it, expression clear on his face.

"What are you doing here, kid?" It was then that he remembered what he had heard recently. Birthday prep for one of the cousins. He then remembered the bread in his hands and showed them Chris. "Right, doesn't matter. Help me choose while you're here. When did they make bread so varied?"

[chriscross]

Seriously? That was all the guy was going to give him? Chris didn't buy it for a second; whitelighters didn't need regular lives, not when they had the Elders providing pretty much everything for them Up There. As far as excuses went for following him around, Chris figured it might have worked for mortals... but it was really weak now that Chris knew what his stalker actually was.

He glanced down briefly when the breads were held out to him. Instinct had him grabbing them, stuffing one back on the shelf and holding the other hostage. One of those was way too crumbly unless you were trying to make a meatloaf or breading or something like that even if it wasn't advertised that way, and—Chris shook his head. "This is what you're going with? Shopping? Do you even need to eat—" He paused, seeing another shopper giving him an odd look for the question and inflection, because he really had intended to end it there, but hastily and lamely added, "—this?"

[oneminuteoftruth]

Andy couldn't help but grin when instinct took over and Chris picked out a bread for him. He was definitely Piper's son and that proved it more than anything else ever would, though the neurotic and snarky behavior was definitely a close second in clues. There was no sign he was insulted and instead of trying to free the loaf from Chris' hands, Andy picked up another loaf of the same type and put it in his cart alongside of the rest of the food he had already picked out. Besides the sandwich stuff, everything else was canned or frozen.

"Just because I don't need to doesn't mean I can't." When a nearby shopper looks at the two of them, Andy just smiles politely before grabbing his cart and walking down the aisle, expecting Chris to follow him and continue to try saying that this was just an excuse to spy on him. "There's nothing in the job description that says I'm not allowed to have a normal life as long as I'm doing my duties."

[chriscross]

Chris sputtered for a moment when his impromptu plan was foiled so neatly, then tossed the hostage loaf back onto the shelf in the wrong spot before he trailed after the whitelighter. Chris was watching him like a hawk, but part of him couldn't help but notice the cart full of nonperishables. "Uh-huh, how's that working out for you?" he said, a long and sarcastic drawl.

He didn't know what to make of this guy. One moment he's proclaiming to have been keeping an eye on Chris since birth, but here he was trying to claim he had a life outside of whitelighter duties that he was interested in pursuing. He figured that sort of thing was for half-whitelighters only, who still had time to grow and live and all that stuff. The sort of things whitelighters didn't really have anymore.

[oneminuteoftruth]

There were less people at this end of the aisle, so they could speak freely without any odd looks from the other shoppers and Andy stopped to look at some other things he needed. He wasn't going to let Chris ruin his shopping day, after all. "Better than when I was alive," he admitted as he pondered his choices. "I was a cop and that doesn't leave much time for a normal life."

Not finding anything good in this aisle, he moved on to the next one. Oh good, there were sodas in this one. He went to go study his choices while he waited for Chris to catch up. "They lightened my workload when I was assigned to you, so I had time to have something close to normalcy when you were younger. These days, not so much, but I don't really mind the change of pace."

[chriscross]

Wait, the whitelighter was a former cop? This was just getting weirder and weirder by the minute, and Chris was having a hard time believing the Elders would want someone so unwhitelighter-like to watch over him. Halliwells weren't the easiest of charges, after all, and he knew how much the Elders liked things going according to their own plans with the least room for interference.

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Chris. This guy hadn't been around at all until recently, not that Chris noticed, so it wasn't like he was doing anything different from usual. Sure, Chris had started going down to the Underworld more often once Mel, P.J. and the twins were all old enough to watch themselves and the littler cousins, but there was no way the whitelighter could have followed him down there. "Honestly, it doesn't look like you ever had any time, anyway. Canned peaches, really?"

[oneminuteoftruth]

The best kind of whitelighter for a Halliwell was someone who was very unwhitelightery. It also helped that Andy had a lot of experience dealing with Halliwells before becoming a whitelighter, which was really the main reason why he was chosen for the job. Not that Chris knew any of this.

"Your little trips to the Underworld. I've been keeping an eye on you longer than you think I have. It's been ever since you were a little..." Andy holds up his hand to measure a length of about the size of a newborn baby, as if to easier explain things. "...peanut."

Right as he says the last word, Andy reaches out and grabs a jar of peanuts off a shelf and puts it in his cart before he looks over at Chris, seeming insulted about the comment about the canned peaches. "There's nothing wrong with canned peaches. Or frozen, for that matter. They stay fresher and edible longer than if I got produce and if I have to keep my charges safe, they'll stay good until I get back."

[chriscross]

Chris was stunned into silence for a moment before a powerful sulk began to sweep in. This guy even knew about all that? He must have been watching pretty darn closely to notice considering that whitelighters couldn't outright sense their charges when they were in the Underworld. Then again, guy said he was a cop, too... Ugh, Chris didn't want to deal with this at all, but now that he knew he had his own whitelighter assigned to him, like hell he was going to let it sit.

Not to mention that peanut comment was irritating. That was Piper's name for him, not some whitelighter he'd never even met before a few weeks ago.

"Don't do that," he snapped sullenly. "And don't do that either. You can buy fresh without going overboard. Haven't you ever heard about serving sizes? It's like you never lived alone before or something."

[oneminuteoftruth]

Andy was smarter than most people gave him credit for and he used that to his advantage like he was doing now. It wasn't to show off or one up Chris in any way, but to show him that he knew what he was doing and wasn't going to give him a big speech about how that was bad and that he needed to be more careful. Andy knew that wouldn't work on him and had figured out pretty quickly that the best way to deal with him was to let him do what he wanted and if he truly needed help, then Andy would be there when he needed it.

"Message received. I won't do that anymore," he answered honestly. The peanut comment was only brought up to show just how long Andy had been around, but it looks like he hit a soft spot with that one. "And I know what serving sizes are. It's just easier to do it this way and is cheaper."

[chriscross]

"If you're just going to go with the cheap, terribly preserved stuff, you might as well not bother," Chris said, his nose practically turned in the air for how snobbish it sounded. He couldn't help it if he despised the cheap stuff; Piper never kept any of it in her own kitchen (although there was an allowance of emergency stuff in the basement) and had shown Chris what a huge difference it made in different dishes. "Price isn't a problem when you don't have to worry about where you get this stuff."

After that bit of chiding, Chris hesitated and looked the whitelighter over more seriously. He was having a hard time believing that promise so easily, unused to anyone capitulating right away, much less when it involved magical danger or even doofy nicknames from his parents. "You're serious?"

[oneminuteoftruth]

"That's if I want to do my shopping all over the world instead of doing it the convenient way and just shopping in town like most people would." It always amazed Andy just how much people who grew up with magic in their lives took advantage of it to a certain extent. Living life as a mortal, even one that had been flung into the magical world by accident, made him a bit apprehensive about relying on magic. Perhaps he'd get better about it the longer he was a whitelighter, but for now, he was sticking with using it only when he absolutely needed to and he didn't need to when it came to shopping.

"Of course I'm serious. Look, your other set of memories gives you access to more information and experience than you normally would have at this age, so I know you'll be careful," Andy said without missing a beat. He could trust Chris to know his own limits better than he ever could, so he wasn't going to try and talk him out of doing this. "I reserve the right to give you the 'I told you so' speech if you do land yourself into trouble you can't get your way out of alone."

[chriscross]

Being magical by birth certainly did come with advantages. It definitely meant that it was hard to treat someone else with magic like they would want to live like a mortal, no matter how much Piper had wanted a normal life when he was much smaller (and, at the same time, much bigger). "What's more convenient than orbing?" asked Chris, being only slightly facetious there.

"I'd call Wyatt before I'd call you." It was true, but more to aim at the fact that Chris really did not need a whitelighter. No matter what happened, he had gotten it in his head to avoid taking on this whitelighter as much as he could; it seemed like an insult more than an apology. Mostly because no one saw fit to tell Chris until he tracked the guy down himself. "But thanks for the vote of confidence, I guess."