Wow…does anyone even remember this story? I've neglected the poor thing so much! I guess such a long break doesn't really have an excuse. I've just been getting into writing for CCS…then I started writing for X…then I caught a few episodes of Code Geass, so…er…shall I just get on with it?

This is a short chapter, and admittedly, just brotherly "bonding." But it's proof that I haven't given up on this!

)o(

Chris felt infinitely better after a night's sleep. He awoke late, almost 11, but it WAS his birthday, damn it, and he could sleep in if he felt like it.

All the same, he felt rather odd after he rolled over lazily to read his digital clock and say the time in the double-digits already; it was like half the day had just flown by him.

Yawning, still feeling the pull of sleep, he tossed his bed sheets aside and flipped himself over, practically falling to the floor; he was a heavy sleeper. The November air was crisp, bitingly chilly, and he shivered. A hot shower was sounding really appealing.

The apartment's only bathroom was just across from his bedroom, yet he somehow managed to doze while trekking those perilous 4 feet, because he walked right into the doorjamb.

"Damnit!" he cursed, rubbing the left side of his forehead impatiently. Aw, well; it was an improvement at least; usually he smacked his hip into the short bookcase by his bedroom door.

Use to bangs and bruises, he quickly forgot his moment of undignity and started a shower, fiddling with the knobs to coax the spout to give him something between arctic chill and boil-your-skin-off hot. He wriggled out of the sweatpants he wore for pajamas and stepped under the stream, sighing as the water warmed his chilled skin. November in northern California sucked.

As he dunked his head beneath the flow his mind finally emerged from the foggy tendrils of sleep, and his lazy eyes opened fully. By the time he started to wash his hair, his mind had rebooted and was up to normal processing speed, and he went over his plans for the day.

It was a weekend, so he needn't worry about classes. In fact, he wasn't going to worry about much of anything. Not working on commissions, not answering the phone when his geeky study partner rang him up (the poor guy REALLY needed a girlfriend. Or boyfriend, or whatever floated his boat.) Nope, he was just going to enjoy himself, and tonight he was going out with Wyatt and a few friends…of course, it wasn't like they were gonna get wild; they were going to his mom's club, after all. Besides, last year (21) was the year he got totally hammered and started singing Shania Twain karaoke. He didn't remember much after he started belting out "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?" but from what he'd been told, the entire bar was cracking up and Wyatt had to drag him home to bed, but not before hurling all over his front.

And there were pictures.

And the-

Wait…Wyatt…

Any dregs of sleep left swimming through Chris's system were jolted out of him as the memories of last night came rushing back. Drawing…fainting…Wyatt, some woman…what?

He lost several moments there in the shower, his mind replaying what he could recall from last night. Although it was only a food-deprived dream, it still disturbed him some, worming its way into his psyche, burrowing like a grub through an apple core, leaving a trail behind long after it's gone.

Suddenly the water felt a little more chilled, but instead of wringing more hot water from the tap, he turned the knobs the opposite way, stemming the flow, and reached outside the curtain to fumble for his towel, letting in breaths of cold air and raising goosebumps on his wet skin.

Yet the more time passed since the previous evening, the more muddled the emotions became. They faded as he got dressed (crisp jeans balanced with a short more wrinkled than an octogenarian) and even more so as he ate breakfast (scrambled eggs, chocolate milk and Froot Loops, the breakfast of champions)

'I'll leaf through a dream book later,' he finally dismissed, grabbing his messenger bag and throwing it across his chest, taking 10 minutes to find the every-misplaced keys, and walking out the door.

Though still chilly, the noon sun had cut through the frost, warming San Francisco enough to walk around it's streets in jeans and a jacket.

Chris didn't exactly live in the nicest area of town, but it was close to practically everything, and walking was much easier than driving.

Wyatt worked as the manager of a rather high-end gadget-and-gizmo store, which boggled Chris's mind on a number of levels. Wyatt was…not the best student in school. A great witch, a great guy, but he struggled for a C average. Didn't seem to bother him though; he had a classic California laid-back attitude. Yet somehow he had an uncanny aptitude for anything with circuits, plugs or batteries. When he was 12 he took apart Phoebe's notebook computer and had it put back together in 4 hours (he didn't mention that until he was sure it worked still) and he was always the only one in the house who could set up a blueray, router connection, firewall, remote control, work the GPS and, if it was early enough in the morning, run the coffee pot.

Chris wasn't sure if he was a tech genius or if everyone else in the family was just stuck in the 20th century…and he hadn't even been BORN then! Hell, it took Chris a week just to figure out how to hear voicemail on his cellphone.

Anyway, the store he co-ran was only about 4 blocks away from Chris's apartment, and he should be on break right about now, so he decided to strop by. His mother liked to laugh at the two of them, saying they acted more like twins than normal brothers. Of sure, they fought, they kicked each other, had one or two fistfights in the school cafeteria (a long story involving a calculator, a trig exam and oatmeal.) But overall, they got along better than brothers usually did. Maybe because they were so close together in age, or because they were the lone men in two generations of women and they had to stick together. Either way, they played right into the cliché of brothers being best friends; a parents dream.

Or nightmare, considering they used their comradely quite often to gang up on cousins, aunts, parents, and anyone else to cross their path.

The store itself was enough to overwhelm Chris, the most un-tech person in the continental US. The signs posted above most of the aisles bore names of products he couldn't even identify. Posters in the windows advertised everything from handheld computers to digital film projectors. Everything was silver, black and blue, and he often felt like he was on the set of some b-list knockoff of Star Treck.

"Hello and welcome to Tomorrows Technology, bringing the joys of tomorrow to today. My name is Amy how may I help you this afternoon?"

The salesgirls eagerness nearly blew Chris backwards out the door. Amy. Wyatt told him about her-

"Like the Easter bunny on crack," was his most politically correct description, and Chris found it more than accurate.

He blinked, starring into vivid blue eyes framed by dark brown hair with neon blonde streaks. Blegh.

"Uh, yeah…" he began calmly, as though addressing someone with a dangerous mental illness. "I am looking for Wyatt Halliwell. Did he take an open lunch?"

"Oh no!" she chirped happily. "We all chipped in and ordered pizza for lunch today since it's getting close to Christmas season and we need all hands on deck so to speak so we decided-"

"Is he in the back?" in interrupted, trying to get to the point of the matter.

And Miss Run-on Sentences actually paused, apparently not use to being cut of mid-breath. "Um….yeah, but-"

"Thanks," He smiled, and started zigzagging his way through aisles for zip drives, portable keyboards and infa-red computer mouses (computer mice?)

The back room of TT was more like a bachelor pad than a store room. Well, yeah, the shelves and corners were all piled high with boxes from Dell and Gateway, but they were al arranged in such a way as to make room for the real necessities of work. Two of the ugliest couches in the world ran along one wall; clean, but relics from the 1970's that should just be burned. A couple card tables set at odd angles to each other acted as food courts, open boxes of Domino's laid out on one. A vending machine sat humming quietly on the other side of the room, its front picture still baring a 2009 Pepsi logo.

And that's where he found Wy, beating the ever living daylights out of the poor antique.

"Worthless piece'a crap!" he swore, giving it a firm kick at the base. "Eat my frickin' dollar, will ya?"

"God Wyatt! Didn't Mom ever tell you to respect your elders?" Chris laughed, closing the door behind hi and helping himself to a slice of taco pizza.

"Cute, baby brother." He deadpanned, clunking his forehead against the softly glowing front. "But you have to earn my respect, and STEALING from me does not earn my respect!" And with that he knocked his fist once more against the side, hard, cracking his knuckled right against a bracket.

"Ouch! Sonofabitch!" the witch yelped, and then, just to taunt him, it seemed, the ancient machine whirred loudly, like sawdust in a car engine, and sputtered, coughing up a bottle of Diet Pepsi.

"Now you see?" Chris pointed out cheerfully, pulling off a pepper and popping it into his mouth. "If you were nice to it, maybe you would have gotten your drink earlier!"

Wyatt wasn't amused. Forehead still pressed against the fiberglass, his shoulders sagged, and he glared down at the bottom slot. "I ordered a Dr. Pepper," he groused.

Chris shrugged, plopping himself down on the nearest couch, the one with mustard green cushions patterned with pea-green geometrics. "Beggars can't be choosers."

"Beggars don't pay," Wyatt sighed, but unscrewed the cap from the pop all the same, grimacing at the taste. "Geh, diet pop always tastes like crap."

"Uh huh, yeah," Chris said vaguely, swallowing the last bit of crust before stretching out importantly. "So, Wyatt," he began. "Remember anything special about today?"

Wyatt took another swig of his Splenda-sweetened drink, pretending to look deeply thoughtful. "Well, the Cheifs are playing the Stealers," he murmured, ticking one finger off. "And Timecards get picked up today, and it's my turn to restock the-oh shit….oh well."

Chris snorted, grabbing for another piece; considering the state of napkins littering the floor and half-empty boxes, everyone else on shift had already gotten their fair share, so he didn't feel too guilty.

Wyatt was surely the most disorganized person Chris knew. But even his jock of a brother had a better memory than a sieve.

"C'mon, Wy…" he wheedled dramatically. Something that happened, oh, 23 years ago? To date?"

Wyatt pretended to be thinking hard, scratching his chin like a turn of the century psychiatrist in a parody movie. Suddenly, his face lit up, and the blonde man smiled from ear to ear.

"Of course!" he exclaimed, smacking his palm to his forehead, and Chris grinned smugly. "This was the first day of the end of my life as I knew it- ow!"

Chris chucked a pillow his way, which considering the dilapidated state of the sofa, meant the equivalent of a foam-covered brick.

"You're an ass," he declared simply, finishing off the last bite of pizza with gusto.

Wyatt shot him a dark look, rubbing his temple as though suffering a grade II concussion. Dramaqueen.

"God, Chris; you're as moody as a chick," Wyatt snorted, crossing the space between them and plopped on the couch with Chris, shoving the concrete cushion into his stomach with force, eliciting an "oof!" from his baby brother.

"Of course I remember what day it is, you dork," Wyatt laughed, wrapping his arms around Chris's shoulders in what COULD have been a brotherly gesture of affection, until he got him in a head lock. "This is the day Mom went to the hospital promising e a baby brother and came back with you instead!"

Chris jerked in Wyatt's grasp, cursing his lifelong decision to pursue brains instead of brawn. He was no sissy, by any means, but his lithe frame couldn't stack up against Mr Halliwell the High School Quarterback. He was, however, very limber, and managed to place a well-aimed elbow right between Wyatt's ribs, releasing the younger witch with a curse their mom would STILL scold them for using, despite their age.

"Oh, you're dead," Wyatt growled with a wheeze. "I'm slipping something into your drink at your party tonight, so help me."

"What, and leave me defenseless? What kind of awesome older brother would you be if you did that?"

Wyatt only glared, and Chris smiled mockingly back at him.

"Better get back to work, Halliwell," he smirked over his shoulder. "Earn that paycheck or you'll never be able to afford the great present I'm sure you bought me!" And with that he left, closing the break room door behind him with a creak, wondering how long it would take Wyatt to realize he'd stolen his Diet Pepsi.

)o(

Told you it was pretty short, but it's alive!

Lottsa love,

LLC