Author's Notes: All right peeps! This is the last chapter. It's a little shorter than the rest, but it's one giant scene, which is why. I hope you enjoy it as much as you did the rest, and I appreciate all of the comments about it :D I'm glad you all enjoyed it as much as you did. I really love this story. And Chris in general, but people already know that. Haha! Anyways, as always, don't own them but Nathan. Don't forget to review!
There were few lights on in the house, which was quiet and empty. Nobody must have been home. Chris looked at the clock; it was only nine. His siblings were probably still out.
"Wyatt? Mel?" he called out from the foyer. Nobody came to his calls, and from the looks of it, neither of them were in the living room, the conservatory, dining room or the kitchen. And if they were upstairs, they probably would have come by now.
"Looks like we're alone!" Nathan said, reaching out to grip Chris' hand and pull him in for a kiss. "I'm tempted to have you orb us back to my room…"
"You want to go back to your place when we have the manor to ourselves?" The darker haired boy raised an eyebrow. "You're crazy," he chuckled.
"What, you wanna make out down here in the foyer where everyone can see us?"
"No…I'll do you one better." Gripping Nate's hand, Chris orbed them upstairs into his room. It was brave, assuming that no one was in there, but he proved to be right; the lights were off and the door was shut, with no sign of Wyatt having been in there for a while. And he said that he hoped to not be back by the end of the night…
As Chris was still feeling riled up from the dinner, he made sure the door was locked before he went over to Nathan and began kissing him. It wasn't usually him who took the initiative, because he was more careful about these kinds of things, but without having to worry about people being around, he was much more free to let himself go and enjoy their being together.
Nathan's arms wrapped around Chris' neck while they kissed, and the darker haired one moved them somewhat closer to the bed, though he didn't push him onto it. They simply continued to kiss, with each passing moment deepening it until Chris' tongue was brushing over his boyfriend's lips. He could feel Nathan's hands working their way down his neck, brush along his collarbone and down his chest, until they found their way to the hem of his shirt. The two of them broke the kiss long enough to remove their coats, only to return to the position they had been in shortly beforehand.
Sufficiently flustered, Chris finally pushed Nathan back onto the bed and crawled on top of him afterward. They had been in this position once before, but because of a near mishap with Wyatt, they hadn't gotten go any further. It almost felt like he had been in this kind of position before, though, too, like an odd sense of déjà vu, just with someone else. He couldn't figure out why it felt that way, and thankfully the feeling was quickly extinguished by the overwhelming urge to be closer to Nathan. Chris pressed his body against the other boy's and broke their kiss so that he could brush his lips along his jaw, against his ear and down his neck. The feeling of Nathan writhing beneath him and of the lighter haired boy's fingers moving through his hair and up his back only egged him on further.
He was just about to start removing his shirt, his fingers gripping the hem of it, when he heard the sound of a very quiet poof not too far away. That sound wasnever followed by anything good.
Chris turned his torso around just in time to see someone in a black suit standing next to his closet. That disturbing sinking feeling came back to him, as well as the chill he had been feeling before. It was that man from before.
"Well, this wasn't something I expected to see." With a small movement of his hands the man conjured a crossbow into his arms, pointing it at Chris. "A whitelighter involved with his charge? How interesting. Suppose I could get both of you with this if I tried, but I'll just go foryou, for now…"
In the time that Chris managed to get his hand up to try and send the darklighter flying across the room the darklighter conjured up an arrow and shot him with it. It pierced through his chest, lodging itself deep into the right side of it. Chris cried out in pain and he fell over onto the bed, while Nathan stumbled to sit up.
"Chris!"
The darklighter laughed as he watched the scene unfold before him. He clearly wasn't very worried about Nathan, who was trying to get the arrow from Chris' body. The pain was so severe that Chris couldn't fight back. All he could do was grunt in response:
"No, don't! It'll make it worse!"
Nathan stopped almost immediately after he heard that, and he stared at the darklighter with a look mixed with contempt and anger on his face. It was at a time like this that he wished he had a better power than the one that he did. But that anger, that rage that he was feeling, it caused Nathan's power to activate itself anyways, and soon his body fell back onto the bed, lifeless, as his astral form appeared just beside the darklighter. In that moment of confusion Nathan blinked, but didn't waste any time. He kicked the darklighter hard in the side and watched as he fell over, stumbling to the ground with a loud grunt. The crossbow in his arms flew out of his hands and across the floor, but before the man in the black suit was able to get up Nathan grabbed the crossbow and was pointing it at him. He briefly looked back to the couch at his body and Chris, who was writhing on the bed and letting out quiet grunts and cries as he tried to move.
"Just s-shoot him with it!" Chris spat out. He was holding his sides—the pain was immeasurably powerful, and he felt almost like he was going to throw up.
Without a second thought to it Nathan did exactly what Chris said, and he shot an arrow at the darklighter, who had just stood up. He let out an agonized yell as the arrow penetrated him, causing him to erupt into flames and to burst apart, leaving behind a scorch mark on the wooden floor.
Nathan watched the crossbow in his hands disintegrate before he began to feel lightheaded. Soon he found himself blacking out, only to reawaken on the bed beside Chris with a quiet gasp. It took him a moment to recuperate but when he did he sat up and reached out to rest his hand on Chris' side. There was a fine sheen of sweat covering his boyfriend's face, and it worried him.
"God, what do I do?" he asked, in a panic.
Chris groaned in pain. "I need to get…nngh, I need to get healed. But don't—"
"Wyatt! Wyatt!"
"No!" Chris yelled, but he hissed afterward. "God, wait, Nate, we need to pick everything up first. Don't c-call him. If Wyatt—if he—"
"Chris, now is seriously not the time to be freaking out about whether or not he's going to notice that we're dating," Nathan said. He looked up toward the ceiling, calling again, "Wyatt!"
Here Chris moved to try and sit up, but all he ended up doing was making the excruciating pain he was feeling even worse. He collapsed over on the bed, doubled over from the throbbing feeling pulsing through him, and gripped his stomach as tightly as he could.
"WYATT!" Nathan yelled loudly.
There was still no response. Nathan looked at Chris, who was trying not to writhe any more, for he knew that the more he moved, the quicker the poison ran through him.
"That's it," Nathan said. Chris wasn't sure what he was doing, but the lighter haired boy rested himself against the bed, focused on Wyatt, and then shortly after found himself feeling lightheaded once more.
When he awoke from his blackout this time he was standing in a party, though one that lacked enough light to make his appearance not all that noticeable. There were people dancing all around him, but he knew that Wyatt had to be nearby. That was who he had thought of when he astral projected. Sure enough, dancing not too far away was Chris' older brother, whose arm Nathan grabbed and who he led away from the crowd. Wyatt protested the entire way and almost shoved at him once they stopped moving.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Wyatt asked crossly. "I was dancing with her!"
"Yeah, well, there's more important things going on other than dancing right now," Nathan snapped back. "Your brother's been poisoned." There was still a large group of people around them who would have likely found it odd if he said what had happened completely, and he figured Wyatt would understand him if he cut it down to that.
But Wyatt didn't get it at first, and instead looked kind of confused. "Wait, is this a joke for Halloween? Nate, you jerk, don't scare me like that!"
"I'm not kidding." Nathan could feel himself beginning to feel lightheaded again but he forced it to go away as best he could. "Look, we don't have much time. Chris was poisoned,Wyatt, and he needs your help. You need to orb back to the manor, and you need to help him."
Wyatt's face fell. "Was it—" Nathan nodded before he could finish, and Wyatt, too, nodded knowingly. "All right. Where'd you pop in from? I need a place to go so I can orb without anyone seeing me."
"I just astral projected onto the floor. Nobody saw me, but they'll sure as hell see you. Go to the bathroom…that should work. Or outside."
"All right. I'll meet you back there."
Before Nathan was able to respond, something tugged at the spot just above his stomach and behind his bellybutton, making him hunch over slightly. It hurt, but he couldn't figure out what it was. He had very little time to think about it as he soon blacked out yet again, reawakening in his body with a gasp. Though he didn't open his eyes, he could hear Chris whimpering beside him.
Nathan reached out and gripped Chris' shoulder gently. The sheen of sweat on his lover's face had become much more noticeable. "I got to your brother. He's on his way."
"G-God, it hurts so bad…"
"Don't worry, he'll fix it. He'll heal it for you."
Shortly after he said that, a flurry of white-blue orbs came through the ceiling, and Wyatt's form appeared. He ran over to the bed and turned his brother over, who groaned out loudly from the pain. After pointing at the arrow, Wyatt then gestured toward the door, and the poisoned object disappeared in a flash of white-blue lights that flew across the room and landed against the wall.
"Not quite what I was aiming for, but it works." Wyatt hovered his hands over his brother's chest and held them there momentarily before they began to glow with a golden light. The golden glow disappeared after a moment, the wound in Chris' chest shrinking and vanishing as well. Wyatt furrowed his brow some. "You okay?"
"…Yeah, a lot better now, thanks." Chris sat up carefully and he pressed his hand against his chest. The pain was gone, but it still felt like something else was there. There wasn't physically so he didn't know what it was, and he tried to ignore it. "Sorry."
"No, don't worry about it," Wyatt said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "You're my little brother." He chuckled. "It's my job to make sure you're safe, right?"
Although Chris didn't respond verbally he did nod, however faintly. Wyatt gripped his brother's shoulder.
"What the hell was a darklighter doing here?"
"It just isn't Halloween without a demon attack, is it?" Chris asked with a snort. Well, there was the token demon for the night, he thought.
"Yeah, but a darklighter? He must have been following you around for a while. You didn't notice?"
"I had a feeling at dinner," Chris explained. "Nathan and I came up here to grab something from my room, and he attacked."
"Well, thank God you're okay. Do you think that Mel would be?"
"She'd be calling for one of us if she wasn't."
Wyatt nodded. "Yeah, I guess that's true. If that's the case, then I'm gonna get back to my date. You don't mind, right?"
"No, get on back," Chris said, waving his hand. Before he was able to say anything else Wyatt orbed out of the room, leaving him and Nathan alone once more.
The two of them shared a look, and Nathan moved in to hug him. Neither boy said anything but there obviously wasn't much need. They hugged each other tightly.
"Thanks," Chris murmured against Nate's hair.
Nathan pulled back slowly, intertwining the fingers of one of his hands with his boyfriend's. "Well, looks like I finally saved you, too, huh?" he asked, a relieved sort of smile on his face.
Chris only chuckled, reaching out to nudge at the other boy's shoulder with his hand. "Looks like. You know, someone told me once that sometimes whitelighters need to lean on their charges. Guess I should believe that a little more now."
"This whole thing kind of sounds like an after-school special or something."
"Oh, please. I'd kill for that kind of normalcy sometimes."
"You know, you're so much like your mom it hurts."
Chris snorted.
That was the first time anyone had ever compared him to his mother.
But, he was okay with that.