Regarding his entire life? Barb spitting him out of her is what I'm most sorry about.
I'm close friends with a woman who has a narcissistic mother, I mentioned her in the Venus thread a while back. This is a beautiful, attractive, model material woman at thirty years old - highly talented, great work ethic, fiercely headstrong with so much potential. She is trapped in an open prison. Seeing what her mother has done to her is utterly beyond belief. Children of narcissistic mothers suffer so horribly, worse than children of absent or shitty fathers. And the worst? When Dad is Mom's enabler.
I also have another close friend who got out eventually, a la Cole. She met a friend on the internet, she just ran and ran to live with them for a while until she sorted her shit out, and never looked back. Not many kids of narcs get out, golden child or scapegoat, and if they do, like Cole, they have to cut it all out - all of it. Chris is a nightmare, but when Barb finally fucking dies, I think Cole will reach out to Chris in some way. I don't believe he particularly loves Chris, but they're really the closest family each other have which says a lot. The poison will be gone, and only his victim of a little brother will remain. He is not Chris's saviour. Chris is too far gone now as we know. But he's something. Something tangible. Unlike the world he currently resides in.
Children of narcissists are so messed up and there is no diagnosis or pill that fixes the wide array of problems that arise from that kind of abuse. Eating disorders, dissociative disorders, fibromyalia, migraines etc. With a different mother, I truly believe Chris would be way better off now than he is.
She wants her little Chris close for a reason. He's her supply. She is only still breathing the air she simply does not deserve because of Chris. Narcs have no soul so they drain the souls of others.