yesterday feels like breathing

by omens

For Alex it’s always been wantwantwant and taketaketake but this, this is something she’s not supposed to have. Companion piece to ‘days were slipping past.’ The other side of the story.

Name: Chris

Title: yesterday feels like breathing

Fandom: Wizards of Waverly Place

Genre: General/Angst

Rating: T

Summary: For Alex it's always been wantwantwant and taketaketake but this, this is something she's not supposed to have. Companion piece to 'days were slipping past.' The other side of the story. [Justin/Alex] Where it all began.

A/N: This is only going to be a oneshot. I can't go through that whole thing again. :)

…0…

as our hearts started beating faster,

i recalled your laughter, from long ago

-Nothing Like You and I, The Perishers

…0…

There's this feeling in her chest now, every single day.

No, not a feeling. Because if Alex were to classify this as a feeling, then she'd have to own up to, well, feeling it.

No way can Alex be feeling this.

She knows what it is, of course she does. But she doesn't dare to say it out loud in fear that will make it real. She waits for it to stop, to pass, to fade, to go away, to leave her in peace. It is something big and powerful, something that presses down and in on her more and more.

And it scares her more than she's willing to think about. It terrifies her.

But it is not a feeling.

Because Alex Russo and feelings are always a bad combination.

…0…

If you had asked Alex Russo at 16 what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, she would have shrugged you off.

You see, the future entails plans and thought and being prepared and Alex is none of these things. She does none of these things if it can be helped.

Justin does these things.

If you ask Alex, even now, about the differences between her and her older brother she would be quick to name them off in a steady stream.

He's studious, she goes to school because she's forced.

He thrives on responsibility, she avoids it like death.

He's poised for a life of workworkwork, and really, who wants that?

Not Alex. She wants excitement and adventure and freedom. She wants a life as far from Justin's as possible.

…0…

Harper asks for help with her clothes. She's been driving herself crazy trying to put together enough to audition for yet another internship.

After three that lead nowhere, Alex thinks that maybe Harper should just wake up and get a clue.

She doesn't say that though. She has at least that much tact.

And, somehow, in the midst of helping Harper choose fabrics and her first feeble attempts at learning how to sew, she starts to like it.

Scratch that, she begins to love it.

…0…

In the middle of a lunch rush the first week in June, her mother tells her to go meet Justin at the airport.

Something in Alex's stomach jolts, catches, and lurches.

Of course she knew Justin was coming home for the summer. There's not really a choice. Max is turning 17 at the end of the summer and then…then the competition comes.

Alex tries to not to think about that. About three months in the future when there's a very good chance that she's not going to have her powers anymore.

There's a cold chill in the air, odd for this time of the year and the east coast stays muggy and humid but she grabs a jacket before she heads out, muttering under her breath about the midday traffic.

…0…

Justin is the third person out when the gate opens.

He looks…different.

It's still Justin, obviously. But there's still something…off. Like someone has taken an eraser and run along the edges, blurring him. His clothes aren't perfect, rumpled instead of fastidiously (neurotically) neat, his hair is shaggier than she has ever seen it and when he's close enough she can see a thin shadowing of stubble along the line of his jaw.

She's expecting him to hug her, but he doesn't and the feeling of surprise comes over her.

So she covers. "What's with the scruff?"

"It's been a long semester," he answers and hitches his bag higher up on his shoulder, a tension in his words that she has never associated with her brother.

They're quiet on the subway ride back home, the air around them thick with something she can't pinpoint. It's been over two years since Justin has been home. He's spent every school break, including summers, working in Virginia, doing lab work or whatever it was at school. The last time he came home was Christmas his freshman year, and she thinks about how insufferable he'd been, how he'd never stopped talking about how much he loved school, and that she forgot that she had ever missed him while he was away.

One would think that they'd have something to say to each other after so long.

The train is crowded, just as she knew it would be this time of day, so they're forced to stand the whole way back downtown. Alex's eyes stray to her brother standing close to the window, lost in thought, eyes fixed on the indecipherable rushing of tunnel wall outside the window. She watches him, studies him, uses her artist's eye to take stock of the changes in him; the slight widening of his shoulders, the faint tan from the southern sun, how tired he looks.

How…not Justin he seems

…0…

For all the strain that seemed to linger over them those first few hours, things change quickly. Almost too quickly.

It should have been a clue.

When, just an hour after they walk into their apartment, Justin flops onto her bed while she sketches and compliments her work, she feels a flush rise up in her cheeks that she can't explain and doesn't like. He grins, and her vision clouds, just for a second, obscuring what the rational part of her brain knows.

…0…

Alex spends a lot of her time working on her designs. Thanks to Harper she's discovered a love for it that she's never had for anything.

Well, anything besides making trouble that is. Only she's left that behind her. Pretends she has and maybe she believes it, maybe she doesn't, it doesn't really matter.

What does matter is that she's finally feels like she's found something she's supposed to be doing, a place she belongs, and she's not about to jeopardize that. Any and all trouble that she gets up to these days is strictly of the recreational variety.

An internship is a big deal. It's prestigious and important and will let everyone know that she's serious about something. Finally.

But she's beginning to feel a little bit like a hermit, all cooped up in her bedroom night and day while she sketches and sews and fastens zippers, but it's all going to be worth it in the end.

Even if she doesn't win the wizard competition, it'll be okay. She'll be okay.

She thinks back on their disastrous trip to the Caribbean and remembers the feeling when she won; that rush of pure energy that swept through her body, lighting up all of her nerve endings until she felt like the feeling was going to burst out.

It felt amazing.

Yes, she'd like to feel that way again. But a part of her would rather feel the euphoria of knowing she's really earned something as amazing as this internship.

…0…

Justin falls back into the pattern of being home quickly, she can tell. He works the lunch rush through the week and the breakfast shifts on Saturdays and they rarely if ever get the same hours. Their parents are being flexible for a change, taking into account her designs, Justin's studies for some big project (even in the summer), and Max's schedule at the garage. The three of them haven't been together for more than 10 minutes since the summer began.

In truth, Alex hasn't spent much time with either of her brothers since Justin left for college. He was gone, obviously, and Max had discovered his love for cars around the same time.

(Personally, Alex always thought it was because he missed his big brother so much.)

But routine is routine, no matter how longs it's been and before Alex knows it, she's used to having him around the apartment again. Then one day she goes through the laundry to find something to sleep in and snags a pair of boxers without a second thought and only later does she notice that the orange cotton with the tiny navy UVA's aren't hers does it fully sink in.

She's not going to return them anytime soon though. Too comfy for that.

…0…

Having put so much of her thought and energy into school lately (which is amazing, even she thinks so) Alex hasn't really dated all that much. There was a guy early her Freshman year; a tall blonde guy named Tyler with eyes to die for that she met at an NYU party. It fizzled though once she realized just how obsessive theater majors could get.

She still hasn't developed a liking for hard work-except when necessary.

And with her friends, who hadn't left the city, working, she hasn't been thinking that much about romance honestly.

Turning into a virtual hermit in her off work hours wasn't what Alex had planned for her summer, but it's what's happening. So she doesn't even notice when the 4th rolls around until she wanders out onto the terrace with her watercolors, needing a break, and sees the street fair going on below her. Settling down with her sketchbook and her lemonade, she starts to draw the booth in front of Greenwald's and somewhere along the shading around the awning, Justin wanders out, still in his pajamas.

She laughs, under her breath, because Justin is not the type to stay in his pajamas more than a minute after he's awake but here he is at almost noon, wearing his ratty old plaid flannel pajama pants and a gray tee shirt with 'Cavaliers' emblazoned across the front and socks, despite the heat and humidity of a New York City summer day.

"What happened to the hippie dresses?" he asks as he settles in beside her, eyes scanning over the tablet on her lap.

Rolling her eyes, Alex dips her brush into the blue and adds a layer to the banners in her picture. "They're not hippieish," she retorts, "They're bohemian."

She smiles seeing the corners of Justin's lips quirking. "And the difference is…"

"My clothes aren't a zillion years old and full of moth holes."

Watching a retort die on his tongue (she knows him), Alex smirks to herself, adding contours to the tall skinny trees visible above the hardware store roof. She becomes so engrossed in what she's doing that she forgets Justin is even there until she feels his fingers at the bottom edge of the boxers she's still wearing. "I was wondering where those were." His voice is light, amused. A little resigned. As if he wondered, but pretty much already knew.

He should. She's been stealing his clothes all her life. Although to be honest, a lot of those times were just for fun or spite.

Shrugging, she replies offhandedly, "They look better on me." She asks what he's planning to do today, not really because she's all that interested, she's just making conversation.

"You're looking at it," he tells her and takes a sip of her lemonade sitting on the small table between them. "You?"

Grinning smugly, she parrots his own words back at him. "You're looking at it."

Justin retrieves his iPod dock from upstairs and she tries her best to convert him to the ways of classic rock, not that it works. He tells her about Virginia and about his classes. She zones out a bit there and starts to sketch him instead, having grown bored of the fair, angling her body so he won't notice what she's doing. When he asks her about FIT and the specifics of the internship she's applying for, she tells him, and for the first time in a long time it feels like they're actually talking, not sparing.

It's nice. It…feels good.

Really good.

…0…

They spend pretty much the entire day out on the terrace, until long after the fireworks are over and the rest of their family has gone to bed. That night Alex tosses and turns in the midst of nondescript, fuzzy dreams that won't come into focus after she's awake and leave her with a dull headache.

Shuffling down the hallway, cranky and tired, she pauses outside the open door of Justin's room when she hears the sounds of him moving around inside, getting ready for the day ahead.

For no rational reason, Alex stands there, watching him. Nothing of any great import or excitement happens. He doesn't even realize she's there. Sitting on the trunk at the end of his bed, with no clue of his sister's eyes on him, Alex watches Justin as he merely ties his shoelaces. Laced straight across, not crisscrossed, and double tied. Exactly the same as every single day of their lives.

And just like when he laid on her bed while she sketched, the edges of consciousness in her mind grow hazy, to the point where, if she didn't know better, she wouldn't even recognize the guy sitting ten feet away from her as her nerdy older brother.

He looks, right now, like someone else.

And she doesn't know what to do with that. So she leaves, shaking her head to stir the cobwebs.

She probably just needs some caffeine.

There's already a good portion of sugar swirling in her oversize mug when Justin walks down the stairs and comes over to the kitchen island to pour himself a cup of coffee.

He must still be sleepy too, for after muttering a 'morning' at her, he sets about making breakfast in silence. She watches him, searching for some sign of the whatever it was that had happened upstairs; watches his movements, the twitch of his muscles, the concentration in his eyes, the movements of his hands. Nothing seems off. If anything Justin is still the same single minded perfectionist he's always been, even when doing a task as simple as making an omelet. He offers to make her one, but she declines. Shrugging, he takes his plate over to the table and sits down. Again, she lets her eyes move over him. They were up late the night before, later than what's become usual for both of them and it must be hitting him as much as it is her. He's dressed, but the tousled hair speaks volumes, as does the dark stubble along his jaw.

Never before would she have noticed any of this about Justin, not with anything behind it other than ammo to mock him. He is always so put together, on the outside even when he's not on the inside.

She looks at his plain tee shirt, his worn in jeans, and he looks like her brother again.

Nothing more.

…0…

Justin took the TV from his room to college with him so now Thursday nights have been designated the night he watches some documentary forensics science thing every week.

He was the only Russo kid to have a TV in their room in the first place because he could always be counted on to do his homework and other boring things like that so she's just gotten used to watching whatever it is she wants on the living room television.

And it just so happens that the movie she wants to watch is on at the same time as Justin's show.

It doesn't take much to get her way. It never has. This time is no surprise and she likes it. Likes the way she can twist her brother with a few words, wrap him around her finger, and only later will he realize she's even done it.

It's an art that she mastered before she could walk.

She does her best to muster up some indignation when she wakes up and finds he's changed the channel, but he just offers to buy her ice cream and it satisfies her. For now. Returning her posture back to how it was when she woke up; feet on the coffee table, throw pillow settled against Justin's bicep.

She's asleep almost instantly.

…0…

As soon as the idea begins to form inside her head, it starts to gain momentum.

Waking up on the couch to see Justin sound asleep beside her wasn't the problem. But the fluttery, quivery, squirmings going on in her stomach was.

She recognizes them. Has experienced them during the leading up to every disastrous relationship she's ever had.

Not good.

Not right.

He's close enough to her that she can see every detail of his face, every line and curve of his features, the shadows cast on his cheeks by his eyelashes, can feel the puffs of air as he breathes (mouth breather), can smell that uniquely Justin smell that she knows so well.

It all combines to create that heady, exciting swirling that she's been missing in her life lately.

Something that should not be connected in any way to her brother.

While she has a mini panic attack in her head, Justin begins to wake up and she freezes, feeling like she's been caught.

Even though she wasn't actually doing anything.

Before she can think of another option, she tucks her head back into her pillow, being as still as she possibly can. Alex has plenty of experience in getting out of things she should never have been doing in the first place. The creepiness of watching her brother sleep is just one more on her tally sheet.

Or maybe she should start a new one. Creepiness and all that.

She stays there and listens, still feigning sleep, to Justin standing up and stretching, emitting a small groan that goes straight through her like the blade of a sword.

A soft weight settles on her shoulders, and she feels the spreading warmth from the blanket Justin lays across her. Knots twist themselves into the lining of her stomach, tightening and burning and the bile rises so quickly in her throat that if Justin doesn't leave the room like now she's going to be forced to throw up right in front of him.

The second she hears the patter of his feet fade away onto the carpeting of the upstairs hallway she throws off the blanket as if its on and dashes into the bathroom just off the kitchen, sinking to the cold tile floor and emptying what feels to be the entirety of everything she's eaten in a week. She sits back against the wall with her head tipped up to the ceiling and presses the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying to block out the pressure building behind her irises.

They are not tears. Tears would mean there's a problem. And there is not a problem here.

There can't be.

…0…

It takes her two days to admit to herself that there is in fact something going on here.

Alex holes herself up in her room with her sketchbook and conjures up more chocolate than all of Belgium eats in a year until she's filled an entire pad with drawings of her brother and she rips them all up, feeling like the biggest emo freak on the planet and just generally disgusted with herself for wallowing this way.

After she gets rid of the paper littering her floor (thank you, magic) and cleans herself up a little bit, she decides she basically has two options here.

One; she can ignore it and pray to God that it was just a momentary thing, an allergic reaction, a dream, a hallucination, and that it will over be over soon.

Its always worked for her in the past.

Or two; she can talk to Justin and maybe he can figure something out. Yet another option that's usually worked pretty well for her. He'll give her that 'shame on you' face he does so well and then do whatever it is that he needs to and it would all be over.

Letting him have this to hold over her isn't appealing, but neither is the alternative.

(Of course there is that third option; acting on it, that she never allows herself to think about.)

Justin is in the bathroom and she pauses in the doorway after finally leaving her room, observing him.

Turns out that 'habit forming' isn't just a cautionary term after all.

So again, without his notice, she studies the image they present in the mirror, noting the sharp contrast of her wildly colorful scarf and chunky jewelry against the quiet hues of Justin's plaid button down and jeans.

His eyes finally meet hers-clear grey locked onto her own deep brown and it hits her (why its taken this long, she'll never know) just how different they've always, always, been and will always be.

Justin is by the book where she's whichever way the wind blows. Night and day.

Two things that never, ever, exist in the same moment.

That old adage of 'opposites attract' flits through her mind and she remembers one of her middle school science projects that Justin had tried to help her with, about the polarity of magnets and how the like sides repel each other.

He had finally stood and stalked away from the table in a huff when he realized she had inadvertently gotten him to do the work himself.

That memory used to make her smirk, recalling that it was the first decent grade she received in science that year.

"I'll be out in just a minute," Justin says.

For just a second, it infuriates her that Justin can look at her, look her in the eye, and not know that something like this is going on inside her.

He's supposed to be the smart one.

…0…

Alex doesn't know what to do, doesn't know how to deal with whatever the hell is going on inside her. Focusing her anger at the object of her…whatever isn't helping.

It's not technically his fault. She just wants to blame him because he's Justin and she can, and its been a pretty good filter for her for the last 19 years.

This wasn't supposed to happen. It wasn't supposed to be him, never him. She can't deal with this-doesn't really want to have to deal this. Words cannot describe how much she wishes she never has to. At least she can comfort herself that since no one knows, she can put it off. Eventually, works.

Someday. A point in the abstract, far off, that doesn't matter right now.

Indefinitely is even better.

For now, denial works just fine for Alex.

As does the fact that no one is any the wiser. There was a stretch of time there when she thought that she maybe possibly could have tipped someone off, but no. None of her family members are gaping at her in horror and there's no scarlet I on her clothes.

(She watched part of the movie, that's all.)

On the one hand, they're still getting along pretty well. That is one part of the whole mess that can be put in the benefits category, small as it may be. Growing up, Alex never thought she and Justin would ever agree on anything for longer than 2 seconds. It seemed unnatural. As unnatural as the idea of them spending time together. Voluntarily. With no one ending up with a bruise or magically grown anythings.

They can talk now. About stuff that actually means something.

One part of her is still angry that this is happening at all, wants to rail at him, to scream and cry out her frustration and bang her fists against his chest and tell him that its his fault and "Yes, you. It's all on you and the way I'm feeling because of you. It's confusing and scary and I don't like it. I don't want this, but I feel something and I shouldn't. I shouldn't feel anything like this for you."

But she doesn't. Obviously.

As much as she would love to lay the blame at his feet, it wouldn't be fair.

Justin may be a lot of things, but he's not at fault here. At best, he's the catalyst for her own bizarre and gross psychological problem. And it isn't like he can control that any more than she can.

The whole situation just basically sucks.

She loves him, though she never says it, probably more than anybody should ever love someone, because he's her brother and she admire him-another thing she doesn't say, and he represents so many different ideals and moments in her life.

Because he's Justin, and that name means all kinds of things inside her heart and head.

It's a whole cycle of guilt and anxiety and she's kind of annoyed and endeared at the same time, thinking about what he would make of that whole assessment. And she doesn't like that whole feeling of fighting inside her brain, with her emotions, so she's going to have to stop it.

It all really, really sucks.

…0…

Alex has a group of friends from school that she hangs out with on a regular basis. But almost all of them are from outside the city so she hasn't gotten a chance to see them in a while.

Paige, whom she met at orientation and liked right away, was the first to head out after the semester was over. She calls Alex at least once a day and leaves her ridiculous voicemails in bad accents. Alex misses her. Then she texts her one Friday morning and says that she's made everyone agree on pain of death to go out that night, and there's no way she can get out of it.

Grinning to herself, Alex starts down the hall to Justin's room to invite him and pauses midway.

Does she really want to spend an evening out with him?

Then she recalls the look of total boredom on his face the night before as he flipped through the channels, sighing repeatedly when he came across yet another made for TV movie. He's as tired of the monotony of the summer as she is, and all of his friends are at least as far away as Virginia, maybe more.

With renewed purpose, Alex stalks into his room and pulls the book out of his hand.

"I was reading that," he states flatly.

"Some friends of mine from school are going salsa dancing tonight. You want to go?"

His eyebrows rise in surprise and he props himself up on his elbows, giving her a long silent look.

It makes her uncomfortable, this looking at her like he doesn't know her. It makes her skin itch under the surface and her mouth go dry.

"Please Justin…I just need to get out of this apartment. If I stick myself with one more needle I may throw myself off the terrace."

Its not exactly the truth, but its close enough and that has always been Alex's approach.

He agrees, and barges into her room 10 minutes before they're supposed to leave saying he has nothing to wear to go out dancing. "I'm an engineering student," he whines. "I don't go clubbing on a regular basis."

One of her first assignments at FIT was men's dresswear, and she still has a shirt in the back of her closet that gives him to wear, keeping her eyes so trained on her mirror and the application of her lip gloss that the strain goes right to her head and begins to pound. But Justin, who is more modest than most, more conservative than almost everyone, doesn't even leave her room to change. He just turns around and pulls his tee shirt over his head and tugs the shirt Alex made over his shoulders and buttons it up. She tries desperately not to look at the bunch and flow of the muscles in his back and shoulders when he moves.

Alex has seen her brother without his shirt before, but never has it actually made a difference to her one way or another.

…0…

Lost in thought as she leads the way across the streets towards Soho, Alex is vaguely aware that Justin is quiet, too quiet, and how warm the skin of his hand is when she tugs on it to lead him over to where she can see her friends waiting for them.

Alex introduces him simply as Justin. Not a conscious decision, but it happens and he doesn't add to it, only tosses her a perplexed look that she chooses to ignore.

Rosanna, the waitress who's section they like to sit in when they're here, herds them all to their usual back corner booth. With a knowing smile, Rosanna asks Alex if her boy will be stopping by tonight.

She hopes not. Jack, the busboy her parents hired when Justin left for college, is nice and all but he's always falling over himself when she's around. And unlike her mother, Alex doesn't find it a bit cute. She's not into younger guys, and even if she were, he's not really her type, reminding her a little bit of Zeke Beakerman the year he and Harper dated, only not as cool. Yeah.

"Oh she didn't tell you?" Paige's voice is husky from one too many of the cigarettes always dangling from her fingers, and a wicked grin twists the contours of her lips when she tells Justin about Jack and how he's developed a habit of 'turning up' in places he knows she's going to be, flipping her long honey colored hair over her shoulder to emphasize her point.

"Honestly, Alex," Paige turns to her and takes a huge gulp of her gin and tonic. "I don't see why you don't just tell him to buzz off. You're letting the poor kid waste his time." True, but Alex doesn't really have the heart to tell him to buzz off like she wants to. Her dad has asked her to be nice to him, and he is a good employee for all the stumbling and dropping of things he does on the very, very rare occasions they're both in the shop at the same time.

Its just one of those things.

"And," Paige continues, "you obviously can do so much better." She too throws a wink in Justin's direction and Alex feels her heart drop down into her stomach and settle in a heavy lump.

Justin leans into her, turning his face to speak directly into her ear, so soft that the words are barely more than air. "I need to talk to you."

Feeling herself stiffen, Alex goes rigid when he yanks her by her wrist out of the booth towards the bathrooms. Pliable has never been her thing and there's no reason to start now.

Her eyes move over his hand as he scrubs it over his face, not looking at her for a few seconds. He finally speaks and the tone of his voice is cold, making a chill claw its way up her spine. "Alex…you realize that your friends all think I'm your date, don't you?"

"Oh please, they do not." Denial. Denial is her friend, her constant companion, her safety net.

Doing that classic 'Alex has done it again' Justin face, he planted one hand on the wall by her head and leaned closer to her so he could speak low and she would still be able to hear him.

She gets a hint of his shampoo and aftershave when she inhales and it goes right to her head.

"No? Then why don't you tell them I'm your brother and see what they say."

Jutting out her chin, a touch of anger winding its way through her veins, she plants her hands on her hips and hisses at him, "Justin, just relax. They know you're my brother. Paige is just easy." That last part is true at least.

Justin seems to be pacified with that, so he pushes himself off the wall and back into an appropriate distance.

Alex can't decide if she's glad of this or not.

"We good?" Her heart climbs it's way out of her stomach to lodge in her throat, making the words feel like they have to pry the tissue away from the lining of her esophagus to force their way out.

He shrugs, and offers up a tiny mimic of a smile. One of the guys yells at them to come join the group on the dance floor. Alex's hand latches onto his, fingers hitting his palm, and she pull him to the floor.

…0…

"Shh!"

Alex collapses in giggles against Justin, finger pressed to her lips. He rolls his eyes at her which only makes her laugh harder.

So maybe compensating with alcohol wasn't her brightest idea.

"A-Alex!" Okay, so he's a little tipsy himself, but not as bad as she is. "If Mom and Dad find out I let you get dr-drunk, they'll kill me."

"Wah, wah. I'm hungry." Really, she just wants to get some distance, if only for a minute. Having him so close all night was a lot harder than she thought it would be.

So of course he follows her into the kitchen, sits down on a stool while she makes herself a sandwich. He props his chin in his hand and watches her.

Not helping.

"Did you have fun tonight?" She kicks her shoes off and hops onto the counter by the sink with her sandwich. Small talk is so lame, but his silent gaze is beginning to make her jittery and Alex does not like jittery.

He smiles. "Yeah. I'm not the best dancer…"

"Duh."

Which lead to her teaching him how to salsa. He never did learn, Max either, but she did thanks to their mom. And it's come in handy.

Though perhaps teaching Justin wasn't the smartest of ideas. Salsa can get into close quarters and during one song he just could not get the movement down, leading her to place her hands on his hips, for no more than a few seconds, to help him out.

And Paige's smirk over his shoulder at her did not help.

He goes on. "But it was fun. Your friends are pretty cool." After a beat, "And anything beats the best of Def Leppard."

Oh, he did not just insult her music. "Hey!" She stumbles in her haste to jump down in indignation against her musical taste. Thank goodness she took her heels off. That could have been painful. Justin takes hold of her arm and rights her. "I'll have you know that I don't just like hair metal."

"Oh right," he nods, "I forgot about Madonna." He's trying not to laugh, she can tell. Indignation makes her mouth drop open.

"Come on." Not thinking about it, Alex leaves her half eaten sandwich on the counter and drags him into the lair with her fingers curled up in the collar of his shirt. "Sit." She pushes him, not hard, down on the small couch and points her wand (that she left lying on the table) at the stereo. A song begins immediately and he chuckles.

"Who are you, and what have you done with my sister?" Justin props his feet up on the table in front of him, watching her.

"I've grown up."

Eyes falling shut as she sways to the Cure, Alex allows herself to breathe and in her head, she's not here and she's not going through this crazy wrong situation.

And then Justin speaks.

"I see that."

Her heart skips a beat, crashes back into a thudding, galloping staccato rhythm that makes little sense. He doesn't mean it like that, she knows it, but it goes to her head despite the rational anyway, but it sounds suggestive and she is notnotnot just imagining it.

She's not.

Alex stops, and her eyes open slowly. She looks at him, heat flooding her head and her heart and her body, thoughts scattering in her brain. In the space of the moment, she could think of a half dozen smart-ass responses, maybe a few lingering serious ones that really will not help anything here, and it's only the burn in her chest that forces her to breathe again. She realizes that using her sarcasm to laugh this off, while maybe the right choice, if there is a right one in a situation like this.

But of all the possible reactions she could have to his offhand comment, and there are many, laughing is not on her list.

The music stops and starts up again with a new song as their eyes lock. The moment seems to break with the new tempo of Modern English reverberating off the brick walls.

And then it all begins to snowball when Justin stands, pained look on his face, and like a punch to the gut it hits her that she's not the only one who made the connection. It feels like he's pulling something from inside her when he makes to leave, drawing an ache from the pit of her soul with the knowledge that this may be her only chance to get it all off her chest.

"Wait."

Licking her lips, Alex focuses on the threading of his pulse under her thumb and not the fact that he chooses to remain facing the door in front of him and doesn't look at her.

Her breathing turns into a rush of staggered inhales and exhales, she ponders what's going through his head right now. That alone should terrify her. Justin has never been the type to hold back on expressing his feelings. That's only one of the things she has taken pleasure in tormenting her about throughout their lives. But this, this feels different than she thought it would, not that she should know what to expecting.

In typical fashion, she'd failed to think out her rash decision before acting.

She really should stop doing that.

"Justin, tonight, when you said that my friends thought you were my date…that upset you, didn't it?"

"It should upset you, too." He still won't look at her and her heart plummets. She should have known better. Justin never, ever breaks the rules and this one is a doozy.

"I know." Alex's voice is tiny even though she's moving closer to him, bringing her body into line directly behind his. She suddenly understands the concept of magnets and polarity because she just can't stop, can't move away. "But…it didn't."

Ugh. Honesty leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.

Justin turns finally. A tiny little part of her that has always felt remorse for her long, shameful list of actions against her brother that she steadfastly ignore cracks, bleeds, hurts.

"Are you sure you want to go here?"

No. She's not. She just doesn't have a choice anymore.

Her fingers skim down over his chest, the tips brushing the chain of his St. Christopher medal ghosting her skin. Wrapping her fingers around the cold metal, Justin lets her tug enough to lower his head down to hers.

The low groan that vibrates out of his chest make her stomach twist, in a good way. The earlier alcohol and the weeks of confusion and awkwardness and want flush her skin and her body heats up, her frantic heart beating against his chest, hears it pounding in her ears.

Her senses kick into overdrive, her entire being humming with the feel and taste she had been thinking of all this time. Maybe even longer than she knew.

And the fact that he is kissing her back just as fiercely, just as fervently as should surprise her, should make her question everything that Alex has ever held true about her older brother…and yet all she wants is to take. Possess. Seize.

Hold.

The rest will work itself out.

The theory has always worked for her in the past.

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