Disclaimer: I do not own WOWP.
Alexandra Margarita Russo. Born: February 5, 1993.
Friday, February 5, 1993
He looked at his grandmother, who was staring at the wall clock, clutching her cell phone tightly in her hand.
"Mommy." He whined, pouting with all the cuteness he had at the age of two.
"Mommy will be back soon, honey." His grandmother whispered, pulling him gently into her lap. "Just be patient, okay?"
He nodded (he was a good boy), staring at the clock as well, waiting for his parents to return home.
Time was running out!
Friday, 8th September, 1995
He jumped up and down in the living room in excitement, clutching his giant size ball in his hand. "Park" he yelled, unable to contain his excitement within himself.
"Now, Justin, be a good boy, okay?" his mother commanded gently. "First I need to finish feeding your little sister."
"Me not eat." The two year old brat protested, shaking the little head of hers that was the birthplace of all sorts of vicious ideas- at the present and in the future, and ran around the house, hiding behind the sofa.
"Alex!" his mother yelled, running behind her.
"Daddy." He stood on tiptoes, trying to reach as high as possible, and tugged on the sleeves of his father's shirt. "Park."
"Alex! No! Stop running! You would fall!" his father panicked, running behind them. "Theresa- Alex- lamp- 100 dollars- stop- Theresa- ALEX!"
He sank to the couch in defeat, pulling the ball close to his chest, blinking back the tears from the corner of his eyes.
Time was running out!
Sunday, February 9, 1997
"Come on Alex." He whined, tugging on her covers in vain. Sometimes he thought that his sister was an evil monster, who slept for days and awoke only to cause misery in the lives of innocent people- him being at the forefront of the tortured souls. "Wake up already!"
She mumbled some incoherent words in a sleepy voice (he could only make out the 'dork' part), and rolled away from him.
He sighed, sitting down on the bed and pulling the covers down from her head, earning a kick from her in reward.
"Mom wants you down for breakfast now." He said sternly, clutching his stomach and massaging it to ease the pain. "We are getting late!"
She pulled the covers over her head again for an answer.
"Alex!" he yelled in an exasperated tone, wondering what exactly he had done to make their parents hate him so much that they entrusted him with the task of waking up Alex on Sunday mornings. "Please, get up!" he pleaded desperately, standing up and snatching the glass of water from her bedside.
He would deal with the yelling and the pranks that would follow inevitably. Right now, time was running out!
Friday, November 11, 1999
"That's the last of it." She said in a fake melancholy tone (which she had imitated from that daily soap their mother watched), as she munched on the marshmallow in her hand, licking her lips and moaning. "Umm… this marshmallow is amazing. I am so sorry you couldn't have it, Justin."
He shrugged, expecting nothing better from his evil sister than this, and shoved his packet of potato chips in her direction.
She took a handful silently, her chest tightening because of a tiny feeling of guilt, lips pursed together forcefully to prevent the 'thank you' from slipping.
She choked on the junk food, while still lost in her thoughts. (Thinking is bad.)
He shoved the bottle of water in her direction, not even bothering to turn his head at her direction. (Who misses a minute of Spiderman?)
This time, he received a tiny kiss on the cheek as a mark of gratitude. His face flushed, and he ducked his head down to hide it.
"Umm…I..." his uneasily voice could be heard over Doc Ock's evil laugher, as he struggled to get past monosyllables. "I need to finish my homework." He mumbled weakly, getting up and running to his room. After all, time was running out!
Thursday, April 26, 2001
"Red or blue?" he asked, holding up two shirts in his hand, the blue one hoisted a bit higher, being his favorite.
"Hmm, let's see." She sank to the bed lazily (like a cat sprawled on the couch, ready to sleep till it catches sight of a rat running around), and observed the shirts carefully. "Red will make you look like a nerd. Blue one like a geek."
He titled his head and stared at her, his eyes blurting out the 'I-am-not-joking-here.'
"Fine." She groaned, acting as if giving Justin fashion advice was as strenuous and tedious as studying.
He tapped his foot on the floor impatiently, waiting for her to make her choice, so that he could dash into his room and get ready for Zeke's birthday party.
Time was running out!
Monday, May 12, Year 2003
He folded the 'I hate you Justin' note neatly, after having gone over it for the last 5 minutes, trying to draw inspiration from his sibling rivalry, and placed the crumbled piece of paper back at his pencil box. He took out his perfectly sharpened pencil and his perfectly clean ruler from this Captain Jim Bob Sherwood pencil box, and drew a perfectly straight line at the end of the answer he had just finished writing, making sure it was perfectly parallel to the top margin of the page. He glanced at the new Captain Jim Bob Sherwood wrist watch in his wrist, and almost yelped in alarm. He had just 40 more minutes to complete his paper!
Time was running out!
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Standing in front of the front gate of the school, he tapped his foot on the floor incessantly- a behavior contrasting his calm and patient demeanor- and listened to Max talk about this and that, and Lord knows what. He turned his head every now and then, to catch a glimpse of her, and to glare at her whenever their eyes met. She rolled her eyes and ignored him as usual, flicking her hair when a random cute guy passed her in the exact way that she knew he hated. His face turned a shade of beet red in anger, and he looked away faster than the snap of a finger. She smirked in victory, and concentrated on half-listening to Harper's ranting again. He looked at his two year old Captain Jim Bob Sherwood wrist watch, impatience written all over his face and eyes, his expression betraying his anxiousness to get back home and start studying already.
Time was running out!
Saturday, July 7, 2007
He placed the 1000 pages thick and 1000 year old book on the desk, gently wiping the dust off its cover with his handkerchief. He opened the book, his eyes scanning through the pages at an amazing speed.
She sat quietly on the couch in the lair, eyes downcast on the floor guiltily, not daring to look up at him. She glanced at her digital watch, glowing 23.00 hours in big red digits. (Yeah, they would be totally grounded if anyone found out.)
"You just had to turn yourself into a goblin the night before my Biology test, didn't you?" he snarled at her, tugging at his hair in frustration and annoyance.
"Hey, it wasn't my fault!" she snarled back, finally looking at him and shooting daggers in his direction. If looks could kill, he would have been dead by now.
He rolled his eyes, mimicking the way she rolled hers when she was dismissing his words, and continued finding the counter spell within the specified time, to prevent his little sister from being a hideous goblin throughout her life.
Time was running out!
Thursday, 6th October, 2009
He opened his eyes and writhed, groaning and wincing at the feel of the cold surface of the rainforest beneath him. He blinked a few times, until his vision was focused on the burnt pieces of logs. The campfire had probably died minutes or hours back, leaving them cold and unprotected in the solitude of the rain forest. If this was a horror movie, he would have turned around and noticed a ferocious wolf staring back at him. But since this was reality- even with the spell working actively to wipe away their existence- he noticed her, curled up in a tiny ball, her arms covering her barely clad legs. (She wore jeans and tights throughout the year, and she chose to wear that tiny skirt during the rainforest expedition! Really?)
He noticed her shiver in cold, and sighed. If he had his wand with him, he would have cast a spell and made her warm. But then again, it was her fault that he had to give away his wand to…to…someone. He rubbed his forehead with his hands, trying hard to remember what exactly she had done to antagonize her mother this time, but failed.
She shivered once again, and his instincts instantly took over. He wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her close to him. She relaxed, her breathing deepening, while he stiffened, his breath hitching every now and then.
Ignoring the fluttering in the pit of his stomach, along with the feeling of something sick twisting and churning, he closed his eyes, trying to hold on to the last threads of his fleeting memory, hoping that they would, indeed, find the stone of dreams in time.
Time was running out!
Thursday, July 7, 2010
The train stopped at the station with a jerk, and his body shot forward, against hers. "Sorry." He mumbled, standing back upright.
Her teasing voice rang in his ears soon enough. "Little boy can't balance himself?"
A weary scoff escaped his lips, almost involuntarily. (Humans are such slaves of habit.) "Oh, Alex! If you had paid proper attention in physics class, you would have know that this happens due to inertia of motion. Motion means movement, by the way. This was in chapter 5, Newton's laws of motion."
She turned around and glared at him, her eyes expressing how much she wanted to shut off his knowledge-junk-mail and wipe that smug look off his face.
He shrugged, not even trying to hide his grin, and waited for the train to move again. Time was running out!
Monday, December 6, 2010
His eyes scrutinized the pamphlet of XYZ University for the last time, while she kept staring at him expectantly.
"Yes, Alex?" his voice came out impatient, his eyes glancing at the packing he still had left. His clothes were scattered all over his bed, books already in boxes, action figures heaped together on the floor, and a hundred other things strewn here and there, ready to be entrusted into the custody (mercy) of Dictator Alex. (Maybe she stole his stuff all the time, but she was the only one he could trust with his belongings while he was away. Max? If he wanted to tour the sewers.)
She cleared her throat, plastered that fake innocent look on her face, and batted her eyelashes. "So… you are going away to college soon…and then your room will be empty..."
"You are not getting my room." He said sternly.
"What! Why not?" she demanded, abandoning the fake naïve conduct and re-emerging in all her Alex-Russo glory.
He quirked up an eyebrow in confusion. "I thought you liked your room?"
"I do." She assured, and not without sticking out her tongue at him. "I just… ugh! I just want your room!"
"Well, you are not getting it." He repeated himself, sitting up and gesturing at her to move towards him.
She narrowed her eyes in suspicion, and slowly crawled up to him, not letting her guard down for a second. He welcomed her into his arms, pretending not to notice when she stole his 'list of items to be packed'.
"What about your lamp?" she titled her head and looked at him. "Can I take that? I mean you surely don't-"
"Shhh..." He placed a hand over her mouth, pulling her closer, and holding her close. There was that calendar in his study desk, displaying '6' in big, bold font, and that table clock beside it, ticking faster than her heart beating against him.
That hollow feeling in his heart was increasing, that sense of restlessness haunting him whenever she wasn't in his arms, a voice screaming at the back of his mind- "Stop being in denial! Time is running out!"
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
He tapped his hands on the steering wheel of his car- the car that his dad had gifted him when he entered college, the car that she had painted pink in vengeance. Something made him retain that color, some feeling of warmth, comfort, familiarity, some feeling of home, some feeling of a tiny smile curling up his lips.
He honked the horn in vain, growing impatient with every passing second.
His phone rang, the loud ring tone (set by her, once again) making him wince. He answered the call, ready to confront the yelling imminent from the other end.
"Where are you?" she asked calmly instead.
He swallowed, suddenly feeling sweaty and nervous, and not because this was the first time he was returning home from college and his mother was waiting for him with piles and piles of food. "Traffic." He mumbled weakly, until his lips curved upwards into a teasing, knowing smile. "Why? Are you missing me?"
He heard a scoff from the other end, just as he had expected. "You wish! I am just counting my last minutes of freedom from your dorkiness."
He scoffed too, leaning out of the window of the car and looking at the signal, ready with a snarky comeback. "You won't have to count for long. I will be home soon. I promise."
"Whatever." And the dial tone.
He smiled to himself, tracing his fingers along the gift box wrapped in golden. Love blooming in his heart with a resolution to be proclaimed this time, protests screaming in his head, guilt churning in his stomach, he honked the horn of his car again. Time was running out!
Friday, June 22, 2012
"And don't forget to bring me that jacket when you come home for Christmas." She reminded him, as she added that item to the list too. (Yes, Alex Russo was making lists. Justin is contagious?)
He nodded and smiled, just staring at her with those lovesick eyes, trying to pinpoint the beginning of these feelings, and counting the days he still had left with her at home. Time was running out too fast.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Nature patronizes love. Which was why it began raining the day he was supposed to leave, and his mother forced him to stay at home till the rain stopped. That gave him a few more hours with her- a few more hours that he would cherish till the last second and hold in his memory forever.
"What kind of car doesn't even have a music system in it?" she frowned, leaning back against the front-seat.
He shrugged, leaning lazily against the driver's seat, putting his driver's license in his wallet, away from her eyesight. "Umm, my kind of car? You know, the cars of people who read instead of listening to screeching music at full volume?"
Her snort followed, accompanied by an eye-roll.
Their ears reverberated with the sweet sound of the raindrops. The wipers wiped away the water from the front glass screen.
His hands found hers, his fingers interlacing with hers, held as firmly as people do for 'be united against racism' posters.
Her eyes fluttered shut, she relaxed.
"I wish you didn't have to go back." she whispered.
He heaved a sigh from the most distressed part of his soul. "Me too." He admitted, pulling her close against him. He titled her chin with his hand, making her look at him with those beautiful, brown orbs. Before he could stop himself, he leaned down and his lips brushed hers. (Kissing in the car while it rains…who said people's lives are not as cliché as the movies?)
Two minutes later, he pulled back, coming face to face with his stiff, shocked, horrified sister.
"Alex…I…"
The door slammed, his teary eyes watching her figure retreating through the hazy window of the car.
He inserted the key, and started the car. Time was running out (and he was running away.)
Thursday, December 6, 2012
The door swung open immediately, and his mother attacked him with a hug. "Oh, my poor baby!"
A fond smile crept on his face. "I missed you too mom."
His father was the next to hug him, followed by his not-so-little-anymore brother.
She didn't move an inch from the couch, only moved her eyes to roll them like a tornado that swept away homes. (That eye roll always did sweep him away.)
"Hey, Alex." He greeted, his mind clinging onto the hope that they had gone past the phase where she was ignoring all his phone calls and not replying to any of his emails.
"Hello, dork." A text on her cell phone sought her attention immediately. "Mom, I will be back soon."
And she was gone out of the door before any of them could respond.
"Alex, wait!" he called out, getting no reply. He shook his head, sighing. Time was running out…
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
He sat on the ridiculously bright and attention seeking orange sofa of his living room, the lights shut out, the street lights flooding the room through the open windows and the transparent glass door of the balcony, the sound of New York traffic buzzing in his ears, keeping him awake. He flipped the pages of his Captain Jim Bob Sherwood comic book, covering his face with his handkerchief and sneezing in it. He pulled the cozy blanket closer to his chest, and rubbed his hands together, the leather gloves making a squeaking noise in protest. He sighed, leaning his head against the back of the couch, and staring at the wall clock, listening to it go Tick Tock Tick, Tick Tock Tick in an amazingly regular rhythm, maybe in the same rhythm that she was dancing to in some party in someone's house at some place.
Yeah, maybe staying up and waiting for her wasn't the best idea. But when it's past midnight and your sister hasn't returned home, the only choice you have is to sit and wait for her, or to go out and search for her.
He pulled out his cell phone from the pocket of his leather jacket, staring at the wallpaper on the screen for a few minutes, watching that face, those brown eyes with a mischievous twinkle in them, those curly locks that smelt like strawberry throughout the year, those lips that always blurted out spiteful remarks. Suddenly, his palms were sweaty even with all the snowfall outside.*
He dialed the number, patiently waiting for her to pick up the call. The phone rang, rang, rang, and for the 19th time that evening, went on voicemail. He sighed and hung up, deciding against leaving her another message that she will simply delete without listening to.
He flipped through the pages of his comic book again, stifling the yawn that resulted from a hectic day of Christmas shopping in search of the perfect lamp for his mother- the perfect replacement of the lamp that his sister accidentally broke last Easter. He looked at the clock once again, and sighed.
Time was running out…
Saturday, 15 December, 2012
"So you are spending all your vacation partying?" he asked, trying to sound as indifferent as possible.
"So you are spending all your vacation studying?" she countered.
He sighed, the months away at college apparently reducing his power to think of a quick come back. (Or maybe it was love?)"Mom and dad are worried about you."
She scoffed, shifting her legs so that they rested directly over his thighs, while still lying at right angle to him. "I am an adult. I can do whatever I want now."
"Not on my guard." He corrected.
She rolled her eyes, discarding the magazine in one swift, carefree motion, and propped herself on her elbows to face him. "And what are you? My guardian angel?" she mocked as usual, excepting their customary sparing to begin.
"I don't like you partying at Richard's. I don't like him." He said instead, making no attempt to roll over and face her. Something at the secret corner of his heart forbade him from making eye contact with her.
She glared at his back. "Or Mason. Or Dean. Or Ronald."
"Ronald was evil." He protested. "That was a different case."
She sighed, stretching in exhaustion of last night's party, and in anticipation of the party that night. "I can't believe I have to tolerate you for 20 more days."
He sighed too, and finally sat up on his bed, rubbing his eyes with his hands, the exhaustion of staying up every night finally getting to him. "Alex, we need to talk."
"Why do you even care about me?" she blurted out absent mindedly before she could catch onto her thoughts and stop herself from speaking them out loud. "You don't need to stay up for me." She covered immediately.
"Yes. I do." He replied calmly, getting up from the bed and walking towards the exit, fastening the top buttons of his shirt. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "Aren't you coming down for dinner?"
She nodded as an answer, and walked past him briskly, bumping shoulders with him in the process.
He sighed, leaning against the door frame, eyes closed in his weak attempt to brush away the sensations dancing in his shoulder and his body.
20 more days… time was running out again.
(*I have no idea if snow falls on New York in December. Lol, sorry if I got that wrong.)
(A/N: I got this idea while working on another jalex two-shot. I honestly had no idea it will get this long. But I am pretty satisfied with how it turned out. This is the most detailed thing I have ever written :) Please review! I am back to the other two-shot now.)
Question: how many chapters do you want this to be? Update will be monthly.