Title: erase me
Summary: Justin, in your opinion, when he tried to love, loved way too much- and that was part of his problem; he'll eventually factor you to the equation, and you'll be left dangling there like always, trying to figure out what the hell 'sin' means. Multi-chapter fic.
Words:
Timeline: Set in S3.
Disclaimer: I own or share nothing but Alex's understandable hate of math.
A/N: I can't help it. I am hopelessly hooked into this pairing. Oh and I love Mason too. Just saying.
Chapter 1: Open your eyes to the real world
'Wherefore, from Magic I seek assistance,
That many a secret perchance I reach
Through spirit-power and spirit-speech,
And thus the bitter task forego
Of saying the things I do not know—'
NIGHT, Faust's Monologue
You're thinking Justin, Justin, Justin- but a thick Cockney accent is disrupting your desperate chant and those silver plated eyes that look so much like him. (But they're not.)
"Alex?" He enquires worriedly, and you almost choke on the familiarity of the situation. He's Justin, but he just isn't Justin- and that's why you're screaming his name over and again in the back of your head, though you're completely silent.
This just had to be some kind of a sick joke.
Okay, you guess you need to rewind to the beginning of the beginning. You know, to get things straight.
It's a full moon.
You sigh miserably because it doesn't matter anymore, but every single time the moon shows up every month, with its taunting, glowing face, you really wish you learned that vanishing spell. You never liked the full moon, even before when you were with him- your jaw grinds and no you weren't thinking of him, nuh-uh. Nope.
Except your eyes flit across the room, instinctively scanning the surroundings and see the necklace that started the whole mess. A shiver sprouts not-entirely-comfortable goosebumps at the front of your arms, as you reminiscence the coldness of that ruined castle, the darkness whipping around you, the exaltation and hope and anger and (those thousand beautiful emotions you didn't have a vocabulary wide enough to supply for) everything in his eyes- you inhale sharply, the silence sliced.
It's hard to not think of him, okay?
So you shift your attention to the idly doodled sketches in front of you, filled with crescent moons and ruffled bed sheets and disturbed sleepers and wolves- you groan once again, the dark circles underneath your eyes marring your ability to stay awake.
You stare at the wall instead, finding solace in nothingness. Your heart thrums slowly beneath your ribcage, the New York midnight traffic is filtering your bedroom with unwelcome honks and rushes, and it's so quiet it should bother you.
And then the door cracks open, and you let out a relieved sigh.
Took him long enough.
-head shakes, refusing to understand.
"You're not Mason. He left me -"
"I'm Mason, Alex."
A ragged breath. A wail in your head.
"So." You start casually, your hair splayed wildly in front of your face, so you huff the stray strands away, boredom lurking in your eyes.
"What brings you here?" Your voice is nonchalant and authoritative, kind of like when you're at school and a eighth grader asks you about the orchestration of a certain prank- you'll smirk knowingly and lean back against the locker.
But he just smirks right back and crosses his arms, tasteless humour clearly present in his face. (He never learnt how to really smile after she left.) "Hello to you too, Alex." You frown, his voice seemed like a block of ice, and while you're looking at him, his eyes seemed to be made out of concrete- solid, smooth, betraying no emotion whatsoever. (When you were younger, he'd always have to look away from their parents when he was covering for you, his eyes gave away everything.)
This, for some strange reason, deeply perturbs you, but you mask it with a 'psh,' and a roll of your eyes. "Dork. So, I ask you once again-" (You say it as if it physically hurts you,) "why. Are. You. Here? It's midnight. Shouldn't you be, I dunno, snoring right now or something."
He says nothing, standing stock-still, he looks like a statue (no emotion, dang it, on his face). He gives you the slightest of nods, as if he's been expecting the comeback. You grimace- really? You're that predictable? Max was right, you really are starting to lose your mojo. (And that was when she failed angering him for the forty-first time by dying his hair the colours of the rainbow in his sleep, but hey, who's counting?)
But he moves (and you let out a breath you never knew you held) inches closer to the window, staring outside, blank slate eyes reflecting the light dully.
"That full moon…" He whispers, cracked and hoarse and horrible, much worse than that time when he'd mourned for Juliet through the substation window, and your eyes shift away.
-ow could I believe you?" A furious screech.
"I don't know." He whispers, his voice suddenly too loud.
"How could he-"
"I don't know."
"I want you to help me." The words are robotic, motionless, clear.
You aren't. You just stare at him, perplexed for all of a second until it hits you. Oh. Oh. Then you're flabbergasted. (Yes, that's a word. Harper told you. Who knew?) You nervously pick at the cotton underneath the pillow pressing your stomach, eyes averted downwards.
Your throat swells. "Spell books aren't working." It was more of statement than a question.
He nods. "I can't go to the Wizard Council about this either. And Juliet…"
"Is she dead?"
His cheeks flinch. "Yes. No. I don't know." Agony breaks into his voice at his last words, and he looks at you with -finally- some emotion in his eyes. He's lost. (and hurt and broken and those other thousand things that might break your heart all over again.)
And he wants you, his sister- to help fix everything again. Oh.
"Why?" You need no answer for that, you already know. You have a knack for doing the impossible, sure you screw things up- but you always, always finds a solution, however insane and stupid it is. And 99.9% of the time, unless it concerns sea-chimps, it works. And everything usually goes back to normal.
So you agree, and his eyes are bright and fierce, and that calms the unease rolling in your stomach for a while.
(Much later on she wonders how she shifted from him, him, him to Justin, Justin, Justin so quickly, and she knows the answer's buried in there somewhere.)
… Into a limbo large and broad, since called
the paradise of fools, to few unknown.
You're making monkey faces at his back, and you chortle when you see his glare.
(And yeah, maybe he's slaving over research on something you're not really sure about anymore, but it concerns Juliet and Mason and fixing things- something important.)
You really should feel like shit, but for this teeny tiny moment you don't. You realise that now, his eyes weren't solid cold little pellets anymore, and that pulls off a weight off your chest so heavy you literally go 'oomph' afterwards.
"A-lex." He hisses and whines at the same time, and you duck your head downwards to hide your smirk. You trace patterns on the mound of crystals right under your nose, carelessly grabbing a fistful.
"Oh, you noticed me." You retort dryly, pouring some of it down your mouth until your tongue melts in the crunchy sweetness. "For a moment there, I almost thought I didn't exist." The raw pile accidentally filters itself to the corner of your lips, and rolls down to your neck until you shake it off, annoyed.
The hollow of your shoulders still have some of the sugar sticking to them, so you drag your finger down to take it and capture it in your tongue, and you grin at him again when you see that he looked up. (It will hit you much later that you always smiled more when you were with him, even after… yeah, that.)
A shadow flitted through his face, a blink of an emotion utterly dark and frightening. Then his face is schooled back to normal, and he impassively shifts his attention to the musty book in front of him. You scowl. The ugly pellets were back.
-keep screaming silently. (Scream, scream, scream, all she could is scream)
"The signs were there, how could I be so stupid-"
He's missing.
You realize this one night when you go up to his room for their weekly midnight rituals- re: Annoying the shit out of each other and yet still doing something relevant to their plan to fixing everything- with a smirk in your eyes and an insult on your lips, but both die instantly when you sense his absence.
You tell yourself that you really shouldn't be freaking out, he must be in the terrace, or Max's bedroom or gone to the toilet or something.
You check all those places. He isn't in any of them.
Okay, it's not that bad, you can check the lair. (He isn't there either.)
You shake Max awake- he's half-muddled from sleep and is mumbling something about pink dragons, but he helps you look.
He isn't anywhere. (You check school, the library, the Wiz-tech library-don't ask how you got there- the alien language league's secret clubhouse, fricking every place known to man at two in the morning.)
Time to freak out.
You shake like a leaf, so beyond tired that all you feel is mind-freezing numbness.
You drag yourself to your room, your legs made out of lead, your heart a hollow mess, and you just want to give up for the day. Even walking seemed like brainless repetition- lift your left leg, move it forward, wince; rinse, repeat with other leg.
You're right outside your room, and you look at his room for one last time, one last attempt before you collapse.
(Nothing.)
And then your heart gladly plummets downwards like a fighter jet, zooming past your joy, relief, your meager attempt at normalcy. Your mind drifts to the only thing you remember from Biology class- your heart is apparently protected by this sac which connects the rest of the veins together, and if it's torn, or hurt in any way - the whole organ breaks down.
You think that's the most rational explanation right now, because your heart? It bleeds.
And what happens after that, Mr. Johnson? Will this girl live after that? Will she ever go back to that so-called normalcy, she desperately, completely craves?
Big, fat tears sting your eyes until they soak the blood-shot veins, and your body, it aches as you close the door and rest your head on it, silence whipping your ears, the edge of her vision blurred. You close your eyes for a moment, the closest you have been all day to a sob. You sigh, and your eyesight clears by a hundred thousand pixels at what they see.
And they see him.
Open your eyes like I open mine
It's only the real world
A life you will never know
Shifting your weight to throw off the pain
Well you can ignore it
But only for so long
I love cryptic chapters, and this is just the beginning. And reviews are seriously appreciated. On a side note, finals are coming up, and as hard it seems to digest, eighth grade is a serious thing here in this island, so I might not be updating that often for this fic.
Oh, and I reaaallllyyyy need a beta. Someone to help me out with these fics- any volunteers? I'll help you out as much as you'll be helping me.
Oh, and the references-
"Into a limbo large and broad, since called / the paradise of fools, to few unknown." - Paradise Lost
Open your eyes like I open mine/ It's only the real world/ A life you will never know/ Shifting your weight/to throw off the pain/ Well you can ignore it/ But only for so long" - Careful, Paramore
And thus it has been proved I am a Paramore addict.
