xv.
Late the next morning, perched on the counter with her legs dangling, chin propped in her hand, Alex yawns for what seems like the bazillionth time. She watches blearily as Harper darts to and fro around the Sub Station, getting it ready for the Saturday lunch rush. Every so often, Alex reaches up to point at one of the tables, causing Harper to scurry towards it, balancing a serving tray full of supplies in one hand.
"OK, OK, I think that's enough napkins for Table Four," Alex calls to her, covering her mouth with the back of her hand to mask another yawn. "Ooo, but look, Harper: Table Five is out of pepper, and Table Six is missing the sugar dispenser."
"That's because you've been eating sugar out of it all morning," Harper grunts, shooting her a dirty look as she sets Table Four's napkin holder back down, and hurries over to Table Five.
Alex blinks, then looks down at the counter next to her, where her nearly-empty sugar dispenser sits next to her, plainly labeled with a '6' on the silver lid.
"And so I have," Alex nods. Picking it up, she up-ends it over her other hand, pouring a sizable mound of raw sugar into her palm. Harper winces a little as she watches Alex proceed to lick her palm clean, then hold out the glass canister towards her.
"I'm out," Alex says, jiggling it for emphasis. "Top me up?"
"Give me that!" Harper snaps. Dragging her tray of supplies over to the counter, she yanks the sugar dispenser out of her friend's hand. "Alex, we open in ten minutes. This is your shift too, you know. I could really use your help, here."
"But I am helping! I'm...uh...making sure everything is neat and orderly up here," Alex yawns. She turns to her right, reaches up and lackadaisically pushes a stack of menus a quarter inch closer to the cash register. "See? Those were totally out of place. Woulda thrown the whole operation outta whack..."
"Uh-huh," Harper says flatly. She narrows her eyes at Alex as she sets the tray on the counter next to her, and begins unscrewing the top of the sugar dispenser for Table Six. "So what were you doing last night?"
"Huh?" Startled by the question, Alex sits up straight, eying the redhead warily. "Harper, you know what I did last night. You dragged me to see that stupid Ruby Donahue chick flick, remember? And the usher nearly kicked us out because I kept laughing the whole time that even the midget from Halloween Sorority Party Disaster couldn't do a better job of killing her career?"
"I mean after that," Harper says, smirking down at the sugar dispenser as she refills it. "What'd you do after we got home?"
Alex feels her cheeks begin to burn, but shrugs with faux-nonchalance. "Nothing, just went to bed. Why?"
"I see," Harper nods without looking up, her smirk blossoming into a full-on grin as she screws the silver lid back onto the canister. "And who did you take to bed with you?"
"Harper—!"Gasping in shock and alarm, Alex casts a quick glance at the black spiral staircase that leads up into the loft, then hops down off the counter, slaps a hand over Harper's mouth and leans into her, pushing the giggling redhead ahead of her clear across the diner.
"Jesus, Harper! What the hell?" Alex hisses at her, once they're safely in the subway car on the other side. "Are you trying to get me grounded?"
"I dunno, Alex," Harper says, in a sing-song voice. "Have you done something you could possibly get grounded for?"
"Pfft, I've always done something I could possibly get grounded for," Alex snaps, waving one hand dismissively. "Look, what gives? How are you suddenly able to read my mind? Have you been using Max's stupid macaroni tube, or something?"
"Macaroni—?" Harper blinks, then shakes her head and breaks back into a wide smile. "Wait, so I guessed right, then. There is a new boy in the picture."
"What? No!' Alex protests, and cringes inwardly at how unconvincing it sounds, even to her ears. "I have no idea what you're talking about!"
"Oh, please," Harper scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest. "Save it for somebody who hasn't been your best friend since kindergarten. The bloodshot eyes? The bags under them? The messy 'I'm too tired to give a fig what I look like' ponytail? The way you've been smiling to yourself every time you think I'm not looking? I can recognize all the signs when I see them, Alex. It's Mason all over again."
The bottom drops out of Alex's stomach as she shakes her head from side to side. "Harper, no...you've got it all wrong...I swear, it's not what you think..."
"Oh, come off it!" Harper laughs, putting her hands on her hips. "Are you seriously going to stand there and tell me you weren't up half the night texting with some guy?"
Alex feels her jaw drop, completely of its own accord. Wait, that's what she thinks is going on?
"Ummmm...no?" she says hesitantly.
"Darn straight, you're not!" Harper beams. "All right, spill! Who is it? It better not be Jeremy from Science, 'cause then I'd have to hurt you..."
Alex opens her mouth slowly, her mind racing to come up with a name that sounds halfway believeable...but before she can answer, the sound of the freezer door being pushed open from the inside drags both their attention back to the other side of the diner.
"...couldn't happen anyway, dude," Zeke says as he backs into the kitchen, his arms laden with two cardboard trays of tomatoes. He presses his lower back into the door's push-bar, swinging it open and holding it for Justin.
"What are you talking about? Of course it could happen!" Justin grunts, shuffling stiffly past Zeke with a white plastic pail of sliced olives dangling from each hand. "Hello? What about Genetic Sexual Attraction?"
"That only works for siblings who were raised seperately and met as adults, duh!" Zeke says, rolling his eyes as if this should be the most obvious thing in the world. "Which explains why Luke and Leia could be all hot for each other, by the way. But Julia and Alan? Raised. Together. Since. Birth. And a little thing called the Westermarck Effect says that any two people who live in close domestic proximity, during the first few years in the life of either one, are both desensitized to later close sexual attraction."
"Oh?" Justin frowns, setting the pails of olives on the floor in front of the prep station. "Hang on, but Freud says—"
"Don't give me Freud! Westermarck out-Freuds Freud! Face it, it couldn't happen, even if his sister was as hot as Selena Gomez!" Zeke lays the tomato trays down on the counter, then turns and pokes Justin sharply in the chest. "BAM! You've just been SCIENCED!"
"Ow," Justin winces, flinching away. "OK, but what if his sister is actually hotter than Selena Gomez?"
"What on Earth are you two talking about?' Harper calls across the diner with a frown, causing the two boys to jump in surprise.
Justin blanches as he stares at them through the pass-through, his eyes darting from Alex to Harper, and back again "Uh..."
"Zeke, why are you even here? We're not open yet!" Harper asks, leaving Alex's side and heading back towards the kitchen. Alex waits until she's sure Justin is focussed on Harper again, then—conscious of what Harper said about her 'don't give a fig what I look like' pony tail—quickly reaches back and yanks her hair free from the scrunchie, then shakes it out a little before following along behind.
(Y'know, only so Zeke doesn't think she's a slob. Because Zeke Beekerman's opinion means oh-so-very-much to her. Shyeah.)
"Oh, Justin called this morning and asked me to come over and help him set up, on account of his injury," Zeke replies.
"Injury?" Harper asks, grimacing at Justin in concern. "What injury? Are you OK, Justin?"
"Fine, fine," Justin says, raising both hands and patting the air between them. "It's nothing, really. I just twisted my ankle getting out of bed this morning, is all. It's not bad, but I'm moving a lot slower than normal, and I can't exactly carry much."
"How the heck did you manage to twist your ankle getting out of bed?" Harper says, incredulous.
"Uh, it's more like I fell out of bed, actually. Almost as if I'd been shoved." And here Justin glares at the uncharacteristically silent Alex. "It's kind of a long story."
Alex flushes darkly as she glances away. Look, the stupid alarm went off a mere hour and a half after she'd finally fallen asleep, OK? She doesn't exactly do well with being woken up suddenly on a Saturday morning, even in the best of circumstances. She shouldn't be held responsible for what she does when she's semi-conscious. And who the hell told him to sleep so close to her, anyway? He's known her for almost eighteen years, he should damn well know better by now. Besides, you read a girl a bedtime story that goes on for twenty-thousand words and keep her up half the night in the process, you deserve whatever's coming to you, as far as she's concerned. Especially when she still didn't get to hear the end.
Not that she doesn't already know how it ends—duh, she lived through it, after all—but that's entirely beside the point. Even though she'd been intimately familiar with the story, she'd still hung on Justin's every word as he'd read it to her. Because while she remembered everything about when Justin had first come into his magic—the deep suspicion he was hiding something from her, the unexpected sting of betrayal when he refused to tell her what it was, and the desperate ploy to get back at him and make him jealous by starting to hang out with Harper—she'd never heard the story told from his perspective before. Or even really considered his perspective, to be honest, if only because she assumed it'd be typically Justin: boring, self-righteous, and altogether dork-tastic.
Surprisingly, though, it wasn't. If anything, it was exactly the opposite of what she'd expected: funny, sweet, self-deprecating...and almost entirely focused on her. Sure, Julia hadn't actually been in the story all that much—a fact which had intially annoyed her to no end—but somehow it still managed to revolve around her by the mere fact of her absence. Alex had always just assumed that the day Justin's powers had come in must have been the best of his up-till-then completely unremarkable life. (Hell, the day Alex's powers had finally popped up was certainly the best day of herlife, stupid hat notwithstanding.) She'd never guessed that he'd actually agonized over it, the way it threatened to drive a wedge between them, and how much he hated that he couldn't tell her why.
And maybe that broke her heart, just a little. Especially the way his voice had cracked, and gone all raw and throaty, every time it came up in the story how miserable and alone he'd felt without her. For the very first time, she found herself...well, certainly not agreeing with, but at least kinda sorta seeing the point of...that small vocal minority within the C&D fandom who didn't want to see Julia and Alan together. Not because they objected to the incest, mind you—that was an even smaller minority, believe it or not—but simply because Julia could be such an outright hateful bitch towards him, sometimes. (OK, most of the time.) Even Alex found herself hating on Julia a little bit by the time the Funky Hat song was introduced, and had been surprised to find her cheeks burning with embarrassment as she'd pulled Justin's blanket up over her head to hide it. (Look, she was five at the time, all right?)
Which was about when the lateness of the hour, the cozy warmth of the Justin-scented blanket, and the comforting drone of his voice had conspired together to knock her out faster than Max's stupid five-foot teleportation stick. She fought the overwhelming heaviness in her eyelids as long as she could, eager to hear the part where Justin had rescued her from Gigi—er, Alan had rescued Julia from Fifi—and finallly been forced to came clean with her about magic, but it was a lost cause. The next thing she knew, his alarm was going off, and he was screeching in her ear as she kicked him off the bed before she was even really aware she was doing it.
Twenty thousand freakin' words. And she still didn't get to hear the end. He was lucky she hadn't broken his neck outright. No jury in the land would convict her.
Which brings her back to, well, now: dead on her feet, looking like shit, oddly annoyed, and sharing an increasingly uncomfortable moment with the boy in whose bed she spent the night, who also happens to be her big brother. So of course she falls back to the same safe and familiar territory she always does whenever she's feeling uncomfortable or unsure of herself, especially around him: cue the hateful bitch.
"Snkt," she snorts, cocking an eyebrow and looking at him as though he'd grown a second head. "You hurt yourself waking up? Seriously? Could you possibly be any lamer, penis-breath?"
"Penis-breath?" Zeke and Harper repeat in the same instant, Zeke aghast, Harper amused. Justin, for his part, just smiles ever so slightly, his grey-green eyes dancing as he looks at her, in a way that makes the tips of Alex' ears feel hot.
"What?" she snorts, her eyes flicking between Harper and Zeke, if only to have somewhere else to look. "It's not the worst thing I've ever called him. Trust me, I've said a lot worse."
"Worse than that?" Zeke asks, sounding horrified.
"Yeah, but what are you, eight?" Harper chuckles. "I don't think I've heard you call Justin that since we were—"
"In kindergarten," Justin says, wincing a little as he limps towards her a step, and crosses his David Henrie-ish arms over his David Henrie-ish chest. "Right after you two started hanging out. About the same time you made up the Funky Hat Song to make fun of me, remember?"
"Oh, that's right!" Harper grins and snaps her fingers in rememberance. "Because your dad made you wear that...oh, that awful floppy hat to contain your mag—"
"Harper," Alex says sharply, jabbing her friend in the ribs and jerking her head towards a very bewildered-looking Zeke.
"—I mean for absolutely no good reason whatsoever!" Harper finshes smoothly, with a wistful sigh. "Memories, huh? Wow. What made you think of that, Alex?"
Alex blinks at her, her ears burning even hotter as she feels more than sees Justin smirking at her silently, one eyebrow raised ever so smugly.
"Nothing," she says, without looking at him. "Penis-breath is just a classic. I'm bringing it back. Now if you'll excuse me, we open in less than five minutes, and these tables are not going to get ready themselves. So I'll just be over here...figuring out exactly how we do that."
Nodding to her, Alex scoops a bar towel up off the counter as she passes it, and heads for the subway car on the other side, wincing and pretending not to hear the rest of them talk about her as she walks away.
"Uh, what's up with her?" Zeke asks under his breath. "I don't think I ever seen Alex even pretend to do work before."
"I'm not entirely sure," Harper replies, her voice taking on a sing-song quality, "but I think there may be a new boy in the offing..."
"Really?" Justin asks, sounding intrigued.
"What? You mean Alex is gonna kill some dude?"
"She said 'boy in the offing', Zeke," Justin says flatly. "Not 'offing a boy'..."
"Oh, right. Sorry J-Man, your family just kind of weirds me out a little. Calling you awful names, making you wear strange clothes, then making up songs to mock you about them...and those are the good memories? I'm sure glad I don't have to live here!"
"Eh," Harper says, with a shrug in her voice. "You get used to it."
Author's Note: And we're back! After a not-so-brief hiatus which included a few spin-offs (more about those in a sec) a lengthy struggle with writer's block, a somewhat lackluster start to the fourth season of Wizards, and a completely unforeseen change in my relationship status (from 'Single' to 'It's Complicated' to 'In A Committed Relationship' :P), OTP has returned with a vengeance!
Many, many thanks to everyone who kept the home fires burning in my absence, continuing to review, favorite and put both me and the story on your alerts lists, even though I'm sure it looked like I'd completely abandoned ship. My sincere apologies for not updating sooner.
(In fact, you all have my lovely and talented beta, Not Just A Nerd, to thank for me updating as soon as I did. Not only did she kick my butt to actually do something with the half-written chapter I'd had sitting on my hard drive for months, but she prodded me to update right away, instead of waiting until I'd worked ahead a few chapters like I wanted. This is actually only the first half of my intended comeback chapter, but she insisted I post what I had, upon pain of...well, the frowning of a lifetime, I guess. Seriously, you guys: she can frown like nobody's business!)
A word of warning, though: updates to OTP won't be quite as regular as they were before the hiatus, as I'm quite a bit busier now, but there will be updates. They'll probably also be a bit shorter than the pre-hiatus chapters—likely one scene per chapter instead of two—in order to allow me to get them out to you more quickly.
If you're looking for more Jalan-y goodness to tide you over in the meantime, there's three tie-ins to OTP that you should definitely check out, because they are awesome:
Fortress of Solitude by o0O-Archimedes-O0o is the very fic referenced in this chapter, the story of how eight year-old Alan Rubik found out he was a wizard, and what happens when he's forced to keep it a secret from his six year-old sister Julia. (Make sure you check out the reviews for this one, too—there's a lot of really super-goodness happening there, too! XD)
Firelight and Fidelity, also by o0O-Archimedes-O0o, is a short drabble about what really happened between Alan and Julia that night in the jungle, after the infamous 'campfire scene' in Book 5 of Charmed & Dangerous.
And finally, Horizontal Dancing on the Ceiling by jlnpedia, is a hot and hilarious M-rated story about Alan and Julia spending an eventful weekend alone together, set in his Julia Gets Spanked AU.
Hope you enjoy them! Until next time...
SvM